You'll Start Happening Too: Blackberry Wine

Here in Oregon, blackberries grow like crazy. On the hill up to our house the roadside is covered in giant blackberry bushes. Each summer you can see tons of people walking along with pails and picking the most delicious berries with their kids or dogs or while they're on runs. Really, there are a bajillion and everyone loves them.

Well last winter Bill and I decided we would have a yearly tradition where we brew some sort of yummy drink. Last year we made some spiced hard cider which was amazing. This summer Bill thought it would be great to use some of these wonderful blackberries that are all around us. And tada! Blackberry wine!

Bill got pretty into picking berries. I was quite content to just wander around collecting berries, but Billy decided to go all out, decked in his battle gear- hiking socks, jeans, long sleeve shirts and gloves with a pitcher strapped to his belt. And this was August, so you can imagine how hot he was out there. He dove into those bushes and picked 80 pounds.

Look at those beautiful berries

So many berries! Our freezer was packed..and stained purple for weeks. I think Bill ended up collecting all of these between a couple weekends.

We borrowed this press from the brew shop in town. Despite the horrible mess we made we still managed to fill a 5 gallon carboy. After we pressed all the juice from the berries we decided to make a "second press" batch. scraped the pulp leftover in the press and added a bunch of water and sugar to it and juice concentrate.