Wine from red viburnum at home

• Drink: Wine
• How to Serve: Chilled
• Main ingredients: viburnum, water, sugar
• Cooking time: over a month
• Strength: up to 18°

Homemade viburnum wine

The proportions given are for approximately 4 liters of wine. If you decide to make a large batch, all ingredients are scaled proportionally, but note that 1 packet of the yeast indicated in the recipe is enough to make approximately 22 liters of wine.

To extract juice in this and further recipes, we will use the fermentation method, but you can also try the Cahors technology described in the article with recipes for chokeberry wines or directly in the article about Cahors.

How to cook:

1. Rinse the viburnum, roughly crush it and place it in the primary fermenter (it is possible and desirable to place the berries in a nylon bag, which will greatly simplify filtration in the future). Frozen berries must first be thawed and drained. Add all other ingredients except yeast. Mix well until the sugar is completely dissolved, cover the fermenter with a thick cloth and wait 24 hours.
2. From the yeast according to the instructions, prepare the starter culture: pour the required amount of yeast into 120 ml of warm water, mix well, breaking up possible lumps, cover with gauze and leave for 15 minutes in a warm place. When the mixture begins to foam and increase in volume, add 120 ml of the previously prepared wort to it. Wait another 15 minutes and pour the starter into the fermenter.
3. The primary fermenter must be covered with gauze and left at a temperature of 22-24^оC. Every day, in the morning and in the evening, the wort must be actively stirred for 5 minutes. As soon as the wine stops fermenting rapidly, which usually happens 5-6 days after the start, it must be filtered, the berries squeezed and poured into a clean fermenter under a water seal.
4. Secondary fermentation is best done at a lower temperature, 15-18^оC. After about a month, the wine must be drained from the sediment, poured into a clean fermenter and the water seal installed again. This procedure should be repeated 2-3 times with an interval of 35-45 days until the wine is completely clarified and stabilized. If the wine doesn’t clear itself, try fining it using the recommendations in the article on clarification of house wines.
5. After the wine is completely clarified, it can be bottled. Make sure the bottles are sterile. Before bottling, the wine can be sweetened to taste, but after adding sugar, it is advisable to keep it under a water seal in a cool place for a couple of weeks to make sure that fermentation is complete. After bottling the wine, it must be aged for at least another 12 months. Your patience will be rewarded!