# beautyberry wine anyone?



## dragonmaster42 (Oct 25, 2009)

I was wondering if anyone has made/tasted wine made from the beautyberry bush? It's also called a French Mullberry. 


I have a severallarge wild ones and did some internet searching and found some sites that say the berries are used to make wine/jam, some say they are very astringent (I tasted a couple and they're like a really mild strawberry/blackberry/grape flavor with a mealy texture), and others just say parts of the plants are poisonous. 


Here's a pic of one for those that have no idea what I'm talking about. In late fallthe leaves turn yellow which really contrasts with the vivid bright lavender color of the berries.


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## Wade E (Oct 25, 2009)

I have never seen or heard of them but they are gorgeous almost to the point where its a shame to yank them. Have you plucked 1 and tasted them and are they safe to eat more importantly?


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## xanxer82 (Oct 25, 2009)

Doing some research to see if they are toxic or consumable would be a good start.


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## Brewgrrrl (Oct 25, 2009)

There's a reference to them in the back of the little purple "Windmaker's Recipe Handbook." There's no recipe but they are listed as "common winemaking materials and fruits that may be native to your area." They look awesome - how could you NOT want to ferment those beauties?!!


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## Brewgrrrl (Oct 25, 2009)

Whups - I mean "Winemaker's Recipe Handbook" of course (although I suppose "Windmakers" would also be accurate if one tends to drink to excess)


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## Brewgrrrl (Oct 25, 2009)

Also, if they are astringent that seems to suggest tannin, so maybe processing them with a steam juicer would soften the resulting wine a bit...?


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## Big Ike (Oct 26, 2009)

Brewgrrrl said:


> There's a reference to them in the back of the little purple "Windmaker's Recipe Handbook."






I was expecting this particular title from my wife this Christmas.


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## dragonmaster42 (Oct 26, 2009)

I've found a lot of references to using it to make jam, so I believe the berries are edible. I think I'll give it a shot if I can get enough. 


Wade, they have a really mild strawberryish kind of flavor and are mealy in texture. Might be like a mulberry (since they're called a French Mulberry), but I've never tasted mulberries, so I can't say.I didn't notice any particular astringency (that is mentioned often) but only had a couple and it might vary with growing location.


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## xanxer82 (Oct 26, 2009)

according to wiki

<h3>Insect repellant</span></h3>


*American beautyberry* or _Callicarpa americana_ has been found to be a natural insect repellent. It has found to be repellant to mosquitoes, which can carry yellow fever and malaria, as well as the tick, which carries Lyme disease.
<h3>[edit]</span> Wine uses</span></h3>


It has also been used to produce wine.







your choice bug spray or wine


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## andy123 (Dec 23, 2009)

Well this is to cool.I have these growing in the woods behind my place.This may find it way into next seasons jungle juice.This years was an orange/mango blend that got great reviews.


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## Waldo (Dec 24, 2009)

May just turn out to be a sleeper Anthony..giv a batch a try and see what happens


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## dragonmaster42 (Dec 24, 2009)

Ended up with 8 pound that are cleaned and waiting in the freezer. Figure I'll go for 2 gallons. The quantity might be a bit low for a 3 gallon batch.


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## boozinsusan (Dec 29, 2009)

What area do you live that these are native?


We have mulberries, but these are gorgeous - almost a shame to pick them, it seems....


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## dragonmaster42 (Dec 29, 2009)

central Arkansas. I looked it up online and it's native to the southeastern US


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## dragonmaster42 (Apr 3, 2010)

Racked all my wines the other day including this one. I'm glad I did this one last and wished I had taken before/after pics. When I moved the 3 gallon carboy onto the table initially I swear it was a mouth dropping kool-aid red color !! Racked it, added k-meta, gave a stir and it instantly turned to a yellowish blush.






I've read on the forum this happening to others with strawberry but have never seen it personally until now. Depressing to say the least.

Not much flavor yet so can't report on that. Has a light but obvious perfumy/earthy aroma right now. Very different. It'll be interesting to see what this tastes like later this year after some aging.


