Homemade wine from chokeberry is not only a pleasant taste, but also healing properties, especially if the drink is prepared without the use of vodka. The recipe for making a black-fruited wine is quite simple, although it is prepared within two months. However, this process is not only worth the effort, but will be on the shoulder even for beginners, since it does not require a large number of specialized utensils and special skills. Consider the features in the article.
Best time to pick berries
The ripening time of black chokeberry fruit falls on the beginning of autumn. The peculiarity of this plant in the following - if you do not collect the fruits after ripening, they will remain on the branches until spring. Therefore, a natural question arises - when is the best time to harvest.
It will be useful for you to learn how to plant and care for chokeberry, how to multiply shrubs, how to deal with pests and diseases, and how to prepare chokeberry for the winter.
The quality of the wine depends largely on the time when the berries were picked from the bush.
Wild wine yeast dies at low temperatures, so it is extremely important to harvest the mountain ash before the onset of the first autumn frosts, in order to avoid the death of beneficial microorganisms.
For the same reason, it is not recommended to wash the fruit before starting the preparation of the drink, since most bacteria will simply be washed away, and without them the fermentation process will not begin. 
Thus, the best harvest time of chokeberry falls around the second half of October. Depending on your region of residence, these dates may vary.
Inventory and kitchen appliances
Let us figure out what kind of kitchen equipment we may need for making black-wines at home:
- for squeezing the berries will need their own clean hands. Although you can use and food processor or grinder;
- a bottle of not less than 10 liters. It can be glass, enameled (most importantly, without chips), ceramic. Since the filtration process requires constant transfusion of wine from one bottle to another, there should be at least two containers;
- gauze;
- water lockwhich can be bought or made by hand - from a rubber glove or with a nylon or metal cap. If you choose the last option, then you still need a rubber tube and a glass jar of water;
Water lock - strainer colander;
- fine filtration tubeFor example, from a dropper.
Water lockIt is worth noting that the easiest way to create a water seal is to use an ordinary medical latex glove, in any finger of which a tiny hole is pierced with a needle. However, this is not a completely reliable way, since the smell of fermentation will be present in the room, and the future wine may “suffocate”.
Did you know? In Russia in ancient times wine was called a variety of drinks, whether it is braga, beer or mead. Directly, however, only representatives of the nobility drank wine, so it is difficult to say exactly when they began to prepare this drink. However, it is known for certain that since the accession of the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian Empire, winemaking has become widespread.
It is best to use a nylon or metal screw cap (it all depends on the neck of the bottle), in which a hole is made. It is necessary to insert a rubber hose into this hole, securely and tightly fix it, for example, with glue, and put the other end into a jar of water in order to prevent air from entering the bottle. 
Capron cap
Ingredients Required
In order to prepare such a drink from chokeberry, you will need the following ingredients:
- 5 kilograms of black chokeberry berries;
- 1 or 2 kilograms of granulated sugar (depending on whether you want a sweet or sweet wine);
- 50 grams of raisins;
We recommend to read how to cook raisins at home.
- 1 liter of water.
Raisins, on the other hand, are not recommended to be washed before use, because during washing it will remove wild wine yeast, usually contained on its surface, and this will adversely affect fermentation processes. 
Step-by-step recipe for homemade black wines
The recipe for homemade blackberry wine is quite simple. Consider the main stages of creating this aromatic drink.
Did you know? Black berries contain special yeast bacteria - wild wine yeast, which are necessary for successful fermentation of wine.
Preparation blackberry berries. Harvest the harvest is not worth it, but you need to go through. Bad berries are thrown away, and all the others are separated from the stem, after which they should be poured into a large container and carefully transferred with clean hands. Fans of technology can use a combine or meat grinder.
Compound constituents. Next, in the resulting puree of mashed berries, you need to add sugar and mix thoroughly with your hands to make a homogeneous mixture. Add a handful of raisins inside (it will improve fermentation). Again, mix and cover with gauze, which protects the contents from insects and debris. 
In this state, leave the wort to infuse for about a week (from 7 to 12 days) in a relatively warm place, where the temperature will be within + 18-25 ° C. Lowering or raising the temperature may cause the fermentation process to slow down and stop.
Important! During the entire period of infusion, the mash must be stirred daily with clean hands to avoid the appearance of mold on the surface.
Branch juice. After about a week, you can proceed to the next step in preparing the wine. Is it ready for this mixture, you can find out quite simply - you will notice that the berries have already swelled considerably, have risen to the surface of the liquid. In addition, if you dip your hand in the mash, then there will appear around the foam characteristic of the fermentation. This suggests that you can proceed to the following actions - the separation of pulp from juice.
Pulp collected hands and squeeze with gauze. Kitchen appliances are not very suitable for this, as they quickly become clogged, and even a small amount of juice is given. The rest of the juice must be passed through a fine sieve. 
All the resulting juice should be drained into a separate bottle (the container in which the wine will be prepared), but you should not throw out the cake - it is still useful.
Juice, which you have now turned out, may contain small particles and a significant sediment. This is not scary, and you should not clean it now - in the process of future filtering the wine will be cleaned.
The remaining pulp. It must be postponed for re-fermentation. For this, the remaining sugar is added to the cake and water is poured. Make sure that the water is rather warm, but not warmer than 30 ° C and not colder than 25 ° C, because at other temperatures, the wine yeast begins to die.
The container with the pulp must be covered with a lid to limit the access of light, and leave for 5 days in a warm and dark place. During this entire period, one must not forget to mix the mixture and embed the pop-up berries. 
Hydraulic lock and its installation. Juice, which turned out before, it is necessary to pour into a large bottle, where he will wander in the future. In the neck of the bottle it is necessary to install a water seal to limit the access of air and remove excess gases.
