Another wild fruit which has done remarkably well this year and is available in abundance are Elderberrys. There are hundreds of recipes for Elderberry wine available all following the basic theme below. I thought however, that this tip might be useful to DIY wine enthusiasts.

Some years ago I intended to make Elderberry wine and picked a large quantity of fruit. I spent several hours that evening separating the fruit from the fronds. I eventually gave up intending to complete the task the following morning. Unfortunately I had a busy day the following day and the bag of Elderberrys were neglected. Absent mindedly I dumped the bag in the chest freezer that evening to stop the fruit turning, bursting and staining everything in sight. Unexpected genius moment, or freak chance, who knows. The upshot of freezing them was that the frozen fruit were very easy the remove from the fronds. I simply added a second plastic bag, tied the top to prevent escape and crushed the bundle between my hands. An addition bonus is that the fruit do not copy with being frozen well and burst open as they thaw. This make extraction the juice very easy. Just squash them with the back of a spoon through a wire sieve.

The resulting wine is one of the best wild fruit wines in my opinion and well worth the effort.

Ingredients: Elderberry Wine Recipe

3 lbs / 1,350 grams fresh elderberries
3 lbs / 1,350 grams sugar
8 pints / 1 gallon water
1 teaspoon citric acid
Wine yeast

Method:-

Strip and crush the berries and place them in a bucket. Add 1/2 of the boiling water and allow to cool. Dissolve the sugar in the remaining boiling water and strain the berries through a sieve on to the sugar and add the citric acid and the yeast. Pour the liquid into a demijohn and seal with an airlock.

Store the wine in a warm place and allow the fermentation to work itself out. When fermentation has ceased, rack the wine into a clean jar and place in a cooler environment and leave for a further few months. Rack again and leave until the wine is stable. Leave for a further six months and bottle.