Pomegranate wine is easy to make at home with fresh pomegranates or pomegranate juice. It’s a traditional drink in eastern Europe and the middle east, and it’s still made today. Commercial bottles of pomegranate wine generally sell for more than $20 each and tend to be very dry and acidic. Making pomegranate wine at home costs about $2 per bottle, and you can adjust the sweetness to your own tastes.
Pomegranates aren’t quite sweet enough on their own to make wine. Though they may taste quite sweet, they’re only about half as sweet as wine grapes. They’re also considerably more acidic, and pomegranates lack the natural tannins that give red wine “body.”
That said, it’s still possible to make a great tasting homemade pomegranate wine, with all the flavor of a pomegranate and the right amount of sweetness to suit your palate. When you’re making a small batch fruit wine, it only takes a tiny amount of tannin powder to add body, a bit of sugar to bring up the alcohol level and ensure sweetness.
The acidity is another matter. Many cultures have cuisine that naturally includes a variety of acidic foods, but it’s an acquired taste. It’s not going to be quite the same as a grape wine, but that’s the point right? If you’re bothering to make pomegranate wine, it’s a conscious choice to drink outside the box.
Pomegranate wine recipes start with either fresh pomegranates or pomegranate juice. If you’re using fresh pomegranates, it’s hard to get as concentrated a flavor, and they’re a bit harder to come by. Still, if you have a pomegranate tree readily available, extract the seeds from about 10 to 20 pomegranates and muddle the seeds in with 2 to 3 pounds of sugar. The sugar will extract the juice. It’s the same method I describe in this recipe for rhubarb wine and as well as this recipe for peach wine.
Since pomegranate juice is available year round, I started with two large bottles of POM pomegranate juice, and it was more than enough for a one-gallon batch. Start by adding 2 to 3 pounds of sugar to a saucepan, and then add in about half a gallon of pomegranate juice. Whisk them together and simmer on the stove until the sugar has dissolved.
Allow the sugar and pomegranate juice solution to cool to room temperature, and then pour it into a fermentation vessel. Add in a tannin source, either a tiny bit of tannin powder for winemaking or a cup of strongly brewed black tea. A pound of raisins helps provide yeast nutrients to keep the fermentation going strong, or you can add in commercial winemaking yeast nutrient for a cleaner taste not impacted by the raisins.
If you’re using fresh pomegranates, add in a bit of pectic enzyme to help break open the fruit cells and extract more juice.
This simple one-gallon pomegranate wine recipe is easy to make at home with fresh pomegranates or bottled pomegranate juice. If using fresh pomegranates, muddle the pomegranate seeds with the sugar and allow it to sit for 24 hours. Cover with boiling water and filter out the tiny white seeds from the syrup. Continue with the recipe as if using juice, but be sure to add 1 tsp pectic enzyme along with the other brewing additives.
Pomegranate Wine
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
Nutrition Information:
Serving Size:
1 grams
Amount Per Serving:
Unsaturated Fat: 0g 
Robyn
Instead of the tanning powder, could I use my brewed kombucha?
Ashley Adamant
Definitely nope. Kombucha is a live food, and you’re going to add the kombucha culture. You can add about 1/2 cup strongly brewed black tea, but stay away from any other cultured food of you’ll turn your wine to vinegar (or kombucha).
angela
I recently bought some Pom seeds in cups at Costco, they are getting older but still sealed and not moldy. I ate one cup tonight and felt just like I had …..had a glass of wine. Thats why i am here.
Caitlin Miller
Same but I had it about 20 minutes ago
Kaly Mariano
I am also here because of a spontaneously fermented pomegranate. Delicious!
Caitlin Lienkaemper
Here because some pomegranate nectar fermented in my fridge.
Tony
Hi Ashley,
How many seeds (in weight) are needed to make the 96 onces of juice?
Thanxx much,
Tony
Administrator
For most people, it’s easier to just use the juice but if you have access to lots of fresh pomegranates you can take about 10 to 20 pomegranates and muddle the seeds with about 2 to 3 pounds of sugar to extract the juice.
Tony
Thank you very much, Ashley! I’ll start it today.
tristan
sorry for the silly question. The second fermentation for 8 weeks – must i continue to use the airlock? I am approaching the end of the 2 weeks so very early days.
