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Alcoholic drinks from Denmark, the UK, Armenia, Hawaii and other places worldwide

Non-grape fruit wines (cherry, sour-cherry, elderberry, mulberry, pomegranate, plum, pineapple)kirsebærvin

These are wines made from fruit other than grapes, such as cherry, elderberry, mulberry, pomegranate, plum and pineapple. The fruit is pressed or stewed, sugar and acid are adjusted, and a yeast ferments the must. A 2026 mulberry study found 23 ± 1 °C and pH 3.5 ± 0.1 gave the best result over a 27-day run, and cherry must fermented from 220 g/L sugar to about 11 % alcohol.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks2.9 months – 13 monthsFamily: Fruit and country wines (home fruit winemaking)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceTraditional process with no fixed batch size. The tested NDSU Extension cherry recipe makes 1 US gallon from 3 lb of cherries, 2¼ lb of sugar and water to fill the gallon. Many recipes for other fruit use 3 to 5 lb of fruit per gallon.
Cherries3 lbWashed and sorted, stems and bad fruit removed[ndsu]
WaterTo fill 1 gallonMany recipes top the fruit up with water to cut the acidity[ndsu][s1]
Sugar2¼ lbPlus or minus, to reach a specific gravity of 1.085 to 1.09[ndsu]
Acid blend1 tsp[ndsu]
Tannin¼ tsp[ndsu]
Yeast nutrient1 tsp[ndsu]
Pectic enzyme½ tsp[ndsu]
Campden tablet1 tablet, crushedPotassium metabisulfite, to check wild yeast and bacteria[ndsu]
Winemaking yeast1 packetSuch as EC-1118 or K1-V1116[ndsu]
Startera packet of winemaking yeast, added to the must (NDSU cherry recipe)

Total time across the recorded steps: 2.9 months – 13 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countYeasts

What changes: Fruit is pressed or stewed to give a must, and sulfur dioxide checks wild microbes

Step 1 of 5
Extract the juice and check wild microbes
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Lactobacillus spp.

Pressing, stewing and fermenting the pulp are common ways to get the flavour out of the fruit. Output: must (juice with some pulp); the pits of cherries and plums are kept whole.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

sulfur dioxide checks wild yeast and bacteria

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

These are wines made from fruit other than grapes, such as cherry, elderberry, mulberry, pomegranate, plum and pineapple. The fruit is pressed or stewed, sugar and acid are adjusted, and a yeast ferments the must. A 2026 mulberry study found 23 ± 1 °C and pH 3.5 ± 0.1 gave the best result over a 27-day run, and cherry must fermented from 220 g/L sugar to about 11 % alcohol. Made in 5 steps over 2.9 months – 13 months. The longest step, bottle and age, takes 2–12 months (Sagaser S 2021). Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Lactobacillus spp. do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2–12 monthsReported[ndsu]Bottle and age
Temperature22–24 °CMeasured[s4]Ferment
AciditypH 3.4–3.6Measured[s4]Ferment

What makes this one different

Grapes carry enough sugar and acid to make wine alone. Most other fruit needs added sugar, water or acid, and the juice often needs pressing, stewing or a pulp ferment first. The styles differ by fruit, so the numbers here come from studies of single fruits.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Cherry wine, Denmark (kirsebærvin)sour cherry (Prunus cerasus), especially Stevns cherry; 14–21 % alcohol; Cherry Heering and Kijafa were the two dominant producers, and Kijafa is a fortified fruit wine (en WP); Frederiksdal ferments the cherries (da WP)
  • Elderberry wine (UK)In the UK fruit wine is commonly called country wine, and elderberries are a common ingredient; a wine made from elderflowers is called elder blow wine (WP 'Fruit wine')
  • Mulberry wineS. cerevisiae dominant, LAB linked to organic acids (Ji et al. 2026); Weissella paramesenteroides isolated from traditional mulberry wine (Huang et al. 2026)
  • Pomegranate wine (Armenia)roots in Armenia; now also Israel (Rimon), Cyprus, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan; punicalagins and gallic acid dominate the phenolics (WP; Lan et al. 2017)
  • Plum wine (Europe)maceration raises phenolics; fermentation lowers them (Jevtovic et al. 2026). Japanese 'plum wine' umeshu is NOT a ferment (infusion in shōchū)
  • Pineapple wineMade from pineapple juice fermented in temperature-controlled vats and stopped near dryness (WP 'Fruit wine'); made in Hawaii, Okinawa and elsewhere. Tepache is the Mexican pineapple ferment

Safety

Cherry and plum pits hold a cyanide-forming compound, so the pits are not broken when the fruit is crushed. Elder leaves and bark hold a compound that can produce hydrocyanic acid, so leaves and stems are not crushed in with the berries, and uncooked berries may cause nausea [cdc-elder]. Fruit flies carry vinegar-making bacteria, so the fermenter is covered or fitted with an airlock. A wine that keeps sugar or is sweetened needs potassium sorbate, or fermentation can restart and burst the bottles. Orange wine can be stopped by a Penicillium mould, so the fruit is cleaned and sanitised.

Hazards the sources name: Vinegar-making bacteria (carried by fruit flies).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Cherry wine has been made in Denmark since the 1800s. Pomegranate wine has roots in Armenia that go back centuries. Plum jerkum, a fermented plum drink made like cider, was once made in Worcester.

  1. [s1] Wikipedia (en), 'Fruit wine'; (da) 'Kirsebærvin' (fetched 2026-10-16)wiki
  2. [s2] Wang X. et al. 2020, Appl. Environ. Microbiol., doi:10.1128/aem.01847-20 (pomegranate)paper
  3. [s3] Lan Y. et al. 2017, Food Chem., doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2017.04.030 (pomegranate)paper
  4. [s4] Ji M. et al. 2026, Multi-omics investigation of microbial community dynamics and metabolic regulation in mulberry wine fermentation under temperature and acid stress, Food Microbiology, doi:10.1016/j.fm.2025.105022 (mulberry, abstract)paper
  5. [s5] Wang X. et al. 2026, J. Food Sci., doi:10.1111/1750-3841.71101 (cherry)paper
  6. [s6] Jevtovic V. et al. 2026, Foods 15:1360, PMC13114681 (plum)paper
  7. [s7] Huang J. et al. 2026, Safety Evaluation of Weissella paramesenteroides MW-142 Isolated From Traditional Fermented Mulberry Wine, MicrobiologyOpen e70302, doi:10.1002/mbo3.70302 (abstract)paper
  8. [cdc-elder] CDC 1984, Poisoning from elderberry juice, California, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reportgov
  9. [ndsu] Sagaser S., Garden-Robinson J., Smith R., Getting Started With Home Winemaking, NDSU Extension FN1638 (reviewed July 2021)gov