Genuine French Method of Making Cherry Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Bruise the cherries and gooseberries together.
Pound two-thirds of the kernels and mix them in.
Place the mixture in a barrel.
Ferment
Add ¼ pound of sugar for each quart of juice.
Cover the barrel with a vine leaf surrounded by clay until fermentation stops, about three weeks.
Keep the barrel full by adding fresh juice as needed.
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
What each ingredient does
- Cherries
- Provide the main juice and flavour that the wine is made from.
- Gooseberries
- Add tartness and extra juice to the fruit base.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation, which produces alcohol and carbon dioxide.
The step that matters
Keep the barrel full. Topping up with fresh juice keeps air from covering the wine surface. Exposure to air lets spoilage microbes and acetic acid bacteria grow, which can sour the wine.
“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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