Cherry Chocolate Almond wine

Some of you my remember last year when I started my Cherry Chocolate wine back in June 2010. I toasted some raw almonds and added those to three gallons of it. I bottled the six gallon total back in April and it was pretty rough tasting, especially the one with almonds. For the heck of it I entered a bottle of the cherry chocolate in a competition and it took second place in September but I thought it was still a little young. Today we sampled both the wine with just chocolate and the one with chocolate and almonds. The chocolate cherry was very good but the cherry chocolate with almonds was actually much better and more mellow. Yes, you could pick up the almond taste after the cherry/chocolate.

Joe (joeswine)I hear you pondering already.

That sounds really good! Did you post the recipe on here? I'm curious about the chocolate.

Here is a picture of both wines. The carboy on the right has the almonds in it



This is a close up after racking off the wine



This wa fresh cherry juice with the chocolate and almonds infusing the flavor.

Dan, did you keep using those chocolate wafers until they totally dissolved? Looks like there was still plenty left to do much more, maybe freeze what was left.

Wade freezing is a great idea. I did not, what you see was just before I dumped them. I added them during the secondary fermentation and left them on for thirty days. I really need to use less in the future so there is only a hint of chocolate instead of having an upfront taste of it. It's very good the way it is but the fruit or grape is the first and foremost thing you taste first.

Could you please share the recipe you used, Dan?

LJ, I do not have any recipe. I got the cherry juice when it was in season and fermented that to about 1.03sg. Then I racked and added about 1/2 pound of dark chocolate wafers and 1/2 pound of almonds. I left these in the carboy for 30 days. I bought raw almonds and toasted them in the oven to avoid any oils. I think I started this wine in June 2010.

Well it sounds very good, Dan. I think the next thing I do will be something with chocolate. I'm thinking I'm going to attempt a strawberry chocolate wine, using frozen strawberries and possibly some sort of concentrate, along with cocoa powder and the 30 Aero bars I have from Halloween.

Dan, where did you get those wafers again?

Chocolate and Almonds would probably be good in choke cherry wine too. What do you think? Think that this will be my next project. Any pointers?

Yes, make sure you toast your raw almonds and don't buy roasted almonds. Use a dark chocolate high in cocoa and low in fat.

I have the chocolate raspberry port from WE.

Think I could almonds to the secondary in the above wine? I may try a 1/2 gallon since I use gallon carboy for finishing and do have a few 1/2 gallon carboys. I could also do a whole gallon with the almonds, thinking out loud.

HI! I have a question about the chocolate used in the wine. It's dark chocolate, but should it be unsweetened or sweet? I made a strawberry wine that I thought was delicious. I'd like try chocolate strawberry.

Thanks for any help you can offer me!

Takes2long said:

HI! I have a question about the chocolate used in the wine. It's dark chocolate, but should it be unsweetened or sweet? I made a strawberry wine that I thought was delicious. I'd like try chocolate strawberry.

Thanks for any help you can offer me!

Click to expand...

You could use a dark semisweet, high cacao content, but lowest fat, worked out well for me. I tend to catch the high quality dark chocolate baking chunks on clearance, like Scharffen Berger and others I cannot spell! You could likely use Hershey's Special Dark bars chocolate; goodness knows I use the regular and dark syrup, 1 cup/gal, after all is clear in secondary and powder 4oz by weight/gal, at the start in primary(like Hershey Special Dark and dutch processed, Droste a favorite right now). I found the wafers that Dan used, or similar to, at a baking supply/gourmet kitchen shop. I think cacao content was 62% for semisweet and 70% for bittersweet.

Sammyk...I think the experiment with the WE CRP kit would be fine!

I have made 4 batches of Cherry/Chocolate in the past year and all 4 have been good. They are developing into a very nice wine. I took several bottles to my wine club meeting and it was a hit. The chocolate is very faint and comes off at the end. I used Lindt's 90% cocoa,bitter sweet, dark chocolate. In 5 gallon I add 3 bars into the primary then I transfer the chocolate into the secondary and remove after a total on 14 days from the start of fermentation. I made a Strawberry/Chocolate using Lindt's milk chocolate and the chocolate flavor comes off first masking the strawberry too much so it is more a Chocolate/Strawberry. The chocolate looks just like the waffers Dan has after I remove them, as for freezing and reusing I would think that you will not get a good result. I tasted some from mine after I removed them and they did not have a good chocolate flavor, more of an off taste. I talked to an AWS judge about chocolate last year before I started making this type of wine and he said he looks for the chocolate to come out at the finish and not to overpower the fruit. As Dan said high in cocoa and lower in fat. I find that the best wine is made using around 1/2 pound of chocolate to 5 gallon and not to leave it in for a lond period of time. The milk chocolate strawberry was an experiment that did not develop as well as the bitter sweet chocolate but the strawberry wine is respectable and very drinkable I just call it a chocolate strawberry.

Good luck with your chocolate wines. I myself make fruit wines and have a passion for making chocolate wines. Some of my favorites are the ports perticular a Chcoloate/Raspberry port and a Chocolate/Orange port.