BREW: Hedgerow Hawthorn Dessert Wine

• Health and Nutritional Benefits of Hawthorn
• Hedgerow Hawthorn Wine Ingredients
• Equipment Needed & Method to Make Hawthorn Wine
• Related Links:

This homebrewed hawthorn wine finishes sweet and rosy hued, with the delicate spiced apple-like scent of hawthorn fruit. It’s sweet without being overly cloying, and lovely as a dessert wine, in a spritzer, or as a tonic cordial.

Botanically, hawthorn “berries”, or haws, are not berries at all, but a pome fruit in the same family as apples, roses, and crabapples (Rosacae), with varieties native to much of the Northern hemisphere. The fruits of the different varieties vary from currant or elderberry sized clusters to large quarter-sized fruits like the ones in the photo above.

They are commonly found in hedgerows across Europe and especially the UK, as they were well suited to hedge laying, where shrub-like trees were cut and bent, and regrew into dense sheep and cattle-proof barriers to divide fields. The new growth of this plant has spiky thorns (hence their name) to protect them from animal browsing. This made them especially well suited to making these traditional “living fences”.

Health and Nutritional Benefits of Hawthorn

They have a rich history of use in traditional medicine, particularly for healing a broken heart, which bears up to modern scrutiny, as all parts of this plant have been shown to have cardiac benefits (such that if you are taking heart medications, you should consult your doctor or pharmacist for contraindications before consuming large quantities of hawthorn tinctures, teas, or wine).

Hawthorn is rich in anti-oxidants and flavonoids, and in studies, tinctures of hawthorn have been more effective than a placebo in treating high blood pressure.

I’m not saying that this wine will cure all your ills, but you don’t have to take my word for it… this NIH article will go more in-depth on the possible benefits of this plant. But whether or not it is medicinal, it’s definitely delicious!

Food Applications and Potential Health Benefits of Hawthorn

In folklore, this tree is said to have strong protective powers. In Serbian folktales, stakes to kill vampires must be made of hawthorn wood, and in Gaelic tradition, the trees are tied to the fairy realm and it is bad luck to cut or harm them, with one exception- the flowers of the Maytree (another name for the hawthorn) were cut and used in springtime decorations and celebrations.

Hedgerow Hawthorn Wine Ingredients

Hawthorn Berries:

Pick these in the fall, when they are ripe and beginning to fall from the tree. They should taste sweet and tart, much like a crabapple but with a less astringent and more complex flavor. Discard any that show signs of rot, mold or decay, large insect bites, or that float when washed and are corky-brown inside when cut in half. Remove as many stems, twigs, and leafy matter as possible. I like to freeze mine after collection, both to build up a good number to make a batch of wine or jelly, and also to ensure that any stowaway insect eggs or larvae are killed and don’t spoil your wine.

Sugar:

Plain granulated sugar is best here. You could also use a light turbinado sugar, I suppose, but I like to let the clean fruit flavor shine through. Haws also make a nice melomel (fruit mead) but that’s another post altogether.

Golden Raisins:

You could use golden or regular raisins. I like golden ones to keep the color bright. Traditionally these were added as a source of yeast nutrients, though they don’t actually do much in that regard, and I use modern yeast nutrients in my hedgerow wines. These do add some nice body to the wine, as well as some flavor and fermentable sugars, so I still add them to this brew. Chop them roughly (at least in half) so that you get more of their goodness into your wine.

Campden Tablet:

A crushed campden tablet, added to the wine mixture after heating and well before adding the yeast, gives a measured dose of sulphites that will kill off any contaminants like wild yeasts and bacteria that made it through your quick boiling water sanitation of the fruit. This ensures a better chance of getting a lovely wine at the end and not a funky fruit vinegar or wild brew. Wild fermentations can be fun things to play with, but can also be total failures. Start playing around with them after your cellar is full of bright, clean tasting homebrews, and after you’re an expert in telling mold from a pellicle and good healthy fermentations from funky ones that will give you a headache at best, yeah?

The campden tablets you want are KMS, or potassium metabisulfate, not the SMS, or sodium metabisulfate tablets. SMS powder and tablets, which are usually cheaper and also stronger, are fine for sanitizing equipment but can give an off-flavor to your finished wines. Since it delivers a more potent dose of sulphite, some people are more sensitive to this. Use SMS for cleaning and KMS for adding directly to your actual wine must. Store these in a sealed glass or plastic jar away from moisture, or they’ll lose potency.

