"jim" > wrote in message
...
>A friend of mine asked this question a while ago but the question
> didn't really get an answer I could use so I am going to try to
> rephrase it to see if anyone can help. I live in the UK. Access to
> reasonably priced wine grapes is extremely limited and I am not
> wealthy at the moment. I could make expensive crushendo style kits
> once a year - I have a gallon made from my parents-in-law's
> grapes...
>
> The red wines I like to buy are heavy, tannic and oaky. I also like
> wines which are fruity and have bite. A simple smooth, oaky / berry
> flavour is great too... I want to make a staple decent country red
> wine, preferably one I can make all year round. The thing is that I
> want it to have properties similar to the reds I like to buy. So I got
> to thinking of how I might achieve this. So far my brain is saying
> maybe an elderberry and blackberry base with a few canned
> blackcherries, some raisins and some oak chips, a touch of tea even,
> might make the kind of effect I want. I am only 18 months into my
> winemaking career, so I have yet to taste more than 3 of the 30 wines
> I have in progress. Within the next year I guess I might be able to
> make more educated guesses.
>
> This is probably a very common newbie question. Has anyone ever
> devised a recipe with this aim in mind?
>
> Jim

I make an elderberry blend that turned out very well. I started making wine
about 12 years ago because we had several Concord and Delaware vines on the
property and most of the fruit was going to waste; you can only eat so many
grapes in a season. The wines were nice and fruity with a good bouquet but I
wanted more "depth" to the taste.

Noticing that we also had several elderberry bushes growing here and there,
I was reminded of the elderberry wine motif from "Arsenic and Old Lace." So
I ended up experimenting with pure elderberry wine, elderberry melomels and
the grape/elderberry blend which I call "Isaac Wine."

The 2001 recipe can be found at:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/rbfarm/mwine.html

This recipe calls for boiling the elderberries but I've taken to adding the
elderberries raw in more recent vintages with no noticeable difference.

By strange coincidence, I pulled a bottle of my 2002 Isaac for dinner last
night. It had aged well. Maybe next time I'll try one of the last few
bottles of the 2001 Isaac.

You mentioned blackberries; I made a 3-gallon batch this year with equal
parts of elderberries, blackberries and Concords. I'll post the results in a
year or so.

Paul