Nero aronia

[J-Gee]

I planted a nero aronia berry bush this past spring.It is a european berry.Is anyone familiar with it?

 

[countrygirl]

sorry j-gee, i'm not familiar, but i'm bumping you up...

 

[deboard]

Sorry, I saw this the other day and had never heard of it, but I assumed someone here had.

Is this the kind of bush you are talking about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aronia

Lists wine as one of the uses, so sounds good to me!

 

[countrygirl]

it doesn't look quit the same as choke"cherries" does it?

 

[J-Gee]

The bottoms of my berries have a dimple in the middle and about 5 or 6 little bumps on the perimeter.In the picture,I couldn't see the bottom of the berry good enough to tell.The leaves look very similiar.It's a nice looking berry,about the size of a blueberry.

 

[deboard]

The particular variety you have (Nero) could look a little different than the ones in the article, but it's probably in the same family of plants. I assume that since you are on a wine making forum that you are interested in trying to make some wine from them. I say try it! You might experiment with some small one gallon batches to see what works best as far as recipes go.

The description reminds me a bit of a currant as far as it's description of taste, although these berries sound like they might be slightly larger. You might follow a black currant recipe and see how that turns out. Just make sure to check the Specific Gravity with a hydrometer for sugar additions as I bet you will have to add quite a bit.

 

[J-Gee]

yep,I'm sure they are in the same family.I planted currants,jostaberries,and elderberries,as well,so I should be able to come up with something out of the mix.