Ashley Adamant
Not silly at all. Yes, you do need the air lock still. It’s actually the most important towards the end of fermentation before bottling. Some people leave them off for the first week because the yeast are really ramping up and that allows everything to blow off. At that point, so much CO2 is coming off that there’s an updraft and less chance of stray microbes going into the batch. After the first week, an airlock needs to stay on because there’s a good chance of contamination by vinegar producing cultures that could turn the alcohol into vinegar. Especially towards the end of the secondary fermentation, when there’s little yeast activity you should keep the air lock on.
Albert
Is 2 weeks the right amount of time before moving to a second fermentation vessel I’ve heard that wine should be racked after 5 days to a week and how will I know when to bottle it.
Ashley Adamant
It can be racked into secondary 1-2 weeks after starting, once the most violent part of fermentation subsides and things slow down considerably. Often my house is quite cool, and this takes more like 2 weeks, but in the summer heat it’ll be done in about a week.
Amanda
Can you use a glass carboy as the primary fermentation vessel?
Ashley Adamant
Yup!
TIna
HI There,
i did everything as you instructed, but I am wondering if I should have put in a campden tablet to the juice?
Ashley Adamant
You can, but I never use Campden tablets or other winemaking stabilizers in my brewing.
TIna
Thank you Ashely,
My wine is at 5 days now, so I would rack it in 2 weeks using a siphon, then bottle at 4 weeks? Is there anything I should do within those first two weeks before I rack? also the bubbles have almost completely stopped.
thank you for your great article and feedback!
Tina
Ashley Adamant
Primary for two weeks, and then rack into secondary and ferment for another 4 to 8 weeks. I’d suggest more like 8 weeks on secondary. Thus, the total time is more like 10 weeks (2 weeks primary, plus 8 weeks in secondary).
Daniela
Hi,
how do I know when to bottle? And how and when do I get rid of the loose raisins?
Why do I need to change the fermentation vessel?
Thanks for the answers,
Ashley Adamant
After the wine is in secondary (has been racked to a new container once) I’d give it at about 8 weeks before bottling. If you leave it longer, it’ll keep maturing and get a bit more clarity, so leaving it longer isn’t a bad thing. Really you could leave it for a year in there before bottling and it’d be fabulous, so when to bottle is up to you, but 6-8 weeks is a minimum.
Remove the raisins when you rack it over into secondary, or remove them when you bottle. Either way.
The reason to change the fermentation vessel is to clean out the sediment to increase the clarity of the wine. The second reason, is that leftover yeast sediment can give off flavors to the wine if it’s left sitting on them too long. Primary fermentation produces a lot of yeast sediment (also called lees) and it’s best to sciphon it off of that as soon as things slow down. If you’re going to let the wine ferment in secondary for a long while (like 6+ months), it’s also a good idea to rack it once or twice more during that period. If you’re just leaving it to ferment for around 2 months then no need to rack it again.
Good luck!
Tim
I was going to start this recipe and noticed you said you could sustitute 2 Tbsp of lemon juice for the acid blend ingredient. As acid blend also contains malic acid and tartaric acid should these be added seperately or do they not need to be considered?
Administrator
You can use either the acid blend or lemon juice in this recipe. Either one will work just fine.
Ankita
Can I perform this procedure in laboratory level?
Is black tea idea suitable for this?
What if i opt for peels of the pomegranate as they contin large health benefits
Admin
I haven’t tried it, but I’m sure you could.
JIll
Hi I’m new to this, I’ve moved my wine into my second fermentation vessel after two weeks and it is no longer bubbling through the air lock is this okay ? And is it okay to leave it here for 8 weeks?
Ashley Adamant
Yes, often you won’t see it bubble for a long time, but it’s likely still bubbling about once every 5 minutes or so. Leave it there for the 8 weeks, it’ll be better in the end that way.
SS Rathaur
If you are using an air lock, the level of water on two sides will be different. One side will be higher than other side which means the gases are still getting formed & getting out when bubble size is larger.
tc
not sure what you’re using for pomegranate however pomegranates are not acidic. grapes are more acidic than juice pomegranates. If you’re in doubt I suggest you get a good pH meter and check the pH. Additionally you’re adding way too much sugar prior to fermentation.
Sugar added prior to fermentation is typically intended to capitalize the wine and increase the alcohol per volume level. Wet wines also require a yeast that dies off completely prior to the fermentation of all the sugar in the Must.
Otherwise without the addition of acid that’s making your wine acidic you will likely end up with in Bottle fermentation later. This is a simple explanation have the problems I see with your recipe. Good wine making is really just not that simple which is also why there are several wines on the market that truly suck.
kevin
Hi
Does pomegranate seed produce methanol if it lasts longer in fermentation?
