Berry wines are my favourite wines to make as they are relatively easy as a beginner can be easily adapted with sweet or dry and lighter to more full bodied wines that need to be aged. Recipes seem adaptable with different volumes and possibly combinations of fruit used, different acids, tannins or bodies added never mind the processes used to get there.

Elderberry wine has remained the most stubborn compared to the more malleable blackberry, blackcurrant or blueberry wines to move towards a great recipe. It seems to have great potential that has so far refused to be trapped in a wine bottle. The problem is elderberries have a shit load of tannin, so much so that the tannin can totally dominate the wine if unmanaged. Over the years I have added more and more processes to try and either manage or limit tannin.

LAST YEARS SUCCESFULL ELDERBERRY WINE

The first idea was to age the wine far far longer so that tannins could bind over time. I opened the first bottle of my first batch at about a year then the others were opened at six months intervals to see how they had progressed. Although the taste improved and astringency changed it was clear that recipe and processes needed a lot more work.

CLICK HERE FOR A GUIDE TO COLD SOAK/MACERATION

A cold soak was added so that the colours could bind with the tannin which has now become a staple of all my berry wines. This started at three days in length but often extends to five days for the elderberry wine.

Limiting the time the skins and seeds were left fermenting was adjusted twice with them being removed five days into fermentation one year then the next being reduced to two. As elderberries are so small the tannin rich skins and infinite amount of seeds allow a huge amount of harsh tannin to be extracted. Harsher tannins are generally extracted in alcoholic rather than aqueous maceration. I may one day think about pressing some berries and only their juice is added with the other half added as whole berries or perhaps performing a extra long cold maceration but with lightly crushed berries so that the skins and seeds may never ferment with the yeast relying totally on a gentle aqueous maceration to extract just the gentlest of tannins.

When the berries are pressed currently it is done gently with most juice allowed to drip away naturally. This means the seeds are not cracked keeping the strong tannins held with in. In previous years a huge hulk like squeeze has been used liberating a lot of bitterness that gave a “green” taste.

As I have become more confident in making my wines I have become more confident in trying to make wines towards a particular style rather than just fermenting the fruit. Elderberries are dark rich fruit and I want to make a very full bodied wine with deep tannins that can age for a at least three years and hopefully more. As it ages for so long the fresh fuity flavours retreat and the darker flavours take over.

This year I am using 50% extra fruit with 3kg per UK gallon (4.5L) used to make a full, full bodied wine and trying three extra ideas that revolve not just around bitterness but also sweetness and acidity to try and refine the whole recipe rather than get target fixated on tannin.

The first is simple and easy – making a sweet or more likely semisweet wine that will be back sweetened rather than left totally dry. This will obviously counter the bitterness of the tannins. Ms Gazette made an elderberry jam that was sweet and bursting with a rich deep berry flavour with chocolately cherry like tastes. Hopefully the sugar can push this in my wine which complement the velvety tastes and textures that develop over time.

Secondly acidity has been far more managed with some tartaric acid added to counter the sharpness of the naturally dominant citric acid present in elderberries. Citric acid recedes in flavour as a wine ages but leaves a sharp, fresh and artificial taste even then. The Tartaric and possibly malic acid that could be made with a later malolactic fermentation will have a more natural flavour and together with the sugar should hopefully promote the dark fruit flavours of the elderberries rather than cover it. If acid management proves its worth I may even reduce the citric acid with precipitated chalk before replacing it with tartaric acid in future.

The final idea is to manage tannin tastes in a similar way to the acidity. It is not just about reducing but changing the flavours of the tannins extracted from the berries. Tannins are in a constant state of binding, unbinding and rebinding as the wine ages. Oxygen allows tannins to bind so the wine will have a relaxed first racking with plenty of splash back to allow some oxygen to dissolve and be available to bind the tannins trying to copy ideas of micro-oxidation that commercial wines may have. It may even have an extra stir to allow even more oxygen in but this is a worry as the wine could oxidise ruining it. Tannins bind with each other as well as the anthocyanin colour pigments extracted from skins during a cold maceration and fermentation. Tannins also bind with polysaccharides so a banana body has been added to allow more complex long chain tannins to form allowing more complex flavours to be created rather than the harsher one note bitterness I have had previously. Another idea potentially next year is to use the seeds and skins from a well fermented blackberry wine as these seeds seem milder in taste.

A year long bulk age should allow extra complex tastes to form before the wine is bottled and allowed to age for a minimum two extra years in the bottle.

ELDERBERRY WINE 4.5 Litres

Suitable yeasts – R56, Lalvin R2, D80, D254, Bergundy. Strong full bodied wine suitable for higher ABV of 13% Suitable for oaking and can be left totally dry or sweetened. Takes the longest of any fruit wine to mature at a minimum of 3 years. Skins can be used for a second run elderberry rose or an medium bodied elder & blackberry wine.

RECIPE

3kg elderberries

2 very ripe bananas

3.25L water

800g-ish sugar to 1.09SG

Tartaric acid (adjusted to 0.6TA)

1tsp pectic enzyme

1tsp yeast nutrient

Yeast

RECIPE

Pick any elderberries and freeze until enough have been sourced.

Cold soak for five days in a sterile covered pan or container in the fridge in two litres of water and a crushed campden tablet to kill any wild yeasts.

On the penultimate day of cold soak make a bananna base by chopping 2 bananas skin and all into inch long chunks. Boiling for 15 minutes and allowing to cool in the water untill needed.

Boil the rest of the water to sterilize and leave to get to room temperature. Seive the bananas out of the banana base then mash the berries and combine the next day.

Add pectic enzyme and leave for 24 hours.

Adjust acid by adding tartaric acid to 0.6TA

Stir in the sugar to 1.09SG then the yeast.

Ferment for two days in primary then press the juice – a good manual squeeze in cleaned hands is easily sufficient. The juice can simply return to the primary fermenter and then continue to ferment. Add yeast now over the next 24 hours

When fermentation stops or radically slows filter into demijohn to remove any rogue seeds or skins that may have stayed and ferment in secondary with an airlock.

Rack after five weeks when fermentation stops with a good splash back from a hight to disolve a little oxygen to promote tannin binding. Rack again at two to three months after that but with no splash back. The wine wants to age at least a year after pitching the yeast.

Stabilise if necessary and back sweeten if desired

Bottle and wait for at least two years before having a little taste test.