Joy of Home Wine Making (33 page)

½ tsp. pectic enzyme

1 packet champagne or sherry yeast

Soak the raisins overnight. Chop them and put them in a nylon straining bag with the zest from the citrus fruit. Place the bag in the bottom of a primary fermenter. Squeeze the juice from the fruit.

Scrub the vegetables well and cut off the tops and the root ends. Leave the peels on the onions. Chop or slice them into the cool water, then heat. SIMMER, do not boil, for 45 minutes.

Strain the vegetables from the water. You can use the vegetables for food if you choose.

Remove about a quart of the water to add back later if you don’t have enough. It’s hard to say how much you will have lost in steam while cooking. Add the sugar or the honey, and simmer until the sugar is dissolved. If using honey, simmer 10-15 minutes, stirring, and skim any scum.

Pour the hot water into a sanitized primary fermenter over the zest and raisins. Add the fruit juices. (You can reserve a bit of the orange juice and extra vegetable water to start the yeast later, if you like.) Check to see if you have a gallon of must. If not, make it up with the reserved water. Add yeast nutrient, tannin, and acid blend if you didn’t use lemons. Cover, and attach an air lock. Let the must cool, and add the Campden tablet, if you choose to use one. Twelve hours after the Campden tablet, add the pectic enzyme. If you don’t use the tablet, merely wait until the must cools down to add the pectic enzyme. Twenty-four hours later, check the PA and add the yeast.

Stir daily. In two weeks or so, check the PA. Lift out the bag of zest and raisins and let it drain back into the container. Do not squeeze. Discard the zest and raisins. Let the wine settle, and rack it into a secondary fermenter. Bung and fit with an air lock. Rack as necessary in the next six months or so. Check the PA. When it ferments out, bottle it. My instincts suggest that this wine is best dry. Leave it in the bottle for at least a year.

NOTE: Winter squash or pumpkin makes an interesting wine, but it might be an acquired taste. Follow the carrot wine recipe; instead of peppercorns, use 5 or 6 fresh cinnamon sticks, NOT cinnamon powder. Pare the rind from the squash carefully before simmering.

I’ve tried zucchini and hated it. No one I know really liked it, although my partner claimed to be able to tolerate it. Might be his Norwegian blood.

PEA POD WINE

If you have a large garden, you might want to try pea pod wine, after you finish shucking the peas. Snap beans, snow peas, and sugar snap peas can also be used, as well as any green leafed vegetable, if you want to experiment. The wine isn’t to everyone’s taste, but what the heck.

There was a British comedy show called
Good Neighbors
in the United States and
The Good Life
in Britain, about a couple of people who prided themselves on self-sufficiency. One of the staple jokes on the show was pea pod burgundy. It was shown as white and cloudy, but the characters drank it regularly. I wish the writers could have had the decency to call it pea pod Chablis, or something besides burgundy, a red wine. It would have been just as funny. Humph. Our recipe will go into the world unadorned, unbowed, and quite clear.

1 gallon water

3-4 lbs. pea pods, snap beans, or snap peas

2½ lbs. sugar or 3 lbs. light honey

3 tsp. acid blend

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

½ tsp. tannin

1 Campden tablet, crushed (optional)

1 tsp. pectic enzyme

1 packet champagne yeast

Rinse the pea pods or bean pods well. Put them in the cool water and turn on the heat. Simmer for about 10 minutes in the water, then lift them out and put them in the nylon straining bag and place in a sanitized primary fermenter.

Add the honey or sugar to the water and boil, skimming if necessary.

Pour the hot sugar water over the nylon straining bag.

Add yeast nutrient, tannin, and acid blend if you didn’t use lemons. Let the must cool, and add the Campden tablet, if you choose to use one. Cover and fit with an air lock. Twelve hours after the Campden tablet, add the pectic enzyme. If you don’t use the tablet, merely wait until the must cools down to add the pectic enzyme. Twenty-four hours later, check the PA and add the yeast.

Stir daily. In two weeks or so, check the PA. Lift out the bag of pea pods and let it drain back into the container. Do not squeeze. Discard the pea pods. Let the wine settle, and rack it into a secondary fermenter. Bung and fit with an air lock. Rack as necessary in the next six months or so. Check the PA. When it ferments out, bottle it. Keep for one year, and see how you like it. Do not call it burgundy.

A TRUE STORY

A friend of mine and I were once giving a demonstration about making home brew and homemade wines. Of course we brought samples.

People tried the dark ale and the light ale, and the stout disappeared entirely. The raspberry wine was well on its way to gone, but no one would touch the carrot. Too weird.

But it’s good, I insisted. I knew for a fact that some of these very people had eaten Spam Mousse only a few years before. How could they be afraid of mere carrot wine?

Then a very brave woman stepped forth and tried the carrot wine. She exclaimed with pleasure. In five minutes it was gone, after the rest of the room rushed to try it.

