Anyone ever made something like this before?
We have a Hawthorne tree in the yard and I think it’d be fun to have a go at some homegrown wine…
Here’s a recipe I found online:
http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/2 ... erry-wine/Would appreciate some input from anyone who has ever tried something similar, and even form those who have not but care to render an opinion…!
Probably a better question for the wine forum, but I’ll take a crack at it.
I’m a bit suspect of the addition of sugar to the wine. I know why they do it. Its cheap, and it ferments very easily. But, if its a quality product your looking for I would definitely start adding more hawthorne berries, or if you don’t want too much of that flavor, you can add many many other sugars (honey comes to mind, would make a very interesting melomel).
Other than that, this seems to be little more than any of the “Wine from grape juice” style recipes that you can find all over the web. They’ll work. They’ll be drinkable, and cheap. If thats what your after, by all means go for it. If your after something you can truly share and be proud to say that you made, then I would suggest investing a bit more into it.
Making the melomel sounds much better than that recipe. I’d only make that recipe with 2.5lbs of sugar if i were making a prison batch…which i don’t see happening.
I would not use that recipe and do a search on Jack Kellers site for a better one.
You face other issues in winemaking than simply adding more fruit to increase gravity. You have to worry about acid levels and you can actually add too much body to a wine if it is not kept in balance. If you are having issues from the addition of sugar in a batch of wine it has more to do with the use of second quality fruit or lack of proper procedures.
