Gooseberries

[Norske]

I will have a good crop of gooseberries this year and I have a few questions.

1. What is the best yeast for gooseberry wine?
2. Any tannin?
3. Do I have to head and tail the gooseberries if I bag em for the fermenter?

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

We had a bush a couple of years ago, but after making wine from it my picker complained about the enormous thorns so we pulled it up. The last batch initially turned out with bracing eyepopping acididy so we forgot about it and left it setting for a couple of years. A friend wanted to taste some bad wine, (of course I had to think hard about finding one of mine that was bad) and I gave them a gooseberry. The told me it was fantastic. I didnt believe them and thought what a good friend to tell us this horrible wine was great when we knew it was horrible so we opened a bottle, it was great. The acidity had tamed down which is rare, it was smooth and so good we didnt want to waste a bottle on sending it to a comp. The last bottle we ever made is still setting down there aging, giving it some more time to see if it gets even better.

I would suggest a good champagne yeast like Pasteur Champagne or another of your favorite white wine yeasts. Really depends on if you want to go dry or sweet. A little oak would go well with the acidity. The head and tails on ours were so small I didnt even think about this question, never heard of anyone doing that, maybe if you were making jam you would want to get the little stems off but for winemaking they are so small I dont think they would add any off flavors.

WVMJ

I will have a good crop of gooseberries this year and I have a few questions.

1. What is the best yeast for gooseberry wine?
2. Any tannin?
3. Do I have to head and tail the gooseberries if I bag em for the fermenter?

 

[Norske]

We made a batch last year with champagne yeast and wanted to see what others have used. I may have to do a series of bench tests using a variety of yeasts to see what is the best one.