How to Make Country Wine from Wild Fruits

Why Hedgerow Wine Is Worth the Faff

There is something deeply satisfying about turning a carrier bag of foraged fruit into a dozen bottles of wine that cost you almost nothing. Country wine is forgiving in a way that grape wine is not. You are not chasing a vintage or a terroir; you are making something honest and drinkable that tastes of the year it was made in. A decent hedgerow wine will beat most supermarket plonk at a fiver a bottle, and the process — picking, mashing, waiting, racking — is half the pleasure.

It does demand three things: clean equipment, a little patience, and the willingness to write things down. Get those right and you will be drinking your own elderberry in eighteen months.

What to Pick, and When

British hedgerows are generous, but timing matters. Fruit picked too early is acidic and low in sugar; fruit picked after rain is dilute and prone to mould.

• Elderflowers (late May to June) — pick on a dry, sunny morning. Snip the heads whole and leave the green stalks behind; they are bitter and give a catty flavour.
• Elderberries (September to October) — strip the berries from the stalks with a fork. Unripe green berries and leaves are best avoided entirely.
• Blackberries (August to September) — the most beginner-friendly of all. Deep black, slightly soft, and a joy to pick.
• Haws and rosehips (October onwards) — both make a light, pink-tinged wine, though rosehips need the hairs removed if you are using them in quantity.
• Sloes (after the first frost) — traditionally gin, but a sloe wine is sharp and worth the effort. Freeze them first if the frost has not arrived.

Pick away from busy roads and never take more than you need. Leave plenty for the birds, and always ask permission before foraging on private land.

The Kit You Actually Need

You do not need a brewery. A basic setup will carry you through every recipe in this article.

• A food-grade fermenting bucket with a lid
• One or two glass demijohns (4.5 litres) with bungs and airlocks
• A long-handled plastic spoon and a syphon tube
• A fine nylon straining bag or muslin
• A hydrometer, if you want to know your alcohol content
• Wine yeast, yeast nutrient, and pectic enzyme
• Sodium metabisulphite, for sterilising

Buy wine yeast rather than relying on wild yeasts. Wild fermentation works, but it is unpredictable and often stalls halfway.

Sterilising Is Not Optional

This is the single most common reason country wine goes wrong. Any vessel, spoon, tube or bottle that touches your must must be sterilised first. A teaspoon of sodium metabisulphite in a litre of cold water makes a solution that will keep for a few weeks in a sealed jug — dip, swill, and leave for two minutes, then rinse with cold water.

Wash your hands, too. Not with the sterilising solution, obviously.

A Basic Method for a Gallon

This works for almost any soft fruit. Adjust the sugar slightly depending on how sweet your fruit is.

• 1.5kg prepared fruit
• 4.5 litres water
• 1.2kg sugar (a little more for sloes and haws, which are sharp)
• 1 teaspoon pectic enzyme
• 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
• 1 sachet wine yeast

Freeze the fruit overnight to break down the cell walls, then tip it into your sterilised bucket. Pour over 2 litres of boiling water, cover, and leave to cool. Add the pectic enzyme and leave for 24 hours — this stops the wine hazing later. Next day, strain through muslin into a clean bucket, pressing gently but not grinding the pulp.

Dissolve the sugar in 1.5 litres of warm water, add it to the strained liquid, then top up to 4.5 litres. Check the temperature — it should be around 20°C, no hotter or you will kill the yeast. Sprinkle the yeast and nutrient on top, cover, and leave somewhere warm for five to seven days, stirring daily.

Once the vigorous fermentation settles, syphon into a demijohn, fit the airlock, and move it somewhere cool and dark.

Racking, Bottling and the Long Wait

Rack — that is, syphon off the clear liquid from the sediment — every six to eight weeks, topping up the demijohn with a little cooled boiled water to reduce the headspace. Three or four rackings over six months will give you a wine that is bright and stable.

Bottle when it is completely clear and no longer dropping sediment. Elderflower is best drunk young, within a year. Elderberry and sloe want at least eighteen months in the bottle and will improve for three or four years. Label everything with the date and the fruit, because in a year's time you will not remember which demijohn held what. That first bottle, opened on a cold evening with a bit of cheese, is worth every sterilised spoon.