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Blueberry
Wine Making
Blueberry wine making is extremely popular
in the United States and some informal surveys
have it ranked second in popularity only to
blackberry in preference.
Using blueberries in blueberry wine
making has a lot of advantages both
for taste and nutrition. Blueberries are rich
in vitamins A and C along with other essential
nutrients. They have lesser content of elements
such as citric acid. Their sugar content is not
too powerful and they can be squeezed for juice
to be made into wine or dried. In some cases it
is best to use blueberries that have survived a
frost as this helps to create an easier
taste.
There is a rumor within wine making that
blueberry wine making is next to impossible
because blueberries do not ferment. There is a
chemical in blueberries called sorbic acid that
many claim cannot bond with yeast to ferment
correctly. While this rumor is prevalent in
blueberry wine making it is not at all true,
and blueberries absolutely have the ability to
mix with yeast and ferment the juice into a
wine. The process does take longer than some
other berries to ferment but in the end the
wine that is made is considered one of the best
varieties of wine available.
Finding The Right
Berry
Blueberries used for blueberry
wine making traditionally come in
four different kinds. There is the dwarf, the
lowbush, the highbush, and the swamp variety of
blueberry for blueberry wine making. For the
best tasting blueberry wine making you should
probably find a variety of lowbush blueberry
commonly referred to as vaccinium
angustifolium. This variety of blueberry is the
most common found in your local store or sold
at your farmer’s market so in order to get the
most out of your blueberry wine making you may
want to consider purchasing your blueberries
from a market. Using wild blueberries in
blueberry wine making may yield results that
you had not intended and you probably will not
like.
Blueberry wine making is not a slow process at
all. After creating the desired mixture you
need to stir it continually for up to 6 days.
After you are done stirring it for nearly a
week it then needs to ferment for up to three
months before you can start the aging process.
The aging process can take up to a year. So if
you start your blueberry wine making now you
just may be able to sample your first product
in fifteen months or so. Take your time,
because if you do it wrong it will be fifteen
months before you can try a new batch.
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