Tomato Wine Recipe: Ripe Red or Green, 1 Gallon
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Tomato Wine at a Glance
The short answer: yes, you can make wine from tomatoes. Jack Keller gives two recipes in his Requested Recipes Collection (compiled 2020): a red tomato wine from 4 pounds of fresh, perfectly ripe tomatoes and 2 pounds of sugar, and a green tomato wine for the end of the season. Each makes one gallon, and you multiply the recipe for every extra 4 pound batch of tomatoes you have.
Keller’s opening note sets the tone. If you have a large crop coming ripe all at once and have already canned enough for the off-season, he calls this recipe a God-send. His one word of caution for red tomato wine: use only perfectly ripe fruit, freshly picked.
New to winemaking? Start with our guide to making wine from fruit, since this page assumes you know what racking and an airlock are. For more fruit and vegetable recipes, see the homemade wine recipe collection. A similar garden-surplus recipe is rhubarb wine.
| Detail | Red tomato wine | Green tomato wine |
|---|---|---|
| Tomatoes | 4 lb ripe red | 3 lb green |
| Sugar | 2 lb | 1⅔ lb |
| Water | 3½ qt | 3½ qt |
| On the pulp | 7 days, stirred twice a day | 7 days, bag squeezed gently 2 to 3 times a day |
| First racking | into a secondary, then every 60 days | after 3 weeks, then monthly |
| Matures | 1 year, served chilled | 9 to 12 months |
What Tomato Wine Tastes Like
Keller does not describe the flavor of either wine, and we will not invent one. What his recipes do tell you is how he treats it: the red wine is made to be sweetened to taste with sugar water before bottling and served chilled, and both recipes are built on a year of aging, which suggests a wine that needs time to settle.
Keep the additions
Besides the 2 pounds of sugar, the recipe calls for acid blend, grape tannin, pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient. Keller lists them all, so leave none out: skip them and you are no longer making his wine.
Plan to sweeten and chill
Because the red recipe ends with stabilizer followed by sweetening to taste, decide on the sweetness at the end, not at the start. Our guide to clearing wine covers the waiting that happens before that step.
Recipe card
Red tomato wine, 1 US gallon
- Makes
- About 5 bottles (750 ml)
- Time to drink
- About 7 days on the pulp, then a year to mature
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
Ingredients
- 4 lb fresh, ripe red tomatoes
- 2 lb granulated sugar
- 3½ qt water
- 2 tsp acid blend
- ½ tsp pectic enzyme
- ⅛ tsp grape tannin
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 Campden tablet, crushed
- 1 packet Champagne or Montrachet wine yeast
Method
- Boil the water and dissolve the sugar in it.
- Wash the tomatoes and cut them into chunks, discarding any bruised or insect-scarred parts. Put the fruit and any juice from cutting into a nylon straining bag in the primary, tie the bag and squash the fruit.
- Pour the boiling sugar water over the fruit. Cover and let it cool for one hour.
- Add the acid blend, tannin, yeast nutrient and crushed Campden tablet. Stir and cover again.
- After 12 hours add the pectic enzyme. Wait another 12 hours and add the yeast.
- Stir twice a day for 7 days.
- Remove the bag and let it drip drain, adding the drained juice to the primary. Do not squeeze the bag.
- Siphon the liquid off the sediment into a secondary, top up and fit an airlock.
- Rack every 60 days until the wine clears, then wait two weeks and rack again.
- Add stabilizer, wait 10 days, sweeten to taste with sugar water and bottle.
- Let it mature for one year and serve chilled.
Quantities and method from the red tomato wine recipe in Jack Keller’s Requested Recipes Collection (compiled 2020), which Keller adapted from Terry Garey’s The Joy of Home Winemaking.
Green Tomato Wine for the End of the Season
When frost is coming and the vines are still full of hard green fruit, Keller’s second recipe puts them to use. It is a different style of recipe: it adds raisins, grain and balm leaves to the tomatoes, and it uses a mincer. Keller adapted it from C.J.J. Berry’s 130 New Winemaking Recipes.
