Cherry wine at home according to a white and red pattern

Cherries, like currants and apples, are considered the best raw material for winemaking after grapes. Homemade wine from cherries is bright and rich, has a deep red color, and due to the high content of malic acid in the berries, which balances their astringency, it has a surprisingly mild taste. But more importantly, making such wine at home is a pleasure and it is very, very difficult to spoil it.

Numbers also speak in favor of cherries, as one of the most successful berries for winemaking after grapes. Cherry juice has a fairly high acidity (up to 2,3%), acceptable sugar content (an average of 12,8% sugar) and a tart taste associated with a high content of tannins (0,1%). Thanks to this, the wine is durable, resistant to disease and excellently clarified without fining and other winemaking techniques.

The best cherry wines are made from sour and sweet-sour dark-colored berries, and these are the majority of varieties: Levinka, Vladimirskaya, Lotovaya, Shpanka, Shubinka, Novodvorskaya, etc. Sweet berries give wine with a slightly pronounced cherry flavor, and the drink itself is less resistant to disease. In most cases, light table wines are made from cherries – with this berry, as mentioned earlier, the risk of spoiling the wine is very small. Vladimirskaya makes an excellent liqueur wine, and for this you don’t even need to add water to reduce the acidity of the juice. Strong cherry wines are not bad either.

For winemaking, ripe berries are needed, but not overripe, and even more so not rotten. After collecting, they need to be consumed within 3 days – it is not recommended to wait longer, the cherry may deteriorate. Before extracting the juice, you need to remove the stones, otherwise the drink will turn out to be too tart and may have a bitter almond flavor. Also, do not forget about hydrocyanic acid, but this is not the root cause – we talked about this general misconception in the article on cherry tinctures, where almost all recipes involve a bone.

Cherry wine recipe without yeast according to the “white scheme”

We will cook according to the “white scheme” with wild yeast. We described the process of making fruit and berry wines in detail in an article with a recipe for apple wine – first we read this article, remember the main stages and points, and write it out. We prepare wine using the same technology, but cherries, unlike apples, do not give juice well, therefore, after its pressure, it is recommended to fill the pulp with water for 1 day. The algorithms for obtaining juice are as follows: we crush the berry with our hands or a wooden spoon, squeeze the juice with gauze, pour the pulp with a small amount of water and leave for 24 hours. After you need to squeeze the pulp, mix the juice and squeezed water, and then proceed to compose the wort.

Below are three tables with recipes for all varieties of cherry wines, taking into account the acidity and sugar content of the berries (tartaric acid can be replaced with citric acid or the appropriate amount of lemon juice, tannic acid = tannin).

Table for compiling 10 liters of must for making 8 liters of wine from sour cherries (acidity – 1,1%, sugar content – 12,0%)

Table for compiling 10 liters of must for making 8 liters of wine from sweet cherries (acidity – 0,3%, sugar content – 15,0%)

Table for compiling 10 liters of must for making 8 liters of wine from sweet and sour cherries (morel) (acidity – 1,6%, sugar content – 9,2%)

1 – light table wine, 2 – strong table wine, 3 – strong sweet, 4 – dessert and 5 – liqueur wine.

How to cook:

1. Cherries ferment very intensively, so during the primary fermentation in the fermenter, we leave a lot of space for foam. Pour our juice with water (or without it, if it is sweet cherry juice) into a container with a wide mouth and cover with a thick cotton cloth or several layers of gauze. We leave it for 3-4 days in a dark, warm place (19-27 ° C) until the first signs of fermentation appear: a sour smell and foam appear, a lit match will go out when brought to the wort. Then once again we filter the juice through gauze or a colander (including in order to saturate the fermented juice with oxygen), and pour it into a fermentation tank.
2. We fill the container almost to the neck, leaving a little space for foam. We add sugar, while you can add the entire volume at once, or you can do it in portions – every week, 50-70 g per 1 liter of wort. The second method is preferable – cherry wine will play less intensely, and sugars will ferment more fully. If necessary, add tartaric / citric acid (you can use lemon juice at the rate of 2 lemons per 3 kg of berries), add tannin before quiet fermentation (it contributes to better clarification of the wine). We install a water seal and put it in a warm place (18-25 ° C) for rapid fermentation – it lasts an average of 3 weeks. If you add sugar in portions, then every week we remove the water seal, drain a little wort and dissolve the calculated amount of sugar in it, and then pour it back.

