Joy of Home Wine Making (18 page)

NOTE: Elderberries might throw a dark stain on the insides of your wine bottle. Don’t worry, just decant carefully before serving. Later on, in Part Three, I’ll show you how to make a portlike wine out of these great berries.

GRANDMA’S GOOSEBERRY WINE

Another wine your great-grandmother might have made, from an old-fashioned fruit normally available only in home gardens. More people are planting them, though, because they are pretty, though prickly, bushes, and the berries are good for wine, desserts, and jam. A fine example of edible landscaping.

The first time I had gooseberries almost turned me off them for life. I was on a youth hostel hike in Wales, and for dessert we got canned gooseberries served with English custard sauce (made from a box, ugh). I wouldn’t touch gooseberries for years.

Then I had a friend who grew them, and I tasted them fresh. They were OK. THEN I had some gooseberry wine! Now THAT was a good use for these fruits!

Gooseberries also grow wild in many areas. The leaves are very distinctive, but MAKE SURE you know what you are picking. Pick only ripe, sweet gooseberries. (My partner wants to know why gooseberries—why not chickenberries or duckberries?)

1 gallon water

2½ lbs. sugar or 3 lbs. mild honey

3 lbs. gooseberries (high acid fruit)

no acid blend

no tannin

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

1 Campden tablet, crushed (optional)

½ tsp. pectic enzyme

1 packet champagne yeast

Boil the water and sugar or honey, and skim, if necessary. Pick over the berries carefully. Take off the stems. You can leave the tails. Discard any bad berries. Put them in a nylon straining bag and crush them with clean hands or a sanitized potato masher.

Pour the hot sugar water over the crushed berries. If you prefer, you can chill and reserve half the water beforehand; if you’ve done so, you can pour it in now to bring the temperature down quickly. Add the yeast nutrient, but wait until the temperature comes down to add the Campden tablet if you choose to. Cover
and fit with an air lock. Twelve hours after the Campden tablet, add the pectic enzyme. If you don’t use the tablet, then merely wait until the must cools down to add the pectic enzyme. Be sure to use the pectic enzyme!

Check the PA and write it down.

Twenty-four hours later, add your yeast. Stir down daily. After about one week, remove the bag (don’t squeeze). After the sediment has settled down again, check the PA. If it is above 3 to 4 percent, let the must ferment for another week or so and then rack the wine into your glass fermenter. Bung and fit with an air lock.

Rack the wine once or twice during secondary fermentation.

In four to six months, check the PA. Taste it, too. I prefer this wine dry, but you might want to sweeten it. Use stabilizer, and add 2 to 6 ounces of sugar boiled in water. Keep it for a year. Excellent with poultry, fish, and grain dishes. Serve chilled.

GRAPEFRUIT WINE

During the winter, grapefruit goes on sale. Take advantage of it and make some grapefruit wine! More a social wine than a table wine, it’s dry and refreshing. Use white or pink grapefruit that are heavy with juice. I recommend organic grapefruit if you can get them, because you will want to use some of the zest, or thin peelings. Also, I think it is a good idea to add a can of frozen white grape juice to this wine to give it some body. Or you can use one pound of golden raisins.

3¾ quarts water

2 lbs. sugar or 2¼ lbs. light honey (clover is good)

6 big juicy grapefruit, pink or white

1 12 oz. can frozen white grape juice or 1 lb. golden raisins or 1 pint white grape concentrate from wine supply store

no acid

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

¼ tsp. tannin

1 Campden tablet, crushed (optional)

½ tsp. pectic enzyme

1 packet champagne yeast

Boil the water and sugar or honey, and skim, if necessary.

Prepare the zest of two or three of the grapefruits. Then peel
the grapefruits and section them, getting rid of as much white pith as you can. Put the segments and the zest (and soaked, cut-up raisins, if you use them) in a nylon straining bag, and put it in the bottom of a primary fermenter. Mash with very clean hands or a sanitized potato masher.

NOTE: if you are one of those people who find grapefruit bitter (apparently it’s a genetic trait), you won’t like this wine.

If you aren’t using raisins, add the grape juice or grape concentrate now. Pour the hot sugar water over the crushed fruit. If you prefer, you can chill and reserve half the water beforehand; if you’ve done so, you can pour it in now to bring the temperature down quickly. Add the yeast nutrient and tannin, but wait till the temperature comes down to add the Campden tablet if you choose to. Cover and fit with an air lock. Twelve hours after the Campden tablet, add the pectic enzyme. If you don’t use the tablet, then merely wait until the must cools down to add the pectic enzyme. Be sure to use the pectic enzyme.

Check the PA and write it down.

Twenty-four hours later, add your yeast. Stir down daily. After about one week, remove the bag (don’t squeeze). After the sediment has settled down again, check the PA. If it is above 3 to 4 percent, let the must ferment for another week or so, and rack the wine into your glass fermenter.

Rack the wine once or twice during fermentation.

In four to six months, check the PA. Taste it. You might want to sweeten it. Use stabilizer, and add 2 to 6 ounces of sugar boiled in water. Keep it for six months to a year before drinking. Serve chilled, maybe even with ice. It should have a light, pleasant fragrance.

YES! GRAPE WINE

If you can obtain real, ripe grapes, you can make real grape wine with no sugar. If you can get only a few pounds, turn Dragon Lady Wild Grape Wine.

Grapes grow almost everywhere in the United States. In the
South, the grapes are a native American kind called Muscadine, which has a musky sort of flavor but makes a tasty wine. You have to thin it down and add sugar, as you also have to do with wine made from Concord grapes and Catawba wine.

Wild grapes, sometimes called fox grapes, also have an intense, distinctive flavor, but they don’t have enough sugar to make wine on their own.

Other varieties are grown for table use and wine use. Your local wine shop might be able to get shipments of wine grapes from various places. You might ask around to see if there is a nearby vineyard willing to sell you grapes or fresh wine grape juice.

Garden grapes are grown for wine and fruit. There are many different kinds. Check out local pick-your-own places and farmers’ markets. Ask at your local wine supply place, county extension office, or agricultural college. Someone is bound to know!

WINE GRAPE RED WINE