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Blackberry Wine

A fermented blackberry wine made by macerating berries, adding sugar, isinglass, and white wine, then clarifying and bottling.

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

Prepare the juice

  1. Place full ripe blackberries in a large wooden or stone vessel with a spout.

  2. Pour boiling water over the berries until covered.

  3. Once cool enough, bruise the berries with your hands until broken.

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

  5. Draw off the clear liquid into another vessel.

Ferment and sweeten

  1. Add 1 pound of sugar for every 10 quarts of liquid and stir well.

  2. Let it ferment in the new vessel for 1 week to 10 days.

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

Fine and store

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

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

  3. Combine the dissolved isinglass with 1 gallon of blackberry juice and boil together.

  4. Pour the mixture into the vessel and let it sit for a few days to settle.

  5. Draw off the wine and store it in a cool place.

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

Full ripe blackberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and natural sugars for fermentation.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness to the finished wine.
Isinglass
Fining agent that gathers suspended particles so they settle, clearing the wine.

The step that matters

Drawing off the liquid before fermenting. Leaving the juice in contact with the pulp too long or fermenting with solids can add off flavours and cloudiness. Separating the clear liquid first keeps the wine clean and clear.

“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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