Jack Keller lives with his wife Donna in Pleasanton, Texas, just south of San Antone. Winemaking is his passion and for years he has been making wine from just about anything both fermentable and nontoxic.
Jack has developed scores of recipes and tends to gravitate to the exotic or unusual, having once won first place with jalapeno wine, second place with sandburr wine, and third with Bermuda grass clippings wine.
Jack was twice the President of the San Antonio Regional Wine Guild, is a certified home wine judge, frequent contributor to WineMaker Magazine, creator and author of The Winemaking Home Page and of Jack Keller's WineBlog, the first wine blog on the internet, ever. He grows a few grapes, still works for a living, and is slowly writing a book on -- what else? -- winemaking.
Some Other Wine Blogs
There are hundreds of wine blogs. According to Alder Yarrow (see below), none have been around as long as
Jack Keller's WineBlog, but 99% of these newcomers are for wine consumers, not winemakers. They have
anointed themselves the official "wine blogosphere." You can count on both hands those of us bloggers
dedicated to actually making the stuff they write about, and yet our blogs are largely ignored by this elite.
Still, they exist and are important. There are some who write for the buyer / consumer but still occasionally
talk about the making of wine, even if they usually are talking about making it in 125,000-liter stainless
steel tanks. Or they might talk about grape varieties, harvests in general, the cork-screwcap debate,
stemware, or other subjects I think you might find interesting. They're worth reading even if you aren't
interested in their tasting notes. Then again, that just might be your cup od tea. Here are a few of them I
like, listed in a loose alphabetical order (by blogger):
If you did not previously read the introduction to my last (March 7, 2010) WineBlog entry, please do. Any day now events will intercede in my affairs and I will go into a month or so of inactivity. I do not want you to be mystified when this happens. I have explained it.
I recommend you subscribe to this blog's RSS feed (click on the Subscribe link or button in the left column). That way you will be notified when I return. I don't want to lose you, and I hope you don't want to lose me.
A friend shared a wine with me last month that he said was a "special blend." It was quite good -- excellent, in fact. When I tactfully inquired as to the blending components ("Hey, Lou, what all's in this blend of yours?"), he pretended he didn't hear me. I let it go. Last night he called to apologize. Seems he couldn't remember that it was Mustang grape, more Mustang grape, another batch of Mustang grape, and a final batch of Mustang grape. But when he explained how he blended it, I said, "Oh, it's almost like a Solera system." "A what?" he asked.
Seems he started with a 5-gallon batch of Mustang one year when the wild vines were particularly heavy with fruit. The next year he made a 3-gallon batch and a 1-gallon batch. From the 5-gallon batch of year one he drew off a gallon and bottled it, replacing the missing gallon with the single gallon from year two.
The next year he made two gallons of Mustang. He also drew off and bottled two gallons from the year one 5-gallon carboy. He topped up the year one carboy with two gallons from the year two 3-gallon carboy, and topped up the latter with the new two gallons he had just made (year three).
The following year he made another 3-gallons in single-gallon jugs. He also bottled another two gallons from the year one carboy, topped it off with wine from the year two carboy and topped up that one with two gallons from year four.
The fifth year he made a single gallon of Mustang. He bottled another two gallons from the year one carboy, topped up that carboy from the year two 3-gallon carboy, and topped it up with the remaining gallon from year four and the single gallon he made in year five.
His system is not as structured as a Solera system, but it essentially works the same way. In the fifth year he bottled a blend of four different years, each in a different stage of aging. It made for a very interesting wine that boasted both age and youth at the same time, with both smooth and vibrant tannins and a complexity rare in Mustang. It was very good. I thanked him profusely for sharing his secret with me, hoping the profusion was enough to earn more than just a taste of next year's bottling. We shall see.
Two months ago I wrote about a 40-year old Mustang we consumed at a San Antonio Regional Wine Guild meeting. At our February meeting, another bottle of the 40-year old Mustang was opened and we declared it barely drinkable due to acetic acid. While I was still trying to get my taste buds around it, our host dumped the bottle down the drain, produced yet another bottle, and that wine was moved to a decanter after passing the sniff test. Although all three bottles reportedly came from the same batch of Mustang, each tasted completely different from each other. The first bottle was trying to become sherry, the second vinegar, and the third was sweet, quite cloudy, but very drinkable. I have a theory that explains this.
My best guess is that the must was heavily chaptalized but not well stirred, and that means that the sugar was not completely dissolved. In 1970, when this wine was made, it was quite common to chaptalize with 3 pounds of sugar per gallon of must. That will almost always leave a sweet wine, but especially so if the sugar is not completely dissolved so the yeast can ingest it.
My guess is that when the wine was bottled, the first bottle[s] were pulled from the top where the wine was fairly dry. As more and more wine was removed, the remaining wine hugged the undissolved sugar on the bottom and each of the final bottles filled contained successively sweeter wine.
This is just a guess, but a plausible one. But I'll say this for the deceased winemaker who left us his legacy; no matter how he did it back in 1970, he made some pretty darn good Mustang wine. I am still amazed it survived this long.
I will try to get a couple more WineBlog entries in before I vanish for a month or so, but I cannot guarantee it. I am preparing for retirement at the end of the month and the pace of things has picked up and is building considerably. Just cleaning out my office at work is turning out to be more of a job than I ever imagined. How does one manage to collect so many personal things at work?
In a week family and friends will start arriving and I will not have an opportunity to get back online for awhile. The last half of this month and the first half of next will be consumed by events and a seclusion with my wife at an island hide-away. I should be back online around April 20th.
I have been in the Army, affiliated with the Army or working for the Army since 1966. I am proud of my service and the men and women I served with. We defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and even the Russians will admit that that's saying something.
Preface
I received a phone call last night from a winemaker in Minnesota who has written me several times but has never received a reply. Well, that could be explained by the notice on my Home Page that boldly states, "If you insist, you may send me email, but I have almost zero free time and probably won't answer it. This is reality and I don't want you to write expecting an answer." (See above. It will get worse before it gets better.) However, since the gentleman went through the trouble of tracking down my phone number I could hardly refuse to assist him. His questions, however, were technical and I said I would answer them here.
A winemaker -- sometimes meadmaker -- asked why his light golden honey turned black, crystallized, and soured. Wow. Three big strikes against using that particular honey for mead and proof enough that honey is a perishable commodity with a variable shelf life. I don't know that anyone can predict the shelf life of a given honey as there are too many contributing causes of its deterioration. But we do know enough about honey to explain each of the changes that occurred in this instance.
First of all, honey, like most substances, reacts with oxygen and oxidizes. This partially explains the darkening. The rest of the explanation centers on diastase. Diastase is a α-, β- or γ-amylase capable of hydrolyzing starch into maltose and then dextrose. I am not at all conversant into why diastase is naturally in honey, but it is. Diastase is not stable over time, and this instability at normal storage temperatures contributes to the darkening of honey. There may be other contributors I am unaware of, but these two are well known. I too have kept honey so long that it turned black. It's quite disconcerting, but if the honey still tastes okay then it still has utility -- if not in meadmaking, then in cooking, baking and sweetening coffees and teas.
Crystallization or granulation of honey is not an uncommon sign of age. Honey granulates when dextrose begins solidifying around a microscopic dextrose crystal, a pollen grain, a dust particle, or some other attractive nuclei. It will begin crystallizing most effectively at temperatures between 41 and 45#176; F. and crystallize most rapidly between 50 and 60#176; F.
A critical component of honey is moisture. The best grade of honey will contain on average about 17.2% water by weight. Grade A and B must not contain more than 18.6% water. This is considered the upper limit for moisture content of unpasteurized honey, although Grade C honey can contain as much as 20%. There are specific reasons varietal honeys are not pasteurized (loss of volatile aromatic compounds being the most significant). All honeys contain some wild yeast. As long as the moisture content is below the critical 18.6% break point, osmosis creates dormancy conditions for wild yeast. When the moisture content rises above that number, some yeast may come out of dormancy and begin fermentation. Remember, please, that alcohol fermentation, where alcohol is the major byproduct, is but one of many types of fermentation (although other types are unlikely in a sugar-rich environment). While you certainly don't want other byproducts in your honey, you really don't want an alcohol fermentation to start either -- in a sealed bottle in your pantry -- do you? Think "big bang."
As honey crystallizes, moisture is expelled from the crystal lattices as they form and grow. The result is a separation of solid and liquid. It doesn't take much separation to raise the water content of the remaining liquid up into the 20-30% range (and higher!). This changing environment encourages fermentation. Even a small amount of alcohol in a jar that almost certainly contains a sufficient amount of air and oxygen can break down into acetic acid and water. The end result is a black, crystallized, sour honey.
So, one might ask, what is the best temperature for storing honey for long periods without these kinds of consequences? I have always been told that the best temperature for long term storage of honey is 0#176; F. or below. At this temperature, the honey will not lose color, aroma, flavor, or density. For short periods, say from one season to the next, storage between 61 and 80#176; F. is recommended. Above 80#176; and the honey will degrade rapidly.
There is probably more that could be said on this subject, but my knowledge is limited.
I suffered an agonizing sequence of events! First, I got food poisoning from an egg salad sandwich I left out all day and then scarfed down without thinking. After three miserable days, I then rushed to complete and submit my retirement packet and supporting documents so I can step into freedom at the end of the month.
While that was happening, I finally received my Windows 7 upgrade and then spent hours trying to do simple things, like move my Favorites (haven't done it yet!), my address book (another not yet but I know how!) and dozens of simple things that would indeed be simple if Microsoft didn't keep changing the interface without issuing an operator's manual (remember the good old days?). Not a whole lot of time left over for winemaking, but there was some.
Blog ideas come from many places. Bob Toombs wrote about a customer who added a teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite to a 5-gallon carboy of must. He had already written to Tim Vandergrift of WineExpert and their minds met on the "dump it" solution. I have to concur. It is possible to get the free sulfur (as SO2) down to a manageable level, but the bound sulfur level will be so high as to be disagreeable.
One-quarter teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite per 5-gallon batch is the correct dose. Exceed that at your peril. If you double it, you might pull off a recovery, but quadrupling it is just lethal for the batch. Accept it and dump it.
Recovery. You can stir with vigor for a long time, driving off the excess SO2. Applying a vacuum might accomplish the same thing. Alternatively, you can heat the must to drive out the SO2. But all things (but enthusiasm) in moderation.
You're going to laugh at me, but for many, many years I've tried to concoct a blend of fruit that tastes and smells like Juicy Fruit chewing gum. This quest is for my wife, who loves Juicy Fruit but will no longer chew it because Wrigley insists on loading it up with aspartame.
Thus far my must smells like Juicy Fruit. I have no idea what it tastes like. It has only been fermenting vigorously for 10 days, so it is far too early to taste it and declare success or failure. Certainly I am not going to publish the recipe until it proves itself, but I am willing to discuss what went into it.
I started with white grape juice and blended in apple juice, strawberries, kiwis, bananas, nectarines, and fresh pineapple. It doesn't have the strong aroma the gum has, but it does have it in a weaker form. Thus far, I am pleased. I am almost afraid to spoil the illusion by tasting it. I'll keep you posted.
Awww man, it happened again, but this time no one told for a whole week; my RSS feed's
links to my last two WineBlog entries were to old entries. My bad! I'm sorry.
It happens. I said it wouldn't happen again but I was wrong. But it's fixed. I will
try to be a better editor. I will probably fail. Please let me know when this happens.
My email is jackredkellerwhitewine@gbluemail.com (remove the patriotic colors from the
address).
Not knowing my bad, my wife bought me a heavenly treat, a pound of genuine, certified,
Jamaican Blue Mountain #1 coffee. This isn't the fake stuff from Kona or wherever, and
not the Triage blend that allows up to 4% defective beans and sells for $20 a pound, but
the real, 17/20 select, $40-$60 a pound stuff that Hugo Reyes (Hurley, on Lost) would pay
$1,000 a cup for. I am nursing a cup right now. I have no idea what I did to deserve this,
but I hope I do it again.
In my last WineBlog entry I mentioned a potential sluggishness problem when
fining with Bentonite. At least two of you over-reacted. Please re-read the entry.
The potential problem exists when using a yeast strain with high nitrogen needs. Most
yeast strains are not affected but listed below are some that are. Perhaps more
importantly, there are other things you should know about Bentonite. Used correctly,
it can be among your best winemaking friends.
First, some of the strains that require a high nitrogen nutrient (especially so if
using Bentonite with the fermentation). All strains listed are Lalvin: BA11, BDX,
BM45, BRL97 (moderate needs), CSM, CY3079, ICV-D47, ICV-GRE, K1-V1116, L2226, M1, M2
(moderate needs), RA17, RC212, T306, W15, and W46 (moderate needs). Few yeast
manufacturers are as forthcoming with information on their strains and their needs as is
Lallemand (Lalvin) - one of the reasons I buy their yeast. As for high nitrogen
nutrients, every winemaker should have one on hand [Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) works
just fine, thank you]. In 90% of all cases of sluggish fermentation, adding DAP is the
cheapest way to overcome the problem, and with the strains listed above it is the
cheapest way to prevent a problem.
None of the worry about Bentonite causing a sluggish fermentation is even relevant if
you don't add it to a must before or during fermentation. If it strips nitrogen from a
finished wine, who cares? [Okay, there is a very small downside with regard to potential
complexity development during aging, but very small are the operative words.]
There are essentially two kinds of Bentonite marked for winemakers. One requires
extended hydration - you normally whip up a slurry with hot water at least the day
before use and let it rest 24 to 48 hours before re-stirring and adding while stirring.
A more convenient, agglomerated type requires little rest after hydrating with cold
water and can be added almost immediately -- while stirring. But you must
read and follow the directions that come with the Bentonite you purchase. If there are
no directions, always assume it is the first type, whip up a slurry with hot water, let
it sit at least 24 hours (48 is better), re-stir, and add it to your must or wine slowly
while stirring.
Things I like about Bentonite are (1) for white wines, it is unsurpassable in
achieving clarity and protein stability; (2) it is least likely of all the common fining
agents to strip out color; (3) it is almost impossible to "over-fine" with Bentonite but
easy to do with many other fining agents; (4) when time is allowed for gravity to exert
itself, every tiny particle of Bentonite will settle into the lees and is one less thing
to worry about.
Seven of us at work were discussing fresh fruit. Only two of us ate fresh fruit every
single day and I was the only one that eats -- sometimes three -- two portions of fresh
fruit each day. I eat a banana on the way to work or before I have my coffee on weekends
and have a second fresh fruit midway through the morning. I sometimes have a third portion
mid-afternoon or as a dessert following my evening meal. But my interest here is the
fruit we most frequently chose to eat as well as that we simply ignore.
The most frequently eaten fruit among us was the banana. However, each of us agreed
that the flavor of supermarket bananas has declined considerably over the years. They
are, in fact, pretty bland today. The second most popular fruit among us was the apple.
This surprised me, as I infrequently eat apples because the flavors of supermarket apples
pale in comparison to freshly picked ones. Actually, this can be said about most fruit
(and vegetables). But apples are easy to carry, accept some traveling abuse, are easy
to eat, and have predictable varietal flavors.
Oranges were third in popularity, although somewhat messy to eat. Peaches, seasonal
berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, etc.), grapes, plums,
watermelon, tangerines, cantaloupes, nectarines, cherries, and pears were all mentioned,
but I did not record the order of preference. However, my own second most frequently
eaten fruit, depending on season, is peach, grapes, cherries, melons (all types), pears,
plums, and a couple mentioned next. I mentioned pineapple, apricot, kiwi, pluot, mango,
persimmon, pomegranate, fig, papaya, and several other fruit, but most of those present
rarely bought these fruit fresh. Price, unfamiliarity or (in the case of pomegranates)
messiness were cited as reasons for shying away from these fruit. However, everyone
agreed to try new fruit every now and then just to experience them.
Comice pears are perfect dessert fruit
One fruit that actually ranked low but was still among the most frequently purchased
was the pear. Chief complaint was the gritty texture of the flesh and inconsistency in
flavor. I can guess which pear varieties my friends were referring to but no names were
offered. I asked if they had tried Comice pears and no one believed they had. I had a
monster of a Comice (weighed exactly one pound) in my office and left to retrieve it, a
paring knife and some napkins. I began to cut each person a piece. Everyone noticed
that with every cut juice flowed from the pear and through my hands. The napkins were
very much a necessity. All six of my friends were delighted by the sweet, juicy,
melting flesh. All asked where I obtained them. They are available from the most
popular supermarket chain in Texas (HEB). You simply have to look for them. They are
only in season about a month or two and cost a little more than the more common
varieties, but they are well worth the investment in sheer delight. Although Comice
pears are perfect dessert fruit, I eat mine at midmorning and relish every bite. If you
find a Comice even the least bit gritty, you will also notice it lacks the juiciness and
flavor I mentioned above because it is not fully ripe. When ripe, they are exquisite
and make unforgettable wine.
A fruit no one mentioned is the gage - often referred to as the greengage but
available in other colors and cultivar names. A gage is a variety of plum. The story
goes that someone surnamed Gage (I have seen John, Thomas and William all cited)
imported the 'Reine Claudes' plum from France in the 18th century; the trees lost their
labels identifying the cultivar's name and took the name of their importer. Whatever the
source of the name, plums that go by the name "gage" are consistently juicy, sweet and
intensely flavorful. They also make exceptional wine.
Most had eaten an occasional fresh pineapple, but only those who had eaten freshly
harvested ones in Hawaii, Mexico, or Central America truly understood how wonderful they
really can taste and how rapidly they lose that ambrosiac flavor. A neighbor went to
Hawaii several years ago and I asked her to buy me a fresh pineapple in the airport on
her way home. She thought I was a bit nuts, but she arrived home with two - one for each
of us - and said she never realized how wonderful pineapple could taste until she ate it
at a roadside stand in front of a pineapple field. She ate it every day after that, and
that is the pineapple you make heavenly wine from.
