Transformative Yarrow & Plum Wine Recipe Guaranteed to Intrigue Any Wine Lover

The best plum wine recipe for beginner winemakers! Incorporate heavenly yarrow for an herbal essence that balances the sweetness and adds complexity to your homemade wine, while the plums add their dreamy color and texture.

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As a fermenter and home brewer, I always love incorporating herbs in my creations. Not only for increasing the intricate flavor profile, but to integrate herbalism practices into my ferments.

Yarrow, specifically, is a bittering agent. It will help balance out the sweetness from the wine. You can also use mugwort, a super bitter herb great for balancing sweetness.

You will learn the essential steps to creating this yarrow and plum wine recipe, the necessary equipment, untold tips and trick to unbeatable wine, and what to do after fermentation.

This post is all about a plum wine recipe.

Ultimate Homemade Plum Wine Recipe With Yarrow

Traditionally, one style of plum wine comes from Japan called “Umeshu“. It is made from Ume, which is a type of plum. Umeshu does not follow the same criteria as modern “wine” as it’s plums soaked in liquor with candy rock sugar.

Then, it gets aged for about one year.

This plum wine recipe is far from the Japanese culture.

We use traditional winemaking techniques to extract the sugar, tannins, and possible acids from the fruit and ferment it using wine yeast. We also make a yarrow tea that is easy to obsess over!

Over the course of two weeks it will ferment, then be bottled and aged.

Why Make Homemade Plum Wine

Aside from the ridiculously gorgeous photos of homemade fruit wine, why bother with making wine at home?

Make wine at home to:

Inspire your creativity.
Indulge in an elegant wine you made yourself.
Make unforgettable memories with loved ones.
Build an authentic relationship with alcohol.

For many reasons, crafting your own plum wine is guaranteed to shape shift your life. The adventure of home wine making offers a grand reward.

Fermentation literally has been a hallmark for humanity since the dawn of time. Uncover why creating your own fermentations has the power to build an authentic relationship with alcohol.

Untold Tips & Tricks for Amazing Homemade Wine

Use argon gas to displace oxygen and decrease the amount of oxidation in the fermenter, bottles, and everywhere in between.
Use camden tablets to kill all bacteria in the wine before fermentation. One bacteria called acetobacter can easily grow in homemade wine and will turn your wine to vinegar! Easy to prevent, almost impossible to remove.
Use added wine tannins for better aging. Tannins are natural antioxidants which help with the aging process, and add flavor complexity.
Use acid blend to help malic acid convert to lactic acid and overall balance the acidity.
Ferment at a consistent 70-75F for best results!

How to Make This Easy Plum Wine Recipe

To nail this plum wine recipe, following the instructions below. This homemade wine recipe is for a 1-gallon batch.

What equipment you need for this recipe:

One-gallon fermenter & airlock
Funnel
Siphon hose
Wine bottles
Hydrometer
Star Sans
Cheesecloth
Blender
2 bowls
Optional: wax for wine bottles & argon gas

What ingredients you need for this recipe:

20 of the ripest plums you can find
1/4 cup yarrow
1 gallon spring water
2.5 g wine yeast, or 1/2 cup wild yeast starter
Organic brown sugar, or honey (honey will technically make mead & takes longer to ferment, but up to you!)

When choosing plums, the ripest plums will be heavy, slightly squishy, and smell fruity. The amount of sugar added will depend on how sweet your plums are!

The Important Wine Additions for an Outstanding Ferment:

1 teaspoon Acid blend
1/2 teaspoon Pectin enzyme
1/2 teaspoon wine tannin
1 Camden tablet

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Collect all ingredients and equipment. Using your Star Sans, sanitize all your equipment that will touch the juice (minus the cheesecloth, just make sure you wash it with soap and water).

2. Prepare the fruit!

For this process there are a couple options: use a fruit press or hand-press with a blender and cheesecloth.

I will demonstrate the hand-press method.