A trap can be either specialized or made by hand. If you use a glove, then pull it on the neck and tightly secure with a rubber band or thread. In the lid, drill a hole that would match the tube you picked up. Insert the tubing inwards and fix tightly.
To do this, you can use glue or in another way — on the inside of the cap, insert an empty handle case into the end of the hose and heat it with a lighter. The outer end of the tube will expand and tightly close the hole in the lid.
Put the lid on the bottle. Lower the outer long end of the rubber tube into a jar of water. - this is necessary so that the gases go out of the tank, and the wine does not "suffocate", and oxygen does not penetrate into the bottle. 
Important! The short end of the tube on the inside of the lid should be as high as possible above the wine stock.
The bottle with wort should now be put in a warm and dark room. It is desirable that the temperature here was at least + 18 ° C.
The second portion of juice. We get it from the already settled pulp, which we take from the shelter. To do this, just skip the mixture through a colander or a sieve. This should be done carefully so that the drink does not turn out to be cloudy.
Waste cake is now recyclable.
Adding juice to the main container. To do this, simply remove the water seal, remove the foam on the surface of the liquid with a spoon and pour the juice obtained from the pulp into the main container, after which it is tightly closed again. 
The process of active fermentation. It will last about 1.5-2 months. During all this time it will be necessary to filter the wort. The first month of the procedure is repeated every week, and in the remaining time - every two weeks.
For filtration, you need to remove the water seal, remove the foam from the surface of the liquid and gently pour the wine from one bottle to another using a thin tube from the dropper, while leaving all the sediment on the bottom of the jar.
The end of fermentation will be indicated by the disappearance of its manifestations. - for example, bubbles will stop appearing in a jar of water, and the glove will deflate, and the liquid will also become lighter.
When the fermentation process is over, it will be necessary for the last time to strain the young wine through the straw, freeing it from residual sediment, and pour it into bottles intended for storage.
However, if you are not satisfied with the sweetness of the resulting drink, now is the time to sweeten it. You can not just pour sugar into the liquid: it is placed in a clean shred of cotton fabric, tied with thread so that the bag turned out, and immersed in a container with a young wine. 
A bag of sugar should not sink: fix it closer to the surface, re-install the water seal and leave the wine to stand for another week. During this time, the sugar is likely to completely dissolve.
Now it's time to send a young wine to ripen.
Ripening wine When the drink is bottled, it's time to send it to ripen in some cool and dark place. The cellar or the refrigerator is quite suitable for this. However, if you sweetened the wine at the end of the fermentation process, then do not clog the bottle too tightly, since gases can still be emitted during the week.
Matures the product from 2 to 4 months, after which it becomes ready for use.
Did you know? Cooking wine at home did not begin with grapes. The first wines were fruit and berry - from the blackthorn and plums, rowan and raspberry berries.
What can be combined
For the preparation of delicious fruit and berry wine, which is also very useful, you can add to the chokeberry and other fruits or berries. Black apples are perfectly combined with apples, pears and grapes.
Preparation of this drink with the addition of other fruits is practically no different from the main recipe - the main thing is that their ratio to mountain ash is 1 to 1.
Video recipe for making chokeberry wine
In preparation, the fruits are cleared from the core and cut into small pieces, and the berries are ground or crushed to a puree consistency, after which everything is filled with sugar, and then fermentation begins.
For an unusual flavor and interesting flavor, you can add cherry leaves or currants to the fruit and berry mixture. The rest of the recipe is the same.
Also, homemade wine can be prepared from: gooseberry, grapes, plums, apples, raspberries, black currants and rose petals.
How and how much home wine is stored
Wine prepared at home should be stored in a dark and cool place - preferably in a tightly closed dark glass container.
The ideal storage room is the cellar. The temperature at the same time should be within + 10-12 ° C, although for dessert wines it is acceptable to raise the temperature to + 13-14 ° C.
It is desirable that the room was humidity in the range of 65-80%. 
In the prone position of the bottle, contact with the stopper is ensured, which prevents air from penetrating inside the container.
With all these conditions, homemade fruit wine from chokeberry can be stored for about 5 years.
Important! Bottles of wine are placed horizontally, and it is advisable not to touch them throughout the entire storage period, since any shaking is stressful for the drink.
Useful tips in making wine
If you know some features of cooking wine at home, you can make a very tasty drink:
- The perfect wine packaging - wooden. It has pores through which the air necessary for the life of fermentation bacteria enters. However, in modern conditions its use is almost impossible, therefore the best choice - glass. Plastic can be used, but it can be toxic. But the metal utensils can not be used in any case, since it is the process of oxidation.
- Making homemade wine from chokeberry without adding sugar is not recommended., as the berries contain very few sugars and a lot of tannins. Wine without sugar will be too sour and tart.
- The more sugar, the sweeter will be the result.. In this case, if you take 1 kilogram of sugar for 5 kilograms of rowan berries, the wine will be dessert.
- Black flea pulp is prone to mold. Therefore, the mixing of the wine composition should be regular and frequent during the entire period, starting from mixing the ingredients and before separating the pulp from the juice.
- The taste of a wine drink depends on its age. - excerpts. Therefore, the more the product will be stored in peace and darkness, the more saturated bouquet and taste it will have.
Home-made wine made from chokeberry has not only a pleasant taste and aroma: it also has a beneficial effect on health - it normalizes high blood pressure during hypertension, improves the condition of the blood vessels and the heart.The state of the cardiovascular system is also favorably affected: dried bananas, turnips, iceberg lettuce, baked apples, oranges, sunflower seeds and sunflower honey.
In addition, this drink is very simple to prepare, does not require excessive effort or a large number of special wine-making devices, so even a novice winemaker will be able to please himself and his family.