What goes in besides the tomatoes
The list calls for a quart of balm leaves including stalks, a pound of raisins (or sultanas or currants), a pound of maize, barley or wheat, and two lemons or oranges. Peel the citrus fruit carefully, removing all the white pith, since the peels go through the mincer and the juice goes into the must later. The grain is soaked overnight before you start.
How the method differs
You mix everything solid and pass it through a mincer into a nylon straining bag, ferment for seven days while gently squeezing the bag two to three times a day, then squeeze well but not too well at the end. The wine is topped up with water to within 2½ inches of the airlock, racked after three weeks and then monthly.
Recipe card
Green tomato wine, 1 US gallon
- Makes
- About 5 bottles (750 ml)
- Time to drink
- 7 days on the pulp, then 9 to 12 months of aging
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
Ingredients
- 3 lb fresh green tomatoes
- 1 qt balm leaves, including stalks
- 1 lb raisins (or sultanas or currants)
- 1 lb maize, barley or wheat
- 1⅔ lb granulated sugar
- 3½ qt water
- 2 lemons or oranges
- 1 tsp pectic enzyme
- ⅛ tsp grape tannin
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 Campden tablet, crushed
- 1 packet Champagne or Montrachet wine yeast
Method
- Soak the grain overnight.
- Pour boiling water over the raisins and let them soak about 15 minutes. Meanwhile drain the grain and chop the tomatoes.
- Mix the grain, raisins, balm leaves and stalks, chopped tomatoes and the citrus peels (no white pith) and pass the mixture through a mincer.
- Put the minced ingredients in a nylon straining bag in the primary. Add the sugar and tannin, pour in 3½ qt boiling water and stir well to dissolve the sugar.
- Cover and let it cool for one hour. Add the crushed Campden tablet and the juice of the citrus fruit.
- After 12 hours add the yeast nutrient and pectic enzyme and stir. After another 12 hours add the yeast.
- Ferment for seven days, gently squeezing the bag 2 to 3 times a day.
- Remove the bag, let it drip drain, then squeeze well but not too well.
- Pour all the liquid into a secondary and top up with water to within 2½ inches of the airlock.
- Rack after 3 weeks, then every month until the wine clears and no new deposits form over a two week period.
- Bottle and age 9 to 12 months.
Quantities and method from the green tomato wine recipe in Jack Keller’s Requested Recipes Collection (compiled 2020), adapted by Keller from C.J.J. Berry’s 130 New Winemaking Recipes.
Scaling Up: 4 Pounds per Gallon
Keller’s instruction for the red wine is to multiply it out by however many 4 pound batches of tomatoes you have. Here is that multiplication for the first three sizes:
| Ingredient | 1 gallon | 2 gallons | 3 gallons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ripe red tomatoes | 4 lb | 8 lb | 12 lb |
| Sugar | 2 lb | 4 lb | 6 lb |
| Water | 3½ qt | 7 qt | 10½ qt |
| Acid blend | 2 tsp | 4 tsp | 6 tsp |
| Pectic enzyme | ½ tsp | 1 tsp | 1½ tsp |
| Grape tannin | ⅛ tsp | ¼ tsp | ⅜ tsp |
| Yeast nutrient | 1 tsp | 2 tsp | 3 tsp |
| Campden tablets | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Two practical notes from us, not from Keller: use a primary with room to spare for the fruit bag and the foam, and split the finished wine across jugs sized to what you actually have, so each one can be topped up. To check the sugar and volumes for a bigger batch, use our grape and fruit calculator and the sugar calculator. Make and drink wine responsibly, and only if you are of legal drinking age.
What you need for tomato wine
Items from the recipe cards that are easy to forget. You also need a nylon straining bag, a secondary jug with an airlock, acid blend, grape tannin, Campden tablets and a wine yeast.
-
1Primary fermenter
FastRack 6.5 Gallon Fermenting Bucket
A food grade HDPE bucket with a lid drilled for an airlock grommet, per the listing, with room for the fruit bag during the seven days on the pulp.
-
2Pectic enzyme
Home Brew Ohio Pectic Enzyme, 1 lb
Breaks down fruit pectin for easier straining and a clearer wine, according to the listing.
-
3Yeast nutrient
The listing gives the dose as 1 teaspoon per gallon before fermentation begins, the same as both recipes here.
