Sharing my first wine experience. (pics)

[Calvus]

We picked a lot of blackberries one year and I just thought one day about making wine. It was quite the experience and I made a few errors here and there. Nothing bad enough to ruin the wine. Turned out to be a medium bodied dry wine with a good note of blackberry and caramel. I got hooked after that and started fermenting everything I could think of. Here is the recipe I used with everything that followed:

Blackberry wine
23lbs blackberries
10lbs organic sugar
3gal water
5 campden tablets
5tsp acid blend
3tsp pectic enzyme
5tsp yeast nutrient
2 packs champagne yeast

7-09-11
Mixed all ingredients except yeast in primary fermenter
Starting SG 1.100

7-10-11
Added 2 packs of champagne yeast 6pm

7-13-11
72 hours after adding yeast, SG 1.056

7-16-11
Sixth day, racked into 5gal carboy in morning. SG ~1.022

8-05-11
Re-racked after 3 weeks. SG ~0.992
Stabilized with 2tsp of potassium sorbate and 5 tabs of Campden. Topped with extracted juice from 3lbs blackberries and grape juice.

9-02-11
Added ~3oz of dark toasted American oak chips to carboy

9-09-11
Racked off oak, sediment, lees into 5 gal carboy to continue bulk aging

3-13-12
Added ¼ tsp kmeta. Bottled 25 750ml bottles.

And the rest of the bunch aging/clearing in the closet.

Currently fermenting a rhubarb-pineapple and a blackberry/concord chocolate.

 

[ffemt128]

Looks really good.

 

[grapeman]

Wow, lots of sediment, but the finished wine looks great. Did the lees compact some or did you loose a lot of that black gold?

 

[LanMan]

Blackberry is my favorite. Have 6 gallons bulk aging, probabily ready to bottle.

Looking good. Now you have the fermenting fever

 

[Deezil]

Looks good man, i was hoping you'd post your process at some point !

I had the same kind of sediment with my batch, but our berries pretty much come from the same "patch".

Was the oak used to add the caramel notes you mentioned?

 

[Calvus]

Thanks all.

Grapeman, yes lots of sediment probably because I didnt use a straining bag and my racking technique was pretty amateur. Bag from now on and I have gotten a lot of racking practice now. Lees did not compact from that picture at all and I had to top up with quite a bit of fpac/juice and diluted down to little over 12%ABV when I calculated.

Deezil, Yes on the oak. It really gives it that nice dark, smokey, caramel note which I really like a lot. I only let it oak with 3oz of chips for a week though. Wanted to be conservative since I wouldnt be able to undo too much. I think anything longer may have been too much but I dunno. Didnt want to lose too much of the blackberry either.