Home Made Black Cherry Wine

I find making wine from all kinds of fruits terribly exciting. That’s why I want to run through the steps I take to prepare my home made black cherry wine. It’s interesting that wine made from cherries doesn’t age particularly well. It’s best drunk between the 6 to 18 month mark.

Black cherries are native to the United States and can be found in many locations. They are abundant all over the Eastern half of the country as well as through Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The wine tastes good and I recommend you give it a shot if you haven’t made it before.

The Winemaking Home Page tells us:

More than anything else, it is the conversion of sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol by the action of yeast that makes wine. A critical amount of sugar simply must be present or you are wasting your time and ingredients. When this amount is absent, you must add sugar.

So it’s of vital importance that we use fully ripened fruit in our wine making. The best cherry picking month, for the ripest fruit, is September. Even with the ripest cherries, it’s going to be necessary to add sugar before you transfer to the secondary.

Black Cherry Wine Ingredient List

• 6-8 lbs black cherries
• 2-1/2 lbs granulated sugar
• 1-1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1/2 tsp citric acid (to balance the malic acid of the cherries)
• 5-1/2 pints water
• 1 crushed Campden tablet
• wine yeast and nutrient

Method

1. Start out with ripe, destemmed and washed cherries. Only use “perfect” fruits and throw away those that are blemished in any way. You can either chop the ingredients, in which case you needn’t worry about de-stoning the cherries, or you can run the cherries through a juicer to turn them into a pulp. The best juicer for winemaking isn’t cheap. To be honest, it is quite troublesome to juice/pulp the cherries with a juicer because they must be de-stoned first.
2. Add the cherries to the crock with the water and then stir in a crushed Campden tablet. Leave for 24 hours and the add the pectic enzyme. Then cover and leave for four days.
3. Next, you want to strain this mixture using either a jelly bag or a nylon seive (nut milk bag). Make sure you squeeze out as much juice as possible. Then it’s time to add the sugar, citric acid and nutrient. Make sure that the sugar dissoloves fully.
4. Transfer this liquid into the secodary and add the yeast starter. Then fit the airlock and move to a warm place. The ideal temperature is around 70 °F. After the initial fermentation has subsided which usually takes two to three weeks you can rack it. Just add some more cold water before re-attaching the airlock. Then you can leave it to ferment to dryness. This is ideally at a slightly cooler temperature, around 60 °F.
5. Finally you can bottle your wine. If you would like a sweeter wine you should stabalize and can add some more sugar. Give it at least six months before tasting. It is probably best drunk within eighteen months.