Large and incredibly sweet Nero di Terlizzi figs
My wife has a love for figs that is unnatural. Among her favorites are Mission,
Celeste, Brown Turkey, Black Ischia, Strawberry, Desert King, and Kadota. Fig wine is
either simply good to magnificent. I have never tasted a bad fig wine, and last October
I judged a competition in which a fig wine won Best of Show.
There are dozens of varieties of mango. Personally, I like the golden-yellow skinned
Ataulfo mango, with its sweet, creamy flavor and bright yellow flesh. I also like the
greenish-skinned Keitt, with its sweet, juicy and fruity flavored yellow flesh. By far
the most commercially available cultivar in the United States and Europe is the Tommy
Atkins, but it really does have inferior flavor and a very fibrous flesh.
Wonderfully flavored Belle of Georgia and White Lady peaches
My preference for fresh fruit is a ripe, juicy, white fleshed peach. Two are
attracted to my taste buds more than any other, First in my book is the incredible
tasting Georgia Belle. I personally prefer it to any other peach but your taste buds
may be calibrated differently. That's why there are so many varieties. My second choice
is the aptly named White Lady. She is soft, she is creamy, she is juicy, she is sweet.
Once you have tasted her, you want more. And her flavor is unforgetable. Better than
the Belle? Only you can say.
But to be fair, there are other excellent white fleshed peaches. The home garden
favorite, Champion, produces large fruit with a sweet, delicate flavor. Eden, another
large white, is juicy, sweet and richly flavored. The Belle of Georgia (not the same
peach as the Georgia Belle) has a wonderful flavor, but does not equal the Georgia Belle
in my book. The very established Grosse Mignonne (a.k.a. Grimwood's Royal George) was
introduced in 1667 and is an exceptional white fleshed peach, but difficult to find. J.M.
Mack, Strawberry Free, White Champion and White Hale ate a few other whites I am familiar
with, but I freely admit that there are hundreds of varieties I have never knowingly
tasted, so there may be richer, more incredible flavors out there. If you have a
favorite, let me know and I will try to find it to taste.
I spent a few hours this week discussing both well-known and little-known grape
varieties with people wanting to make wines that taste like two classic blends. The
wines they sought to emulate are Chianti and Châteauneuf de Pape. The first
traditionally was 70% Sangiovese, 15% Canaiolo and 15% Malvasia bianca; today
Sangiovese is still the base but other grapes are allowed. Châteauneuf de Pape is a
blend of any of 13 authorized and controlled varieties - predominately Grenache, but
also containing Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Muscardin, Cournoise, Clairette, Bourboulenc,
Picpoul, Roussanne, Terret Noir, Picardan, and Vaccarese. There was little point to the
discussions, as each of the participants would have to substitute many of the grapes
involved to make anything close. But if they are simply after the style (assuming, of
course, that the taste was close), then substitution is certainly allowed.
I could have waited a couple of hours to post this entry and dated it on Saint
Valentine's Day. I didn't want to wait, but wish all my readers a happy Valentine's Day
nonetheless.
I have two topics, below. Each is about wine problems, either directly or indirectly.
I hope you take something worthwhile from them.
A few days ago a reader wrote that he had followed one of my recipes to the "T" and
after a month the specific gravity had only dropped from 1.110 to 1.046. After several
email exchanges, he finally admitted he did two things different - he used Lalvin RC212
yeast instead of Red Star Montrachet and added Bentonite before pitching the yeast.
"All the red wine kits do it," he said. And so I had to explain to him why his
fermentation is slower than a snails' race and how to correct it overnight.
He used the canned blackberry wine recipe below, but added the Bentonite. I'm sure
most, if not all, of my readers know that Bentonite is a very fine clay-like material
primarily used as a fining agent to achieve protein stability in white wines. It
consists of complex, hydrated, aluminum silicate with negatively charged, exchangeable,
cationic components. It can contain calcium or sodium, but the latter is more effective
for winemaking. It hydrates better and has more reactive surface area per clay platelet
than the calcium form.
Hydrated Bentonite consists of flat platelets which absorb positively charged
particles from the must or wine. In white wines these are primarily proteins which can
cloud a wine after chilling, but it also attracts other positively charged components
such as anthocyanins (pigments), other phenolics and nitrogen. Bentonite works rather
quickly in attracting these components, but it takes gravity a while to drag the
extremely fine platelets to the bottom, especially while active fermentation keeps the
must stirred up.
Because Bentonite is very effective at removing nitrogen from the must, when added at
any time before or during fermentation you must also use a nitrogen rich yeast nutrient.
Also, Lalvin RC212, while a very fine yeast for blackberry, requires high nitrogen
nutrient additions to avoid the potential development of H2S. Kit
manufacturers that have you add Bentonite up front do so to aid in rapid clearing of the
wine. They also use a nitrogen-rich yeast nutrient so as to avoid sluggish fermentations
and use yeast strains that are not big nitrogen users. I told him he could solve his
problem by adding 1/2 teaspoon of Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) or Fermaid 2133. If he
didn't have either of these, another teaspoon of his regular yeast nutrient would
probably work fine.
Here is the recipe he used, only I am posting it as I wrote it, not as he modified it.
There is nothing wrong with tweaking recipes. They are, after all, guidelines. But when
you tweak them, make sure you understand the consequences of the changes you make. By
the way, if I were going to tweak this recipe, I would increase the can size from 16 to
20 ounces, reduce the sugar by 6 ounces and only add the syrup from one of the cans. I
would freeze the rest in case I wanted to sweeten the wine after fermentation and
stabilization. The blackberry flavor would be stronger and the alcohol content less. I
have made it this way several times, but just haven't rewritten the recipe.
Canned Blackberry Wine
2 16-oz cans blackberries in light syrup
2 lbs granulated sugar
3-1/2 qts water
2 tsp acid blend
1/8 tsp grape tannin
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
Montrachet wine yeast
Heat water, but do not boil. Drain syrup from fruit and set syrup aside. Put fruit in
nylon straining bag, tie end closed, set in primary. Add sugar to hot water and stir
well to dissolve sugar. Add syrup from fruit. Pour the water/syrup over fruit in primary,
cover with clean cloth and allow to cool to room temperature (about 4 hours). Add
remaining ingredients except yeast and recover primary. Wait 12 hours, add yeast and
recover. Let ferment 5 days, punching bag down twice a day. Measure specific gravity.
When S.G. reaches 1.020, drip drain (but don't squeeze) the bag of fruit. Discard fruit
or save it for jam. Allow wine to settle overnight and rack into secondary. Top up and
fit airlock. Rack after 2 months and again after additional 2 months. If certain
fermentation has ceased, bottle. If not certain, either wait another 2 months and rack
into bottles or stabilize, wait 10 days, and rack into bottles. This wine may be tasted
young, but will be much better after 9 months. [Author's own recipe]
Another reader asked me to comment on when to pull the plug on a wine or mead. He
said he wasn't sure when to give it more time, when to dump it or do something else.
It's a good question, and a tough one even for a commercial winemaker to answer. It's
especially tough for the home winemaker without an in-house lab, but I will give you my
thoughts.
First of all, I have to admit that I'm really the last person who should be answering
this question. I only pull the plug when a batch has undeniably gone south for eternity.
That means a spoilage bacteria has crossed the Rubicon before I knew it existed;
detection of advanced mercaptan formation that resists elemental copper or copper
sulfate treatment; an ethyl or diethyl sulfide or diethyl disulfide presence (detectable
burnt rubber odor); an aggressive case of acetaldehyde (Sherry odor) that defies
treatment with potassium caseinate; ethyl acetate (nail polish remover) odor; 2,4,6
trichloro anisole (TCA) presence; ethoxy hexadiene (geranium odor) detected; aggressive
Brettanomyces contamination - these are reasons I dump a wine. With the exception of
watermelon musts, which spoil more often than not, I have experienced most of these
rarely and one (TCA) never. Most of these are prevented by aseptic levels of sulfur
dioxide; all are prevented by good winemaking practices (except spoilage of watermelon
must, which is just a matter of losing a race against time).
Back before I really understood all that much about the chemistry of winemaking, I
had a plum wine steadily ferment at an almost imperceptible level of progress for three
years. I finally bought "First Steps in Winemaking" and discovered potassium sorbate. I
bought some from a druggist and put the few surviving yeast cells out of their misery
when the wine dipped a hair's thickness below 1.014 on my hydrometer. According to
C.J.J. Berry, that wine had 10% alcohol and could stand on its own feet. But I have
never had a wine that contained as much dissolved CO2 as that
wine. I degassed it with a wooden dowel for two days. My point? Anyone else probably
would have given up on it two years earlier, but I hung in there out of ignorance and
nursed a pretty good wine out of those plums. Since then I've never given up on a wine
due to time.
As long as an unfinished wine is fermenting, it has a chance. If it is sulfited
appropriately, it has a 98% or better chance of finishing the race unscathed. And,
sulfite will preserve it while you try a few things that might solve whatever problem
you think you might have. Wine is very forgiving if you don't do anything really stupid.
Just pay attention and stay the course.
I was very pleased to read what Charlie Suehs wrote about the WineBlog after
reprinting (with permission) part of my January 21st entry, "A Lesson About Oxidation";
"It is perhaps the most intelligent winemaking source on the internet." Thank you
Charlie. I hope you can always say that.
Charlie is a well-known Texas winemaker and author of a self-published pamphlet,
"Winemaking for Serious Amateurs." If you are interested in a copy, write directly to
Charlie at cfoxbcowsuehs@dogsuehs.catnet (carefully remove all 3-lettered mammals from
the address to write to Charlie). I refer to it myself.
Last year I made a jackfruit wine and began drinking it last month. Bottled slightly
sweet at a specific gravity of 1.010, the wine's unique and inviting flavor makes a nice
dessert accompaniment. It was reviewed very favorably by those who tried it and I am
quite proud of this wine.
The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is a species of tree in the mulberry
family native to South and Southeast Asia. Its fruit are the largest tree borne fruit in
the world, seldom less than about 10 inches in diameter. The largest jackfruit variety
can weigh between 33 and 88 pounds, but most are much smaller. Jackfruit flesh is
starchy and fibrous, rich in vitamin C and manganese and is a good energy food. Unripe
fruit can be eaten after cooking; ripe fruit can be eaten raw. They are an important
food wherever grown. Archeological findings have revealed that jackfruit were cultivated
in India 3000 to 6000 years ago.
Whole jackfruit (courtesy of virtualherbarium.org), halved, and canned sections
The fruit does not travel great distances well and so can only be found fresh in U.S.
markets at great expense due to the necessity of flying it here. I bought the fruit
canned in light syrup from a Thai grocer at a reasonable price. I used four 20-ounce
cans, including the syrup. Unfortunately, I only had four cans and only made a gallon.
Jackfruit Wine Recipe
4 20-oz cans jackfruit sections
11.5 oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
1 lb 3 oz granulated sugar
1-1/2 tsp acid blend
Water to 1 gallon
1 Campden tablet
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 sachet Sauternes wine yeast
Drain the fruit but retain both the fruit and the syrup. Slice the fruit sections and
place in primary in nylon straining bag. Dissolve sugar, acid blend and yeast nutrient
in 1/2 gallon of water. Pour over fruit and add thawed grape juice concentrate and
jackfruit syrup. Remove bag of fruit just long enough to add additional water to make
up one gallon of liquid. Replace bag of fruit and add finely crushed and dissolved
Campden tablet. Cover the primary and set aside 12 hours. Add yeast in a starter
solution and recover primary. Ride out the vigorous fermentation and when it subsides
remove and discard the fruit and transfer wine to secondary. Attach airlock and set
aside 30 days. Rack, top up and replace airlock. Repeat racking after 2 months; wine
should be clear but may require one additional racking in 30-45 days. Stabilize with
1/2 teaspoon potassium sorbate and 1 finely crushed Campden tablet and wait 30 days.
Sweeten as desired, wait additional 30 days and bottle wine. Can be consumed after 90
days but is improved at 6 months.. [Author's own recipe]
In the previous topic I mentioned that the Jackfruit Wine I made was bottled slightly
sweet at a specific gravity of 1.010 and that the wine's unique and inviting flavor makes
a nice dessert accompaniment. Am I saying this is a dessert wine? No. What I am saying
is that it is neither a wine you would drink by itself - a social wine - nor a wine you
would drink with the main course of a meal - a table wine. While it could be consumed
as a dessert wine, it is neither sweet enough nor high enough in alcohol to strictly
qualify as a dessert wine. So what is the difference?
There are many different opinions as to what differentiates a sweet wine from a
dessert wine, but there is a larger consensus than not that a wine becomes "sweet" at 2%
residual sugar and almost unanimous agreement that at 3% residual sugar any wine is
"sweet." In terms of specific gravity, a 12% alcohol wine is "sweet" at 1.008. Here we
are speaking of a table wine, but it could be a social wine as well.
A dessert wine will typically have more than 14.5% alcohol (port style wines have 18%
or more alcohol) and in the neighborhood of 7% (s.g. of 1.025) or more residual sugar.
Syrupy dessert wines have 10% or more residual sugar. Sweetness is obtained by stopping
the fermentation quite prematurely, usually by fortifying what would otherwise be a low-
alcohol beverage, or allowing a higher alcohol content to develop, stopping fermentation
and then adding sweet grape or fruit juice, sugar, or both. There are other ways to
predictably stop fermentation but they are difficult without a decent laboratory to
accurately monitor a wine's fermentation progress.
Sweet wines, and here I include dessert wines, are somewhat easy to make but difficult
to make well. I will explain. Many winemakers make a batch of dry wine and draw off a
portion of it to chaptalize into a sweet wine. Such wines can usually be spotted easily
because the dry wines are usually balanced while their sweet versions are not. Imbalance
increases when the wine is chaptalized further and perhaps fortified to make a dessert
wine. These wines are spotted in competitions because the same wine is entered as a dry,
a sweet and a dessert wine. The problem is one of balance. Adding sugar, either as a
sweet juice or refined solid, usually demands an increase in acidity to balance the
elevated sugar. Small increases in tannin might also improve the sweetened wine.
I have a friend whose sweet wines tasted a bit "funny." At first I could not identify
the taste, but finally I decided it was glycerine. He confirmed it. I asked how much
he added and he said he added something like 2 teaspoons to each bottle prior to filling
it with wine. I was horrorfied. One to 1-1/2 teaspoons per gallon is more than enough
to increase body while adding to a perception of sweetness, but you must not add an
amount that reaches or exceeds the taste detection threshold. Plus, many yeasts can be
tricked into making more natural (and fully integrated) glycerol.
To trick a yeast into creating more glycerol, it is first necessary to select a
strain noted for glycerol production. All yeasts produce some, but Gervin Varietal A,
Lalvin S6U and Lalvin W15 are noted high producers of glycerol. If one adds 6 grams of
bentonite per gallon to the must as fermentation approaches vigor, most of the active
yeast will settle to the bottom within 3-5 days; careful racking will leave most of the
yeast behind and fermentation will practically cease. If the wine is where you want it
to be in terms of alcohol and residual sugar, you can sulfite to 50 ppm, stabilize with
1/2 teaspoon of potassium sorbate per gallon, refrigerate the wine to 36-40 degrees F.
and either fortify the wine or not. If the wine is not where you want it to be, aerate
it a bit while racking but do not stabilize, and the yeast will begin reproducing once
again. Fermentation will resume slowly, but as it does the yeast will be pumping out
additional glycerol and nutrients will be used up more quickly, making it easier to
arrest fermentation later should you want to.
Remember, every wine, whether dry, sweet or dessert, should be balanced. Simply
sweetening a dry wine to enter into a sweet wine competition category is not enough.
Other constituents, especially acidity and tannin, should be increased to yield balance.
Balance is far more difficult to achieve for dessert wines, but certainly is not beyond
the skills of even a novice. Simply draw off a known percentage of the wine, bring it
to balance using your taste buds as your guides while recording what you do, and then
scale up the additions for the rest of the wine. Ancient winemakers did it. You can
too.
Very strange things are happening to my computer. I think it's time for a new one.
Wednesday evening I posted a new WineBlog entry. Within it I failed to close
an HTML font formatting tag (a tag turning on italics). I also forgot to upload an image
file called by the entry (the photo of the pomelo) - further proof that I should not type
an entry while watching the President give his State of the Union address. I spotted
both mistakes as soon as the file was uploaded and I opened it, but for some reason I was
locked out of my website's access. In other words, the site would not allow me to log
into it and post a corrected entry or upload the missing image file.
I tried for over five hours to discover the source of the problem and finally went to
bed because Thursday was a work day. Thursday evening I again worked on the problem and
eventually discovered that a .dll file called by my FTP program had somehow gotten
corrupted. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for the disc the program came
on and eventually found and reinstalled it. Everything loaded fine and I uploaded the
corrections to Wednesday's WineBlog entry. Most of you really don't care about
this but some do because I received nearly a dozen emails and two phone calls telling me
my last WineBlog entry was messed up. I thank those few for caring.
I began this intro by saying strange things are happening to my computer. The
corruption of a .dll file while using or closing it is but one example. I won't bore you
with others except to say there are others. A new Dell is on it's way.
Many times I have promoted belonging to a winemaking or wine appreciation club, guild
or circle. I belong to the San Antonio Regional Wine Guild. I have been a member of
other organizations, but SARWG is local and the members are real people, each and every
one a treasure to know in his or her own right. At one of our meetings we had a theme
wine tasting - Italian or German or some such thing - and the host placed small plates
of thin apple slices on each tasting table. These, he announced, were for cleansing the
palate between wines. Someone asked, why not sourdough bread or cheese? Good question,
and one that led to the most important thing I learned that day.