Ashley Adamant
That is a good question that I just don’t have the answer to. I used pomegranate juice, and if you’re using fresh and are worried about it you can just put the seeds through a food mill or food processor and then strain them through cheesecloth.
SS Rathaur
Fermentation will always produce some amount of Methanol depending on the type of yeast & sugar used.. In Beer & Wine the amount of Ethanol is much higher than Methanol so this is not an issue.as it wont have any significant effeccts.
David
I second the above comment. Methanol should not be an issue in anything that has not been distilled, in which case the methanol would be concentrated. Anything fermented can have some methanol in it, like wine or beer, but the amount will be so small it will not be problematic (unless you polish off a keg by yourself, in which case you have other things to worry about)
David
I haven’t made this recipe (yet), but it appears to me that it would be preferable not to crush or grind the seeds, since that would release more of the bitter flavor of the seeds and make them harder to remove. I would suggest only hand-crushing the arils to release juice without damaging the seeds.
It also might be worth hand-juicing them in cheesecloth so that only the juice makes it’s way into the fermentation.
Maz1982
Thanks
That was a great recipe
I did everything u mentioned except i didn’t add 1 tsp yeast nutrient or up to 1 pound raisins
I am in day 15, what do you recommend ?
Should i added now or not ?
Admin
You really want the yeast nutrient in your wine as it’s what your wine yeast feeds on.
Miesha
Hello this off my first time ever making wine, and I’m praying I do it right, I want if I can make 5 gallons out of this recipe since the one on here is good 1 gallon?
Do I use the Camden tablets in, I’ma little confused, also which bottle do I start off with the plastic bubbler or the glass carboy, which one of my primary and secondary?
Ashley Adamant
Yes, you can turn this into a 5-gallon recipe…just multiply all ingredients by 5. As for camden tablets, they’re optional and I don’t use them, but if you’re looking for information on how to use them, read this: https://blog.eckraus.com/campden-tablets-what-they-can-and-cant-do
Usually for a 5 gallon batch you’d start off with a 6 gallon plastic bucket for the primary ferment. You can use a waterlock, or not, during this phase of very active violent fermentation. Either way, leave headspace for the ferment to expand, that’s why you’re using a 6 gallon bucket for a 5 gallon batch.
After primary, the water lock is no longer optional. Rack the wine into secondary (sometimes also in a plastic bucket, but also done in a narrow neck glass carboy) and then attach a water lock for secondary. Good luck!
David
With the relatively small amount of sugar your recipe adds, and with nothing to halt fermentation, it seems to me that this would be a very dry wine. Is that correct?
Admin
Yes, I prefer drier wines to sweeter ones.
KHH
Other recipes i have seen add the same amount of water as juice, does this wine come out differently since it has less water?
Ainslie Boswell
Can I use ordinary brewers /bakers yeast?
Ashley Adamant
Baker’s yeast will give the wine off flavors, and make it taste a bit like a loaf of bread. Believe it or not, a lot of the flavor in a wine comes from the yeast and the volatile compounds they release during fermentation. Champagne yeast is very neutral, while bread yeast in a wine tastes more or less like bread dough smells when it’s rising.
Inez Miller
Hi, we made pomagranate wine using your recipe but adapting it for less juice, we only had about 1,8l
I would like to know if you have an approximate alkohol content. We wanted to measure it and a friend lent us his hydrometer but unfortunately we didn’t measure the “wine/juice” mix at the strart. The finnished wine has a sweet taste and we classified it as a dessert wine.
Megan
Hi,
My husband and I have been studying this recipe for the last few days. We think we are ready. We will begin our first fermentation steps in two half gallon mason jars with a pickle pipe instead of waterlock. But we don’t know what the second one should be. Can you please advise something simple that isn’t plastic? I know to rack it you need to have something like a tea canister with the spout above the sediment, but if we are using mason jars how do we do this?
Ashley Adamant
You can just continue in mason jars, no worries. When you rack the wine, just gently pour it into a new mason jar without disturbing the sediment. If there are chunks of fruit or raisins, pour it through a fine-mesh strainer when you move it over.
There are mason jar specific instructions here (I’m using quart jars): https://practicalselfreliance.com/make-1-quart-mead-micro-batch-method/
Here’s more info on making it work with minimal equipment with a small batch: https://practicalselfreliance.com/small-batch-wine/
Good luck!
