Homemade pomegranate wine recipe

1. 3-4 days before working with the fruits, prepare a starter for wine or purchase special wine yeast. Pomegranate juice may not ferment on its wild yeast, so I advise you to play it safe by adding active yeast from raisins or berries to the wort.

It is wine yeast that you need to buy, for bakery or alcohol yeast it will turn out not wine, but mash.

2. After the starter is ready, wash the pomegranates well, peel and white film, which is very bitter.

3. Transfer the peeled grains to the juice in any way.

4. Pour the juice with the pulp into a saucepan with a wide neck, add water, sugar (150 grams per liter of juice) and sourdough (or dilute the yeast according to the instructions), mix well.

5. Bandage the neck of the container with gauze, transfer to a dark place with a temperature of 18-25°C. Stir the wort once a day with a wooden stick or a clean hand.

6. After 3-4 days, there will be a sour smell, hiss and foam on the surface. This means that the wort has successfully fermented. It’s time to strain it through 3-4 layers of cheesecloth for pure juice.

7. Squeeze out the pulp (the solid part remaining after filtration) with gauze or a press, mix the resulting juice with the filtered one.

8. Add sugar (100 grams per liter) to the fermented juice, mix well and pour into a fermentation container. I advise you to fill the bottle to a maximum of 3/4 of the volume, so that there is room for foam and carbon dioxide.

9. Install a water seal or medical glove with a small hole in the finger. Move the container to a dark warm room (18-25°C). It is very important to maintain a stable temperature during the fermentation period.

10. 4 days after installing the water seal, add 50 grams of sugar per liter of juice. To do this, open the container, drain 1 liter of wort, dilute sugar in it, pour the syrup into the wort and reinstall the water seal.

11. After another 4 days, add the remaining sugar (50 grams / liter) in the manner described in the previous step.

12. After 35-50 days, active fermentation will stop (the water seal will stop bubbling or the glove will deflate, the wine will brighten, sediment will appear at the bottom). If fermentation does not stop after 50 days from the start of preparation, you need to drain the wine from the sediment and put it under a water lock at the same temperature.

Drain the fermented young pomegranate wine from the sediment into another clean container through a thin tube. To taste. If desired, add sugar for sweetness or fix with vodka (alcohol) in an amount of 2-15% of the volume of wine.

13. Fill storage containers up to the neck so that there is no contact with oxygen. Close hermetically. Transfer the drink to a dark room with a temperature of 5-16°C and keep for 4-6 months. Long exposure removes sharpness, making the taste of wine balanced. Once a month filter the sediment by transfusion.

14. The wine is ready, if the sediment no longer appears, then you can pour the drink into bottles for storage and close with corks. Store in the refrigerator or cellar, shelf life up to 3 years. The result is 1,5-2 liters of homemade pomegranate wine with a strength of 11-13 degrees with an original delicate taste and a slight smell of pomegranates. The drink goes well with fruits and dessert dishes.

Pomegranate wine – general information

It is believed that wine is only that which is made from grapes. Everything else is tinctures: plum, apple, whatever! But there is one fruit that has turned the wine world upside down: the pomegranate.

Pomegranate wine cannot be called tincture, because it is wine. In general, 20-30 years ago, people did not even believe that this was possible, although the fruit itself has been known to mankind for a very, very long time. Attempts to make wine from pomegranate, by the way, have been made before, but they were unsuccessful.

The fact is that not every variety of this fruit is suitable for the production of pomegranate wine. More often than not, pomegranates don’t have enough sugar (yes!) to support natural fermentation. So, again, there are only a few varieties of pomegranate that have sufficient sugar content and juiciness to make good wine from them.

As a result, pomegranate wine is not produced everywhere.

The first such wine was made in Israel. Only dry, natural wines are produced here now. Perhaps the most famous brand under which pomegranate wine is produced here is Rimon.

In countries closer to us, pomegranate wines are also produced. For a long time, only those varieties of pomegranates that are suitable for making wine were grown in Armenia. Both dry and semi-sweet pomegranate wines are produced here. By the way, in Russia, it is quite easy to find Armenian pomegranate wine.

Recently, they began to produce pomegranate wine in Azerbaijan as well. More precisely, pomegranate wine has been made here for a long time, but more like homemade, more like a tincture. But now you can buy good Azerbaijani pomegranate wine, but it is more likely to be sweet or semi-sweet.

How pomegranate wine is made

In fact, everything is standard, as in conventional winemaking. The fruits are partially peeled, placed in fermentation tanks. Upon reaching the alcohol content of 6-7% fermentation is stopped. Then everything is classical: the drink is placed in oak barrels and aged.

How to drink pomegranate wine

Pomegranate wines are still sweeter than grape wines, but not cloying. Such wines are drunk very easily, you can even without snacks. By the way, these wines are very “drunk”. If you need snacks for wine, then give preference to fruits or sweet desserts. And a bonus, which you may not believe, but pomegranate wine is considered to be much healthier than grape wine. And, in principle, useful. It is believed that it prolongs youth, helps fight cancer (it doesn’t cure, of course, but it’s prevention), and it’s also good for the heart.

Whether you believe it or not is not important, as we still advise you to try pomegranate wine at least once. At least for the sake of experiment.