Nanking Cherry Wine 2015

Notice the red and white fruit! The white cherries are sweeter then the red.

I've just finished bottling the 2015 Nanking Cherry Wine. To be honest, I've been putting it off for quite a while. Last weekend I was home with the flu and it was particularly nasty, featuring all the body aches, fever, chills and what not. So after a long week of work and a good deal of sleep on Saturday, I was feeling sufficiently rested to tackle the bottling.

The fruit was harvested over the summer from one Nanking Cherry shrub. We pruned it in the spring while the shrub was flowering. I thought we might have cut it back too much, but was proved wrong when the branches were loaded down with fruit in the summer. I picked more than six pounds of berries and froze them in batches.

The most unusual thing about this Nanking cherry shrub is the mix of white and red fruit on the branches. Never have I seen this before. In my research I discovered that each seed is unique and will in turn grow a unique shrub. The fruit varies from one shrub to another as does the flavor of the fruit they bring forth. The red cherries are tart, the white ones are sweet.

For the making of this wine visit this link.