This year in Appalachia there are so many blackberries that my wife has
filled the freezer and now suggests making wine to preserve the rest (and
she does not even drink).

My father used to make blackberry wine. I cannot remember exactly how he
used to do it. He did it when I was young and could not drink it.

The best I can recall my father used to boil up the berries and put them in
a food press with cheese cloth. He took the juice and put it into gallon
jugs with rubber stoppers and tubing leading out into a bottle of water.
(He was a chemist and had such supplies around). It would ferment for
several months. I cannot recall what kind of suger or how much he put in.
Then he put it in bottles with real corks and label it, "Conklin's
blackberry wine. It is not sharp because we do not pick the briars."

Most recipes I see on the WWW say crush 6 lbs of berries and ferment the
whole mess after adding 4 lbs of suger, 1 gallon of boiling water sort of
cook the berries. I do not have an old-fashioned press like he did. I
don't think he added any yeast or other ingredients. He always said that
anything would ferment naturally.

Any suggestions?

George Conklin