Ron
I will have about 3 – 5 gal. of juice from my Pom tree this year and first attempt making wine. Will aging in small oak barrel for a year or more improve the final product and be worth the effort. I have wine making friends in Napa.
Ashley Adamant
Aging in oak will change the flavor, and I’d imagine for the better in the case of Pomegranate wine. You can also add oak chips to the carboy (in secondary) to get the same flavor.
Gene Winstead
I followed the instructions and fermented for 2 weeks. Yesterday I racked it into a clean fermentation vessel. Since then I’ve not seen any outgassing? Do you know the reason? Thanks.
Administrator
This is normal. You often won’t see it bubble for a long time but it’s likely bubbling about once every 5 minutes or so.
Uzi
Its the 8th day and my Pomo wine has these strange white grape looking balls formed .can you advice what’s happening
Ashley Adamant
You’ve got me on that one…not really sure what that could be? Are they above the waterline? If so, then maybe mold. Either way, take them out?
Uzi
Its the 8th day and my Pomo wine has these strange white grape looking balls formed .can you advice what’s happening. I suppose it’s the raisins but I’m really nervous
Ashley Adamant
Oh, just seeing this comment after your first one. The raisins puff up because they’re fermenting, so if you put white grapes in they will puff up into yellow looking balls (you know, like grapes). That’s normal if it’s the raisins. If it’s something else…then I honestly have no idea.
Gene Winstead
I just opened my first bottle of the pomegranate wine and it is wonderful. Thank you so much for the recipe.
Ashley Adamant
Wonderful, so glad you enjoyed it!
Shelby
I tried subbing in honey for the sugar because I love mead. I was very neglectful and just left it in primary fermentation for months. It turned out awesome though, and I’ll be trying again soon! But I’ll be more attentive this time and actual rack it into secondary…
Ashley Adamant
Mead is incredibly forgiving when forgotten I’ve found! So glad it was tasty =)
Lars Akre
Honey on average takes much longer to ferment than white sugar or even fruit sugars. Leaving the must in primary for several months does absolutely no harm and will increase the likelihood of a complete and clean fermentation. The only downside(?) is a much drier, less sweet mead. This can be remedied with the addition of extra sweetener to taste.
ONUR ORAL
Hi
I started this recipe on
25 October using 6kg pomegranate (obtained 2,5lt juice) and 1kg sugar.
On 8 November rack into a new fermantation vessel (smell was not good. mostly yeast smell) I filtered instead of siphon)
on 2 january I filtered again and this time it smells very good.
next week I will filter again and bottle.
I will share the results.
thanks for the recipe.
Administrator
So glad you enjoyed the recipe. Thanks so much for sharing.
ONUR ORAL
Hi again
on 9th of January I bottled my first batch. Since the smell was very good I could only wait till 16February. result was wonderful. I have three more bottles being aged and I started a new batch.
Thank You very much for the recipe.
Administrator
So glad to hear you had such good results! Thanks for sharing.
Angie Whitehouse
I am very excited to make this wine! The recipe calls for 1 packet of yeast for 1 gallon. Am I using the whole packet or part of the packet since 1 packet is for up to 5 gallons of wine? Thank you!
Administrator
You can just use 1/4 of the yeast packet.
Kamal
Hi there
First of all thanks for the great tutorials 👌 I used fresh pomegranate and Redstar wine yeast for almost 26 liters of pomegranate must. But the problem was that since It was my first time making pomegranate wine, after adding sugar to the must, it was too sweet to the extent that I thought It won’t taste a little tart at the end, so I added about 600 ml of fresh lemon juice! 😑 even after that I thought It’s still pretty sweet. Thank god I didn’t have anymore lemon available. Now after 25 days of fermenting, it tastes bitter(no sweetness whatsoever) and veryy acidic, so much so that I can taste the lemon juice in my mouth!(60% pomegranate and 40% lemon) how can I reduce the acidity and and that sharp lemon juice flavor? Is it okay to add more pomegranate juice and sugar and yeat at this stage? Please help🙏
Administrator
Here is an article with some ideas on how to reduce the acidity in your wine. https://blog.homebrewing.org/reduce-wine-acidity/
John Wood
I thank you for the recipe. I am winging it as the wine yeast I purchased cam in a 1 oz packet. I don’t think I am supposed to use the entire once. I was wondering is there is another measurement than a packet? Thank you.
Administrator
What size recipe are you wanting to make?