North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Richard MURPHY <murphman108@msn.com>]

Phytoholics:
 
I have 2 batches of Aronia wine in Secondary ferment right now. When I did the first 'rack' I was very pleasantly surprised by the enticing aroma of the Aronia fruit. One batch is 100% Aronia and water, the other Aronia and apple. Both are very dark purple. I have high hopes for their success, and one of us (Mark?) is already happy with this product. For red wines, it has all the tannin you'll ever want, too.
     Aronia is not, and probably never will be a fruit that can be enjoyed right off the bush. The thing I am fascinated with is it's ease of care; none! I picked my berries from bushes at a Supermarket parking lot. I never knew they were there, until one day when I was shopping there I happened to look way out to the boonies and saw some shrubs LOADED with clusters of black berries. So I swiped a branch and brought it home and confirmed its identity on Google. The next day I went back and picked a couple gallons in 30 minutes or less. I washed the heck out of them at home.
     Here is this large, rugged shrub, loaded with fruit, growing in wet soil, given no particular care, and AND... the birds leave it alone.
So, on it's own merit, the berry itself is a 'who cares', but when you look at the big picture, it looks fantastic, especially for those of us that have some not-so-well-drained areas to plant it!
     RIght now I have some of these Aronia seeds in my fridge stratifying. Does anybody know how long the strat time requirement is for Aronia? Finally, I have 10 Nero plants up in zone 4 Maine; they are fine, and laughed at winter.
(medicine my ass)
 
Murph  z6 MA and z4 ME

R A Murphy Jr