One of our members is a wine salesman. He drives around a defined area of Texas and
does impromptu wine tastings with restaurant and wine shop owners, and others who serve
or sale wine to customers. The idea is that they will like what they taste and buy some
of his wines. He told us a very interesting thing.
If you cleanse the palate between tastings with cheese, you desensitize the taste buds
slightly with a small amount of salt in the cheese and then coat them with a very fine
layer of fat (oil). Together, these mask many of the finer imperfections in a wine and
make them taste okay. Sourdough bread or biscuits are actually better cleansers and
allow you to taste more subtleties in the wine than do cheeses.
Fresh apple, especially Winesap, Granny Smith or other tart varieties, introduces
malic acid which actually cleanses away the taste of the last wine and stimulates,
freshens and enlivens the taste buds for the next sample. You will taste each wine in
a flight (series) as if it were the first. "In the business," he said, "we say buy with
apple, sell with cheese. Wineries serve cheeses in their tasting rooms and sell a lot of
wine. If you want to see the tasting room manager wince, pull out a ZipLoc bag of thin
apple slices and stay away from the cheese."
I might never have learned this if I were not a member of the Wine Guild and had
attended that meeting. But my underlying point is that I pick up at least one such gem
of knowledge at each meeting. And we freely share our winemaking secrets and seek out
solutions to stubborn problems we might be encountering. It isn't uncommon for a member
to pull out a bottle and say, "I've got this 6-month old blackberry that leaves a funny
little taste in the back of the mouth and I just can't figure out what is causing it."
Well, when 6 winemakers with 170 collective years of winemaking experience hold out their
glasses, the cause and the fix will very likely be found.
Join a club. If you can't find one, start one. It will improve your knowledge and
skills, and you'll meet some nice people.
A reader recently asked if one could use corn sugar in wine and if so how much. The
answer is yes you can and the conversion ratio for fermentation is 1:1. For sweetening a
wine after fermentation, corn sugar may not be nearly as sweet as other common sugars such as
cane sugar or beet sugar.
Corn sugar is a natural sweetener made by extracting starch from kernels of corn and
refining it into a solid sugar called dextrose or a thick liquid known as corn syrup in
which the dextrose is converted into a fructose-glucose mixture. Both corn syrup and
corn sugar are routinely used in many culinary recipes as well as in the creation of a
number of mass produced food products. Corn sugar is slightly yellow and usually refined
to a little larger crystal than refined cane sugar. Many experts agree that regular corn
sugar provides a little more than half the sweetness provided by the same amount of white
refined cane or beet sugar. However, gram for gram it will ferment into the same amount
of alcohol as cane sugar.
Corn syrup is a different matter. In recent years the trend has been to make corn
syrup as a high fructose syrup to overcome the reduced sweetness of regular corn syrup.
I know in baking they say don't replace more than half of the required sugar in any
recipe with corn syrup and to substitute 1 1/2 cups corn syrup for each cup of granulated
sugar to overcome the lessened sweetness (and, reduce another liquid in the recipe by
1/4 cup). I have never run across a reliable conversion for cane sugar to corn syrup in
winemaking or brewing, but I would think one would have to increase the amount by the
percentage of water in the syrup. I just don't know how much that is. A website on
making liqueurs says to use twice as much corn syrup as you would cane syrup, but the
goal there is to mask the taste of vodka, not feed a fermentation. If anyone wishes to
volunteer knowledge in this area, I'll pass it on.
I have previously written here about non-white sugars and of course I have a whole
section on sugars elsewhere on my site. Despite these attempts to educate my readers,
there are still those who will not explore the website beyond the winemaking recipes or
simply use the site's search engine. However, a recent question struck me just right and
so I don't mind retracing previous steps.
A reader mentioned that he had tasted a strawberry wine I entered (and won Best of
Show) in the Kerr County Fair at Kerrville, Texas. He claimed it was the best strawberry
wine he had ever tasted and recalled that I mentioned using a special sugar in it, which
accounted for the different taste. He now has 12 pounds of strawberries frozen in his
freezer and wants to attempt making that wine.
Here's the rub. That competition was in 2001. I'm not even sure I have the wine log
for that batch. If I do, it's been packed away in a box in the garage ever since our
flood (broked pipe) in 2008 and I have no desire to try to find it right now. However,
I do know that I love to use Demerara sugar in strawberry wine and probably did so then.
But I could have used any number of non-white sugars, as these tend to enhance strawberry
wine flavor over white granulated can sugar.
Dark Brown Sugar, Demerara Sugar, Light Brown Sugar, Maltose, Maple Sugar
Notes: Brown sugar can be dark or light or golden based on the amount of molasses in
it. Maltose can be sold in crystalline or non-solid (paste or thick liquid) form.
Muscovado sugar is also known as Barbados sugar. Palm sugar is also known as Jaggery;
while usually sold as blocks or cakes, it will crumble when broken up. Sucanat is raw
(unrefined) sugar.
I would not have used the darker sugars in strawberry wine. My preference would have
been Demerara and then Turbinado. If I had it (I doubt that I did) I might have used
Maple Sugar or Jaggery (Palm Sugar).
Demerara is a type of unrefined sugar with a large grain and light brown to pale
yellow. It comes from sugar cane which has already been pressed to removed most of its
sweet juice. The pressed cane is then steamed to extract any remaining juice that forms
a thick cane syrup. The syrup is dehydrated to form large golden brown crystals that are
rich and creamy.
Turbinado is made by pressing freshly cut sugar cane. The juice obtained is reduced
by evaporation from heat until it crystallizes. The crystals are rich in molasses and so
are spun in a centrifuge or turbine (thus the name). This removes excess moisture and
molasses. The result is large, light brown crystals with a hint (but not the taint) of
molasses.
My recipes for strawberry wine are posted elsewhere (see link following this entry).
Simply select one you like and substitute Demerara or Turbinado Sugar 1 for 1 for the
granulated or light brown sugar called for.
I received good feedback on my last WineBlog entry. It pleases me to know it
was helpful to some folks out there. I hope some gave to Haiti relief. But beware of
scams. The sharks always move in on a disaster (see link following entry). That's why
I did the research and decided I would give to and recommend Food for the Poor (see link
following entry). The reason I like it is two-fold. First, it is among the top ten
charities with the most consecutive 4-star ratings by Charity Navigator (and the only
one on that list whose mission is feeding the starving), and secondly because only 2.3%
of all funds it raises are spent in administrative and fundraising costs. Compare this
to the American Red Cross, which spends 9.9% of the funds it receives on administrative
and fundraising costs. This is not nearly as bad as some, which spend as much as 68% in
administrative costs (see link following entry).
I recommend against "text to donate" appeals. Yes, some are well known and totally
legit, but they will not get your donation until you receive your telephone or cellular
bill and pay it, which could be as long as a month from now. The donations are needed
NOW. If you are moved to donate, make your donation work immediately and give it to aid,
not high administrative costs.
I was recently asked for a recipe for pomelo wine. I have always known this fruit as
pummelo or red shaddock in the States or buoi da xanh in Vietnam, but pomelo is also
correct. The pomelo (Citrus maxima or Citrus grandis) is a citrus fruit
native to South East Asia. It is usually light green to yellowish-green to yellow when
ripe, with sweet white flesh and very thick rind. Some varieties have pink or red flesh.
It is the largest citrus fruit, 6-10 inches in diameter and typically 2 to 4-1/2 pounds
in weight, although Pomelos have weighed in at a hefty 20 pounds and were as big as
basketballs! The flesh is sweet, with a hint of mild grapefruit flavor but without the
bitterness. In Vietnam I was taught to dip the fresh sections in a salt-sugar-chili
powder mixture before eating.
Pomelo pulp must be cleaned of any pith or membrane
The precise number of natural citrus species is unknown, but taxonomists are largely
in agreement that C. aurantifolia (key lime), C. maxima (pomelo), C.
medica (citron), and C. reticulata (tangerine) are probably the original
species of the genus. All other citrus (bitter orange, sweet orange, grapefruit, Persian
lime, Imperial lime, kaffir lime, limetta, lemon, Meyer lemon, rangpur, clementine,
Satsuma, tangelo, orangelo, kinnow, ugli, and many, many more) are either proto-species
or hybrids. I mention all of this simply to point out that the pomelo, while not nearly
as well known as many of the citrus hybrids, is almost certainly one of the four (or
five) natural citrus species. It therefore deserves our respect.
The pomelo fruit has three distinct parts - four if we include the seed. The peeling
in relatively thin and can be used for zest, either fresh or dried. The flesh is
sectional, like grapefruit, oranges and tangerines. Between the two is a thick, spongy,
extremely bitter pith which must be separated from the flesh before it can be eaten and
pared from the peeling before the latter can be used in cooking or flavorings. Any thick
membranes between sections will be bitter and should be peeled away before sections are
eaten. If this seems like a lot of work, it really isn't. And the sweetness of the pulp
is worth whatever work is involved.
Pomelos must be peeled completely before the sections are juiced. Since there is no
"average" size for the fruit, the fruit must be juiced for measuring quantity for wine.
The recipe below makes one gallon.
Pinapple-Coconut Juice Mead; note the 1-gallon mark
Before we go to the recipe, I'd like to say a few words about primaries. Every
winemaker should have a variety of primary fermentation vessels. For 5- and 6-gallon
batches, 6-1/2- and 8-gallon food-grade plastic buckets suit the bill and can be obtained,
often for free, at bakeries, donut shop, feed stores, and various other businesses that
receive food, confections, nuts, grains, and seeds in them. Smaller buckets, all the way
down to 1-1/2 gallons, can be obtained free or for a small charge at some of those same
businesses. For 1- and 2-gallon batches, I like to use a 3-gallon glass canister jar,
seen above. Because the jar isn't graduated, I previously poured one gallon of water
into the jar and marked the jar appropriately. A similar mark is on the opposite side,
obscured by the label, marking the 2-gallon level. You should similarly mark your
primaries so when you need to add "water to make up 1 gallon" or some other amount, you
know exactly where to add water to. Just a recommendation....
Pomelo Wine Recipe
1 quart + 1-1/2 cups pomelo juice
1 11-1/2 oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
1-1/2 lbs granulated sugar
1 lemon, juice only
1-1/2 tsp citric acid
1 Campden tablet, finely crushed
Water to make up 1 gallon
1-1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
1 sachet any Champagne wine yeast
Begin a starter solution with the yeast and set aside. In primary, combine all
ingredients except yeast starter solution and stir until sugar is completely dissolved.
Cover primary and set aside 12 hours. Add yeast in starter solution, stir and re-cover
the primary while vigorous fermentation builds. When vigorous fermentation subsides,
transfer wine into secondary and seal with airlock. Wait 6 weeks and then rack, top up
and reattach airlock. Wait another 6 weeks and rack into secondary containing one finely
crushed Campden tablet and 1/2 teaspoon potassium sorbate, top up again and reattach
airlock. Wait 30 days; wine should be clear and can be sweetened to taste or bottled
dry. If not clear, stir in 1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme and wait additional 30-45 days.
[Author's own recipe]
My wife makes killer fish tacos. We try to use kingfish or red drum caught fresh in
the Gulf, but have used tilapia, catfish, pollock, and other fish from the market. My
wife is in California and not here to make her tacos, but last weekend I was steered to
a recipe that looked so good I went to the supermarket, bought a pound of tilapia and
came home to make it. After playing with the recipe a bit to personalize it to my liking,
I made some to-die-for fish tacos. Here's my recipe. Personalize it to your heart's
desire.
FISH:
1 pound tilapia fillets
1 teaspoon chipotle powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon melted butter
STUFFING:
1/4 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup shredded cabbage
1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
4 radishes, shredded
1 teaspoon lime juice
SAUCE:
1/3 cup light sour cream
2 tablespoons chili sauce or salsa
2 teaspoons minced fresh cilantro
1 green onion, minced
TOPPING:
1 small tomato, diced
half avocado, peeled, pitted and diced
1/2 cup grated pepper jack cheese
Pat dry fish fillets; arrange on foil-lined baking sheet. Brush with melted butter.
In small bowl, combine chili powder, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper; sprinkle
over fish. Broil until fish flakes easily when tested, about 5 minutes. Set aside until
cool enough to handle.
Meanwhile, in another small bowl, combine shredded carrot, cabbage, radishes, red
onion, and lime juice. Toss to mix.
In third small bowl, combine sour cream, chili sauce or salsa, minced cilantro, and
minced green onion. Stir until mixed.
Break fish into bite-sized chunks; divide among 8 small flour or corn tortillas.
Cover fish with stuffing, dapple with sauce, and top with diced tomato, avocado and
grated cheese.
Makes 4 diet-sized servings or two satisfying ones. Enjoy.
I have but one entry today, but it is one I have given a great deal of thought. If
you read it and learn something, I hope you will consider supporting this site. You can
do that by supporting the advertisers or by clicking on the last link after any entry
and making a support donation via PayPal. However, it would please me just as much if
instead you sent a small donation to any Haiti relief effort. If you aren't sure of
which organization to support, I have researched many of them and personally sent my own
donations to Food for the Poor. I have posted a link to their donation page immediately
following today's entry. If you don't like the amounts suggested on their page, send
any amount you care to give. No amount is too small.
Last Sunday I drank a hearty glass of 40-year old mustang grape wine made from native
Texas grapes. It had remarkably good color for its age - slightly brickish around the
edges but still dark, still more purple than red. But it was showing age. It was
gradually becoming sherry-like, but just barely. I could still taste the wildness of
the mustang grape. But it was more like a 6- or 8-year old mustang than a 40-year old.
The secret as to why this wine did not become highly oxidized may be because the
bottle was filled high and closed with a metal screw cap. The only oxygen available to
this wine for 40 years was whatever oxygen was absorbed by the wine when it was made and
bottled and the small amount in the small ullage - airspace - inside the bottle. If
nothing else, this certainly is a strong endorsement for screw caps. But there is more
to this story than a screw cap and small ullage.
Most of us have been told that "All wines improve with age". Age, however, is
relative. For some wines 6 months would be pushing it, while others are still toddlers
at 6 years. The truth is that only a few wines possess the ability to significantly
improve out to and beyond 6 years. I read somewhere that only 5-10% of white and red
wines, respectively, can improve to 5 years, and only 1% can stretch it out to a decade.
All others either slowly or quickly - there are in-betweens - succumb to the ravages of
oxygen and/or other death blows. Rare is that magical Chateau Montelena 1973 Estate
Cabernet Sauvignon I tasted in 2003, that at 30 years of age was both too young and still
the best wine ever to cross my lips. That was a wine for the long haul, that laughed
at oxygen and pranced like a thoroughbred.
In relatively few wines, such as Sherry or Madeira, oxidation (to a point) is an
asset. For most other wines, oxidation denotes deterioration caused by chemical
changes. An oxidized wine smells and tastes like a stale Sherry, dull and lifeless;
red wines become brickish-red and then slowly decay into brown, while whites simply
darken into progressively brownish hues.
I have several very detailed and expensive books that dedicate numerous pages to
explaining how the reaction of oxygen with various constituents of wine results in the
loss of electrons and increase in valence and one thing becomes another which then
becomes another and combines with or reacts to something else that wasn't there before.
It is all mathematical and precise, but it isn't nearly as poetic as saying that the
wine lost its fruity identity, darkened into the reddish-browns of a Gobi dust storm,
and succumbed to the ravages of oxygen's rape.
Yet the chemist's precision is reality. The poetic attempt may be descriptive, but
it explains nothing useful. Why did this mustang wine only begin to show signs of
oxidation after 40 years? What was its secret?
I wish I knew more about the wine itself, how it was made, how it was stored. Its
bottle was encrusted with a patina worthy of a limestone cellar and earthen floor. The
screw cap had been cleaned only enough to prevent accidental contamination of the wine
when the cap was removed. There was a thin layer of sludge on the bottom which had
become a fixture; it did not stir when the wine was poured. These observations, along
with the taste, aroma and color, offer clues enough to speculate.
It is generally accepted that wines with a low pH are more capable of extended aging
than less acidic wines. Few grapes anywhere in the world are as acidic as the mustang.
Just picking a lug of this grape can leave the softer skin between the fingers red,
rashed and itchy for up to two weeks. The juice demands amelioration, lest it blister
the inside of the mouth.
High levels of phenolics, especially pigmented tannins, tannin-polysaccharides, tannin-
proteins, colloids, and anthocyanins, act as preservatives and increase a wine's ability
to age. While I have never seen a chemical breakdown of the phenols in mustang grapes,
you can taste them as clearly as you can taste the chocolate on an eclair.
I doubt this wine ever saw the inside of a barrel. Had it done so, I'm fairly
certain it would have plunged into undrinkable oblivion long before now. Barrels allow
greater oxygenation than this wine was ever exposed to. Barrels, even the very best oak,
respire, allowing some volume - probably more water than wine -- to be lost to
evaporation through microscopic channels while oxygen travels the opposite way to work
its magic within. No, this mustang spent most of its life under an airlock or under a
screw cap.
Generally, we say that the ratio of sugars, acids and phenolics to water is a key
determinate of how well a wine might age. Partially raisined grapes contain less water
than optimally ripe grapes and the resulting wine should have greater aging potential. I
have an old friend who knows some vines upon which mustangs hang far longer than is
common, and he makes awesome wine from their slightly shriveled berries. But even he
ameliorates his mustang juice to dilute the acidity; you simply have to. How much
water is the critical key. I suspect this mustang was ameliorated less than is usual,
and that helped it attain a long life.
As red wines age, the harsh tannins of its youth gradually bind together into chains
too long to remain in suspension and precipitate out of the wine. The result is a softer
mouthfeel and loss of youthful color. Affected by gravity, the tannin chains slowly
accumulate on the bottom of the wine. Complex chemical reactions, some of which are
oxygen-induced, turn the remaining suspended pigments reddish-brown.
