Gooseberry wine at home – 4 best recipes

Summer! There are 5 whole months of paradise for winemakers ahead – berries and fruits will gradually ripen in the gardens, from which you can make delicious drinks. And around the equator of this season, gooseberries begin to ripen, the wine from which is valued no less than grape, and sometimes even more. Its rich taste, sometimes reminiscent of thoroughbred sherry, from the first sip makes you forget about all the shortcomings of the berry, which has not so many fans.

Yes, not everyone likes gooseberries. One of the root causes of hostility is sometimes excessive astringency associated with a high content of acids in the berry (citric, malic, etc.). And if the average layman tries to mask this astringency with a lot of sugar, thereby destroying the freshness of the taste, a more experienced person familiar with the basics of winemaking will turn the disadvantage into obvious advantages. Acids during fermentation catalyze complex chemical reactions that result in aromatic esters that endow fermented drinks with the most unexpected, most pleasant sensations for our taste buds.

The technology for making wine from gooseberries is not much different from the technology for making most fruit and berry wines. Moreover, according to its characteristics, this berry is very similar to a currant, which allows us to use currant wine recipes for its preparation without a twinge of conscience. There are many varieties of gooseberries and they ripen at different times. We need ripe berries for wine, and preferably slightly unripe berries, since overripe fruits lose their taste and aroma, often become moldy and sour, and the drink itself is poorly clarified, avi can remain cloudy forever. Yellow and red berries are suitable for us, but the most profitable ones are large green, shaggy ones. Excellent wine is obtained from yoshta, a hybrid of gooseberries and black currants. From gooseberries you can make wine of all varieties, but dessert and strong wines are best, which taste very much like sherry.

Simple gooseberry wine without yeast (wild yeast)

There are fewer and fewer fans of making wines “on the savages” – objectively, pure yeast culture (hereinafter referred to as CKD) allows you to make wine with more predictable characteristics, resistant to diseases, having an expressive fruity berry flavor and capable of long-term aging, which is only good for him. But we simply cannot ignore the recipe that will allow you to prepare a delicious drink in any corner of the world, regardless of the presence of a nearby wine shop or the inability to buy CKD and other additives online, we simply cannot. The whole process of making such wine comes down to six main stages: preparation of berries – extraction of juice – preparation of must – rapid fermentation – quiet fermentation – bottling.

Preparation of berries and extraction of juice

To begin with, the collected gooseberries need to be carefully sorted out, get rid of rotten berries, sick with fungal diseases, and remove rubbish. Then transfer it to a container with a wide mouth and mash until a homogeneous slurry is obtained, from which you need to squeeze the juice in any suitable way. Gooseberry juice gives very badly, but there are a couple of tricks. For example, a crushed berry can be left for 2-3 days in a cold place, and only after that you can start pressing it – there will be more juice. But it would be more correct to apply the fermentation technology: squeeze the juice in full, and pour the pulp with water (part of the recipe, at your discretion, but you need to remember this amount of water). After that, add any yeast starter to the pulp and put it in a warm place for 5-7 days to ferment.

The initial fermentation will destroy the fiber and then there will be more juice, and it will be more aromatic due to the long-term extraction of substances from the skin of the berry. The pulp, which will be collected on the surface of the container with a dense cap, needs to be stirred a couple of times a day so that it does not turn sour.

Important! At all stages of making wine, it is imperative to use glass, enameled or plastic (always made of food-grade plastic) dishes. When gooseberry juice comes into contact with metal, it immediately oxidizes and darkens, the wine is not very beautiful and immediately spoils the impression.

As a starter, you can use a fermenting must from any berry, or you can cook it yourself from the same gooseberry. To do this, you need to get a glass of hop cones, pour them with 2 glasses of water and boil for 15 minutes. After that, still hot hop water should be filtered, add 3 tablespoons of sugar or glucose, mix well and let cool to room temperature. After that, add a glass of unwashed, crushed gooseberries to the syrup (and this is best done in a jar), tie the neck of the jar with a dense, clean cloth and leave it in a warm place until fermentation begins. Periodically, the starter can be shaken.