Acid Blend:

This is a blend of winemaking acids, usually tartaric acid, citric acid, and malic acids, extracted from fruit. It’s used to balance the acidity in wines, both for flavor and to help create a happy pH for the yeast to work in. You could substitute food-grade citric acid if you don’t have acid blend, but it’s inexpensive and lasts basically forever if you keep it dry- this half pound bag isn’t a lifetime supply but will last you for years unless you’re brewing everyday? You can also buy smaller quantities if you don’t brew often or have limited storage space.

Pectic Enzyme:

Pectic enzyme will help make sure you get a sparkling clear wine at the end, and also helps break down the fruit a bit so you get a better flavor and juice extraction from your haws. Haws, like apples and crabapples, are rich in pectin. That’s great, if you’re making jelly, but can create a persistent cloudy haze in your finished wine that will take forever to clear without adding clarifiers (which can also strip out some of the color and flavor of your wine).

You can avoid this by not boiling your fruit mixture (just covering it with boiling water and steeping) and also by adding pectic enzyme to your wine must and fruit mixture and letting it work for an hour before you add the yeast to start fermentation. This natural enzyme will break down the pectin so that it doesn’t form an unsightly haze in your wine.

Yeast Nutrient:

There are several different formulations of this available, the simplest and cheapest of which is either straight DAP (diammonium phosphate crystals) or DAP and urea. I’ll use this in beer, but for my wines and meads I prefer to use either Fermax or Wyyeast Wine Yeast “Vintner’s Choice” yeast nutrient, which are formulated for wine yeast and has additional ingredients to support the health of the yeast in the more difficult fermentation environments of higher gravity wines and meads.

Equipment Needed & Method to Make Hawthorn Wine

Fermentation Vessel:

For the primary fermentation with the fruit, you’ll need a wide mouth glass or food-grade plastic vessel of one and a half to two gallons for a full batch. This will allow enough room for the fruit and a vigorous primary fermentation without overflowing and making a big mess. My favorite primary container for small batch wines like this is the Little Big Mouth Bubbler from Northern Brewer. It has thick, heavy glass and plenty of space for a one gallon batch of wine or mead.

You can also use a wide-mouth glass jar, a small two or three gallon food-grade plastic bucket, or other fermentation container, with an airlock in the lid.

Gallon Jug, Stopper, and Airlock:

After the primary fermentation has completed (usually 7-14 days), siphon and rack the fruit wine off the fruit and yeast sediment and into a narrow-mouthed one gallon jug or demijohn fitted with an airlock and a stopper, or split the batch into two half-gallon glass growlers. Age the wine for up to a year before bottling, but at least 30 days. You’ll want to have at least a few of these jugs if you’re doing any amount of small-batch wine, mead, or cider making (or even micro batches of beer).

You can save these from gallon jugs of apple juice, if you can find them, or cooking wine (the cheap stuff, like Carlo Rossi, that are still sold in glass jugs). Maybe make a big batch of Glühwein for your next holiday party, or a very fruity sangria if you’re reading this in the summer. Or, skip the rotgut and just buy new glass jugs, with rubber or silicone stoppers, and airlocks.

 

Nylon Mesh Brew Bag:

A heat-resistant nylon brewing bag isn’t essential, but it’s really nice to have. It can safely stand up to the boiling sugar water mixture without melting or leaching nasty stuff into your wine. It contains the hawthorn fruit, raisins, and a lot of the sediment during primary fermentation so they are easy to remove, without any coarse chunks that might clog or get stuck in your siphon hose during racking.

You don’t need an extra-large brew-kettle sized bag like you’d use for BIAB beer making. A smaller bag that is just big enough to hold the fruit is better, and easier to keep submerged. You can use a glass fermentation weight in the bag to keep it submerged if you have one, or just push the bag under the must with a sanitized spoon for the first few days.

Hydrometer and Test Jar:

A hydrometer isn’t necessary to make this wine, but it’s invaluable for tracking the progress of your fermentation and ensuring your wine is fully done and ready to bottle. It will also let you calculate the alcohol content of your wine.

Related Links:

HOMEBREW: Go Tell Aunt Rhodamel (Rose Hip and Petal Mead)

BREW: Crabby Apple Cyser Homemade Hard Cider

BREWING: Black Night Wild Berry Melomel with Elderberries, Serviceberries, and Blackberries