I remember when I was offered my first taste of rhubarb wine. I had never sampled non-grape wine (country wine) before, but my thoughts changed from “is this a joke?” to “how much of this have you got?” with the first sip. I have since planted rhubarb in my garden, and I’ve been making wine from it for two years. I owe a lot to the Hutterite colony in Montana, they still make that terrific wine, for their inspiration and generous advice.
The first harvest of 2007 yielded 10 oz (about 275 grams), and I expect to harvest every month through August. I discard the leaves, chop up the stalks and freeze them. Once I’ve gathered the entire harvest (last year’s was 4lb or about 1.8 kg), I’ll begin work on my third vintage.
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And how do you make wine out of rhubarb, I wonder. You must need patches of rhubarb to make a bottle of wine, mustn’t you? We have a great paddock, crammed with assorted fruit, about 24 of them are Nashi pears, you know those pears which are very juicy. They said they are originated from Japan. So, last Summer, they were dropped to the ground, attracted bees, wasps and turkeys (well, we enjoyed them too), but we thought what a waste! We were thinking if someone would like to make wine out of them. Do you grow the similar pears as well?
Hello arfi,
I have four rhubarb plants, and last year my harvest was 3.5 lb (about 1.6 kg). I wrote 4 lb in my posting, but I just double-checked my notes and I see I recorded 3.5 lb. Traditional recipes call for 2-4 lb of rhubarb per gallon (250-500 grams/liter) of wine, so I made a gallon (a little less than 4 liters) of wine. I was hoping for more this year, but I’m off to a slow start.
I plan to document the progress of my rhubarb wine from spring growth to harvest to fermentation (probably in the fall) to bottling (probably next fall) to tasting – with details and photos of each step.
I have made wine from apples, plums, blueberries, raspberries, cherries, rhubarb, and grapes. Not pears – not yet anyway. If I can get my hands on some, you know I’ll be fermenting them!
Thanks for stopping in,
Erroll
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