3. With clean bowls, cut the fruit up from one bowl into the other. As seen below:

4. After washing your hands, squish the fruit to extract a bit of juice.

5. Add the fruit into the blender with some juice (if you need to add water, you can), and blend up the fruit until it is creamy.

Optional: Leave some plum skins intact and add into the fermenter to add additional tannins, if you like tannins in your wine!

6. In the other bowl and using your cheesecloth, gently pour the plum puree into the cheesecloth and gently massage the cheesecloth to extract the juice. Discard the leftover organic scraps.

You will get some really thick syrup as well. It will settle out of the juice during fermentation.

7. After all your plum puree has been strained, gently pour into your fermenter!

8. Boil 1/2 cup of spring water and the yarrow for 5 minutes. Then, remove from heat and add 1 camden tablet.

9. Once the tablet is dissolved use your funnel and add the yarrow tea mixture into the fermenter. Give it a good swirl! Cover the fermenter with the airlock for 20 minutes (so the camden tablet can kill all bacteria).

10. After 20 minutes, add the wine tannin, acid blend, and pectic enzymes.

11. Use your hydrometer to test the gravity. You want your juice to be at 1.090 starting gravity.

If your juice is NOT at 1.090, this means you DO NOT have enough sugar to ferment a wine to 12%-15% ABV!

Begin to add dissolved honey (in a bit of warm water), or dissolved organic brown sugar into your fermenter until it reaches around 1.090.

Start with 2 tablespoons and see how that reacts. If it alters the gravity a lot, then slowly add more. Alternatively, if it does not change the gravity much, then add closer to 1/2 cup of sugar.

The goal is to get your gravity as close to 1.090 as possible. Then, record your gravity for later use so you can calculate the final ABV.

12. Once you dialed in your gravity, pitch your yeast of choice.

13. Allow to ferment for about 1 week in primary fermentation. Be gentle with the fermenter, you want the sediment to cake down on the bottom, so we can clarify the wine as much as possible.

Ferment your wine at around 70-75F for best results.

After Plum Wine Primary Fermentation is Complete

Now, you have your legendary yarrow and plum wine fermenting. What’s next?

Your silky smooth plum wine is ready for secondary fermentation after about one week. Which is to rack your wine off the sediment and finish up the final bits of fermentation.

Here is when your siphon hose comes in handy!

Racking Wine into Secondary Fermentation

1. Sanitize your siphon hose if you did not earlier.

2. Place the wine on a counter or elevated surface, and the sanitized secondary fermenter on the ground. (Or a sanitized bucket before moving back into the primary fermenter)

3. Gently place the siphon hose into the primary fermenter, making sure not to disturb the sediment.

4. Activate your siphon by a couple strokes and place the other end into the fermenter on the ground.

5. Once most of the wine is in the fermenter, stop the siphon! You do not want the sediment to rack into secondary.

6. Option to “gas” the wine using your hand held argon gas for about 1 minute and/or add another 1/4 cup of dried yarrow. Then immediately placing the airlock on.

Gassing displaces oxygen to limit the amount of oxidation that occurs in the fermenter.

7. Set aside for another week. Some people will leave their wine in secondary for a few weeks to a few months! Up to you.

Bottling & Aging Homemade Plum Wine

Finally, onto the final step in your homemade plum wine: bottling and aging. When I made this recipe I did not realize the power of aging wine, but also not all wine is better aged.

I waxxed my wine bottles and stored them underground for aging.

To bottle this dreamy wine:

Sanitize your wine bottles and siphon.
Lightly gas your bottles with argon.
Place the siphon gently into the fermenter and the other end in a bottle.
Pump the siphon a couple times to get the wine flowing.
Fill each bottle.
Cap each bottle.
Option to age your wine underground, or simply place in the fridge.

How long to age wine really depends on the acid levels, tannins, and ABV of a wine. Not all wine is meant to be aged.

Finishing Up

The elegant yarrow and plum wine recipe will yield a delicate and smooth finish. The yarrow will counter the sweetness of the wine and offer it’s herbal benefits.

Enjoy this recipe!