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## Waldo (Apr 4, 2010)

Add a little Red Grape concentrate to it


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## dragonmaster42 (Sep 11, 2010)

Bottled this one as well today along with my blackberry. Very unique wine to say the least. The color that started out Hawaiin punch red is now a golden yellow with a bit of a reddish blush. The perfumy smell that it started with is pretty much gone and now has the nose of a honey mead, raisin, apple, plum and prune. Taste is similar to the smell but with a strong raisin/prune flavor. I'll upload a pic of the final product tomorrow. 

The main two bushes I have grew like crazy this year. About half of the berries were ripening early so I picked them a couple weeks ago and already have about 20 pounds.


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## Waldo (Sep 12, 2010)

Tony, if thi is the one you brought me the sample of I think it will be a good one. It deceived me into thinking it was a plum


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## Cajun Wine Man (Sep 12, 2010)

Dragon
Go to Youtube, and do a search for American Beauty berry. The man is called Green Dean, I think.I have picked and frozen 1 gal of berries so far. I plan on getting more and making jelly and try 1 gal of wine. The berries are small so it will take a bunch ofem.


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## Wade E (Sep 12, 2010)

I just absolutely love the picture of them, they are just gorgeous and I dont know if I could pick them the way they look.


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## dragonmaster42 (Sep 12, 2010)

Here's the outcome:







Tony


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## Runningwolf (Sep 12, 2010)

Very nice color. I like the colorful label also.


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## Wade E (Sep 12, 2010)

Weird color for the wine judging by the color of the fruit, is the berry color inside this color or did it get slightly oxidized?


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## dragonmaster42 (Sep 14, 2010)

No, actually the photo is pretty close to the real color. The inside of the berries is white/cream colored. I was disappointed the color from the skins didn't come through more. The bright red it initally had in the fermenter (primary andsecondary) did disappear when I first added kmeta/sorbate though. Will take Waldo's suggestion and add grape concentrate next time.

Oh Wade, I found a medium/smallish plant in the woods near the house. I tagged it and it has your name on it. Next spring I'll dig it and send it your way. We'll see if these can grow up in Connecticut.





Tony


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## Wade E (Sep 14, 2010)

Id love to try it Tony! They sure are pretty thats for sure. What ratio of fruit per gallon did you use and would you add more next time. Your the only person Iv seen on many forums to bring this fruit up.


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## dragonmaster42 (Sep 14, 2010)

I ended up getting 9.5 lbs of berries and made a 3 gallon batch - so 3+ a
smidge lbs per gallon. I might up it to 4 lbs/gallon if I had enough, but it really has
plenty of flavor and body with just what I used so I don't think I'd go much over that.


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## Wade E (Sep 14, 2010)

Cool, so they are pretty powerful then!


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## jwm1960 (Sep 17, 2010)

I was doing a search tonight looking for a Beautyberry Wine recipe and happened upon this forum. I have a big beautyberry bush in my yard and was looking for something to do with the berries. Oh, by the way, I don't think beautyberries taste like mulberries. I also have a mulberry tree but getting a few of them ahead of the birds is a triumph in itself. 


I'd like to try your beautyberry wine recipe if you care to share. It looks like a nice wine.


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## Wade E (Sep 17, 2010)

Welcome JWM, Im sure Tony would be glad to share his recipe with you as thats what w do here, help each other out! What would you compare this fruit with then?


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## dragonmaster42 (Sep 18, 2010)

Welcome Jerry! 

The recipe went along these lines:

9.5 lbs berries (cleaned then frozen)
Pectic enzyme - 2 tsp
bentonite - 2-3 tsp
Yeast nutrient -1 tsp.
Sugar to a sg of 1.085
Lavlin 71B-1222 yeast
Water total ended up about 3 1/2 gallons with berries in the primary 

Put about 2 gallons of water in the primary and whisked in the bentonite powder to get it dissolved really well. Then added the pectic enzyme and stirred that really well. The pectic enzyme helps break down the berries even more (in case you didn't already know)

I thawed out and put these in a hop bag (or paint strainer bag will work), dropped it into the primary and squeezed it a bunch to crush up the berries some. Let this sit overnight (~12 hours).

