Autumn Hedgerow Wine (a blend)

You will need

• Blackberries (fruit and body)0.8 kg
• Elderberries, stripped from stalk (colour and tannin)0.5 kg
• Haws (hawthorn berries, more tannin)0.3 kg
• Crab apples (acid and pectin)0.4 kg
• Sugar1.3 kg
• Pectic enzymeper dose
• Waterto 4.5 L
• Red wine yeast + nutrient1 sachet

Picking it at the right moment

• Blackberry

  Ripe when deep matt black (not shiny), plump, and they come away with only the gentlest tug — a berry that resists is not ready.

• Elderberry

  Ready when the whole bunch has turned deep purple-black, the berries are soft, and the heads hang DOWN (they point up while unripe). Any red or green berries in the bunch mean wait.

• Hawthorn berry (haw)

  Ready when a deep, even red and slightly soft; hard, orange haws are not yet ripe.

• Crab apple

  Ready when they have coloured up and the first windfalls drop; press one — it should give slightly. Hard green crabs are unripe.

Method

1. 1

   Sanitise. This is the graduation exercise in blending: one wine from a whole autumn hedge, where each fruit brings the thing the others lack.

2. 2

   The lesson: blend for BALANCE, thinking about what each fruit contributes — blackberry for body and easy flavour, elderberry for deep colour and tannin, haw for a little more grip, crab apple for the acid and pectin that make the whole thing lively and clear. No single one of these makes a great wine alone; together they can.

3. 3

   Strip the elderberries from ALL green stalk and SIMMER them (they must be cooked); crush the blackberries, haws and crab apples and add pectic enzyme when cool. Combine everything, cooled.

4. 4

   Add sugar dissolved warm; top to 4.5 L (reading ~1.092); pitch yeast and nutrient.

5. 5

   Ferment on the pulp four days, pressing the cap; strain, finish under airlock.

6. 6

   Rack and age well over a year — the tannin from elder and haw needs it. A deep, complex hedgerow red that tastes of the whole season, not one fruit.

7. 7

   Vary the proportions next year to taste: that adjustment, and tasting the result, is the real lesson.