Wineberries: Recipes Using the Raspberry Native

Sticky summer brings edible delights to the forest edges. Chanterelles are in season, blueberries are plumping up, and a shiny, scarlet raspberry relative is ready to collect: Wineberries are one of the prettiest of the aggregate fruits, their seeds hidden inside glossy drupelets so plump with juice that they appear about to burst. Collect as many as you like. This introduced and invasive shrub forms dense, prickly, shady thickets that prevent native plants from growing. But wineberries are a summer delicacy, and an hour’s dedicated picking yields pounds of useful  fruit.

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

Like their raspberry and thimbleberry* cousins, wineberries belong to the Rubus genus. They are R. phoeniculasius, native to East Asia and imported to the United States in the late-19th century as hardy breeding stock for raspberries. Because the two regions’ climates are so similar (humid summers, cold winters), wineberries naturalized widely, and now displace native berries and other species.

(* Visit out Raspberry Cheat Sheet to tell the difference between these similar-looking fruit.)

In New York, wineberries ripen after native black raspberries, and just before blackberries, filling a brief, neat niche in the abundant summer months of soft fruit.

In my experience, these vivid berries are best eaten very simply, with minimal interference. Wineberries are soft, juice-filled, slightly tart, and delicately sweet. They tend not to be intensely flavored, but this could vary, depending on rainfall and whether they are growing in full sun or the high shade of woodlands. My favorite way to eat them is from a bowl, with a spoon. As a seasonal dessert it is elemental and ephemeral.