Skip to main content
Drink

Vin De Cerises. — Cherry Wine

A fermented cherry wine made by bruising cherries and currants with kernels, sweetened, and left to ferment.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cherry and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,598 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Vin De Cerises. — Cherry Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Bruise the cherries and currants together well.

  2. Add the cherry kernels to the mixture.

Fill and sweeten

  1. Place the mixture in a small cask.

  2. Add ¼ pound of sugar for each quart of juice.

  3. Fill the barrel completely.

Ferment

  1. Set the barrel in sand and cover it with a vine leaf.

  2. Allow to ferment for nearly three weeks.

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. Cherry + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Currant + cherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cherries
Provide the juice and main fruit flavour the wine is made from.
Currants
Add extra juice and a tart, fruity flavour to the blend.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, which converts it into alcohol during fermentation.
Cherry kernels
Pounding releases an almond-like aroma that flavours the wine.

The step that matters

Fill the barrel completely. Air trapped above the liquid lets oxygen and spoilage microbes grow. A full vessel limits air contact, helping the fermentation stay clean and the wine avoid off-flavours.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cherry, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cherry, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More cherry wine recipes

Black 4 See all 30 →

You might also like

Black Currant CordialBlack Currant Cordial11 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes