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Raspberry Social Wine

Getting confident

In season July to August · makes 4.5 L · target OG 1.085

Teaches the safe way to make a wine sweet — stabilise, THEN sweeten. The single most useful trick for making country wines people actually enjoy.

Before you start. Do not back-sweeten without stabilising first — an unstable sweet wine can referment and burst bottles.

You will need

  • Raspberries1.5 kg
  • Sugar (for the ferment)1.0 kg
  • Pectic enzymeper dose
  • Potassium sorbate + campden (to stabilise)per dose, at back-sweetening
  • Sugar syrup (to sweeten at the end)to taste
  • Waterto 4.5 L
  • Wine yeast + nutrient1 sachet

Picking it at the right moment

  • Raspberry

    Ripe when the berry lifts off its core at the lightest touch, leaving the white plug behind; if you have to tug, wait.

Method

  1. 1

    Sanitise. Crush the raspberries under 2 L cooled boiled water; add pectic enzyme when cool.

  2. 2

    Add sugar dissolved in warm water, top to 4.5 L (reading ~1.085), pitch yeast and nutrient, ferment on the pulp two days, then strain and finish under airlock.

  3. 3

    Ferment fully DRY and let it clear — raspberry's perfume survives best if you ferment it out and sweeten afterwards, rather than trying to stop a ferment mid-way.

  4. 4

    The lesson: to have a sweet wine that does NOT referment in the bottle, you must first make it stable. Once it is clear and dry, add potassium sorbate and a campden tablet together — sorbate stops the yeast breeding, the sulphite mops up — wait a day, THEN sweeten to taste with sugar syrup.

  5. 5

    Never sweeten a wine that still has active yeast and no sorbate: it will slowly referment and can push corks or burst bottles.

  6. 6

    Bottle. Best drunk within the year while the fruit is bright.

What this one teaches you

  • · Back sweetening and sorbate

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An original MakeWine recipe.