Flathead Cherry Wine

From the beautiful Flathead Valley in Montana, not far from Glacier National Park, comes a wonderful local specialty: flathead cherries.
It seems that the entire state waits impatiently for mid-summer, when the sweet, heavenly cherries are picked and distributed far and wide.

At a local grocery today, I encountered these wonderful orbs of love for the first time this year. I instantly snatched up a bunch of them - ignoring the fiscal protests of The Beautiful and Ever-Practical Mrs. Tas - and immediately sought out a recipe when I got home.

I bought abut 6 pounds total, and the recipes that I found seem to average at 4 pounds; this will leave a few extra, possibly for canning or some other project. Here is the recipe that I am going to try, unless someone has a better idea:

Cherry Wine

4 pounds cherries
7 pints water
2.25 pounds sugar
1 teaspoon acid blend
1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 crushed campden tablet
1 package of wine yeast

Starting S.G. - 1.090

Wash, remove stems and leaves, and preferably remove pits (use a pitter, either mechanical or a couple of extra hands from around the house). In any case, be careful not to break the bitter pits.

Using a nylon straining bag mash and squeeze out juice into primary fermenter. keeping all pulp in straining bag, tie top and place in primary.

Stir in all other ingredients except yeast. Cover primary.

After 24 hours, add yeast.

Stir daily, check S.G. and press pulp lightly to aid extraction.

When ferment reaches S.G. 1.030 (about 5 days) strain juice from bag. Siphon wine off sediment into glass jug (secondary). Attach airlock.

When ferment is complete (S.G. has dropped to 1.000 - about 3 weeks) siphon off sediment into a clean secondary. Re-attach airlock.

To aid clearing siphon again in 2 months and again if necessary before bottling.

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The yeast that I have is Montrachet, so we'll see how it works.

As I said above, I'm very open to suggestion here; this recipe closely resembles my other attempts at wine-making (chokecherry and rhubarb), but there are a few differences.

A few questions:

Does 4 pounds of cherries seem like a good amount?

Would the 4 pounds of cherries be measured before or after pitting?

When making the two previous wines mentioned above, I added some golden raisins for "body." should I do that with this recipe, as well?

Suggestions, comments and feedback are always welcome.

Thanks for checking this out. More as it happens, etc. &c....

Ron

Hey Ron,

I've only tried sour cherries. What do the cherries taste like? Acidic? Sour? Super sweet? Bitter?

I have not used Montrachet in a while because I had issues with H2S years ago and saw that others had the same problem. It was probably user error, but I have avoided it.

I might eat some of the cherries and put all the rest 5# in the wine.

I won't add any water, get enough cherries to have all cherry juice, measure your ph, it should be between 3.5 -3.6 and adjust with advice blend if the ph is too high.

add yeast nutrient.

Hi, guys, and thanks for the replies - I'll try to address them here, along with a couple of follow-up questions.

I am 95% sure that these Flathead cherries are Lambert cherries, which are sweet cherries. It does make sense to use them all, except maybe 2 or 3 cherries for sampling. :I Unfortunately, 6 pounds is all that I have and all that I am going to be able to get, so some water is going to be necessary.

Having made that decision, do you think I should bring the amount of sugar up by a proportional amount? I know that the "correct" answer would be to use the SG as a guide, but I'm speaking in general terms.

Also, I am not sure how much juice 6 pounds of cherries will generate, but based on the simple fact that they will generate more than 4 pounds would have, I am guessing that I could start with a less water - maybe 5 or 6 pints instead of seven as the recipe says. Would you concur?

Thanks again -

Ron

TasunkaWitko said:

Hi, guys, and thanks for the replies - I'll try to address them here, along with a couple of follow-up questions.

I am 95% sure that these Flathead cherries are Lambert cherries, which are sweet cherries. It does make sense to use them all, except maybe 2 or 3 cherries for sampling. :I Unfortunately, 6 pounds is all that I have and all that I am going to be able to get, so some water is going to be necessary.

Having made that decision, do you think I should bring the amount of sugar up by a proportional amount? I know that the "correct" answer would be to use the SG as a guide, but I'm speaking in general terms.
Add sugar up to 1.085-1.090. Only way to know is a hydrometer. Beyond that, it is no more than a guessing game.

Also, I am not sure how much juice 6 pounds of cherries will generate, but based on the simple fact that they will generate more than 4 pounds would have, I am guessing that I could start with a less water - maybe 5 or 6 pints instead of seven as the recipe says. Would you concur?
I would still use between 7-8 pints of water. This, along with the juice you squeeze out of the cherries, will give you just over a gallon, so you will have some extra to top up with instead of using water.

Thanks again -

Ron

Click to expand...

See answers above in red.

Thanks - W4F!

I've been thinking about this, and it dawned on me that we are indeed going to be on that side of the state this weekend, so I will get two more pounds of cherries, for an even 8 pounds total for the gallon.

Should I stick with the Lamberts, or should I be on the lookout for some possible way to get sour cherries, in order to make a blend?

The cherries that I did get are currently in the freezer. More as it happens - I am hoping for some good results, as this is truly a "Montana thing...."

Well, we never made it over there, but that's alright - I intend moving forward with this recipe.

In the meantime, I found another option - this one looks to be written specifically for sweet cherries:

http://blog.eckraus.com/sweet-cherry-wine-recipe

I think 6 pounds should give you a decent wine without question. Of course a lot depends on how the water to pulp ratio works out. Some years fruit can be bloated, look beautiful and yet not be as rich in flavor. But 6 pound do you a good wine.