Wort composition and vigorous fermentation

After fermentation, the gooseberry juice, already strained from the pulp, must be poured into a clean, dry fermentation container, where a water seal can be installed. Add sugar at the rate of 50-70 g per 1 liter of juice and water: take the right amount of sugar and add warm water to it (35-40^oC), so that in the end we get 1/3 of the pure volume of juice (for this you need to measure the volume of our juice and subtract from it the amount of water that we added at the fermentation stage). For the rest, you can use the table below to compile the wort.

Table for compiling 10 liters of must to prepare 8 liters of gooseberry wine with an acidity of 2,25% and a sugar content of 9%.

The juice mixed with sugar syrup must be placed under a water seal and the wort must be provided with a constant temperature necessary for rapid fermentation. For gooseberries, and indeed all fruit and berry wines, the fermentation temperature can be reduced to 17-18^оC – rapid fermentation will last longer, but the wine will have a more expressive and pure fruity taste. Sugar is recommended to be added in portions, on the 4th, 7th and 10th day of fermentation, stirring 50-70 g / l in the previously drained wort. This is done until all the sugar in the recipe is used up. If you are preparing light table wines, then sugar can be added immediately in full.

Silent fermentation and bottling

Rapid fermentation with wild yeast lasts about 3-4 weeks. After that, a yeast sediment should fall out, the water seal will stop blowing bubbles, and the match will stop going out when brought to the wort. It is recommended to wait another week for the must to be as clear as possible, but not longer, otherwise the wine may turn out bitter. The fermented, partially clarified wort must be removed from the sediment and again poured into a clean fermenter, installed a water seal and sent to the cellar (any cool place with a temperature of 12-18^oC) for 2-3 months. This stage is called silent fermentation. During this time, the wine should be completely clarified, and its taste will soften and become more rounded, whole.

Every 30 days the wine must be removed from the sediment. When it is completely clarified and the precipitate does not fall out for 30 days, it can be bottled and corked. Before that, it can be sweetened to taste by waiting 10 days to make sure that fermentation is complete. In bottles, homemade gooseberry wine can be kept for another 6-12 months until it is fully ripened and only then served. Since we prepared the wine according to “100% organic technology”, without technical additives and must sterilization, its shelf life can be short, up to 1-1,5 years. Proper storage conditions, as well as the treatment of wine with sulfur dioxide, will increase the aging potential, but then it is more logical to use the recipe for CCD.

Wine made from gooseberries on a pure culture of yeast

CKD allows you to get a consistently good drink from year to year, and the risk of spoiling it at one of the stages of winemaking is minimized. For the fermentation of gooseberry juice, CKD is suitable for most white wines and a yeast that is generally recommended for fermenting fruity, non-grape wines, such as Lalvin 71B-1122. But the best solution would be any ChKD for champagne – usually they are able to work in a wide range of temperatures, have a good flocculation rate (“precipitation” of yeast in the sediment) and high alcohol tolerance.

Heat 8 liters of water, add sugar and boil for several minutes with constant stirring until it is completely dissolved. Sort the gooseberries, get rid of the spoiled berries, rinse thoroughly under running water and transfer to a wide-mouth fermentation tank (it is recommended to use a nylon bag for mashing malt wort, which will help with filtration later). Crush the berries in any way suitable for this and pour hot sugar syrup on top. Add the rest of the cold water, which will significantly lower the temperature in the fermenter. Allow the wort to cool to room temperature, add yeast nutrition and, if desired, crushed Campden tablets to sterilize the wort. Cover the fermenter with a clean cloth and leave in a cool place for 12 hours.