In the morning the yeast was made into a starter (yeast, warm water and a bit of sugar) and once it got going it was added along with the yeast nutrient and water to just under 3 gallons. I don't remember exactly how much sugar I put in, but aimed for a specific gravity of 1.085. I dissolved it in water before adding, so ended up with about 3.5 gallons total in the primary when all was said and done. 

It worked for about 5 days and fermented dry and this was transferred to a 3 gallon secondary for about 1 month. It was then racked to a bucket, k-meta and K-sorbate was added and it was put back in the carboy and bulk aged.

Tony


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## batonrougeguy (Sep 20, 2010)

almost the same color of my loquat wine after bottling drink most of it,then forgot about it,know its kinda like a chardonnay,but very much on the sweet side.I will try to post a pic of the last half gallon.Better find more batteries before refilling my glass


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## jwm1960 (Sep 28, 2010)

Thanks Tony. I'll give it a try. I doubt however that I getthat many of the little berries.


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## jwm1960 (Sep 28, 2010)

Wade, I went out and tried a few of the little berries and to be honestthey didn't have much of a taste at all.


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## sipourit (Sep 29, 2010)

This is just my first time to see and hear about them. So I've done some research about it and I found a recipe and procedure how to use those in wine making. I'm not so sure if that is really what is in the recipe but you can take a look of it, so that you can make sure of it.

www.ehow.com/how_5803122_make-bird-beauty-berry-wine.html


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## CajunCuveeQueen (Oct 24, 2010)

Aloha Tony, 


Bear with me, I'm a little excited as these berries grow ALL over my area.


I almost cut down one of these bushes/trees in the back yard of a home I just moved in. Folks told me they were trash trees and "poisonous". I told my husband to chop it down, but Googled real quick and saw "jelly and wine".So I halted his demolition.


Did you come up with any particular way to harvest the berries? Did you have to remove any parts of the plant that may be poisonous or add off-flavors; in other words....Were fruit stems, leaves, ok if they ended up in the fermenting bucket?


Generally speaking, how many pounds of fruit did you yield from one bush/tree?



how long did you bulk age before bottling?


Can you describe the taste of the wine? Any similarities with any other kind of fruit wine?


Are you happy with the results of the recipe? Would you make it again? He's asking me how did your wine taste? I'm putting some berries up in the freezer until I can try your recipe. 


Many thanks for sharing.


CCQ


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## CajunCuveeQueen (Nov 6, 2010)

QUOTE: " according to wiki


<H3>Insect repellant</H3>


*American beautyberry* or _Callicarpa americana_ has been found to be a natural insect repellent. It has found to be repellant to mosquitoes, which can carry yellow fever and malaria, as well as the tick, which carries Lyme disease.
<H3>Wine uses</H3>


It has also been used to produce wine.










your choice bug spray or wine " END QUOTE
From what I've researched, the leaves have the mosquito repellant characteristics. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igKeqZjxPYQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igKeqZjxPYQ[/ame] 


Eat the Weeds, episode #40 (link above) discusses this plant and its edible qualities.


I have found little on the web about a wine recipe, still looking.


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## Ankita (Nov 8, 2010)

Beautyberry also known as Callicarpa, found in different species and it originates in America, China Australia and some parts of Asia. Yes, these berries are highly astringent in nature but made into wine and jelly. In America it is even known as bird Beauty berry due to the reason that birds do eat these berries. < id="gwProxy" ="">< ="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" =""><div id="ref">


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## dragonmaster42 (Nov 9, 2010)

CCQ, sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Here's some of my observations:

I'd say if nothing else, just from a decorative standpoint of the berries and their unique purple color they'd be worth keeping. They generally grow in the shade, but the more sun they get, they produce more and larger berries (and the larger the bush grows). Of course, they're still about 2/3 the size of a large english pea, so "larger" berry is relative. It appears to take about 2 years before the plant starts producing berries. 