3. Removal of cherry wine from the sediment with a siphon.

   When the wine ferments (the water seal stops bubbling, a yeast sediment appears, and the match stops extinguishing), carefully, using a siphon or a silicone hose, remove the wine from the sediment and pour it into a clean fermenter. For quiet fermentation, it is better to fill the container to the very neck. It is important not to miss the end of fermentation and drain the wine from the sediment as early as possible, until the dead yeast cultures begin to decompose and transfer unpleasant bitterness to the drink. At this stage of rapid fermentation can be considered over.

4. The wine removed from the sediment is again put under a water seal, but we transfer it to a cellar or other cool place with a temperature not exceeding 18 ° C. The wine will slowly ferment and mature. Periodically, about once a month and a half, the drink must be removed from the sediment – just enough to do this 2-3 times. In general, the process of making homemade cherry wine can be considered complete at this point.
5. When the wine is completely clarified, it can be bottled. Before that, it can be sweetened to taste and stabilized with sulfur. You can drink wine already by the New Year, but you can leave it until next summer. If you pour it into sterile bottles and cork, and then store it in a cool place away from sunlight, then cherry wine can be aged for up to 3 years or more – the drink will only get better.

This is a basic recipe for homemade cherry wine based on only one juice, according to the so-called “white scheme”. There is also an option when the juice and pulp with water are fermented separately, and then the resulting wines are combined. This cooking method has a place to be, but it is difficult to conduct accurate calculations here. It is only known that in order to obtain dry wine, yeast needs to process 21% of sugar from the volume of must – everything above remains in the drink and sweetens it. In other words, both juice with pulp and pulp must be fermented using the same technology with 21% sugar (in this case, the initial sugar content of cherries must be taken into account). Hard!

It is also possible to prepare cherry wine according to the “red scheme” (fermentation with pulp), but you will have to forget about wild yeast – the pulp increases the risk of mold and other troubles. Sterilization of the wort with sulfur is also a prerequisite for obtaining a quality product. Such wine turns out to be more saturated, both in taste and in color. Fans of classic winemaking should like it.

Red Scheme Cherry Wine Recipe

Pure yeast cultures (hereinafter referred to as NKD) with high alcohol tolerance and a complex flavor profile are best suited for the preparation of cherry wine according to the “red scheme”. Such yeasts include all CKDs for port wine, Montrachet, Lalvin 71B-1122, etc. When working with these strains, always use a yeast nutrient, otherwise too many sulfur compounds will form during fermentation. The pectin enzyme will facilitate the extraction of juice and further clarification of the wine.

How to cook:

1. Sort and rinse cherries (sweet, sour-sweet and 50/50 sour/sweet mixture), place in a fermentation tank and roughly crush with your hands or a wooden spoon without crushing the stone (cherries can first be placed in a nylon bag suspended in the fermenter – it significantly will simplify filtering in the future).
2. Pour crushed cherries with water (up to 19-20 liters of total must), add sugar (it can be pre-dissolved in an equal amount of warm water and cooled or added in portions, as described in the first recipe), pectin enzyme, yeast nutrition, wine / lemon acid (2-4 tsp. depending on the sweetness of the berry) and crushed Campden tablets (1 tablet for every 4 liters of wort). Mix the must thoroughly, cover with a thick cotton cloth and leave for 24 hours in a cool place.
3. When the sulphurous gas and pectin enzyme have done their job, add the yeast after preparing it according to the instructions on the package. Cover the fermenter again with a clean cotton cloth and transfer to a dark place with a temperature suitable for vigorous fermentation (18-25°C). Within 24 hours, the first signs of fermentation should appear. In this form, the berry needs to be fermented for 5-7 days, periodically knocking down a dense cap on the surface so that it does not turn sour.
4. After 5-7 days, strain the must from the cherry pomace through cheesecloth (or simply remove the nylon bag and let it drain), squeeze. Pour the young wine into a fermenter of a suitable volume under the very neck and install a water seal. If necessary, you can add water up to 19-20 liters of total volume. Remove the fermenter in a cool place (no more than 18^оC) for 2-4 months or until the wine is completely clarified
5. During quiet fermentation once a month, the wine must be carefully removed from the yeast sediment. When the wine is completely clear, it can be sweetened to taste, stabilized with sulfur (1 Campden tablet for every 4 liters of wine) and bottled. Wine should be stored under the conditions described in our material on the proper storage of wine.

On a note! According to this technology, wine can be prepared all year round using freshly frozen berries. All you need to do is defrost the cherries, let them drain and follow the instructions described above from the first point.

Try, experiment, share your successes and failures. As practice shows, if high-quality raw materials are used and alcoholic fermentation starts at first, then it is difficult to spoil cherry wine in the future – the most important advantage of this berry. What else to expect? Need to do!