Elderberry wine seems to be the hardest to master but the most rewarding in terms of flavour that I have tried. The berries give a very grape like taste and seem very dependent on process as well as recipe and I imagine they can be made into a range of dry to sweet, medium to full bodied wines.

CLICK HERE FOR THE EVEN MORE REFINE 2017 ELDERBERRY WINE

Opening the 2016 “vintage” was an opportunity to test the changes I had made to the recipe to reduce the harsh tannin content. To do this I pressed the berries earlier than previous attempts so that the rising ethanol during fermentation did not extract the harsher tannins from the seeds. A cold maceration has always been part of my elderberry recipe to allow lots of colour to be extracted so an early press still gives a deep almost black wine!

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The wine certainly seems to have benefited with this early press with less harsh tannins giving a more balanced wine with a fruitier taste than previous. I may increase the ratio of fruit to push it from a medium body to a full bodied wine. It does need to breathe a long time after being opened so this could mean I need to leave it longer in bulk aging to allow even more carbon dioxide to dissipate out.

Another aspect I plan to do is a double splash back on the first rack to encourage a little oxidation to promote more complex tastes to develop. The subsequent racks will be less energetic to allow as little oxygen exposure as possible. This is partly influenced by one of the 2017 demijohns having an airlock that totally dried out and rather than damaging the wine it seems to have helped it and compared to the other fully enclosed demijohn it seemed more balanced. I have no idea how long it was exposed but I am hoping the double drop when racking can simulate this again as a controlled and repeatable process.

Acidity continues to be an issue and I intend to change from citric acid that really seems to retreat over time to either a blend or tartaric acid as found in grapes. Sadly, this means I need to get my feeble brain around how acids develop tastes and what acids are present in elderberries. 2018’s experiments will happen before I open another bottle as I plan to age at least another 6 months or maybe even 12.