The berries form clusters around the stems at the base of the leaves so harvesting was done holding a bucket in one hand and holding the branch in the same hand (bucket under the branch). Then used the other hand to pull the cluster toward the end of the branch and they all pretty much fell off into the bucket. The clusters seem to ripen from the inside of the bush outward, so it can take several weeks picking them in stages to get them all if you really want to do it right. I ended up with a lot of leaves which I pulled out afterwards. Floating the berries in a large pot of water helped separate dead berries and stems and leaves and rinse them. I froze mine and when thawing out it's easier to get the smaller stems although some still got fermented. 

I used about 3lbs per gallon last year, but will probably increase that to 4 or 5 this year. Most fruit wines generally call for 6-8 lbs of fruit per gallon but this one seem to hold up in terms of taste and body with what I had.

From one large bush (about 8-10' high and 10-15' diameter - it's actually 2 plants next to each other) and several other smaller bushes I picked about 8 one gallon freezer bags full this year - roughly 4-5 lbs per bag. It seemed to be a bumper crop this year for them. The largest bush however got more sun this year (the tree it was under and several around it were cut down). 

The one I did last year, bulk aged about a year before bottling. I generally do this with most my wines to let all the sediment settle out. 

It's a very unique flavor actually. Waldo tried some and he said it tasted similar to plum. My first taste, while it was younger, I thought it was more "raisony" (see earlier in this post). Wade hasn't reported back on the bottle I sent him to try. 

I'd say if you have enough berries, try a 1-2 gallon batch and go for it. That's the best way to see if you like it or not. 

Tony


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## dralarms (Aug 20, 2017)

Not sure why someone reported a 7 year old post but it is what it is.


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## MacsWife (Sep 21, 2017)

I think that was me....sorry...fat fingers...was trying to hit reply....


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## MacsWife (Sep 21, 2017)

If this is not allowed because of copyright rules then delete....

From the "Winemaker's recipe handbook"
Copyright 1976
By Raymond Massaccesi 
Under "Other Common Wines and Making Up Your Own Recipes"....
I guess this is a generic recipe for 1 gal...

2-3 lbs. Fruit or Berries
7 pints. Water
2-2.5 lb Sugar, adjust to 1,090 - 1,100
1/2 - 3 tsp. Acid Blend, adjust to .50 - 65% (tartaric)
1/2 tsp. Peptic Enzyme
1 tsp. Nutrient
1 Campden, crush
1 pkg Yeast

Method:
Sometimes it is necessary to dilute the pure juice below the normal acid level, then fruit acid blend (using acid tester) added back. This is done in order to balance the otherwise overpowering flavor of some fruit. The hydrometer is then used in adding enough sugar to achieve correct alcohol production. The goal is wine that tastes good with food - - a table wine. For these wines a hydrometer and acid tester are essential. Further information on how to make the wine is given on Page 18, recipe 51, "Wild Grapes".

And American Beautyberry is listed in the Reference List....
American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), 1/8" round, purple berries in clusters around leaf base, ripens in Aug. - Oct. Also called French Mulberry.


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## MacsWife (Sep 21, 2017)

BREWGRRRL
But there IS a recipe in the 
"Winemaker's Recipe Handbook"
It's on page 33 (Other Common Wines and Making Up Your Own Recipes)...
I'm going to try this recipe this year...


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## mozartdedeaux (Aug 31, 2022)

I have been aware of Beutyberry for years because Im a native plant geek living in the South East. I am giving a 1 gallon batch a try ! I will report my findings here. Thanks


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## mozartdedeaux (Aug 31, 2022)

MacsWife said:


> BREWGRRRL
> But there IS a recipe in the
> "Winemaker's Recipe Handbook"
> It's on page 33 (Other Common Wines and Making Up Your Own Recipes)...
> I'm going to try this recipe this year...


I will be using that recipe for beutyberry and elderberry! I have that book but never saw the beutyberry reference. Thanks!


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