Blackcurrant Wine Recipe How to Make Blackcurrant Wine

Blackcurrant Wine RecipeA simple and easy blackcurrant wine recipe that produces a medium-sweet, rich, complexly flavoured red wine. It’s similar in some ways to a Beaujolais but with a little more depth.

Blackcurrants are fairly easy to grow and a mature bush can produce between 10 and 15 lb of fruit a year. If you want to grow your own blackcurrants then you may find this page on the Allotment Garden web site helpful: Grow Your Own Blackcurrants

Blackcurrant Wine Recipe

Ingredients for Blackcurrant Wine Recipe:

  • 4  lb Blackcurrants
  • 4 lb Sugar
  • Campden Tablets
  • Wine yeast (a Beaujolais style is best)
  • Yeast Nutrient
  • Water

Method for Blackcurrant Wine Recipe:

  1. Strip and rinse the blackcurrants in a colander under running water
  2. Put into a fermenting bin and crush with a potato masher or back of a large spoon
  3. Pour over 1 gallon of boiling water. Once cooled a little, add 1 Campden tablet, crushed and dissolved in a little warm water.
  4. Cover and leave for 3 days, stirring with a spoon sterilised with boiling water. It’s important not to allow fermentation to start with wild yeasts before we want it to.
  5. Strain into a large pan (a preserving pan is ideal) through a fine sieve, heat a little and dissolve the sugar into the liquid.
  6. Add the yeast and yeast nutrient.
  7. Pour into a fermenting bottle with air-lock and leave until fermentation has finished.
  8. Rack, as necessary, adding a Campden tablet after the first racking.
  9. Syphon into bottles

This blackcurrant wine recipe makes about a gallon of medium-sweet, red wine. It can be drinkable after just six months but do give it at least a year to mature although two years would be even better.

There are a number of variations on blackcurrant wine but this simple recipe forms the base. Like many of the simple things in life, it is very good.

Posted in Country Wines
22 comments on “Blackcurrant Wine Recipe How to Make Blackcurrant Wine
  1. Mick P says:

    Made this last year and was awesome. Picking the currants as I type and have already prepped the Demi’s. Try it with redcurrants too, device. Cheers!

  2. Mick P says:

    Did I write ‘device’, I meant devine. That’s how good this is!

  3. Keith Rogers says:

    never made wine before but would like to try

  4. karen says:

    I have done the first part of the prep just to find I am out of Campden tabs. Now my mash had been sitting for four days in an open bucket , without anything other than the hot water having been added. Is it too late to put the Campden in today…if it arrives in the post

    • John Harrison says:

      The idea of the tablet is to stop wild yeasts fermenting the must but you can get away without it sometimes. I think I’d put the tablet in now and give it a day before carrying on as per the recipe.

      Good luck!!

      • karen says:

        Thank you for your reply. I have to admit that I didnt want to throw good onto bad. If you think it should be ok I will give it a go. Thank you.

  5. Mick P says:

    I’ve brewed this recipe before with no campden tablet – I clean forgot. It was a little volatile for a day or so after I added the yeast, forcing must froth through the airlock but soon calmed down. It brewed out ok and made a very passable tipple. Sit the demijohn in a clean fermenting bin, it will stop the walls getting redecorated! And have a couple of spare clean airlocks to swap over. Remember cleanliness and hygiene.

  6. Colin Francis says:

    Not my recipe 2 pound per gallon is ok.wash fruit add the boiling water and stir in 2.2 pound of sugar until dissolved. When cool add yeast that has been prepared in a starter bottle that has a teaspoon of sugar that starts a quick fermentation. 1 teapot of pectin enzyme to stop it clouding. And strain out after no more than 5 days. As it very high in tanning an left longer may be ok . But will take 2 years or more to be ok

  7. Cyn says:

    If I want a drier wine, how much less sugar should I use?

  8. Arthur Thrasher says:

    Hi I’ve transferred the wine into a demijohn and air lock fitted but the fermentation has stopped no where near on the hydrometer can the fermentation be started again if so what do I have to do.thanks

    • John Harrison says:

      I’d give it a couple of days to see if it restarted naturally. Failing that, mix some yeast into a little boiled (and cooled) sugar water, let that start to bubble and then add it to the demijohn.

    • Arthur Thrasher says:

      Hi John I left the black currant wine for a few days added the yeast and sugar mix to no avail.

      • John Harrison says:

        Hi Arthur – well I’m out of ideas. It’s usually pretty straightforward. Perhaps someone else will comment with a suggestion for you.

        • Roger Simmons says:

          If your yeast fails to start, try again but use yeast nutrient as well. Currants do not have the proper chemistry to interact with the yeast without something for it to feed on before producing it’s own to continue.

      • andy says:

        There are a couple of other things it might be
        1. sugar content too high so you may want a sugar tolerant yeast seems an odd thing to say but I had that issue, check it with a hydrometer, if its high thin it down a little or find a yeast that deal with high saturation of sugar
        also
        2. The at other end will be if its already fermented out and there is sugar left making it sweet. you may need a higher alcohol tolerant yeast to ferment the last sugars out again see what the hydrometer says and compare it with your initial readings

  9. Sarah Smithies says:

    Hi, I am attempting Cassis made by fermentation rather than adding bcurrants to alcohol. I couldn’t find any recipes apart from one that was for a similar alcohol. It told me to simply add sugar and water and use the natural yeasts. It has been sitting in a demijohn with airlock for 16 days in this warm weather and is still fermenting like crazy. My inclination is to move it to a dark, cooler space and leave it for a couple of months as it says to do in the recipe. My question is – why is it not recommended to use wild yeasts and does anyone have a more solid recipe for cassis made this way or has tried it?

    • Wayne says:

      I believe the reason you don’t/shouldn’t use natural yeast is that when the alcohol is produced eventually it kills the yeast. It’s likely that natural yeast isn’t as tolerant and will not achieve as high a content. That said, I know a lot of Italian people who make wine every year from grapes, just allow the natural yeast to ferment out without issues. I hope this helps.

  10. Matt says:

    I’m a new first timer! When in the demijohn how do you know when fermentation has stopped? Secondly, what does racking and first racking mean? Thanks in advance for any help.

    • John Harrison says:

      It stops bubbling and glugging through the airlock. Racking is transferring the liquid from one demijohn to another with a syphon, leaving the sediment behind.

  11. Matt says:

    Thanks for advice just done my first racking, couldn’t resist a sample and it was awesome tasting already so can’t wait now until finished product.

    Can you advise if I can follow this same recipe and method to make a strawberry wine from fresh strawberries? Would it work or do I need to look for a specific strawberry recipe?

  12. Martin Higson says:

    Has anybody made a good Blackcurrant & Damson wine?

    I’m actually going to pick Bullace (growing wild in North Wales), it like a less strong Damson.

    I’m thinking 70% Damson (or Bullace) 30% Blackcurrent by weight.

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