Visible sediment in the bottle usually indicates a mature to past mature wine. This
loss of tannin leaves the wine softer, less astringent. The wine tastes less acidic even
though the total pH remains about the same. This mustang was at about this point in
terms of acidity, but in other areas it had slipped over the edge and was deteriorating.
It was simply doing so very slowly or had only recently begun its slide. Just which is
impossible for me to say.
Eventually, esters form, are released into the small atmosphere within the bottle,
and are later reabsorbed. If the wine is not opened while they are volatile, one would
probably not know they were ever there. But certain chemical processes say they were.
And after they are reabsorbed they become something else. The chemistry doesn't seem to
stop changing. Eventually, aldehydes oxidize and new aromas are produced. They may or
may not be pleasant, but the wine itself no longer is enjoyable.
This mustang wine was not anywhere close to being this far gone. It was slightly
oxidized, but still retained a mustang identity. It was sliding, but just barely. It
was still an enjoyable wine after 40 years, and for a homemade wine from a native grape,
that is quite remarkable.
What a long 27 days it has been since I was last here. I spent the holidays in
Nevada, Arizona and California, enjoyed Christmas, a birthday, anniversary and New
Year with my wife and family, and returned to a flurry of activity at work. And when
I returned Mark had a new background waiting for me, which I like a lot. At my request
he made me a new header for my home page, which looks great, but it is just too large
a file to impose upon you. I can live with what I have so the page loads faster for
you and me.
I did not start any new wines since I was last here, but I sure have consumed a
few. Six of my own, three by one viewer of this blog and one of another, four from
assorted friends, and two commercial products. The most unusual was a cashew wine a
Wine Guild member brought me from Belize. My wife's favorite was my Key Lime-A-Rita;
my favorite was a toss-up between Jimmy's Port (which I selfishly did not share) and
a Pineapple-Coconut Mead I made that never cleared but is delicious. If these seem
unusual, wait until you see the recipes in this entry.
A Missouri viewer recently asked, "I have about 6 pounds of frozen paw-paw mush,
without peeling or seeds, and want to make wine if possible. Any ideas?" I do have
two recipes posted on my site but suppose it is possible to have missed them, so the
answer is an unqualified "yes." If it were me, I'd make one gallon of pawpaw wine
and two loaves of pawpaw bread and two pawpaw-meringue pies.
Pawpaw fruit (image courtesy of Wikipedia)
The common pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a small to medium sized deciduous
tree that tends to grow in clusters as understory trees in well drained, fertile soil.
Several southern species (A. angustifolia, A. incana, A. parviflora
, A. reticulata) are evergreen. Their reddish-puple flowers are
approximately two inches and are fetid, smelling slightly of carrion, pollinated
primarily by fruit flies, carrion flies and beetles. The fruit is actually a berry,
with a soft, custard-like pulp with a flavor similar to banana with a hint of mango
that is used in baked desserts, singular or mixed fruit drinks, or chilled as a dessert
fruit.
The two pawpaw wine recipes are at the first link following this entry. I'll
reserve this space for the pawpaw-nut bread and pawpaw-meringue pie recipes.
Pawpaw-Nut Bread
1 c melted butter
2 c sugar
4 eggs
2 c pawpaw pulp
1 Tblsp. lemon juice
4 c sifted all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
3 c pecan pieces plus 16 pecan halves
Preheat oven to 375o F. Grease two 9 x 4 x 2-inch loaf pans. Beat together butter,
sugar, and eggs. Add and beat in the pawpaw pulp and lemon juice. Sift the flour and
baking powder together, and stir them into the batter. Stir in the pecans and scrape
the batter into the loaf pans. Garnish each loaf with 8 pecan halves, and bake for 1
hour and 15 minutes. The top corners of the loaf will burn, but that adds flavor and
character. [Recipe from Kentucky State University web site]
Pawpaw-Meringue Pie
Filling
1 c pawpaw pulp
3/4 c fine granulated sugar
2 tblsp flour
2 egg yokes
2 c milk
9" deep dish baked pie shell
Combine sugar and flour and add egg yolks and milk. When thoroughly mixed, add
pawpaw pulp and stir. Cook until thick and pour into baked pie crust. Cover with
meringue and bake in 350° oven 15 minutes or until meringue is brown.
Meringue
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp water
1/3 c boiling water
2 egg whites
4 tblsp sugar
3/4 tsp vanilla
Mix 1 tsp water with cornstarch. Add boiling water. Simmer until stiff. Beat egg
whites to soft peaks. Add cornstarch mixture. Add sugar, 1 spoon at a time and add
vanilla. [Author's family recipe]
A viewer wrote in my guestbook, "I am a novice, I have some watermelon, peach,
grape juice and tomato ranging from 3 to 5 months old and all have a sour taste." He
adds that he has paid assiduous attention to sanitation and temperature steadiness.
What, then, could be the cause of the sourness?
The most common cause for a sour wine is acidity. In berries (including grapes and
tomatoes) and fruit, the core cause of too much acidity is most likely under-ripeness,
followed by insufficient dilution with water, not enough balance with sweetness, or a
combination of the foregoing with a secondary cause. Secondary causes of sourness are
(a) the fruit or juice spoiled before the wine reached a self-preserving 10% alcohol
level (common in watermelon), (b) a lactic acid bacterial infection soured the wine
(especially likely if MLF did not conclude or sulfites were not used to prevent MLF),
or (c) a souring product such as lactose (milk sugar) or lactic acid was used
incorrectly. Fruit that have bruised spots (wind-fall peaches, plums, apricots,
nectarines, loquats, apples, etc.) should not be used in winemaking without first
cutting out the bruises, as these spots will quickly spoil and ruin the wine. Juice
from melons, but especially watermelons, is prone to spoilage if fermentation is not
conducted very quickly. For these wines, it is best to use a starter solution into
which 2 or 3 sachets of a very fast yeast (such as Montrachet) are added to ensure a
rapid build-up of yeast population before introducing it to the must. Hydrate the yeast
in the starter solution for several hours before it is needed to allow the yeast
population to double and redouble.
Having said this, time very often is the solution for a sour wine if the problem is
indeed acidity - unless the acid is acetic (vinegar). Acids do undergo chemical
processes that reduce or alter the acidity and smooth out the wine. Bacterial causes,
however, seldom can be corrected.
This will be the last WineBlog entry of 2009. My suitcase is packed and I am ready to
head out to spend the holidays with family and friends. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and
happy new year. I said it better in my last blog entry - or did I? An email accused me of
being politically correct. Sigh....
Somewhere I acquired a recipe for a blood red melomel called "Batwing Blood." I'm sure some
of you are thinking this posting would have fit the calendar better around Halloween, but if you
start it now it should be aged and ready to serve at your next Halloween party.
I have tweaked the original recipe a bit. It called for a tablespoon of gypsum, but this
ingredient is usually used to either adjust the pH of an overly acidic must or to harden a soft
water - either conditioned or distilled. If you feel your water needs the addition of gypsum,
add it, but my water is hard enough as it flows from the tap. The recipe also calls for Irish
Moss, an ingredient I have retained. If you are unfamiliar with this product, it is an old
fining agent that can still be purchased at most well-stocked homebrew shops. See the entry
below this one for more on this ingredient.
This recipe makes 3 gallons of mead.
Batwing Blood
10 lbs light amber honey
4 tsp acid blend
1/4 tsp Irish moss
1-1/2 lbs corn sugar
12 oz bag mixed frozen strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry
1 lb blackberries
1 lb strawberries
2 gallons 1 pint water
3 finely crushed Campden tablets
1-1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
2-1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp yeast energizer
sachet Red Star Pasteur Champagne wine yeast
Tie the berries in nylon straining bag and crush in a large glass bowl. Combine honey, acid
blend, Irish moss and corn sugar in a pan and boil 15 minutes, stirring occasionally and scraping
the sides. Remove pan from heat, add nylon straining bag and juice from berries and allow to
steep for 20 minutes. Stir while adding water and allow to cool to room temperature. Add yeast
nutrient, energizer and activated yeast in a starter solution. Ferment 10 days, transfer to
secondary and attach airlock. Set in dark place for 3 months. Rack into a sanitized secondary
into which you have added the finely crushed Campden tablets and potassium sorbate dissolved into
1 cup of warm water. Reattach airlock and return to dark place for an additional 3 months.
Carefully rack into bottles and store in dark place until Halloween. [Author's adaptation of
original recipe by Powderhound]
Irish moss is a fining agent made from an Atlantic seaweed called Chondrus crispus,
known under the common name Irish moss, or carrageen moss (in Irish, carraigín means "little
rock"). The active fining ingredient in Irish moss is k-carrageenan, a polymer of
β-D-galactose-4-sulphate-3,6-anhydro-a-D-galactose. It is negatively charged and therefore
attractive to proteins in suspension.
Irish moss is a relatively small (20 cm long) red alga growing from an anchorous footing into
a multi-branching, dichotomous, fan-like structure. The branches are small, firm in texture,
reddish-brown in color, sun-drying to a yellowish translucence. The seaweed is washed in fresh
water, dried and powdered for use as a fining agent.
Because it must be boiled to become active, Irish moss has a greater use in brewing than in
winemaking. But even in the latter it has a long history of use. It is added to a boiling must,
or water that will be added to the must, during the last 15 minutes of boil. As it cools, it
attracts proteins in the must and they settle together.
I am hoping to post one additional blog entry before I leave for the Left Coast, but
if I don't get around to it I want to wish each and every one of you a very merry
Christmas, Hanukkah or holiday of your choice. I would be remiss if I did not also wish
you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. By prosperous, I mean that you have
sufficient resources to feed, clothe and house yourself, plus have enough left over
to save something for a rainy day, a vacation or a luxury purchase. If you have more
than that, you'll have more than over half the population of the earth. Be thankful.
As you gather with family, friends or just your pet dog or cat to celebrate your
special meaning (I celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ), please pause and wish well the
troops and sailors deployed to foreign lands and waters who do the bidding of their
respective governments for causes important enough to place them in harm's way. Whether
you agree or disagree with the policies that deployed them, they sacrifice for you and
me. My first entry below brings home the reality of the ultimate sacrifices made for
you and me.
One man's gift of honor and respect at Arlington National Cemetery
Rest easily and sleep in peace my brothers. Your job is done, the line you left has held, your places quickly taken up by others who filled the spaces fast where you were felled.
We who live on will evermore remember as we pursue the fight for Freedom's dream, those victims from eleventh of September and you, who made the sacrifice supreme. [Requiescant, by Hugh Wyles]
Fellow Texas winemaker, veteran and friend Fred Williams informed me of something I
simply missed in the news. Readers may be interested to know that the wreaths in the
photograph -- some 5,000 -- were donated by the Worcester Wreath Co. of Harrington,
Maine. The owner, Merrill Worcester, not only provides the wreaths, but for years
covered the trucking expense as well. A wonderful guy, he's done this since 1992.
Today, contributions, volunteers and a 501-c3 organization called Wreaths Across
America have expanded the project. By 2008 over 300 locations held wreath laying
ceremonies in every state, Puerto Rico and 24 overseas cemeteries. Over 100,000 wreaths
were placed on veterans graves. Over 60,000 volunteers participated. Making this even
more remarkable is the fact that Harrington, Maine, where this all started, is in one
the poorest parts of the state.
Morrill Worcester explains, "I started Worcester Wreath Co. in 1971. That first year
I sold 500 wreaths. Over the past 37 years with the help from my family, our business
has grown to sales of over 500,000 wreaths.
"I happen to think this incredible growth could only be accomplished in America
because of the freedoms we all enjoy.
"Of course, our freedoms did not come without a tremendous cost and sacrifice. Over
the past 231 years, nearly 1,000,000 Americans, men and women, have given the ultimate
sacrifice for all of us. Millions more gave years of their lives in the military
services and were lucky enough to come home safely.
"I know our wreaths placed on the veteran's graves each year is a very small gesture.
I only wish we could do more."
Mr. Worcester, you shame me. I sent Wreaths Across America a check two days ago. I
urge my readers to do the same. I only wish I could do more.
Wreaths Across America PO Box 256 Harrington, ME 04643
'Tis the season and recipes for mulled wine have been appearing in blogs all over the
place, but most use a commercial blend of mulling spices. You can save time and
possibly money by purchasing such a blend, but if you have a well-stocked kitchen you
probably have the ingredients to make your own, and it's both fun to do and leaves you
with a sense of accomplishment. I've gone through our recipe files (my wife has a
wonderful collection from family members, friends and probably hundreds of
printed sources) and selected three very different mulled wine and one spiced-wine
peaches recipes. I'll start with the peaches first.
Spiced-Wine Peaches
4 lg cans peach halves (24 to 28 peach halves)
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c wine vinegar
2 sticks cinnamon
Whole strawberries (equal to number of peach halves)
1 1/2 c syrup from peaches
6 whole cloves
Zest or very thin peeling from 1 lemon
1 c dry pale sherry (commercial or your own)
Combine all ingredients, except fruit (I like to use white peach halves) and sherry.
Bring to a low boil, reduce heat to simmer and hold for 15 minutes. Add sherry. Pour
mixture over peaches and store in refrigerator until ready to serve. Flavor is best if
made 2 to 3 days ahead. To Serve: Drain liquid from peaches. Place each peach in a
clear glass dessert server, small coffee cup saucer or grouped in a large serving dish.
Place whole strawberry in seed depression of each peach half and dribble 1 tblsp liquid
over each strawberry. I like to warm the liquid and the peaches (but not the
strawberries) 15 seconds in the microwave before serving. [Author's tweaking of
traditional recipe]
Simple Mulled Wine
32 oz apple cider
2 750-mL bottles Chablis
1 orange, very thinly sliced
6 3-inch cinnamon sticks
1 tsp cloves
Sugar to taste
Mix all ingredients in large crock pot. Start on high and reduce to low after 20
minutes, then simmer 2 to 3 hours and serve. Perfect for Christmas parties. [Author's
wife's recipe]
Hot Mulled Wine
46-oz can pineapple-grapefruit or orange-pineapple juice
6 3-inch cinnamon sticks
18 cloves
1 lb clover honey
Juice of 1 lemon
4 bottles vin rosé
Mix cinnamon, cloves, honey, lemon juice and 1 cup fruit juice and boil 5 - 6
minutes. Add remaining fruit juice drink. Boil 3 - 4 minutes more. Remove from heat
and add vin rosé. Each glass can be thinly topped with sweet whipped cream and
a dash of freshly but finely grated nutmeg. [Family recipe]
Mulled Wine Toddy
3 750-mL bottles dry wine (Chablis or rosé)
1/2 c RealLemon juice
1 c bourbon (or Scotch or brandy)
1 c. honey
2 tbsp. butter
10 whole cloves
10 whole allspice
2 cinnamon sticks
In a large saucepan combine wine, lemon juice, honey and butter. Stir until honey is
dissolved. Add cloves, allspice and cinnamon sticks. Cook over medium heat, stirring
occasionally until heated through, about 20 minutes. Strain out spices, stir in bourbon
and serve piping hot. Do not drink this and drive. [Author's own recipe, inspired by a
dream]
As the year counts down a pending holiday vacation looms before me with much more to
do before I depart than time seems to permit. My writing has already suffered and
undoubtedly will cease in the near future until sometime in January. I guarantee you I
will not post anything while on vacation. But that brings up the purpose of the
vacation I'll be taking.
Spending Christmas with family is more important to me each year. Time seems to
fly by faster each year and there are only so many Christmas seasons left. Because my
family and my wife's family are spread out over many states, family gatherings are rare.
I intend to enjoy this time to its fullest potential. I hope each of you finds meaning
in the season and gets to spend time with someone you love.
Back in August I mentioned that I started another batch of an old classic I invented
about 8 or 9 years ago that won three golds and a silver - sand burr wine. I said in
August I would say more about it later. A reader named Jeff reminded me that I have not
yet done so. I'll correct that now.
Sand burrs before and after harvesting, ready to be made into wine
The common grass burr (Cenchrus incertus) and sand burr (Cenchrus echinatus
) are a major nuisance to humans and animals wherever they grow. The half-dozen to
a dozen sharp spikelets on each seed stalk grab whatever passes by. There are numerous
strategies for getting rid of this unwanted weed-grass. Years ago I devised another...
make wine of their spiked seeds. This didn't actually get rid of them, but it reduced
future populations to a degree. For several years they completely disappeared from my
yard when my St. Augustine grass grew thick enough to crowd them out, but then an
infestation of some kind thinned out the lawn and this year they came back with a
vengeance. So I put on my cowhide gloves, grabbed a bucket and began the harvest.
I picked the seed stems while the seeds were still green and tossed them into the
bucket. When my back ached sufficiently, I went inside and cut the spikelets off the
stems. When done, I made two more trips outside to "harvest" more burrs. When at last
I had a quart, I placed them in a bowl for a photo and then in a 2-quart pan to which
I added a quart of water. I stirred to dampen them, then put on the lid and brought
them to a boil. Twenty minutes later I strained them out and saved the dark green water.
I knew sufficient tannin was present, but no sugar or acids. The recipe developed from
those assumptions. The finished wine is light straw in color, without any hint of green.
The wine is very good sweetened from total dryness to 1.002, but your mileage may vary.
