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Drink

Blackberry Wine

A fermented wine made from blackberries, sugar, isinglass, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,586 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Blackberry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the berries

  1. Place the blackberries in a large wooden or stone vessel and cover them with boiling water.

  2. Once cool enough, bruise the berries until broken.

  3. Cover and let them sit until the berries rise, about 3 to 4 days.

Ferment and clarify

  1. Draw off the clear liquid into another vessel and add 1 pound of sugar for every 10 quarts of liquid.

  2. Stir well and let it ferment for 7 to 10 days in a similar vessel.

  3. Draw off through a jelly bag into a large vessel.

  4. Soak 4 ounces of isinglass in 1 pint of white wine for 12 hours.

  5. Boil the isinglass mixture on low heat until dissolved.

  6. Combine the dissolved isinglass with 1 gallon of blackberry juice and bring to a boil.

  7. Pour everything into the vessel and let it stand for a few days.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + white winetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Blackberries
Provide the fruit flavor, color, and the juice that becomes the wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Isinglass
Fining agent that collects haze particles so the wine clears as it settles.
White wine
Carries the isinglass so it can be dissolved and added evenly to the juice.

The step that matters

Dissolving the isinglass. Isinglass must be fully dissolved before it is added, because undissolved clumps settle unevenly and fail to clear the wine well.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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