Wine Making 101: Sweet Plum Wine

Summer is peaking here in western Colorado and the local farmers have been bringing loads of fruit to market every weekend.  I had been waiting patiently for the arrival of the first crop of plums and was rewarded last weekend with forty pounds of fresh picked plums for $50.  I was hoping that there would be a good crop of large plums, but at this point I will take whatever I can find that I can afford.  These plums were pretty small so pitting and chopping them became a labor of love.

They were at the peak of ripeness and the insides were a rich maroon color and the sweet smell that filled the air as I chopped was divine.   One by one each plum was scrubbed, pitted and coarsely chopped.  It took many hours and I think I got through thirty pounds of them before I decided that I had enough.  I wanted thirty six pounds of them, but I was so tired that I will be happy to get five gallons of wine out of them instead of the desired six.  If I can get the cherry wine bottled before the plums go out of season I may try a third batch of wine this summer if I can find the time.

Once I had enough plums chopped and in the primary fermenter I poured a couple of gallons of boiling water over them to bring the volume up to a full five gallons.  Once it cooled down I mixed in half the sugar from the total recipe and measured out small volumes of some additives to help the yeast grow and be happy.  I let that mixture sit overnight in the bucket before I added the most important ingredient: wine yeast.

The whole mixture sat in the primary for seven days and I needed to mix things up in there once a day while it was fermenting.  Once this first stage was over I strained the whole thing through cheesecloth, mixed in half of the remaining sugar from the recipe and then it went into the secondary fermenter which is a glass carboy.  Here the wine will bubble away for a month until the alcohol level is high enough that the yeast die off and fermentation stops.  I will rack the wine at this point and add the remaining sugar and give it another month or two to clear completely.  Once clear it will be ready for bottling and drinking (the best part!).