Sand Burr Wine Recipe
1 qt sand burr spikelets
1 11-oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice Frozen Concentrate
1 1/4 lbs finely granulated sugar
1 3/4 tsp acid blend
6 1/2 pts water
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/8 tsp yeast energizer
1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
2 finely crushed Campden tablets
Pasteur Champagne Yeast
Bring the sand burrs to boil in 1 qt water and hold for 20 minutes. Strain and
discard the burrs but retain the water. Add sugar, acid blend, yeast nutrient, and
yeast energizer and stir well to dissolve. Add grape concentrate and the remaining
water. Cover and set aside to cool. When at room temperature, add activated yeast in
a starter solution and recover the primary. Stir daily until vigorous fermentation
subsides (about 7 days if starter solution was 12-plus hours old when added). Transfer
to secondary, stir in one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up, and
attach an airlock. Ferment to absolute dryness (30-45 days). Rack into a clean
secondary, top up and refit airlock. Rack one or two more times, 30 days apart, until
wine is brilliantly clear. Stabilize with potassium sorbate and finely crushed Campden
tablet (stirred well), then sweeten to taste. It is very good just off-dry, but your
taste may vary. Wait 30 days and rack into bottles. This wine is very drinkable after
two months but absolutely heavenly after a year. [Author's own recipe]
Several months ago (August 10th, 2009) I posted an entry on why my site remains the
way it is in terms of layout and design. I'm not going to repeat that entry. If you
missed it and are at all interested, you can navigate to it and read the original
posting. But in it I stated that my web sites and blog retain their look because I
don't use templates or automatic code generators, but rather create everything,
including the code to place things where they are and as they are, myself. A while
after posting that entry, something changed on the WineBlog. Some of you
noticed it but most probably did not.
A reader, whose name shall remain anonymous because I did not ask permission to use
it, decided to offer me a touch of assistance unasked. He sent me a new header graphic
for this blog, I loved it immediately, and I have been using it ever since. Some of
you noticed. Randy G. said, "I thought you weren't going to change things. You did.
It took me a while to figure it out. You changed your banner." Close enough, Randy.
Kathy M. wrote, "I don't know what you did to your layout, but I like it." Chase L.
quipped, "The new look is very clean." I agree, Chase.
The old header is above. The new is below. Draw your own conclusions, but I really
like it. Thank you, Mark.
He also "cleaned up" a few other images, and I deeply appreciate them all. So,
things may change slowly at jackkeller.net, but they do change.
During the past two months I opened a couple of wines that were past prime. One was
a 5-year old blackberry and the other was a 4-year old strawberry. Both were badly
oxidized. Rather than dump them, I used each in various cooking recipes in lieu of
water. Both worked very well in this new role and the oxidation passed unnoticed in
marinara sauce, spaghetti sauce, roux for sausage and chicken gumbo, and venison chili.
The strawberry was noticed in a casserole, but was more out of place as a flavor than
unpleasant. My point here is that even wines kept too long can be consumed, but be
selective. I had a 5-year old dry plum last year that produced off-flavors in two
dishes I tried it in. Not everything works.
A predicted snowfall as far south as Pleasanton, Texas did not materialize unless it
arrived last night and melted by daybreak. This I doubt, as the outside temperature
was 28 degrees F. on my patio at 5:50 a.m., cold enough to preserve snow had it fallen. I suspect it simply exhausted itself on the way south. That is good news for the insurance companies down here, but bad for the automotive body shops that could have used the inevitable business that would have arrived with the snow. Oh well, winter still lies before us but snow down here is a distinct rarity.
Luc Volders notified me from The Netherlands that one of my winemaking links was
dead as the link was hosted on the defunct Geocities. While correcting the entry, I
went ahead and searched my internet references page and made note of 20 sites linked to
Geocities before I stopped searching. I have now run Google searches on each of these
sites and found only two were resurrected at a new URL. This means some really great
web sites have disappeared, or some might have resurrected under different names.
If you hosted a winemaking or non-commercial winemaking or wine appreciation club
through Geocities and now host it elsewhere, or know of one, please contact me with the
name and new URL. My email is jackredkellerwhitewine@gbluemail.com (remove the
patriotic colors from the address).
I am somewhat partial to Geocities beginnings, as I began posting my first web pages
on Geocities when the internet was still young. In those days people were creating
"Home Pages" for just about every subject, with "Home Page" insinuating the site
already was or was destined to become the definitive website for that particular
subject. I thought I could build such a site for winemaking, and so I named the
collection of pages I had posted The Winemaking Home Page and set to work
building a site that would live up to the name.
I stayed on Geocities until I filled up the free space allocated and even then my
bandwidth consistently exceeded what they allowed and I was billed a fee. I decided if
I was going to pay for bandwidth, I may as well get my own domain and find a better
deal than Geocities. While I was glad to leave the pioneering Geocities, I retained a
soft spot for people starting sites there. I'm sorry to see it gone and hope the
websites that were there will resurface and contact me so I can relist them on my links
page.
I have twice before posted methods for making persimmon wines here on the WineBlog
, but it is persimmon season again and I was asked for a "sure-fire, one-gallon
recipe for a persimmon melomel." Well shucks, you don't have to ask me twice for this
one.
As I have stated before, persimmons (Diospyros kaki) are technically a berry
-- as is the watermelon -- but most people think of it as a fruit. However you consider
it, it is one of the sweetest fruits in the world when fully ripe. For this reason the
Japanese consider it a divine food. Even the seeds are edible.
Most persimmons, especially the wild orange ones native to the United States and
Canada, do not ripen until after a frost but may drop from the tree prematurely.
Persimmons in good condition will often then need to be ripened at home. You can leave
them out on the counter at room temperature or hasten the process by putting them in a
paper bag with a banana or apple. The ethylene gas given off by the other fruit will
help the persimmon ripen. A fully ripe persimmon will be slightly wrinkled and may have
a few brown or black spots on the skin. These are like the dark spots that form on
banana peels as they ripen and simply mean the pulp inside is growing soft. Indeed,
handle very ripe persimmons carefully as it is easy to tear the skin and end up with a
mess in your hand. At this very soft stage, the pulp is almost like a firm to soft
jelly. It's then at the peak of perfection and should be eaten immediately or used in
other ways, as in cooking, baking, jelly, or wine.
Most of the large-chain supermarkets offer oriental persimmons. Cultivars Fuyu,
Maru, and Hachiya are perhaps the best known. The shape of Fuyu fruit is round and
somewhat flattened, Maru is more spherically round, and Hachiya is heart-shaped and
pointed at its apex. Fuyu is the most widely planted cultivar in Japan and easily the
most popular everywhere. It is most noted for its nonastringent fruit -- even when not
yet ripe -- but also for its good yield, vigorous upright growth habit, and ease of
training. Maru has more brittle branches, the fruit is astringent, and it matures about
three weeks earlier than Fuyu. Hachiya fruit is also astringent before softening to
ripeness. When fully ripe, all three are wonderfully sweet and perfect for wine or
mead.
The biggest complaint with making persimmon wine is the amount of gross lees one
must contend with. Fully ripe persimmon pulp is like jelly and there is no way to
avoid its disintegration during fermentation. However, I have found a way to minimize
the gross lees. First, scoop out the pulp from halved persimmons and dump it directly
into a sanitized lady's knee-high nylon that has been placed inside a fine-mesh nylon
straining bag or homebrewer's grain bag. The reason for the double bagging is because
the weight of the pulp will cause the lady's nylon to stretch when lifted and the very
fine pulp will ooze out, but the outer bag will prevent this stretching and allow you
to later remove the pulp from the primary without defeating the purpose of the
containment.
Persimmon Melomel Recipe
4 1/2 lbs persimmons
2 lbs premium grade honey
3/4 tsp acid blend
2/3 tsp powdered pectic enzyme
5 pts water
2 crushed Campden tablet
1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
3/4 tsp yeast nutrient
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
1 sachet Champagne wine yeast
Bring water to boil. Meanwhile, wash, halve and scoop persimmon pulp into nylon
stocking resting inside fine-mesh nylon straining bag in primary; tie both bags closed.
Take water off heat and dissolve honey thoroughly into it. Pour honey-water over bags
of persimmon pulp. Stir in acid blend and cover primary. Set aside to cool to room
temperature. Make a yeast starter solution, hydrate yeast in it and set aside to
incubate yeast culture. Dissolve 1 finely crushed Campden tablet and stir into
primary. Recover primary and set aside for 10-12 hours. Stir in pectic enzyme,
recover primary and set aside another 10-12 hours. Stir in yeast nutrient, yeast
energizer and yeast starter solution. Recover primary and gently submerge persimmon
pulp twice a day. When specific gravity drops below 1.020, gently ease bag into
sanitized colander and allow to drip drain 20 minutes into primary. Discard pulp,
recover primary, and continue fermenting until s.g drops below 1.010. Transfer to
secondary, top up and seal with airlock. Ferment to dryness but at least 30 days,
rack, top up and reattach airlock. Wait 45 days, rack, stir in finely crushed and
dissolved Campden tablet, top up and reattach airlock. Wait 45 days and rack again,
dissolve and stir in potassium sorbate, top up and reattach airlock. Mead should be
clear, light lees may be present. Bulk age 60-90 days and carefully rack again.
Sweeten to taste with clearest honey, let rest two weeks, then carefully rack into
bottles. [Author's own recipe]
Persimmon Wine, Scroll down to October 8, 2007 entry, here
Persimmon Wine, Scroll down to December 14, 2007 entry, here
To all you RSS-feed subscribers, I apologize about my last feed. It seems I had the
links pointed to the wrong entries. I've done it before and promised myself it would be
the last time. I should not try to type and watch a football game at the same time.
But football season is in full swing and I have my favorite teams, both college and
professional. (For you readers outside the United States and Canada, the sport I am
referring to is American football -- not Association Football or Soccer. There is
absolutely no similarity between the two games) But I shall try not to let football
interfere again in the presentation of the WineBlog.
The subject of elderberry goo seems to crop up just about every time elderberry
winemaking is discussed. If you do not know what elderberry goo is, consider yourself
lucky. But if you are thinking of making elderberry wine from fresh wild berries, it
is a subject you'd better at least be acquainted with. You may or may not encounter
it, but if you do, being forewarned is being prepared.
Elderberry goo is a slime that sometimes appears during fermentation of some but not
all fresh elderberries in the primary. It adheres to the sides of the primary and for
years defied easy removal. Then a small cadre of us on a use group began experimenting
with cleaners, solvents and soaps in an attempt to find something that would cut this
nuisance. Things that did not work: isoproyly alcohol, methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol,
acetone, Dawn dishwashing detergent, lye soap, turpentine, shellac thinner, hot water,
CLR, TSP, nail polish remover without acetone, Cutex nail polish remover with acetone,
window cleaner with ammonia, chlorine bleach, Easy Off oven cleaner, a waterless
handcleaner, BLC, BTF Iodophor Sanitizer, ammonia, PBW, Sal Soda, Star San, WLC,
Porcelain and Enamel Cleaner, Glass and Ceramic Stovetop Cleaner, Lysol Kitchen
Cleaner, Quick n Brite, Comet Cleanser with Chlorinol.
Different people reported success with: soaking overnight in TSP solution, soak
everything in strong solution of water and Lemon Joy and let sit a week in the sun and
then rinse, Goo-Gone, WD-40, and De-Solve-It. But the least expense solution was when
someone - Ed Goist, Shawn Gibbs, Greg Cook or someone else - discovered that vegetable
oil would cut right through it. Just cut it, wipe it away and then use a degreaser to
remove the vegetable oil. What a marvelous discovery - now common knowledge.
The real questions have always been what is this stuff and where does it come from?
It doesn't come from dried elderberries, and European Black Elder (Sambucus
nigra) appear not to exude it at all, while the American Elder (Sambucus
canadensis) seems infamous for it. I do not know which of the many other elder
species exude the goo; perhaps readers with personal knowledge will write me with goo
or no goo experiences. My email is jackredkellerwhitewine@gbluemail.com (remove the
patriotic colors from the address).
My original theory was that the waxy bloom on some of the elderberries was
responsible for the goo, but this was proven false when non-waxy elderberries from
Oklahoma emitted the goo. My next theory, which is still widely popular, was that the
goo was a resinous sap that came from the stems during fermentation. This has pretty
much been proven false by many who have meticulously cleaned every stem from the
elderberries before fermenting them and still gotten the goo.
Elderberry fruit head [photo by Pollinator, from Wikipedia]
The last time I picked elderberries (two years ago) was when driving back from Lake
Charles, Louisiana and I stopped near Orange, Texas to look for wild persimmons. Ripe
elderberries were thick along a railroad track, so I just picked whole sprays of
berries and tossed them in a garbage bag to destem later at home. What a tangled mess
that was.
At the time I had just read about the bang-the-bucket method of destemming the
berries and so at home I untangled each spray with considerable difficulty and whacked
it against the inside of a 5-gallon pail. The berries that came off by banging-the-
bucket became one batch and the remaining berries were hand-picked and went into
another batch. I think I spent about two hours separating berries from stems. The
first batch was smaller than the hand-picked batch, but the berries were much riper
than the hand-picked ones.
Both batches went into ZipLocs, were frozen and eventually defrosted thoroughly
before being transferred to nylon straining bags, crushed by gloved hands, and then
fermented. The berries were drip-drained and only barely squeezed. The whacked batch
yielded a very small trace of elderberry goo but the second batch had a lot. Since
both batches were very clean in terms of stems, I think the goo is coming from the
underripe berries.
I combined the two batches of fermented berries and made a second wine with their
combined volume. I left them in the primary 10 days, squeezing the nylon straining
bags twice daily to help extract more of the juices. After a few days I noticed the
rubber gloves I wore were sticky with the goo and so I stopped squeezing the bags. The
stuff certainly appeared to me as if it were coming out of the berries. Unfortunately,
elderberries do not grow wild in my area and I pulled out my cultivated ones when they
began spreading beyond the area I reserved for them. Thus, I am unable to do the
experiments necessary to confirm this suspicion. I do wish there were some scientific
research focused on this substance, its origin and its composition, but perhaps a few
viewers live in elderberry country and can investigate.
A generous soul sent me two bottles of Salmonberry Wine from Washington state just
in time to be enjoyed with my Thanksgiving feast. I first opened a cranberry wine,
which was good and paired well, but the Salmonberry was sitting on the buffet taunting
me and so I opened a bottle. The bouquet hit my nose in seconds and then spread
throughout the dining room. Boy, am I glad I opened that bottle. Dry but deliciously
fruity. Thanks, Bob!
Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) is a caning bramble native to the West Coast
of North America from California to Alaska. The plant differs from other caning Rubus
species in that it produces perennial woody stems, not biennial as do other species.
The 5-petal purple flower produces a a large (1 1/2 to 2 cm) yellow to orangish-red
berry with many drupelets -- like a raspberry. The berries ripen from early summer in
the Pacific Northwest to early autumn farther north. In Kodiak, Alaska orange
salmonberries are often referred to as Russian berries. They are often mistaken for
raspberries by persons unfamiliar with them.
My recipe for salmonberry wine came from an Oregon winemaker who has passed on. I
knew him only as Fred G. but his last name was Gibson and he hailed from somewhere near
Gresham. He read on my site that I didn't have a recipe for salmonberry wine and sent
me his. He left out a couple of steps, so I have tweaked it some.
Salmonberry Wine Recipe
4 1/2 to 5 lbs ripe salmonberries
1 1/2 lbs granulated sugar
3 qts water
2 Campden tablets
1/2 tsp potassium sorbate (optional)
3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 sachet Montrachet wine yeast
Wash salmonberries and tie in fine-mesh nylon straining bag. Place in primary and
crush berries with hands. Bring 1 quart water to boil and dissolve sugar and yeast
nutrient. Pour over crushed salmonberries. Add remaining water, cover with cloth,
allow to cool. Aside, begin a yeast starter solution. To primary, stir in one finely
crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, recover primary and set aside 10-12 hours. Stir
in pectic enzyme, recover primary and set aside another 10-12 hours. Stir in activated
yeast starter solution and recover primary. Punch down nylon straining bag twice a day
for five days. Remove bag and squeeze or press to extract juice. Discard pulp and
cover primary. When vigorous fermentation subsides transfer to secondary and seal with
airlock. Set aside until airlock says it is finished. Wait one additional week and
rack, top up and reattach airlock. When wine is clear, wait two additional weeks,
rack, add second finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and reattach
airlock. If you intend to sweeten wine, withdraw 1/2 cup of wine and into it dissolve
1/2 teaspoon potassium sorbate; pour sorbated sample back into secondary and reattach
airlock. Set aside two weeks and sweeten to taste. Wait 30 days and carefully rack into
bottles. [Adapted from recipe by Fred Gibson]
Today, the fourth Thursday in November, is the American holiday of Thanksgiving. It
is celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada. In both cases, it is based
upon the harvest and is traditionally a feast of thanks for the bounty that will
sustain us through the winter.
I have lost all respect for Wikipedia, which has joined the absurdity of
political correctness in claiming, "While perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is
now primarily identified as a secular holiday." I think not! I have never been to a
Thanksgiving dinner in which the thanks expressed were not directed to God. Do
the authors of Wikipedia's entry think the majority of people now express
thanks to the almighty state for the bounty they enjoy? Nyet! I will file a protest
to that entry, but not today. Today I will enjoy the holiday, and some cranberry wine....
Continuing the list I started last weekend, here are some more Japanese-American
hybrid plums. I have only indicated which cultivars make the best pollinator for
which in a few instances, but obviously pollen donors have to bloom the same time the
pollen recipients are blooming. Also, pollen recipients are pollen donors to their
pollinators. It's a closed cycle and very efficient if well planned. For the home,
certain trees are very attractive and can be sited in the landscape to show them off.
Others are less showy and might be grouped to make pollination more efficient. The
usual practice is to plant at least a pair of early bloomers, mid-season bloomers and
late season bloomers.
MORRIS: Medium to large, red to purple fruit, red flesh. Excellent quality. Needs
pollinator.
NUBIANA: Large, reddish-purple fruit with firm, light yellow flesh. Good pollinator
for Laroda, substantially self-fruitful.
OBLINAJA: Large, dark red skin, almost black when fully ripe. Spicy flavor, crisp
texture.
OZARK PREMIER: Burbank x Methley. Rather large; reddish-purple fruit. Juicy,
mildly tart, yellow flesh; clingstone, small pit. Late summer. Fruits hang well for
extended harvest, consistently productive. Good variety for South.
