Oak-Aged Blackberry Red

You will need

• Blackberries1.8 kg
• Sugar1.2 kg
• Pectic enzymeper dose
• Oak chips (light or medium toast)a small measured amount
• Red wine yeast + nutrient1 sachet
• Waterto 4.5 L

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.

Method

1. 1

   Sanitise. Make a full-bodied dry blackberry wine as usual — crush under cooled boiled water, add pectic enzyme, sugar to about 1.092, pitch yeast and nutrient, ferment on the pulp three days, strain.

2. 2

   This wine's lesson is oak — but from CHIPS, not leaves. A small measured amount of toasted oak chips, added to the demijohn AFTER the vigorous ferment, lends vanilla, spice and a firmer structure that suits a big red.

3. 3

   Add the chips at racking and TASTE every week or two — oak extracts faster than you expect, and it is easy to overshoot into a bitter, plank-like wine. Pull the chips (rack off them) the moment it tastes right.

4. 4

   Rack, clear, and age a good year — oaked wines need time to knit the wood into the fruit.

5. 5

   A deeper, rounder, more serious blackberry red.

6. 6

   Start with less oak than you think; you can always add more, never take it out.