Choke Cherry Wines

[PolishWineP]

Bert and I started 2 choke cherry wines on Friday. 1 of them is a dinner wine and the other is a dessert wine.


We started by mushing up the choke cherries.

This was a slow process and I gave him a hand by using my hand to squish them in a plastic bag. (No photo of this.)


While Bert was mushing I was grinding raisins. We added the raisins to the dinner wine but not the dessert wine.

Here's a shot of the bag for the dinner wine. It's kind of blurry, sorry.

Bert put a lot of time into testing and adjusting the pH and acid level. Literally hours of work on that. It was almost like he was doing taxes and I kept my distance!

The yeast got pitched on Saturday and here's how the dinner wine looked 12 hours later.

Dinner wine getting a stir.

The dessert wine getting a stir. We used 8 pounds of choke cherries for the dessert wine and 4 pounds per gallon for the dinner wine.

The smell of the fermentation room (aka the office) has started to improve! Nothing like a fresh batch of wine to sweeten the air.

We now return to our bottle washing party. If anyone wants to join is there's plenty of space and equipment available!

 

[Curt]

Looking good Princess! Chokes are a pain in the butt but the end product is worth the effort. Nice pics too!

 

[PolishWineP]

Thanks Curt. I just wish the freezing process would break the skins on the cherries! That would save loads of work.

 

[bilbo-in-maine]

Don't they have large pits in each cherry? If so, are they just part of the mix?
I think the skin toughness is bad with cranberries - they need to be run
through a grinder

Your phototorial is great, thanks! I hope you post progress shots.

Bill

 

[PolishWineP]

The choke cherries are small and the pit is large. We would be at it forever if we tried to remove them. We can't run them through the grinder because the pits would add bitterness to the wine. The price of the fruit is free, so this is what we make!

We'll try to keep up with the pictures.

 

[Waldo]

Fantastic, educational and informative PWP.

I was really intrigued by the grinding of the raisins. Do keep us posted on the progress of these.

 

[masta]

Great post PWP and not sure if I ever had a choke cherry before. Great shot of Bert working in the lab...I can relate to that.


I started another batch of mead this weekend (Cherry Melomel) and will be adding some Montmorency Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate (68 Brix) to the secondary and it comes from Michigan.

 

[PolishWineP]

As you can see we had quite a bit of activity in our dessert wine last night!

Lucky we had that towel there.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Looks like your cup rune-th over. Your so lucky to have some fruit, we couldn't find any Choke Cherries this year. Last years wine was the best, we blended some of the dessert wine with the dinner wine, all 3 styles were good....they are all on the Reserve Shelf till next years harvest....keep us posted on your progress.

 

[jobe05]

Now here is a stupid question.......

But whats a chokecherry? Never heard of them but they sure do look like they make some pretty colored wine. What do they taste like? Do they / would they grow in the North Carolina area? Looks like a lot of work butinteresting. How many berries would it take for 5 gallons? Be kind now, I have just never heard of these berries.

 

[PolishWineP]

Hmmm... Choke cherries. I think they're a Northern thing. They grow wild a lot of places...Trees and large bushes...They start out red then turn black for picking. Birds love them. They have a large seed and not much flesh. They're easy to pick, they grow on strings on the trees. The fruit is bitter/sour. After paying it no mind for years I discovered that we have a Canada Red choke cherry tree right in our own yard! Hope this link works!


http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/forestry/treeid/TreePgs/ prunusvirg.htm


And if you haven't seen the fruit or been exposed to it, then certainly you can't know much about it. Do not dispair! We do not think less of you for not knowing about it. I'm just jealous of the additional growing season that you have! Oh! The fruits I could grow and trade for the wines I could make! Edited by: PolishWineP

 

[masta]

Link didn't work for me...try this


http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/forestry/treeid/TreePgs/prunusvir g.htm


I know we have them up here since there are flocks of birds that feed on them and the visit a certain area at work and deposit the seeds! They had to put up netting over some very large equipment to keep them away so they didn't make a mess of it.

Edited by: masta

 

[PolishWineP]

And both of them didn't work for me!

 

[jobe05]

And both of them didn't work for me!

