11 simple step-by-step recipes for making cherry wine at home

Home winemaking is gaining popularity every year as an original hobby and a way to cope with a surplus harvest. The fruits of various fruit trees and berries collected from our own garden are used as wine materials. It’s not difficult to make cherry wine at home; let’s look at simple recipes for an alcoholic drink made from fresh berries, compote, juice and pulp.

Subtleties of making cherry wine

The exquisite aroma of cherry wine and subtle tart taste will not leave even real gourmets indifferent. Self-made cherry wine is a true masterpiece of home winemaking. The peculiarity of the drink and the basis of the debate among winemakers is whether to use berries with seeds as raw materials or to remove them first.

There is no consensus on this issue; some believe that fusel oils contained in cherry pits are released into the drink and are harmful to health. Proponents of wine made with cherries with pits believe that there is no danger to health if the pits remain intact and do not split; moreover, such a wine turns out to be more tart and original in taste.

How to choose the right raw materials?

There are various recipes for making cherry wine. The recipe for making the drink mainly depends on the selected cherry raw material. Wine drinks are infused with fresh cherries, cherry compote, juice or pulp.

Fans of stronger drinks add vodka or cognac to the finished wine.

To create different shades of taste, white currants, raspberries, and gooseberries are mixed into cherry liqueurs.

How to make cherry wine at home?

To prepare wine at home, you will need glass bottles and silicone tubes about a meter long, 1.5 centimeters in diameter. Each winemaker adds sugar to the mash to taste; the amount of sweetener depends on the sugar content of the raw material.

Homemade cherry wine is infused using natural fermentation, which lasts about three months. The wine must be filtered three times; if you have a press filter, the number of cleanings can be reduced.

Classic recipe

The traditional recipe for making cherry wine is to create a drink based on fresh berries. The seeds are removed as desired; whole berries are crushed with a mortar or by hand.

The resulting mixture must be diluted with water in a 1:1 ratio. If the goal is to make dry wine, do not add sugar; instead, just add yeast or raisin starter.

In the classic recipe, there is no need to add yeast, so before mashing the berries in the mash, they are not washed. The wine ferments for 4-5 days, covered with a lid or thick cloth, in a warm place.

After 5 days, it is necessary to remove the cake by straining the contents through gauze; it is recommended to do all procedures with gloves. It is necessary to add sugar to the resulting wort, but this must be done correctly. Part of the cherry must is poured into a saucepan, where the sweetener is poured, placed on the stove and heated to room temperature, stirring the sugar frequently until completely dissolved.

Important! Boil the wort and heat it over 30 ⁰This is impossible, yeast and beneficial bacteria will die, and the fermentation process will not begin.

The sweet wort is poured into the main bottle, then the remaining wort is poured there and the water seal is closed tightly. The stage of “quiet” fermentation begins; the container with the wort must be removed to a dark, warm place.

After 12 days, add a portion of sugar to the “quiet” wort in the same amount as the first time, you can dissolve the sweetener in the young wine. Leave the drink to ferment for another 25-30 days. After this time, the wine must be filtered to remove sediment. This procedure is usually carried out using a hose or filter press. Leave the wine for another week, the wine drink will begin to lighten. Young cherry wine is ready; if a person wants to get an aged drink, they leave the wine to ferment for another 3 months, and when sediment forms, filter the drink.

A simple recipe without yeast and vodka

Cherry wine is created based on the process of natural fermentation, so there is no need to stimulate the process with yeast, just as there is no need to fortify the finished drink with vodka or cognac.

An important nuance of a simple recipe without yeast and vodka is the use of unwashed berries in the mash, which preserve the natural bacterial background. A simple recipe without yeast and vodka is based on the step-by-step classic recipe for making cherry wine presented above.

Option without water

In the classic recipe, cherry pulp must be prepared and diluted with water in a 1:1 ratio, but there is an option for preparing cherry wine without water. In this case, the taste of the wine becomes tart and the color darker.

There is no need to dissolve the sugar first; it is laid in layers between the cherry pulp, so the mixture is left to ferment for a month, then the water seal is opened, the contents are mixed, and the fermentation process is activated with renewed vigor. As soon as there are noticeably fewer carbon dioxide bubbles, the pulp is separated through gauze. The purified wine continues to ferment; if sediment forms, the drink is filtered and continued to age.

From cherry compote

A rational way to recycle unused cherry compote. For 3 liters of compote use 1 handful of raisins. All components are mixed with sugar, stirred thoroughly and poured into a bottle under a water seal.

The fermentation system for the drink is the same as in the classic recipe: the wort is separated, the fermentation process is activated, the drink is filtered (several times if desired), and kept. After three months, the drink is bottled and must be stored in a cellar.

From cherry juice

Cherry juice is a concentrated raw material for homemade wine. The juice can act as a preservative and the fermentation process will not begin, so it is recommended that when using cherry juice as a mash, add yeast or raisin starter to the container. The amount of sugar is doubled.

Yeast must be used live; it is first softened in a glass of water at room temperature for about 40 minutes. The wort and yeast mixture are brought to the same temperatures (not higher than +25 ⁰C) and mix gently.

Then, when the first sediment appears, the wine is filtered and left to age for 2 months, then filtered and bottled for storage.

From cherry pulp

Cherry pulp is a mixture of cherry juice with pulp and peel, berry seeds, prepared with your own hands. An alcoholic drink is prepared from cherry pulp according to the classic recipe. A winemaking trick passed down from generation to generation is that the berries are crushed by hand, but the cherries themselves are not washed.

Fortified wine

High strength cherry wine is prepared with the addition of alcohol. Add 2 glasses of vodka to 15 liters of wort and place the wine in the cellar to ferment. It is necessary to add the “fixing” element after the 2nd filtration, a week before the final bottling of the finished drink.

With added white currants

Original cherry wine recipe. White currants make the wine's bouquet broad and its taste more intense. For 3 kilograms of cherry pulp, use 2 kilograms of white currant pulp. The pulp must be prepared manually, crushing the berries with bare hands.

It is not necessary to use yeast and sourdough; a mix of cherries and white currants lends itself perfectly to natural fermentation.

From frozen cherries

Frozen cherries can be used as a raw material for homemade wine. In this case, it is necessary to use yeast or sourdough as fermentation catalysts. The amount of sugar is doubled compared to the amount of sweetener in the traditional recipe.

With raspberries

Cherry and raspberry wine has a rich, bright red color and a sweet aroma. Refers to a refreshing drink; many winemakers call this drink homemade sangria.

The berries are mixed into pulp in a 1:1 ratio. The seeds are left in the cherries. The berry mix is ​​diluted with water, sugar is added, stirred and left to infuse for natural fermentation. After a week, the pulp is filtered through cheesecloth, and the wort continues to ferment; after a month, the first cleaning of sediment is carried out. After another month, the young wine is ready.

Cherry jam wine

Cherry jam must be diluted with water in a 1:1 ratio and add raisin starter or yeast. There is no need to add sugar. The wort is separated through cheesecloth 10 days after the start of fermentation. After another 3 weeks, the drink is cleared of sediment. Further actions of the winemaker depend on the purpose of obtaining young or aged wine.

Storage rules

It is necessary to store containers with homemade wine in a dark place, the optimal storage temperature is +18 ⁰C. Limit exposure to light and direct sunlight on the bottles, and also check the tightness of closed stoppers.

The best storage place is a cellar or pantry.

If all storage conditions are met, homemade wines can be stored for several years without loss of aroma and taste.