QUEEN ANN: Large, purple, semifreestone with amber flesh streaked red. Supurb
flavor, fine dessert plum. Small tree needs pollinator.
RED HEART: Medium to large, semifreestone with dark-red skin, firm, juicy, blood-
red flesh. Vigorous, hardy, productive with right pollinator; good pollinator for
others. Good wine plum for the South.
ROMEO: Large, red fruit with very aromatic, yellow flesh. Vigorous.
ROYSUM: Medium to large, reddish-blue fruit with juicy, aromatic, very flavorful,
light yellow flesh. Vigorous, spreading, late ripening, requires pollinator.
RUBY SWEET: Medium-large, bronze-red fruit with firm, bright to dark red flesh.
Good quality.
SANTA ROSA: Very large, round to oval, purplish-red fruit covered with light dots
and thin bloom. Fragrant, finely textured, clingstone flesh, purplish near skin turning
pink-streaked yellow near pit. Excellent quality fruit, large, vigorous, prolific tree.
Partially self-fruitful, excellent producer with pollinator.
SATSUMA: Medium to large, almost round, dark red fruit, small pit, firm, juicy, red
flesh. Sweet, excellent flavor for wine. Upright tree, partially self-fruitful,
pollinate with other Japanese plum.
SHIRO: Medium to large, golden yellow with pink blush, very attractive fruit. Juicy,
sweet, translucent, yellow, clingstone flesh. Good, all around quality. Consistent
producer, excellent reciprocal pollinator for early varieties. Excellent tree for the
homestead in the South.
SIMKA: Large, purplish-red fruit with firm, sweet, yellowish-white flesh.
SUPERIOR: Very large, golden fruit, becoming pink with deep red blush. Skin
slightly astringent but peels easily. Firm, finr-textured, clingstone. Fast grower,
very early bearing, good pollinator.
TECUMSEH: Japanese x wild American, medium size, dark red with bluish cast. Firm,
juicy, sweet, distinctive flavored, yellow, clingstone flesh. Excellent quality for
wine. Vigorous, consistent producer, wide ranging tree.
TOKA: Wild American x Chinese plum, medium to large, tapered, reddish-bronze fruit
with bluish bloom. Firm, yellow, rich, sweet, spicy, aromatic, freestone flesh,
excellent for eating or wine. Moderately vigorous, heavy bearer, exceptional
pollinator for Japanese, American and their hybrid plums, hardy to -50 degrees.
VANIER: Medium-small to medium size, bright red fruit, yellow flesh, clingstone.
Excellent flavor. Vigorous, productive, requires pollenizer.
WANETA: Largest of all hybrids, yellow skin washed with dark red, small pit, juicy,
deep yellow, clingstone flesh. Good quality, highly fertile, early bearing, heavy
producer. Pollinate with Toka, hardy to -50 degrees.
WICKSON: Large, heart-shaped, greenish-yellow, firm fruit with very sweet,
translucent flesh. Self-fruitful, but heavy cropper with a pollinator.
The 35 plum varieties I've described are but a fraction of what are available, but
all I have listed are suitable for making wine or mead. Some are better suited than
others, but all can work well in field blends. Sugar content varies from 7 to 13%
with 15% possible but rare, tannin is decent, and acid is generally a bit low and
malic. The recipe I've selected is tried and true, but the final product's character
is determined both by the plum[s] and the yeast used.
Adding more or less plums to the must is perfectly acceptable but changes the
chemistry. Even without altering the recipe, I encourage you to measure acidity
initially and calculate your additions accordingly. Also, remember that using Lalvin
71B-1122 (Narbonne) yeast will result in lower post-fermentation acidity.
A word about destoning is in order. More plums are clingstone than freestone, which
means a lot more work to destone them. I have left stones in many times, but you have
to know the variety if you do this. Certain varieties are notorious for pits that split
or separate upon ripening and these must be destoned to avoid tainting your mead with
cyanogenic glycosides (can you spell cyanide?). I halve each and every plum whether
I'm going to destone it or not. Halving them allows the yeast instant access to the
juicy flesh, but also allows me to inspect the stone to determine if I want to remove
it. I usually remove a couple - sometimes none - but every once in awhile I destone
as many as one in five. It isn't difficult, just time consuming.
A word about freezing the fruit is also in order. Freezing ripe plums and thawing
them out before fermenting them releases more juice more quickly. However, there is a
right way and a wrong way to do this. The right way is to halve the plums, destone any
requiring that precaution, placing them in gallon-sized ZipLoc freezer bags, and then
freezing them. They should remain frozen at least three weeks, but six is better. To
thaw them, allow a full 24 hours so they thaw through and through and at least come
close to assuming room temperature. Set the bags on an oven rack set over a utility
sink or on the patio. Setting the bags directly in a sink will retard thawing by many
hours. If you freeze them in a pail or other bulk storage container, it could take
two full days the thaw them thoroughly. Do NOT defrost them in a microwave or sink
filled with hot water.
Two final pieces of advice are offered. I sprinkle 1/16th teaspoon (measure a quarter-
teaspoon and then divide it into quarters) of potassium metabisulfite into each 10
pounds of halved plums, stir them with a wooden spoon, then transfer them to ZipLocs
and freeze them. This protects them from spoilage bacteria when they thaw. Also,
after the plums thaw pour then directly into fine-meshed nylon straining bags (or nylon
knee-high stockings) in the primary. They are going to completely disintegrate during
fermentation, so failure to bag them would be a colossal error a result in great waste
of mead later.
The recipe below makes one gallon of mead, is easily scaled to 3 or 5 or 6 gallons
(do the math), and requires little (but some) tweaking. Starting specific gravity
should be at least 1.080 but no higher than 1.090. Initial water addition is usually
sufficient but may require slight topping up in secondary. When bubbling stops, check
s.g. It isn't done until it is at least 0.998 - lower is better. It is very good dry,
but stabilize it and add 0.25 to 0.75 cup (start low, add more if needed) of honey to
bring out subtle flavors of the plums. If sweetened, let age additional month, rack
it, and then give it another month to see if it needs another racking. I usually make
3 gallons.
Japanese Plum Mead
8-10 lbs plums, halved and at room temperature
1.5 to 1.75 lbs orange blossom honey
0.5 gallon water
0.75 tsp powdered pectic enzyme
acid blend to 0.60 TA
0.75 tsp yeast nutrient
0.25 tsp yeast energizer
1 sachet Champagne wine yeast
Begin a yeast starter solution the day before mixing the must. In primary, combine
honey, water and yeast nutrient/energizer and stir well to thoroughly dissolve honey.
If plums were previously sulfited (see above), skip this, but if not stir in one finely
ground and dissolved Camden tablet or 1/16th teaspoon potassium metabisulfite. Add
plums in nylon straining bags, cover and set aside 8-10 hours. Add pectic enzyme,
re-cover and set aside 8-10 hours. Use acid test kit to measure acid and adjust to
0.60 TA. Stir in yeast starter solution and re-cover primary. Punch down bag[s] of
plums twice daily. After 5 days push bag[s] aside and float hydrometer; repeat daily
if necessary. When s.g. is approximately 1.015, drip drain plums (do NOT squeeze bag)
about 10 minutes; discard pulp and transfer must to secondary. Affix airlock and
ferment additional week. Top up, reattach airlock, and rack after additional 30 days.
Let maturate three weeks, remove 1/2 cup of mead, and then very slowly stir in
Bentonite slurry (add a teaspoon and watch for volcano effect; degas if needed; stir
in remaining slurry) and reattach airlock. Wait 10-14 days and rack again, stabilizing
in new secondary. Bulk age three months. Check bottom with flashlight. If even a
fine dusting of sediment, rack again. Sweeten if desired, filter if desired, bottle
when ready. [Author's own recipe]
A few days ago a friend in Australia sent me a notice that Jackie Wong Sue,
distinguished World War II hero, passed away in Perth. Mr. Sue was a veteran of the
Z Special Unit, a reconnaissance and commando unit which operated behind enemy lines
in South-East Asia. Z Special Unit was the predecessor of the current Special Air
Service Regiment and played a vital role in the long war against Japanese imperialism.
The highly decorated Sue was officially cited for displaying "leadership, gallantry and
cold blooded courage of the highest order." They don't write citations like that any
more.
WW II Hero Jack Sue, dead at age 84
Why do I mention the passing of one man? Well, for starters he was a friend of my
friend and that made him special. But he was also a member of a passing generation
that all of us on the winning side of World War II owe so very much to, regardless of
where we live or what ethnicity resides in our blood. It is easy to overlook one
passing, but it takes only a little effort to recognize it, pay our respects and
acknowledge our debt. With all my heart I believe Jack Sue would have done the same
for you or me. We are all connected. Rest in peace, Sergeant Sue, and may God's
Grace embrace you.
Last month I was asked for a recipe for Malay Apple Wine. While I do not have an
actual recipe, I do have some excerpts from some old emails regarding such a wine. I
was trying to develop a recipe because someone promised to ship me some Malay Apples
from the Dominican Republic but never did. I now know the fruit would probably never
have made it to Texas as it spoils very quickly. Nonetheless, I think I have enough
information to make a wine, although the chemistry of the actual must would be
required to fine-tune an actual recipe.
The fruit the writer referred to as Malay Apple is botanically Syzygium malaccense
and variously known as Mountain Apple, Rose Apple, Otaheite Apple, Tambis, Makopa
/ Makupa, Fekika Kai, Ke'ika / Ka'ika, plus many other language-dependent names. The
tree and fruit are similar to Syzygium aqueum and Syzygium samarangense,
although these each have white flowers and fruit and the Syzygium malaccense
has red. There are several variants of the Malay Apple, most notable in fruit size
and color - red fruit is usual but variegated varieties and a rare albino exist.
Two size and shape varieties of Malay Apples
The fruit vary from pear- to bell-shape and 5-10 cm in length depending on variety.
They must be picked as soon as they are fully colored because they fall almost as soon
as fully ripe, bruise badly and spoil quickly. After picking they are immersed in
boiling water for one minute to destroy surface microorganisms, then halved and
deseeded. The whole halves are then pureed, the resulting pulp and juice weighed, and
twice the weight in water added to the must in a primary. Because the fruit are not
overly sweet, granulated sugar is added in the amount of 1 1/2 pounds per gallon of
must. Also, 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient and the juice of two lemons per gallon are
added. I would also add one finely ground Campden tablet per gallon to protect the
investment in time and resources and stir the must until all sugar is dissolved - this
could take 8-10 minutes for a cold must. Cover the primary and set aside 10-12 hours,
then pitch your choice of wine yeast.
Normal winemaking methodology is employed to ferment, clarify and age the wine. I'm
told the gross lees will be substantial and should be strained without squeezing
through ladies' nylons to salvage as much wine as possible. The wine will fall clear
naturally after 3-4 spaced rackings over a 6-8 month period. After the second racking
the wine should be sulfited again. After the third racking, pectic enzyme can be added
to aid in clearing if it appears this is needed. The resulting wine will be a light
rosé. For a white wine, peel the fruit before pureeing and add 1/8 teaspoon of
powdered grape tannin to the must.
John Culverson has an excellent memory to recall that many years ago I posted a list
of plum varieties on a use group. Now he says he cannot find the list in the archives
and thinks it might have been lost. All he is interested in are the Japanese-American
hybrids. Well, it so happens I am researching plums and other stone fruit for an
article for WineMaker magazine, so I can comment on a few varieties. There are
actually hundreds of plum cultivars, so I have concentrated on what I consider to be
better or more interesting ones. Because there are so many, even after drastic culling
I have a considerable list, so I will post them in two entries.
ALDERMAN: Large, bright red to burgundy fruit with soft, yellow, clingstone flesh,
late August ripening. Excellent quality. Winter hardy to -50 degrees F. Very
productive and attractive in the landscape with profuse, large white flowers. From
Minnesota. Requires a pollinator.
BURBANK: Very large, purplish-red plum with amber-to-yellow flesh. Excellent flavor,
sweet, meaty, clingstone, best when picked before fully ripe for eating, when fully
ripe for wine.
BURGUNDY: Medium size, cherry-red fruit with sweet, mellow, burgundy flesh. Makes a
decent wine.
CATALINA: Large, black plum ideal for home planting - vigorous, productive, self-
fruitful.
CRIMSON: Skin and flesh deep crimson. Excellent quality, round, clingstone, very
productive.
CRIMSON BEAUTY: A great, new red-skinned and red-fleshed plum. Excellent quality,
considered the best flavored of any red-fleshed variety. Good for South.
DUARTE & DUARTE IMPROVED: Large, heart-shaped, deep red fruit with blood-red, meaty
flesh. Excellent quality. Semi-self-fruitful, but better production with pollinator.
EARLY GOLDEN: Earliest Japanese plum in north U.S.A.. Yellow skin with reddish
blush, medium size round fruit, good quality, freestone.
ELEPHANT HEART: Large, heart-shaped, thick greenish-bronze skin that turns reddish-
purple when completely ripe, with blood-red, juicy, freestone flesh. Rich, distinctive
flavor makes good wine. Vigorous and self-fruitful, but best production with a
pollinator.
FORMOSA: Large, oval, greenish-yellow fruit with reddish blush. Sweet, juicy, firm
but melting, pale yellow flesh, excellent flavor, almost freestone but not quite.
Prolific tree, but tends to skip fruitful years.
FORTUNE: Very large, bright red skin on yellow background, firm-fleshed, clingstone.
Perhaps the very best tasting Japanese plum.
FRIAR: Large, round, dark purple turning black when fully ripe. Firm, sweet, amber
flesh, freestone, good quality. Heavy bearer, self-fruitful, but better with a
pollinator.
GAVIOTA: Very large, yellowskin overlaid ewith dark red. Firm, richly flavored,
yellow flesh, small stone.
HOWARD MIRACLE: Large, yellow fruit with red blush, yellow flesh, tart pineapple
flavor. Requires a pollinator.
LARODA: Dark red, almost black covered with small light dots. Pale, violet-red flesh,
yellowing toward the stone. Rich flavor, excellent for wine. Requires a pollinator.
METHLEY: Medium to large, reddish-purple fruit. Juicy, sweet, yellow flesh with
mild, distinctive flavor. Best for fresh eating or jelly. Best for wine when combined
with other varieties. Self-fruitful, heavy producer and a great pollinator for other
trees.
I was going through things I hadn't looked at in nearly 20 years and happened upon
a photograph taken in September 1971. It brought back bitter/sweet memories.
In September of 1970 I settled in at Colorado Springs after two consecutive years
in Vietnam. After buying the obligatory Rolex at the PX, precious stones and gold
while on R&R to Bangkok, and cameras (still and Super-8) and stereo components while
on R&R to Hong Kong, there really wasn't a whole lot for a bachelor officer to spend
his money on over there, so I had a "nest egg" in the bank.
I had left a year-old VW Beetle at my folks' house and this is what I drove to
Colorado, on to Fort Benning for Airborne School, and then back to Colorado Springs and
Fort Carson. After 6 months of settling in, sight-seeing in the Rocky Mountains in
the VW was getting tiresome. I yearned for something with a little more power so I
didn't create a traffic jam at every uphill grade. I found it at a used car lot
specializing in exotic cars - Bentleys, Mercedes-Benz's of all classes, Jaguars, Aston-
Martins, MGs, Triumphs, a Lotus, a Jensen, a Morgan, a DeTomaso, several others I
don't specifically recall, and a Maserati.
Once I discovered this particular car lot I lived there, being educated on each car
and test driving anything they allowed me to. The lot's owner had one salesperson, a
tall, shapely beauty who wore leathers when she rode her BMW motorcycle to and from
work but then changed. Without coaxing from her, I finally decided to buy the Maserati
and we were in her office negotiating the deal. She went into another room to get some
papers and I saw her leathers hanging from a coat-rack. I was holding up her leather
pants when she returned. Momentarily embarrassed to be caught looking at her pants, I
inadequately explained, "I was just wondering if I could get into your pants." Without
skipping a beat she replied, "Not until you sign these papers." It was a wonderful
nudge to close the deal, but neither necessary nor a promise fulfilled.
Probably the only surviving picture of my 1966 Maserati 3500 GTi,
September 1971
I only owned the car 7 months. A month after the above picture was taken I was
doing 110 miles per hour into the glare of a setting sun when I ran out of Garden of
the Gods Road and drove the car through a rock barrier. I am ashamed to have destroyed
a work of art such as that car was.
Oh, and yes, the photo above was Photoshopped (by Andre Akers of San Antonio) to
subdue the background and highlight the car.
Since writing about açai berries and juice a month ago (October 10, 2009), I
was given a gallon of açai juice by a merchant who asked not to be identified. I
bought some bulk honey from him and used the juice and honey to start a memomel. For
this particular mead I selected Red Star Assmannshausen active dry yeast, of which I
had a vial obtained from a commercial winery in the Texas Hill Country. Shortly after
transferring the açai melomel to a secondary, I used the same glass primary to
start a gallon of blueberry melomel, also using pure juice and Red Star Assmannshausen
active dry yeast. I wrote about this in my last entry (November 11, 2009), but did
not say anything about the yeast.
On my page about wine yeast strains, I say the following about this yeast:
"Assmannshausen is a German yeast strain. Germany leads the world in yeast isolation
and production. Assmannshausen is best suited for red wines. It intensifies the color
and adds a spicy aroma. It first was only meant for Pinot Noir and Zinfandel, but now
Cabernet Sauvignon takes advantage of this strain. The only drawback is its
ineffectiveness in a high solid content." I'll admit that is a rather sorry and
unhelpful entry. I'll have to work on it.
