The Hedgerow Larder

There are few better ways to spend a blustery September afternoon than filling a basket with elderberries, blackberries and damsons. These free fruits make country wines of remarkable depth: dry, fruity, and far more interesting than anything you can buy for a few pounds. The method is simple. Combine fruit with sugar, water and yeast, let it ferment slowly, then bottle. The hard part is patience. A good hedgerow wine needs months, sometimes a year or more, before it shows its best. But the waiting is part of the pleasure.

Picking with Care

Forage responsibly. Pick only from hedges away from busy roads and sprayed fields, and always leave plenty for birds and for next year's crop. Ripe fruit gives the best wine. Elderberries should be dark purple-black and easy to strip from the stems with a fork. Blackberries want to be fully black, not red, and dry rather than rain-soaked. Damsons are ready when they come away with a gentle tug, though windfalls are fine if they are not bruised or mouldy.

Freeze your fruit for at least 24 hours before use. This breaks down the cell walls, improves colour and juice yield, and saves you from a messy crush. Weigh the fruit after de-stalking and removing leaves. A good rule for a 4.5-litre demijohn is 1.5kg elderberries, 1.8kg blackberries or 1.8kg damsons. Wash only if dusty; if you do wash, let the fruit dry before freezing.

The Basic Method

You will need a food-grade fermenting bucket, a 4.5-litre demijohn, an airlock and bung, a siphon tube, sterilising solution, and strong bottles. For most hedgerow wines, use 1.1kg sugar for a dry finish, though damsons may need only 1kg. Add 1 tsp yeast nutrient, 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme, the juice of two lemons for acid, and a cup of strong black tea for tannin. Use a general-purpose wine yeast or a champagne yeast for a very dry wine.

• Thaw the fruit and tip it into the bucket. Crush lightly with clean hands or a potato masher.
• For elderberries, pour over 2 litres of boiling water and leave to cool. This tames the fruit's harshness and helps extract colour. For blackberries and damsons, use 2 litres of cold water instead.
• Add the sugar, nutrient, pectic enzyme, lemon juice and tea. Stir well until the sugar dissolves.
• Top up to 4.5 litres with cool water. When the must is between 20°C and 25°C, sprinkle on the yeast. Cover the bucket with a clean cloth.
• Stir daily for five to seven days, pushing the fruit cap down. After a week, strain through a muslin-lined sieve into a sterilised demijohn. Top up to the shoulder with cooled boiled water, fit the airlock, and leave to ferment.
• Ferment at 15–18°C for two to four weeks. When bubbling slows to one bubble every minute or two, rack into a clean demijohn, leaving the sediment behind. Rack again every six to eight weeks until the wine is clear and no longer dropping sediment.
• Bottle only when the wine has been stable for two weeks, with no bubbles and a gravity reading of 0.990–0.995. Fill to within 2cm of the cork, then seal. Store in a cool, dark place.

Elderberry: The Deep, Dark Classic

Elderberry wine is the most rewarding of the hedgerow bunch. It is dark, full-bodied and often compared to a rough port. Use the boiling water method, and consider adding a handful of blackberries or a few damsons to the bucket to soften the elderberry's slightly medicinal edge. Ferment it slowly at the cooler end of the range. Elderberry wine is drinkable at six months, but it becomes something special after 12 to 18 months in the bottle. Expect a dry, tannic wine with notes of blackcurrant and dark chocolate.

Blackberry and Damson Wines

Blackberry wine is softer and fruitier, and it is usually ready sooner. Use the cold-water method, and do not worry if the colour looks pale at first; it deepens as it ferments. A dry blackberry wine is lovely at six to twelve months, with a gentle bramble flavour and a clean finish. Damson wine is sharper and more austere. The fruit brings its own acid, so leave out the lemon juice. Prick each damson with a needle or freeze them whole, then ferment as above. Damson wine can taste thin young, but after 18 months it develops a dry, almond-like complexity that is worth the wait.

Patience and the Long Wait

The secret to good country wine is not a fancy ingredient but time. Keep your ferment cool and slow, rack patiently, and resist the urge to bottle early. A little sulphite at racking — one crushed tablet per 4.5 litres — helps protect the wine from oxidation, but do not use it if you want a wild ferment to finish naturally. Label every bottle with the fruit and date. Then put it away. When you finally open a bottle of your own elderberry or damson wine on a cold evening, the hedgerow will taste of autumn sunshine and rain. That is the reward.