It is not for nothing that the gooseberry is called a northern grape - wine made from it is close in taste to some grapes. Combining this seemingly unpresentable berry with other fruits in one recipe allows you to create amazingly aromatic and tasty drinks. Try to make wine from gooseberries with cherries - this is a good taste and color solution for real gourmets.
Gooseberry and cherry wine: preparation of raw materials
Gather the ripe crop on the thorny bushes and sort carefully. Berries covered with scab and spoiled by pests can affect the taste of the future drink. Usually, during the ripening of gooseberries, late varieties of cherries still ripen in the garden. You won't need a lot of it - 4-5 glasses for a 10-liter glass bottle - an ideal vessel for making wines at home.
Rinse the gooseberries and fill one-third the volume of a 10 liter bottle. Mash the berries to a state of gruel, maybe with a little granulated sugar. Add the pure cherries, after removing the pits. Pour the wort with sweetened and chilled boiled water (up to the shoulders of the bottle). The total amount of sugar should be 200 g per liter of fermenting mixture. It is very good to add a few raspberries from the bush to speed up the fermentation process of gooseberry wine - this is a great natural yeast. Do not wash the fruits!
Gooseberry wine: maturation and bottling
To avoid explosions and fountains due to the release of carbon dioxide, put on a rubber glove ("Hello Gorbachev") on the neck of the dishes or make a water seal - a sealed lid with a hole and a rubber tube, the end of which must be lowered into a bottle of water standing next to it. Fermentation will be strong and fairly fast.
If after about a month the gas evolution stops and the liquid becomes clear enough, you managed to make gooseberry and cherry wine. Gently drain the drink with a hose without stirring up the sediment, taste and add sugar to taste. To stop the fermentation process, add 50 g of vodka or 25 g of alcohol to the entire volume of alcohol and let the wine settle for another couple of weeks.
Homemade wine made from gooseberries with cherries turns out to have a pleasant sweet and sour taste, bright pink, slightly dull in the light. It is best to store a valuable product in a dark, cool cellar, in a tightly sealed glass container.
