Gooseberry Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Gather gooseberries in dry weather when they are half ripe.
Pick and bruise the gooseberries in a tub.
Press them using a fine cloth to extract as much juice as possible without breaking the seeds.
Combine the juice with 3 pounds of sugar for every gallon of gooseberries. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and transfer to a vessel, filling it completely.
Ferment and age
Let a 10 or 12-gallon vessel stand for two weeks.
Let a 20-gallon vessel stand for three weeks.
Store in a cool place.
Draw off from the lees and pour the clear liquid back in.
Let a 10-gallon vessel stand for three months.
Let a 20-gallon vessel stand for four months.
Bottle
Bottle the wine.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Gooseberries
- Provide the juice and the fruit flavour that forms the body of the wine.
- Sugar
- Feeds the fermentation and, once converted, sets the sweetness and alcohol level of the wine.
The step that matters
Pressing without breaking the seeds. Crushed seeds can release bitter and astringent compounds into the juice, which then carry through fermentation into the finished 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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