After 12 hours, add pectin enzyme, which will improve the extraction of berry juice and later help with clarification of the wine. Cover the fermenter again with a clean cloth and wait another 12 hours. Add the yeast prepared according to the instructions on the package, cover the fermenter with a cloth and rearrange it in a warm, dark place for fermentation. Every day the wort must be stirred. After a week of rapid fermentation, drain the wort from the sediment, and strain and squeeze the berry cake. Leave the resulting liquid for another night, remove from the sediment into a clean fermenter and install a water seal. Transfer the fermenter to a cool place (12-18^оC) quiet fermentation.

If for some reason the wine does not want to be clarified after 2-3 months of quiet fermentation, it can be pasted over with gelatin or bentonite.

Every 30 days, remove the wine from the sediment until it is completely clarified. When the precipitate does not fall within 30 days, sweeten the drink to taste, if desired, stabilize with sulfur and bottle (after sweetening, wait 10 days to make sure that the fermentation is complete). Wait 1 year before tasting!

Gooseberry wine with bananas and raisins

We have already prepared something similar from blackcurrant, only in a pressure cooker. Raisins and banana in this recipe are needed to increase the body of the wine, due to which the drink turns out to be more expressive and “weighty”. Otherwise, this is an ordinary CKD fruit and berry wine, and we will prepare it accordingly.

Take 220 g of banana pulp, finely chop and put in a saucepan with water and sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil, boil for 20 minutes, stirring constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved. Strain the syrup through several layers of gauze, discard the bananas, and return the syrup to the fire. Add chopped raisins, sorted and crushed gooseberries, simmer for 20 minutes under a lid over low heat. Pour the mixture from the pot into a fermentation vessel, add citric acid and yeast nutrition, cover the fermenter with a clean cloth and leave to cool to room temperature. Add crushed Campden tablet (optional), wait 12 hours and add pectin enzyme. Stir and wait another 12 hours.

After the set time has passed, add the yeast prepared according to the instructions on the package in the required amount, cover the fermenter with a cloth and leave the wort to ferment for 3 days in a warm place. It needs to be stirred daily. Then strain the wort into a clean fermenter, squeeze the berries and discard, add water if necessary to 4-4,2 liters of the total volume of the wort, install a water seal and send for quiet fermentation in a cool place (15-18^оWITH). Every 30 days, the wine must be removed from the sediment until it is completely clarified (usually it takes about 4 months). When the sediment ceases to form within 30 days, put the wine in the refrigerator for 3 days, if desired, stabilize with sulfur, sweeten to taste, wait 10 days and bottle. Wait 1 year before tasting!

Gooseberry and currant wine at ČKD

Gooseberry juice is often mixed with other berries to produce wines with more complex flavors and aromas. The ideal combination is gooseberry-currant. The recipe below will be dominated by gooseberries and black currants as the main source of aromatics, but the 1:1:1 ratio has always been a classic of this combination. Redcurrant adds depth of flavor and makes the drink cheaper. For 25 liters of wine, you will need from 10-15 kg of a mixture of berries in any proportion.

Sort gooseberries and currants, remove rubbish and rinse thoroughly under running water. Transfer the prepared berries to a clean wide-mouth fermenter and grind to a homogeneous gruel in any suitable way. Boil syrup from 4 kg of sugar and 5-7 liters of water, cool and pour over the berries. Add yeast nutrition, mix thoroughly and add yeast. Cover the fermenter with a clean cloth and leave in a warm place for a week. Every day the wort must be stirred, knocking down the cap from the pulp. After a week, squeeze the juice using several layers of gauze or a nylon bag, pour it into a clean fermenter, add syrup made from 3 kg of sugar and water in the amount necessary to increase the volume of the must to about 25 liters. Install a water seal and leave until the end of rapid fermentation in a warm place.

When the fermentation is over, remove the wine from the sediment, pour into a pure ferment under a water seal and transfer to a cool room with a temperature of no more than 18^оC. Every 30 days, the wine must be removed from the sediment until it is completely clarified. When the precipitate does not fall within 30 days, sweeten the drink to taste, if desired, stabilize with sulfur and bottle (after sweetening, wait 10 days to make sure that the fermentation is complete). Wait 1 year before tasting!