Moral: If your audience contains no classy people, hire a ringer.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Herb, Flower, Seed, and Grain Wines

O
n a hot summer evening, there’s nothing quite like a glass of chilled mint wine. Dandelion wine in the winter brings back some of the promise of spring, and basil wine reminds me that summer will come again. Caraway seed wine makes simple cheese and crackers seem more of a celebration of the richness of life.

Herb, flower, seed, and grain wines are usually made light and dry and are best served as aperitif or social wines. The flavors are very pleasant but usually too distinctive for the table. Although I rarely make more than a gallon of a kind at a time, they are an important part of my cellar.

I have a garden and grow fresh herbs and flowers; however, there is no reason not to try the dried variety. If you want to try using dried herbs, make sure they are (and this will sound a little silly) FRESH dried herbs. Do not use the can of dried parsley Aunt Hilda left you in her will. Do not use dried herbs that have faded in color or lost their scent. If it smells like musty hay, it
will taste like musty hay. Co-ops are a good place to buy dried herbs cheaply and in bulk, where you can smell them to see if they are fresh and have flavor.

HERBS

Particularly recommended herbs are parsley, pineapple sage, regular sage, basil (particularly the purple basils, which come out pink), oregano, thymes in all their varieties, lemon balm, mints in all their varieties, and sweet woodruff, the herb in May Wine. I also recommend trying rosemary, bay leaves, catnip, dill, hyssop, and marjoram.

Not recommended are chives, garlic chives, or any herb you cannot identify for sure. Always make sure you know EXACTLY what you are working with. Check herb and weed and wildflower books to make sure you are not using something that could be poisonous. Some medicinal herbs are OK in small amounts, but not in the large amounts you would be using in winemaking. When in doubt, DON’T.

FLOWERS

Some flowers are poisonous. Don’t take chances. Be very careful about what you are picking.

In all flower recipes, gather the flowers after the morning dew has dried off but before the heat of the day has set in. Remove all green parts. Use only the blossoms. Lavender is an exception to this rule; the stems and leaves are also very fragrant. Roses sometimes have a bitter white part where the stem connects to the flower. Be sure to snip this part off.

Recommended flowers are dandelions, elderflowers, rose petals, lavender, chamomile, nasturtiums, calendula (pot marigolds), apple blossoms, citrus blossoms, pansies, Johnny-jump-ups, violets, day lilies, borage, broom, goldenrod (honest!), hawthorn, honeysuckle, and primrose.

Poisonous flowers include most lilies (except day lilies), rhododendrons, azaleas, aconite, buttercups, clematis, crocuses, daffodils, delphiniums, lily of the valley, lupin, peonies, and poppies. There are more poisonous flowers than not. I have consulted several lists, and I have concluded that the only flowers I can safely recommend are the ones I have mentioned above. Some lists say,
for instance, that lilacs are poisonous, while others say they are fine. I would rather err on the side of caution, especially with wildflowers.

Allergies should also be considered. I never make elderflower wine because the blossoms make me sneeze. However, most people have no ill effects with elderflower wine, and it has been popular for centuries.

When gathering herbs and flowers in the wild, be sure it is legal to gather in the spot you want to gather in. Don’t rely on a vague memory. Find out for sure. Don’t pick wildflowers that are protected or rare. If they are on private property, ask permission. That might be someone else’s favorite dandelion patch! On the other hand, the owner might well be thrilled that a) you asked, and b) you want to pick the dandelions.

When picking, be sure you know WHAT you are picking. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Don’t destroy other plants in your zeal to get at the plants you want. Be nice to Mother Nature. Be sure, too, that no one has either sprayed the area with pesticide or dumped toxic waste there. If you see old fertilizer bags or oilcans around, don’t pick in that area. Old nuclear waste containers are also a turnoff.

Do not use flowers that have been dried for the decorative dried flower trade. You don’t know where those flowers have been, how they have been handled, or what has been sprayed on them. Use only unsprayed flowers that you have dried yourself, or which are sold in herb shops or as dried tea meant for human consumption. Chamomile is a commonly available dried flower. Dried dandelion or elderflowers are sold in wine supply shops. Dried rose hips, which are really a fruit, are sometimes sold as tea.

For a gallon of wine, I use four to six cups of freshly picked herbs or flower petals, depending on the strength of the herb and its bulk. The herbs usually weigh about a pound. Some old recipes recommend as much as two pounds of an herb, like parsley or balm, but that sounds like far too much these days, and I suspect the result would be a strong medicinal wine. Of course, you might just adore it, who knows?

If you are using dried herbs and flowers, use two ounces. I am counting caraway seeds and the like as herbs.

I have used some herbal teas for flavoring wines, with great success. Sample the tea as a hot tea, then let it cool and see if
you still like it. Some of the Celestial Seasonings teas I’ve used are Red Zinger, Roastaroma, Peppermint, and Sleepytime. Use one to two ounces of the tea, and steep it as you would for dried herbs.