For about a year I have had a recipe for Blackberry wine in the wine cellar section of my website. I have never made wine, I just thought it was cool. The article romanticized about foraging in the woods for berries and then creating a fantastic wine. I had thought that I'd like to try to make wine someday, but I wasn't quite ready to jump into becoming a winemaker. Then, last weekend Robin and I went bike riding on the Eastshore bike trail. We had lunch at that awesome market/shoppe on University ave fight by the freeway, and bike trail. (They are known for great fresh fruit, sandwiches, smoothies, and fried cod! Their fish is amazing!) After lunch we decided to bike out to the Marina. On our way back, we took a shortcut through the newly developed park area that cuts through from the Berkeley Marina to the Eastshore bike path. Here we discovered a huge Blackberry bramble!! I remembered my wine recipe and I casually said that I would come back and pick some for wine. I am a gemini and I always start projects and struggle to finnish them. I didn't want this to be one of those things that I mentioned but never do. I did a little research online and my recipe and others seemed easy and inexpensive. So on Saturday I went to the Oak Barrel wine supply store on San Pablo in Berkeley and they outfitted me with all I need for gallons of berry wine and a handy dandy recipe with diagrams and step by step instructions. The hardest part of it all seemed to be obtaining the berries, and then figuring out the ratios of ingredients. I know, I have a recipe, but the amounts of water, sugar and other additives can vary, depending on the ripeness of fruit, and desired sweetness, etc. Wow, I actually sound like I know what I'm talking about. I promise, that it isn't the case. But that shouldn't stop me from producing a kick ass first batch!! Here are some photos of my berry picking excursion!

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