2010 Cherry Wine

One of the best things last winter was discovering how Wonderful my 2009 Cherry Wine was. So this Spring I was excited to get some fresh Michigan Cherries and make more.

Sadly, the Spring was unusually warm and I missed the season. I managed to get some fresh cherries at the store, but I could not find the abundance and price that I hoped for. I settled a mixture of fresh and frozen cherries from GFS Gordon's Food Service. The GFS cherries were whole PITTED sweet cherries without sugar.

Let me say that buying cherries that are PITTED is a million times easier. It took me over an hour to remove the pits from the fresh cherries this year. Last year I gave up after a while, and fermented without removing the pits.

I have a tip on removing pits by hand. Pit removal is easier with a the needle-like prongs from a corncob holder. I could pierce the cherry and push the pit out using the prongs pretty fast. Much easier than last year, when I eventually gave up. This year I had the whole mixture de-pitted, and I could run them through my grape crusher. Ordinarily even one cherry pit would jam the grape crusher. With the grape crusher, I am sure I will get much better extraction of the cherry juice.

I started with the recipe from 2009 with a few changes notably the yeast, the yeast energizer, and the larger 6.5 gallon size.

Cherry must with the yeast broadcast on top.
 After another minute, I stirred it in. 

2010 Cherry Wine Recipe

36lb cherries (30lb frozen + 6 lb fresh)
6 gallons of water
9 bags of Lipton tea
12.5 lb of sugar
1.5 t of metabisulfite
9 g of yeast energizer
6 g of pectin enzyme
1 pack of Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast








Cherries are not very sweet and not very juicy either. One needs to add more water than you'd think. I added 11 lb of sugar to get to 1.088g/ml which would be 10.5% alcohol. I adjusted it in two steps with 50% sugar syrup to 1.102 which should give 13.5% alcohol. There should be a theoretical way to adjust the sugar content, but I don't know how fast the volume changes with each increment of dissolved sugar. One can make assumptions based on no volume change, but that under represents the addition. Once I had an adjustment, I extrapolated.

The idea of the tea is to add flavor. It seems better to use tea rather than oak chips to get a tannin flavor. The metabisulfite was added Saturday night to keep the natural yeast under control while the juice warmed to room temperature. I put the yeast energizer and yeast in on Sunday morning. I used the Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast because I had it leftover from last year's apple wine disaster (see below.)

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December 30, 2010 Update

I tasted the wine and was quite disappointed. It did not have the depth of flavor I wanted. It was cherry-like, but not strongly so.

I decided to add more sugar to run the alcohol content up, and to make more of a dessert wine.

I added 2.6% by weight of regular sugar on the 25 liter batch or 660 grams (1.5 lb.)  I'll let you know how it turns out.

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This is another recipe that calls for boiling.

2009 Wine Update

It has been a while since I have updated my wines.

2008 Merlot
For the record, I am very pleased with the 2008 Merlot. It turned out very well, and I only wish I had made more. It was made from juice that I bought from California, and it is very lightly oaked. Wonderful.

2008 Pinot Grigio
The 2008 Pinot Grigio is a decent white wine, but I am not overly enthusiastic about it. It does not have the grapy flavor that I was hoping for. My friends like it better than I do. I bottled this one early last year, and there is not that much left.


2009 Cherry
The star of my fruit wines from last year is the 2009 Cherry. It has an intense cherry flavor, that has mellowed from the cough syrup variety to a fragrant and tasty mixture. It is strong though. I know I mis-measured the sugar content, and this wine almost too strong. I probably should blend it off with something. The wine has matured well, and I have been drinking it since Christmas.


2009 Blueberry
The blueberry fruit that this was made from were so inviting that I made this wine without enough research. The wine has a tannin flavor without a lot of fruitiness. Its best attribute is its pleasant fragrance, but there is no flavor to match. I think it could be blended with a red grape wine to give complexity. Not so good on its own.


2009 Apple
The clear loser of the lot. After a failed effort to press apples, I purchased juice. The apple wine is almost flavorless with just the slightest hint of appleness. I had been hoping to blend this with something -- like the cherry, but this wine wrecks whatever it touches. It is probably destined to be poured down the drain. It is slightly better if I sweeten it with honey, but I think it is a waste of good honey.


2009 Merlot/Syrah
I made this from two cases of Merlot grapes and one case of California Syrah grape. I am quite happy with this, and only wish I made more. It is still aging, but it is drinkable already.


2009 Riesling
I made this wine from grapes, and allowed the skins, which are white (of course) to soak overnight with the wine, so it is more amber and more grapey than most Rieslings. The wine has the color of the juice that is picture below. It is a dry Riesling, at least right now. I am not above taking a portion of this and sweetening it.

I tasted it yesterday, and it has a harsh flavor to it that I don't like. I am hoping that is still yeast, and that it will age out. I am not in a hurry to bottle this one. It is possible that I should filter it.


2009 Zinfandel
When I made this wine last fall, I was thinking that I did not get the yield out of the Merlot/Syrah project, and decided to visit the grape store again. At the time, they OLD VINE NAPA VALLEY, and I put one case it. All these grapes were really nice looking.

Now that the wine has aged this far, the wine is drinkable, but far more tannin-y than I'd like. This is despite the fact that I did not add any oak chips It is less fruity than I wanted. It is a good candidate for blending with the Blueberry or the Riesling.

I racked this one yesterday, and it is drinkable, but too harsh.

Racking the 2009 Cherry and Blueberry

2009 Cherry Racking

It has been two weeks since I made the Cherry wine, and the sugar content is low. I can tell by the absence of sweetness -- I did not bother to measure it. I racked the wine a second time and took out about a gallon of lees.

I am worried about it. The sweetened cherry juice was delicious, but it tasted a bit like cherry cough syrup. Now that the sugar has fermented, there still is a distinct cherry cough syrup flavor. The wine seems to be on the strong side since I overshot the sugar at 1.12 rather than 1.08-1.09 like I wanted. I will worry about what to do with that later after the flavor matures. I probably will blend it with a white grape wine.

The cherry wine is very dark - as dark as my 2008 Merlot, and only slightly redder.

2009 Blueberry Wine -- First Racking

I measured the density (specific gravity) of the primary fermenter and got 1.022. This is pretty good, but I would have liked it to be lower after six days. I am concerned about spoilage so I transfered it to an oversized demijohn.

The flavor is pretty good right now, very fruity, but it is also sweet since the fermentation is not done. Hopefully it will keep going in the secondary fermenter.

At right is the partially fermented juice in the primary fermenter prior to racking. The color is redder than my cherry wine.