Recipe; Elderberry & Blackberry "Rosé" (2nd run)

Finally I've got around to posting the recipe and method for a second run wine. These are fun wines to make, they almost seem like you get something for nothing cos you don't need to buy anymore yeast for them. Tho you will need to buy some juices or concentrates. Still, they are quick and easy to do.

Recipe (2 Gallons)

Lees and Fruit from Previous Wine
245g Can of (Youngs) White Grape Concentrate
245g Can of (Ritchies Spanish) Red Grape Concentrate
Yeast Nutrient
Water to 3 Gallons
Sugar to desired OG

Method

Ok, you're making the Elderberry & Blackberry Wine at the moment and its got to the stage when you're going to remove the fruit (around a week in). Something I love about this way of making wine is that you can be carefree at this stage. So you can decant or siphon the must from the fruit and lees. No need to be careful about the process so you want plenty of yeast in your secondary fermenter for the red wine, but you also want plenty left in the primary fermenter for the 2nd run wine.

So you have left a yucky looking gloop of fruit and yeast (both alive and dead). Bagged all my fruit up in muslin at this stage. It just makes removal later easier. I added enough sugar solution to get me into the 1080 - 1090 range. Then water, nutrient, grape concentrates, gave it a very good stir. Then measured the gravity. 1085. so left it like that and covered it up. 4 days later I removed the fruit then followed all the usual steps of moving to secondary, racking, degassing, stabilising etc.

Thoughts

Making second run wines is great fun. There are basically two types, one uses the lees only (like saves buying yeast or oak chips). I do this with all my quality grape wine kits and make a light version of it with grape juice. The second type is using the fruit again. Tho in reality you probably won't have to ass yeast either. Which is what this wine is all about! The wine that resulted from this was far from a rosé, surprisingly. It's actually a red in it's own right. So this year I may make it again, or I may try to get the rosé I was aiming for. Heck I may do both cos this is good stuff!