Assmannshausen is a German isolate (Geisenheim Research Institute). It is a slow
reproducer and fermentor, but once started chugs along steadily. It tolerates
temperatures down to 50 degrees F. and as high as 90, but 68-86 degrees is its comfort
zone. Its attenuation is reported by brewers as 80%, which seems to me to be terribly
low for a wine yeast and which I therefore question, flocculation is low, and alcohol
tolerance is 15%. It is known for producing fruity, spicy aromas. What surprised me
is that it appears to be a surface colonizer, which I have not seen reported in any of
the articles, blog or forum entries I've read.
Assmannshausen yeast in açai juice, day 3 and day 5
I did not build a yeast starter solution with this yeast despite my normal
fanaticism for doing so, but instead sprinkled the yeast on the surface. Within 10
minutes it had disappeared beneath the dark surface of the juice. The next day BB size
spots appeared on the surface. These grew as more and more colonies of yeast rose from
the depths, probably to enjoy the surface/atmosphere oxygen boundary, but here I am
guessing. By day 3 the surface was amply seeded and by the morning of day 5 the
surface was 85-90% covered. When I returned home from work that evening, the entire
cap of yeast had sunk and a new observer would never have known the yeast had risen
and then sunk.
Assmannshausen yeast in blueberry juice, day 2 and day 3
When I constituted the blueberry must, I was curious about the surface antics of
the Assmannshausen yeast in the açai so I selected it again and again sprinkled
it on top, despite what my recipe says. On day 2 (which is not the day after pitching
the yeast, but the second full day after pitching) the yeast had greatly out-colonized
the previous batch. The entire surface was covered with thick yeast colonies and foam,
with splotches of very fine pulp and pigment particulates lifted onto the top of the
foam. The next day (which is today), the surface colonies and particulates had settled
and a blanket of foam about 3/8 inch thick covered the must.
The açai must foamed initially after transferring it to secondary, but the
foam settled down and disappeared after the airlock started bubbling. Both batches
have strong aromas of their fruit origins, but it is too early to tell if these will
persist as reported elsewhere. I suspect they will, which is why I obtained the yeast,
but will report more at a time when more is known for sure.
I was planning on writing an article for WineMaker magazine on sugars, but
my concept was to do a photo essay and they wouldn't pay for my photographer so I
didn't do it. I understand budgets so I'm not villanizing them for it, but it would
have been a valuable and memorable article. But while I was planning it I collected
33 different kinds of sugar or natural sweetner and four different liquid sweetners.
One of the liquid sweetners I collected and have used is agave nectar.
Agave (uh-GAH-vay) nectar is made from any number of agave plants. The Blue Agave
is the highest regarded, then probably the Maguey Agave, Agave Americana (augustifolia)
and Agave Mapisaga, but I believe that all or almost all of the 150 or so species or
varieties of agave yield a sweet nectar. The agave nectar I use most is made from
Salmiana Agaves. The plants are succulents similar to the Aloe Vera. Slow growing,
they form a gradually enlarging core called a pina from which the leaves grow.
Blue Agave pinas, trimmed and ready for pressing
When 8-12 years old, the leaves are cut away revealing the pina. The pina is
tapped with a tool and its sap is typically siphoned twice a day until the pina yields
no more. When the pina yields no more sap, the pina is harvested, wrapped in a mesh
cloth, smashed and pressed for any sap that remains. The harvested pina weighs from 50
to 150 pounds. The sap is filtered and heated at low temperature (118 degrees F.),
where enzymes break down complex carbohydrates into simple sugars. Some producers,
however, exceed this temperature and heat their product to as high as 170 degrees F.
The juice of the agave contains a great deal of inulin - fructooligosaccharides.
Agave nectar is processed so an enzymatic process converts the complex fructose chain
into simple monosaccharides -- fructose and dextrose (plant glucose). Agave Nectar
varies from 70-90% fructose sugars and 30-10% dextrose/glucose sugars. Because
fructose is perceptively sweeter to the human palate than granulated sugar, less is
needed to achieve the same level of sweetness.
I have used agave nectar several times to sweeten dry, stabilized wines. It cuts
the sharp dryness and adds a smoothness to the finish without the lingering aftertaste
of honey. I have never used it for any other purpose related to winemaking.
Numerous Mexicans have told me that fermented agave nectar is quite good. They make
a drink "back home" called pulque, which is only 5-8% alcohol. It can be
consumed earlier than that, at 3-4% alcohol, as a drink called agua miel (honey
water), or it can be made much stronger but takes longer to ferment and is not as
refreshing a drink. But if you just want the kick, then distilled pulque is
the drink for you. Mezcal or tequila, anyone?
Several people have sent me simple recipes for an agave nectar wine. Having never
made it, I cannot say anything about the finished product, including it's strength.
Most recipes use 20-25% agave nectar, a lemon or two, some nutrients, and any wine
yeast. It takes 7-9 months to ferment, is then stabilized and allowed to rest for
three months, racked, sweetened to taste with more agave nectar, and bottled. If you
make this wine, please let me know what you think of it.
We used to call it Armistice Day, but since 1954 it has been called Veterans Day in
the United States. Many nations still observe it by its former name or as Remembrance
Day. In its former name it commemorated the armistice that ended the slaughterhouse
also known as The Great War, the War to End All Wars, the War to Make the World Safe
for Democracy, and later, World War I. Even today most people around the world
officially celebrate this day by some name by observing a moment or two of silence at
the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, that moment the guns fell silent in
1919 and ended the greatest casualty-producing war in history. As Armistice Day it
would now honor only the dead - the last known American World War I veteran passed away
on January 21, 2007. Veterans Day honors millions of both living and dead.
My favorite Veterans Day photograph, of Joseph Ambrose,
an 86-year-old World War I veteran, attending the dedication
parade of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982, clasping
the flag that draped the casket of his son who had been killed
in Korea. May God's Grace be with each and every veteran.
Many fellow veterans send me the Terry Kelly video, "A Pittance of Time," each year
about this time. I guess I have watched it between 20 and 30 times because, out of
respect for the subject matter, I watch it every time I receive it. If you haven't seen
it, I've linked to it following this entry. I could show it here, but instead have
chosen to show the following newscast, from last year, about an unbelievably respectful
phenomenon in Canada.
Please celebrate this day as you should, by remembering with reverence those who
serve[d]. If you meet a veteran today, thank him or her for their service. They
serve[d] for you....
It is not easy to transition from reflections on Veterans Day to winemaking, but I
will try. Last week I got to thinking that I wanted to start a wine on Veterans Day to
drink the following year. I wanted something that was uniquely American but could
think of none. In the end, I decided upon a blueberry mead. I purchased two 64-ounce
bottles of R.W. Knudsen unsweetened "Just Blueberries" and began the yeast starter
solution yesterday morning before going to work. Last night I mixed the juice and
other constituents in the primary, including sulfites. I woke up at 5:34 is morning
and pitched the yeast. Two hours later I can see evidence that the yeast like the
must, which is how it should be.
I like Knudsen juices because they contain only reconstituted juice from
concentrate. Knudsen claims 4 pounds of blueberries are used to make each half-gallon
bottle. Nothing is added -- especially preservatives. You know they will ferment.
So why, then, you might ask, did I add sulfites? As Bob Dylan said, the answer is
blowing in the wind. There are so many organisms floating in the air in the average
American kitchen that it is impossible not to pick up a few simply when the juice is
poured and the must constituted. Just to be safe, I add sulfites. You may do as you
like.
Blueberry Melomel Recipe
2-1/2 lbs clover honey (you can use any honey)
1 gallon Knudsen's Just Blueberries unsweetened juice
1 Campden tablet
3/4 tsp yeast nutrient
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
1 tsp Red Star Assmannshausen wine yeast
On the morning before, add the yeast to a starter solution. That night, crush the
Campden tablet very fine and stir it and all other ingredients into the must except
the yeast starter solution and cover the primary. The next morning, pitch the yeast
starter solution and recover primary. Stir daily until s.g. drops to 1.010, then
transfer to secondary and attach airlock. Ferment 30 days and rack, top up and
reattach airlock. Wait 30-45 days and rack again, then repeat after additional 30-45
days. After third 30-45-day period, inspect bottom of secondary for sediment. It
should be clean, in which case you can bottle the mead, but if a very light dusting is
visible rack once again and bottle after a few days. Bottle age at least 3 months,
but longer aging is encouraged. [Author's own recipe]
Sur lie aging is aging the wine on the fine - not the gross - lees. It is
necessarity accompanied by lees stirring, an activity known as bâtonnage in
French. As yeast cells die and break down, they gradually release a host of compounds
into the wine that otherwise would be absent. These offer several physiological as
well as sensory benefits to a wine but do so at a small risk. Risk, however, can be
managed and greatly minimalized, but not eliminated altogether.
Some of the benefits a wine might accrue through these techniques are:
Increased roundness, creaminess and viscous feel to the palate caused by the release of polysaccharides;
Increased mouthfeel length due to delayed release of certain volatile compounds;
Enhanced flavor and aroma release at the end of the palate and lapsing into finish;
Release of fatty acid esters associated with sweet/spicy and fruity aromas;
A slight sweetness associated with the binding of amino and nucleic acids with oak phenols;
Decreased astringency due to mannoprotein-anthocyanin/tannin binding;
Released nutrients beneficial to malolactic bacteria;
Protects certain fruit aroma compounds from oxidation through buffering actions;
Improves protein stability by preventing polymerization of tannins, pigments and volatile compounds;
Reduces diacetyl retention during malolactic fermentation by allowing the bacteria to convert the diacetyl to less egregious acetoin and 2,3-butanediol;
Inhibits potassium bitartrate crystal formation.
On the other hand, some of the risks you will endure using these techniques are:
Each time you stir the lees, you exchange protective CO2 and SO2 for oxidative O2;
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is much more likely to form on aging lees than on racked wine;
Mercaptans, H2S on steroids, are also more likely to form on aging lees.
As for the first risk, some oxygen uptake is desired or the wine will become
reductive. The trick is not to overdo it. Stirring the wine every 5-7 days for 4-6
months may make you uncomfortable, but if you can stir every other time without
removing the bung/airlock then you might feel better about it. I happen to have a
stir table, a small platform that contains a hidden magnetic arm that spins and causes
a plastic or ceramic enclosed stirring magnet to spin inside the carboy and stir the
lees. Before I bought that (used, on Craig's List) I used several large glass marbles
that could easily be swirled around the bottom of the carboy and stir the lees. The
prime consideration in using marbles that the marbles crush some of the dead yeast
cells and cause yeast autolysis, which is fine for feeding leve yeast but not desired
when all yeast are dead. However, when using marbles I seldom left the wine on the
lees more than 3 months and experienced no off odors or flavors as a result.
Hydrogen sulfide is controlled by avoidance of elemental sulfur on grapes or fruit
and by yeast selection. There are excellent strains that rarely produce H2S, so use them. These same avoidance strategies also apply to
mercaptans. Finally, if the winemaker is observant and smells the wine each time the
bung/airlock is removed, corrective action can be taken as soon as the slightest hint
of H2S is detected.
While the results can be severe if something goes wrong, avoidance is fairly
straightforward and the benefits considerable. But remember, as in all things
pertaining to winemaking one size does not fit all. Not all wines are suited to sur
lie aging and bâtonnage. Certainly white wines are more suited than red,
dry wines more suited than sweet, but type and style are determinants. I have tried it
with such diverse wines as white Mustang, Blanc du bois, Himrod, Traminette, mimosa
flower, kiwi, pear, mangosteen, and cranberry.
An off-topic preface is called for. The senseless wounding and loss of life two
days ago at Fort Hood, Texas, where I served back during the late '70s with a unit
called "Red Thrust," sliced through the military establishment like a hot knife through
soft butter. They are calling it a massacre. By definition, the word fits. It was
also the scene of some very selfless comradery, heroic confrontation and exemplary
improvised first aid. All in the previous sentence is expected of our well-trained
and highly motivated soldiers. What they were reacting to was neither expected nor
should it have been allowed to occur. Still, I am not sure it could have been
prevented in a free society.
In retrospect, there were ample signs the perpetrator harbored feelings and beliefs
counter to the duties his employer - the United States Army -- might demand of him at
any time. Obviously, he should have been dealt with before he personified the extremes
his religion allows. Exactly how he should have been dealt with will be debated in
the upper echelons of the Army for some time to come. Let us hope that we stop tip-
toeing around the issues of religious extremism in the name of political correctness
and protect ourselves from the few, the bad, the jihadists. But few Muslims become
jihadists, so let us not overreact and tread upon the protections inherent within our
Constitution. Therein lies the challenge
Here in the United States we still insist upon the innocence of every person until
they are caught acting criminally or are proven guilty of an offense. We do not
persecute people for expressing ideas or beliefs counter to our own, and I pray we not
change course by going down that very dangerous path. You cannot undermine any pillar
supporting the temple of freedom without jeopardizing the whole edifice. Proceed
cautiously and debate thoroughly. We may have to accept the risk of a Fort Hood
massacre to preserve the freedoms we inherited.
Those of us who took the oath of a commissioned officer swore to honor, uphold and
defend the Constitution of the United States. That is the essence of conservatism -
honor, uphold and defend. Radicals would rewrite the rules and usher in rapid, drastic
change, preserving little that restrains them from imposing their will. The French
Revolution is the paradigm of radical rule, and it quickly became executive rule by
terror. Radicalism is extreme liberalism. Liberalism has fallen from self-identified
favor, so overnight liberals agreed to call themselves progressives. A rose by any
other name is still a rose, so beware all attempts to deceive by renaming. And please
remember that the ideal standard is still to honor, uphold and defend. Your continued
freedom depends on it.
The wild Fall Grape, Winter Grape, Little Mountain Grape, Spanish Grape, and Uña
Cimarrona - different names for the same grape - is known by old-timers as Vitis
berlandieri but correctly as Vitis cinerea var. helleri. It is currently ripe and
ready to be made into wine. It is acidic until it ripens and then is sweet and quite
delicious but too small for convenient eating and not quite sweet enough to make a
decent wine without a little sugar being added. It is small (1/5 to 1/3 inch) with 30
to 70 berries per cluster. The clusters are loose and open, the pedicels (stems) long.
The skin is thin, the pulp juicy when ripe, usually with one or two seeds of a coffee
color. Ripe berries retain enough acid to make a balanced wine. Their small size makes
crushing difficult but not at all impossible, so freezing/thawing and pectic enzyme
will help extract the juice. Destemming by hand takes a while, but is necessary due to
the astringent tannins in the stems.
I have made wonderful wines with this grape although many people consider it too
small and difficult to destem by hand (6-8 pounds takes an hour) to bother with. I
have also used this grape as the major ingredient in a field blend including any two
or three of the following: Vitis monticola, Vitis cordifolia (correctly,
Vitis vulpina), Vitis champinii (correctly, Vitis X champinii,
a.k.a. "Dogridge"), and Vitis riparia.
I have a recipe posted elsewhere on my site (see link following entry) for this
grape, but this one differs slightly in that it contains a slight amount of water to
dilute excess malic acid usually present from a few not-fully-ripe grapes that find
their way into the must. If you are sure of the ripeness of all grapes used, eliminate
the water and add another pound-and-a-half of grapes.
Winter Grape Wine
13 to 15 lbs ripe winter grapes
1/3 to 2/3 lb finely granulated sugar
1 pt water
1 crushed Campden tablet
3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
1 pkg Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast
Destem and crush the grapes and place in nylon straining bag. Tie bag closed and
place in primary. Squeeze bag to extract enough juice to float a hydrometer in its
test jar. Calculate sugar required to raise specific gravity to 1.088. Add sugar and
stir well to dissolve it completely. Dissolve finely crushed Campden tablet in 1 pint
of water and add to primary, stirring well. Cover primary with sanitized muslin and set
aside 10 hours. Add pectic enzyme and stir well. Recover primary and set aside
additional 10 hours. Add activated yeast, recover primary, and squeeze bag twice daily
until active fermentation dies down (5-7 days). Remove nylon straining bag and drain,
then press to extract all juice. Transfer juice to secondary, top up if required and
fit airlock. Ferment 30 days, rack into clean secondary, top up, and refit airlock.
Rack again every 30 days until wine is perfectly clear and stabilize wine. Sweeten to
taste if desired and set aside 30 days, or forego sweetening, set aside 10-14 days,
and rack into bottles. Age three to six months. [Author's own recipe]
The single word "medicinal" is often used to describe a variety of individual
smells, each of which is more specific and offers clues as to what may be the cause.
Knowing the cause does not mean the offensive smell can be removed or prevented, but
often it does. Any number of other, more specific terms might be used synonomously
with "medicinal," and include iodine, band-aids, isopropyl alcohol, ethyl acetate,
ethyl phenol, cork taint, ether, nail polish remover, peroxide, mouthwash, a doctor's
office, a dentist's office, menthol, and anesthesia.
By far the major causes of many of the "medicinal" smells in wine are a number of
compounds created by the yeast Brettanomyces bruxellensis (simply "Brett" in
most conversations) and its anamorph relative Dekkera bruxellensis. According
to Richard Gawel, the three most important aroma compounds are 4-ethyl phenol, which
has been variously described as having the aromas of band-aids, antiseptic and horse
stable, 4-ethyl guaiacol, which has a rather pleasant aroma of smoked bacon, spice or
cloves, and isovaleric acid which has an unpleasant smell of sweaty animals, cheese and
rancid oils. These compounds never exist alone as there are hundreds of constituents
of wine, so there are rarely simple, single step solutions. A 1999 study indicated
that what is considered Brett aroma in wine "is a complex mixture of odor-active
compounds, including acids, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, esters and phenolics."
My experience with home wines is that three things may help if the odor is not too
strong. The obvious first step is to raise the sulfur dioxide (potassium metabisulfite)
level of the wine to an aseptic level to arrest the growth of Brett, treat with
activated charcoal for 3 to 8 weeks, and sterile filter (0.45 microns or less) to
remove residual yeast cells. If the Brett infection is strong, the drain is the answer.
