Blueberry Wine Recipe

The short answer: for one gallon of blueberry wine, crush 2 to 3 pounds of blueberries in a nylon straining bag, add 7 pints of water, about 1¾ pounds of sugar (enough to reach a specific gravity near 1.090), 1½ teaspoons of acid blend, ½ teaspoon of pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient and a crushed Campden tablet. Wait a day, add a red wine yeast, press the bag daily until the gravity falls to about 1.030, then finish under an airlock and rack until clear. Give it a year to mature.

Blueberry is one of the most popular fruit wines; in a survey Jack Keller cites, it ranked second only to blackberry among non-grape wines. It is also a fruit with a reputation for starting slowly, and the recipe below allows for that.

Where This Recipe Comes From

Jack Keller’s Requested Recipes Collection (compiled 2020) prints four blueberry wines. The card follows his full-bodied semi-sec version, adapted from Raymond Massaccesi: 2 pounds of blueberries, 1¾ pounds of sugar, 1½ teaspoons of acid blend, ½ teaspoon of pectic enzyme, 7 pints of water, a Campden tablet and yeast, with half a pint of red grape concentrate added at bottling. His medium-bodied version, adapted from Steven Krause, uses 3 pints of berries and 2 pounds of sugar and ferments on the fruit for 10 days.

The gravity target comes from Virginia Cooperative Extension’s Wine Making for the Home Gardener, which raises fruit musts to a specific gravity of about 1.090 for roughly 12% alcohol. University of Georgia Extension’s Winemaking at Home (C717) prints a combined blackberry or blueberry wine as well, made without added water, with lemon juice and minced raisins for body.

Blueberries Can Be Slow to Start

Keller writes that blueberries contain a fair amount of tannin and pectin and a mix of malic, citric, tartaric and benzoic acids. He says that chemistry sometimes makes the must hard to get going with yeast, but also gives blueberry wine its complexity once fermentation has run its course. He also dismisses the claim that blueberries contain sorbic acid and will not ferment as completely untrue.

In practice that means three things:

• Use nutrient. Keller’s versions add yeast nutrient or energizer every time.
• Pitch an active yeast. Rehydrating the yeast or making a small starter a few hours ahead gives it a head start over a stubborn must.
• Keep it warm at first. Keller cools his musts to 70 to 75 °F before adding yeast.

If fermentation still has not started after two or three days, check the temperature and the gravity before adding more yeast.

How Many Blueberries per Gallon

Keller’s four recipes use 2 pounds of blueberries per gallon in three of them and 3 pints in the fourth. That is lighter than the 3 to 5 pounds per gallon NDSU Extension’s Getting Started With Home Winemaking gives as the usual range for fruit wines, because blueberry flavor is strong and the full-bodied versions add raisins or grape concentrate for body. If you have the fruit, 3 pounds per gallon makes a deeper wine; keep the gravity target the same.

Fresh, frozen and wild lowbush blueberries all work. Keller notes that wild berries may keep some astringency until they have weathered a frost. Freezing and thawing also helps the berries give up their juice, as NDSU explains.

The Best Yeast for Blueberry Wine

Keller’s blueberry recipes call for wine yeast without naming one. Because blueberry wine is a deep red, a red wine strain fits:

• Lalvin RC 212: 16% alcohol tolerance, 18 to 30 °C (64 to 86 °F), paired by Lallemand with berry and red fruit character and color stability.
• Lalvin EC-1118: 18% tolerance, 10 to 30 °C, neutral and vigorous. It is the safer choice if your must is slow to start.

See our best wine yeasts page for more strains.

How to Make Blueberry Wine, Step by Step

Step 1: Sanitize

Clean and sanitize everything that touches the must. Virginia Tech uses potassium metabisulfite and citric acid for equipment.

Step 2: Crush the berries

Put the washed berries in a nylon straining bag in the primary and crush them thoroughly; whole blueberries give up little juice.

Step 3: Build the must and wait a day

Add water, stir in sugar until the hydrometer reads about 1.090, then the acid blend, nutrient, pectic enzyme and crushed Campden tablet. Cover and leave 24 hours.

Step 4: Ferment on the fruit

Add the yeast, cover, stir daily and press the bag. When the gravity reaches about 1.030, which Keller puts at around 5 days, take the bag out.

Step 5: Secondary

Siphon the wine off the sediment into a glass jug, top up and fit an airlock. Rack after 3 weeks and again after 2 months.

Step 6: Stabilize and bottle

When the wine is clear and the gravity has stopped changing, stabilize it with potassium sorbate and a Campden tablet. Keller’s full-bodied version adds the red grape concentrate at this point, which sweetens it slightly and adds body. Bottle, and allow a year to mature. Our bottling guide covers the routine.

Watch a 5 Gallon Batch Being Made

If you would rather see the process than read about it, the video below, Making Blueberry Wine, is a long walkthrough of a 5 gallon batch made from 15 pounds of freshly picked highbush blueberries, according to its description. That is the top of the range in the 5 gallon table further down. Its sugar and additive amounts are its own, so use the card above for the quantities.

Scaling Up: 5 Gallon Blueberry Wine

Multiply each ingredient by five and keep the gravity target.

Common Mistakes With Blueberry Wine

Not crushing the berries

Blueberry skins are tough. Crush every berry, or freeze and thaw them first, or you lose most of the juice.

Giving up on a slow start

Keller warns that blueberry musts can be hard to get fermenting. Nutrient, an active yeast and a warm room usually solve it.

Sweetening without stabilizing

The grape concentrate in Keller’s version goes in only once the wine is stable. Virginia Tech explains that sugar added to an unstabilized wine can restart fermentation.

Drinking it too young

All of Keller’s blueberry recipes allow 6 to 12 months or more to mature. Young blueberry wine can taste thin and sharp.

For the method behind every fruit wine see how to make wine from fruit, or try our blackberry wine recipe. Make and drink wine responsibly, and only if you are of legal drinking age.