Elderberry Wine Taste

[guscampag]

I just bottled up a batch of elderberry wine I started last summer/fall. It cleared up real nice and looked good. The flavor is kind of strange. It seems to have a certain woody or resinous taste. I noticed it earlier and thought maybe it would age out by this time, but no. Does anyone know if this is normal or if it will age out in a year or so? The recipe says do not taste for at least one year. Could this be why, or did I just make a lousy batch? Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[WVMJ]

So how did you make it, from berries or a concentrate? Elderberry has its own taste, is this only a couple of months old? WVMJ

 

[guscampag]

I made it from berries. It is only a couple of months old. I plan to age it at least a year or so. I was just concerned about the odd taste it has. I know some of the harshness will go away. Thanks for responding

 

[WVMJ]

Depends on how long you left the berries in there and if you were able to sort the semi ripe from the ripe. The longer the berries are in there the longer its going to take to age, depending. We have been using more berries to the gallon when we have berries but not leaving them in the fermentor for more than a few days, get lots of juice out and just enough tannins to make it very nice. WVMJ

 

[DeeEnvy]

How long did you let the wine work with the berries in the fermentor?
The berries should not stay in the mash for longer than 48 hrs. The newly formed alcohol will dissolve a woody taste from the seeds and this will show through in the flavour.
Some recipes I use call for juicing the berries before adding the yeast.

 

[guscampag]

Sounds like maybe I got a little too much tannin in there. I used about 20 lbs of berries for a 5 gallon batch. The recipe was for "a basic elderberry wind" and came from Wine Maker magazine. I don't think I left them in more than 3 days, but the berries were very small. So I suppose that means the seed ratio would have been higher than with larger berries. I guess we will see how it ages out.

 

[WVMJ]

20 pounds in 5 gallons is a good start, 3 or 4 days ok, sounds more like you just need to wait a while. One nice thing about elderberry is if you want to make a wine to age for a long time this is the berry to start with. Once you work up to 100% juice let me know WVMJ