It would appear someone is trying to keep this little gem a secret

I was raised in Upstate (central) New York State (Syracuse area). I've never heard of these before. But it does sound like they would make good wine..... a lot of sugar, but good wine. If they are small berries which I can visualize by the seeds in your pictures, it must take a lot of them to make 5 gallons.





Keep us posted on your progress, the pictures are great.

 

[Curt]

Well, let's try this one then. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.und.edu/or g/soaringeagleprairie/2005/identifyingplants/prairieplantpag es/white/chokecherry/images/0008188.JPG&imgrefurl=http:/ /www.und.edu/org/soaringeagleprairie/2005/identifyingplants/ prairieplantpages/white/chokecherry/&h=256&w=384&amp ; ;sz=34&tbnid=MhodNN1xIzkJ:&tbnh=79&tbnw=119& hl=en&start=49&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchokecherry%26star t%3D40%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN Long sucker, isn't it? You can click on the "photos" link on the bottom for more pics.Edited by: Curt

 

[NorthernWinos]

Hmmm... Choke cherries.  I think they're a Northern thing.  They grow wild a lot of places... Trees and large bushes... They start out red then turn black for picking.  Birds love them.  They have a large seed and not much flesh.  They're easy to pick, they grow on strings on the trees.  The fruit is bitter/sour.  After paying it no mind for years I discovered that we have a Canada Red choke cherry tree right in our own yard!  Hope this link works!

I noticed you mentioned a Canada Red Cherry tree...is that the decorative tree that we plant in our yards with the maroon leaves???? Prunus...something-or- other???? Would those fruits be the same??? We planted some of those when we moved here, but they are still young and haven't bore fruit yet.
Last year when we were lucky enough to find lots of wild Choke Cherries we added some Sand Cherries in the mix, they are a bigger fruit and tasted about the same. They are a small semi-native shrubby bush that we planted in a hedgerow. The Sand Cherries were in a wild-life package of trees we got from the county, the mixture of trees came with wild Plums, some Hansa [Nanking Cherries, these have red sweet fruits] There were also some flowering crabapple trees too, but think those fruits are just for decoration and birds....the Robins eat them in the spring and get drunk and waddle around the yard....now there is a thought....? Wonder if anyone has ever made wine with those decorative flowering carbapples?????

 

[Bert]

Yes, it is the decorative tree you planted in your yard. Maroon leaves and an awesome blossom smell in the spring. Before she knew what it was the PWP was going to cut the tree down but the smell from the flowers kept her from doing so.


The choke cherry & sand cherry wine sounds awesome! As far as the flowering crab apple wines, why not? We have 2 different types of those in our yard, a very small one and 1 that is about the size of a quarter. There are recipes out there for crab apple wines. Just wait till next year!

Edited by: Bert

 

[NorthernWinos]

The flowering crabapples have tiny hard fruit, not much flesh. We planted 120 flowering crabapples in a shelterbelt around the yard, should be an awesome sight in springs ahead...figure 5 years before they bloom....as for the fruit...worth a try for wine....the Robins sure like them.
We planted crabapple trees along with the regular apple trees.....those have edible fruits, about half the size of a regular apple, and yes, they make good wine. Our apple trees that we planted 5 years ago have been producing the past 2 years.
I Googled our decorative Canada Red Cherry trees and it looks like it is related to the wild Choke Cherries....guess that's why they get the same diseases...that black fungus....been out cutting that stuff off when ever I see it on the wild bushes nearby.
Don't you think that our Friends in the Southern states could plant these Canada Red Cherry trees??? Guess they can grow better fruits than that....like peaches....lucky sods.

 

[PolishWineP]

No kidding! It's enough to make a princess want to move south!

Guess we have to make due with what we have and be glad of it.


We pulled the fruit bags tonight. Here's a picture of the waste material.

Here's a shot of the dessert wine after we pulled the bag.

And for the record, I actually tasted the dinner wine tonight. It is really good! I'd be happy just using the juice we've created! It's really good!

 

[NorthernWinos]

Put the seeds out for your fine feathered friends...they need something to warm them these past few days.