There are treatments available to commercial wineries to treat wines for Brett
infestation and odors. These treatments are impractical for home winemakers due to
their cost, but if you continue making wine after hitting the lottery and happen to get
a Brett infection, the link is down below....
Today is Halloween. I have great memories of this holiday when I was young, but
the incomprehensible meanness of a few mentally sick members of the populace have
taken the fun out of "trick or treating" for many years now. If this year is like the
previous 25-30 years, in subsequent days I will eat most of the candy bars I bought
for the youngsters I hoped would knock on my door.
But at least I attended one Halloween party - yesterday at work. There was a
scavenger hunt, games, plenty of food, and even a costume contest (I did not enter).
One gal wore a tee shirt printed with the words "Go Ceilings." I didn't get it until
someone told me she was a "ceiling fan." She didn't win, but she was very cute.
Because the party was on a military base where political correctness has long reigned,
there were no adult beverages served. In the old Army it wouldn't have been a party
without them, but - as with trick or treating -- the world has changed. But we won't
let that affect this blog. It is still about wine - and mead.
Yes, another mead! I normally make no more than two meads a year, but over the
past three years I have made quite a few. I did so because I considered them a
distinct challenge to be mastered. I think I have gotten it (except for Show Mead as
redefined in my October 17th, 2009 entry). Anyway, here is a metheglin I made loosely
based on a recipe I found somewhere. This calls for the five traditional Asian spices
and a Celestial Seasonings herbal blend containing Chamomile, orange peel, natural
honey and vanilla flavors with licorice, roasted chicory and West Indian lemongrass.
This is so good I'd like to patent it but copyright will have to do.
I did not boil the honey, but did boil the water so I could infuse the flavors.
Therefore, this is not a brewed mead but a honey wine, although I doubt many of you
even care about such distinctions.
The recipe makes three gallons of mead. Starting specific gravity is 1.100 and it
took 7.25 pounds of the honey I used to obtain that. Your honey may be more or less
sweet, so start with 6.5 pounds and add quarter-pounds until you get the s.g. right.
Since you will be dealing with hot water, dissolve the honey, draw off a cup, place
that in your freezer about 15 minutes, then pour into a hydrometer test cylinder and
measure it. Be sure to put a thermometer in the sample immediately before inserting
the hydrometer and make any temperature adjustments to your reading required. Most
hydrometers are calibrated to give correct readings at 59-60 degrees Fahrenheit.
Higher temperatures thin the liquid slightly and result in lower readings than you'd
get at the correct temperature. At 70 degrees F., the reading will be 0.001 low. To
correct it, add 0.001 to the reading. At 77 degrees F., add 0.002. At 84 degrees F.,
add 0.003. At 95 degrees F., add 0.005.
Boil water. Meanwhile, tie teabags together and drop in water. Tie spices in a
closely woven jelly bag (or in 6-inch square of finely woven muslin) and add to water.
When water boils, remove from heat and stir in honey (you can boil the honey in the
water, skimming off the surface scum as it forms, but I did not do this). Transfer to
primary, stir in yeast nutrients and energizer, cover, and set aside overnight to
cool. Meanwhile, prepare a yeast starter solution (1 cup water, 1 tablespoon honey,
pinch of yeast energizer, sachet of wine yeast). When must is cooled, remove teabags
and spices and add yeast starter solution to must. Cover and stir daily for about 10
days. Skim off any scum that rises from the must and transfer to secondary. Do not
top up yet, but do affix an airlock. Rack, add finely crushed and dissolved Campden
tablets, top up and reattach airlock after 30 days. Repeat racking (without adding
additional Campden) 2-3 more times at 30-day intervals until no new sediment is
dropped. Bulk age 4-6 months, bottle, and age an additional 6 months. {Author's own
recipe]
I have exchanged several emails over two months with a gentleman in Indonesia who
asked for a conversion chart for volume measurements, both dry and liquid, so that he
might better use my recipes. At first I simply pointed him to my conversions page,
but he wrote back saying it did not cover all the measurements some of my recipes
used and also he did not own a computer. He used one in a shop where you can rent
computer time and maintain an email account, and he desired one or two charts he could
print. After several exchanges, each a week or two apart, I understood his needs and
circumstances and tested the waters with the following chart that he loved. Thank
you, Hamzah, for your patience.
Dry Volume
American Standard
Metric
1/8 teaspoon
0.5 mL
1/4 teaspoon
1 mL
1/2 teaspoon
2 mL
3/4 teaspoon
4 mL
1 teaspoon
5 mL
1 tablespoon
15 mL
1/4 cup
59 mL
1/3 cup
79 mL
1/2 cup
118 mL
2/3 cup
158 mL
3/4 cup
177 mL
1 cup
237 mL
1 pint
474 mL
3 cups
711 mL
1 quart
946 mL
1/2 gallon
1.89 liters
1 gallon
3.79 liters
This was followed with a chart for liquids - not as long but containing an extra
column to equate common American standard units with ounces and then metrics.
Liquid Volume
American Standard
American Ounces
Metric
2 tablespoons
1 fl. oz.
30 mL
1/4 cup
2 fl. oz.
60 mL
1/2 cup
4 fl. oz.
125 mL
1 cup
8 fl. oz.
250 mL
1 1/2 cups
12 fl. oz.
375 mL
1 pint
16 fl. oz.
500 mL
1 quart
32 fl. oz.
946 mL
1/2 gallon
64 fl. oz.
1.89 liters
1 gallon
128 fl. oz.
3.79 liters
It is easy for us, wherever we are in the world, to think of our units of measure
as universal. None are, although metric units are universally understood within the
contexts of science and engineering. Even in countries sharing a common language such
as English, standard units of measure can (and do) differ. We have to strive to
remember that an Imperial gallon is approximately 750 mL larger than an American
gallon and sometimes the only clue is the use of the word flavour in the
discussion, as opposed the the Americanized spelling flavor.
I am going to offer some advice. I hope I am not out of line for doing so, but I think it
necessary. Consider it a public service announcement. Do not drink two very generous low sodium V8
Bloody Marys and then decide to mow the lawn on the riding lawn mower when you have 48 very sizeable
trees scattered around the property. Avoiding the trees is difficult enough without a wee bit of
impairment, but remembering to duck under the low-hanging oak branches the size of my leg is a task
too many. It wasn't really a bad scrape, but because I am on Plavix it took a while to get the
bleeding stopped. Lesson learned.
This naturally brings up the question, what time did I consume the two very generous low sodium
V8 Bloody Marys? Okay, I admit it was early, but V8 is so very "morning" that it seemed right, and
the generosity of the pour was strictly dictated by my desire to finish the bottle of 100-proof
vodka and be done with that large, mostly empty bottle. Surely you understand....
The first time I encountered sugar beets I was driving near Fort Collins, Colorado when I
encountered a bunch of grapefruit-sized, conical, whitish-gray things on the highway I thought were
huge parsnips that obviously had fallen off a truck. I stopped and picked up one, examined it and
had no idea what it was. I collected perhaps a dozen, maybe 15, and tossed them in the very small
trunk well of my Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta (oh, what fond memories!). When I next stopped for
gas I showed the attendant one (they still pumped your gas and cleaned your windows for you back
then) and he identified it - was even a little amused I didn't know what it was. All of this came
back to me when I read a recent Guest Book entry requesting a sugar beet wine recipe.
Sugar beets
The sugar beet is large, weighing from 2 to 4-1/2 pounds. It need not be peeled, but must be
scrubbed with a stiff brush and rinsed well to remove soil trapped in its irregular surface. Each
beet contains up to 20% sugar. My first sugar beet wine was just that, a wine made with sugar beets
and little else. I used 10 pounds of beets to extract 2 pounds of sugar and the result was
disappointing. The flavor was between bland and herbaceous and I figured that was the end of that.
Several years later I tasted two very good sugar beet wines and developed the recipe below from
discussions with the two winemakers.
I have not made this wine as I no longer live in sugar beet country, but I believe it will
produce very good wines similar to those I sampled. The ginger gives it something that beet alone
sorely lacks. I can think of other herbs that might work as well, but cannot experiment without the
sugar beets. You can grate the beets by hand, but if you have a food processor with a rotary
grating blade then do the smart thing and use it.
Sugar Beet Wine Recipe
5 lbs grated sugar beet (about 2 beets)
1-1/4 lbs granulated sugar
3 Valencia oranges, juiced
2/3 oz ginger root thinly sliced
1/8 tsp powdered grape tannin
1 gal water
1 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 pkt general purpose wine yeast
Scrub beets well and grate. Pack into a nylon straining bag with ginger and tie closed. Place
bag in pot and cover with water. Bring to hard boil, reduce heat and hold low boil for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, place sugar, orange juice, tannin and yeast nutrient in primary. Remove bag from pot and
drip drain in colander over primary about 20 minutes, at which time it will have cooled enough to
handle. Apply light, gentle pressure to bag to extract last of free liquid, but do not squeeze or
mash or wine will not clear. Discard beet pulp, cover primary and allow it to cool to room
temperature. When cool, stir in Campden and recover Primary. Set aside 10-12 hours and add
activated yeast in starter solution. Recover primary and allow to ferment through vigorous stage.
When vigorous fermentation subsides, transfer to secondary, affix airlock and ferment to dryness.
When wine is still (or in 30 days) rack, top up and reaffix airlock. Wine should clear in three
rackings 30 days apart, but if not then treat with amylase and wait it out. This is a dry wine, but
if you want a sweeter wine stabilize it and sweeten to taste. Bottle and age 2-3 months. [Author's
own recipe]
A few weeks ago at a competition the steward told me he could not open a particular bottle. I
looked at it and it was a 4-year old wine sealed with an agglomerated cork. These are corks that
are made from granulated cork that is bound together with food-grade glue and either molded or
extruded to the appropriate size. According to APCOR, the Portuguese Cork Association, "Agglomerated
corks are an economical solution in assuring good sealing for a period that should not, in general,
exceed 12 months."
Corks are tools used to accomplish a given task, and in the wine business the task is sealing the
bottle for a given period of time. A better solution for the wine in question would have been a
colmated cork. Colmated corks are natural corks with their pores (lenticels) sealed with natural
cork dust coated with FDA approved natural resin and rubber glues. Colmation improves the visual
aspect of the cork closure, and it improves its performance. A heavily pored cork can be made to
look like a quality closure, but it is rated for only 4 years use.
In between agglomerated and colmated are technical corks, also called composites, end capped,
1+1s, and other names. Technical corks were created for bottled wines which are consumed within a
period of two to three years. They consist of a very dense agglomerate cork body with natural cork
disks glued on one or both ends. Technical corks with a disk on both ends are 1+1 technical corks.
With two natural cork disks at each end, they are known as 2+2 technical corks. Those with two
disks on one end are called 2+0 technical corks. An FDA-approved food contact glue is used to bond
the disks to the agglomerated cylindrical body.
Natural corks are excellent seals when compressed into the necks of glass bottles. Over time,
natural cork promotes wine maturation and allows noble ageing through the innumerable chemical and
physical processes that occur between its components and the internal bottle environment.
With a quality cork of the appropriate diameter and length, we can expect a perfect seal for at
least 20 years. This period may be extended to dozens of years if the cork is of a high quality and
is kept in ideal wine storage conditions -- adequate temperature, pressure, humidity, and with
minimal thermal variation throughout the years. Factors contributing to the quality of corks
include the amount and size of pores (lenticels), bark, belly and cracks found on a cork's surface;
its compressibility and elasticity; it's moisture content (between 3 and 5%); its surface treatment
or coating (paraffin or silicone) if any; its extraction force rating; and the sampling size and
standard. A cork should not compress more than 6mm from natural size to sealant size - 2mm is
standard.
Agglomerated, colmated and technical corks are quality graded A, B or C, or I, II, or III, with A
or I being the best and C or III being the lowest grade. Natural corks are graded according to
visual criteria as "Superior," "Extra," "Flor," 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th in declining order, but
some manufacturers have created their own unique grades. If you are not sure of what the relative
grade is that is assigned, ask. Also ask how long the cork is rated as a closure. I buy 7-year
corks for most wines, but 12- or 20-year corks for certain types of wine with a judged potential to
age that long.
An email woke me up. The writer conveyed that he secretly made a mandarin-chocolate wine for
his girlfriend from a recipe I posted here and they were drinking it when he proposed and she
accepted. It is now "their wine" and he makes it twice a year. He was thanking me, but he should
be thanking the couple I got the recipe from. Allan and Nedra, thank you and take a bow.
I just opened a 2007 Cranberry-Raspberry wine, semi-sweet, so good I just might drink it all
tonight! I keep telling people that cranberry is one of the unheralded heroes of fermentation and
so many things blend well with it that one could make a career discovering them all. How fortunate
we are to have this under-appreciated little berry.
I recently mentioned that I had bottled a ginger mead and that very night received the first of
several requests for the recipe. One writer asked, "Exactly what kind of mead is ginger? Is it a
type of hippocras?" No. Although many call hippocras a mead (I do simply because it could
be a mead), it usually is a spiced wine sweetened with honey. Ginger is but one of the several
spices used to make it. Another spiced mead is metheglyn, but this too generally has several
spices but can have but one. Since I know of no name for a mead flavored with just ginger, I have
coined one based on the botanical name for the plant, Zingiber officinale; I will call it
zingimel. If anyone knows of an earlier designation I will concede to it, and if you object to
zingimel then go ahead and call it a metheglyn. And with that out of the way, lets discuss ginger
and the recipe.
Up to 3% of fresh ginger root's weight is a mixture of zingerone, shogaols and gingerols,
volatile oils responsible for its characteristic flavor and odor. Multiple laboratory studies have
shown gingerols increase movement in the gastrointestinal tract with favorable results and can kill
ovarian cancer cells. Ginger oil effectively prevented skin cancer in mice and has been proven to
kill salmonella and other harmful bacteria. Ginger and citrus tea, often sweetened with honey, is
popular for medicinal as well as flavor reasons, and fresh, pickled, dried and ground ginger is
popular are widely used in baking, cooking and beverages such as ginger ale and ginger beer. It
just begs to be used in mead.
I think most people know - or should -- that mead was traditionally brewed to remove impurities
from the honey. With centrifugal processors, it is possible today to obtain honey with near optical
clarity, so brewing is not always necessary. Indeed, some would say brewing is undesirable as it
compromises certain compounds that contribute to aroma, flavor and perhaps mouthfeel.
Even when making mead with lesser grades of honey, one can make it without brewing; it just
takes longer for the impurities to fall out and even then brilliance might not be obtained without
fining or filtration. I used a fancy grade of clover honey and so I didn't boil it. However, I did
warm one quart of water to help dissolve and integrate the honey. This may have been unnecessary,
but it worked. I also decided to make an infusion with the ginger to avoid leaving the root in the
must too long. Finally, I decided to acidify the must with one orange, reasoning that citric acid
would meld better with ginger's flavor than would malic, tartaric, succinic or lactic acids and if
one orange was insufficient I could add citric acid later (I did not need to).
Zingimel Recipe
2-1/2 lbs clover honey (you can use any honey)
1/2 oz ginger root, peeled and sliced crosswise
juice of one large orange
water to 1 gal
1 Campden tablet
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
1 sachet Lalvin 71B-1122 (or Red Star Pasteur Champagne) wine yeast
Heat 1 quart water to perhaps 120 degrees F. and stir in the honey. Cover and remove from heat.
Meanwhile, brought a separate 2 cups water with the ginger root slices to a gentle boil. When
ginger slices begin to turn translucent carefully strain water into honey-water, discarding the root
or saving for a mild tea. In primary, combine two quarts cold water, orange juice, yeast nutrient
and energizer, and combined honey- and ginger-waters. Bring volume up to one gallon, cover and
allow to cool to about 80 degrees F. Pitch activated yeast and recover primary. After 2 days stir
daily until s.g. drops to 1.010 (mine did this on day 9), then transfer to secondary and attach
airlock. Ferment 30 days and rack, add a finely ground and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and
reattach airlock. Wait 60 days and rack again, then repeat after additional 60 days. After third
60-day period, inspect bottom of secondary for sediment. It should be clean, in which case you can
bottle the mead, but if a very light dusting is visible rack once again and bottle after a few days.
Bottle age at least 3 months and serve chilled. [Author's own recipe]
For some reason I was distracted when I pitched the yeast and did not take a starting specific
gravity reading so I didn't know how much alcohol this mead had. Because it fermented dry (0.998),
I used a vinometer and measured about 10.5% alcohol. At bottling time, this mead tasted marvelous.
An ounce or so I chilled tasted even better.
A mead enthusiast wrote me to object to my definition of show mead. Well, my definition
came from popular books on mead, but that doesn't mean the definition hasn't evolved - especially
in the world of competitions, where it counts. He wrote, "The definition of a show mead according
to current BJCP style guidelines (and many mead makers in general) is one composed of honey, yeast
and water without other additives. Adding nutrients, acids, oak, or other additives produces what
is generally called a 'traditional mead.' A show mead can be made with a single varietal honey or a
blend of more than one type." I am grateful for the correction.
The writer continued, "As you can imagine, making a mead using no nutrient supplements can be
quite challenging, but with proper yeast selection, honey choice, and management it can be done
successfully (and consistently). I think reserving the term 'show mead' for those meads made with
this minimalist approach is certainly warranted." I not only agree, but have already edited my
glossary to reflect these points.
Traditional Mead, in "BJCP Style Guidelines," look under "Ingredients" of any style on this page; while this guide is outdated, this portion is identical with the 2008 Guidelines
I just bottled a ginger mead that was so good that I didn't even cork the last bottle, but started
at once to empty it. In fact, I am enjoying a glass right now. If I were to critique it, I would say
it has a tad too much alcohol. It delivers a slight "thump" at the back of the throat as it goes down,
but the finish is otherwise smooth and enjoyable and the ginger and honey meld well. I haven't
thought about food pairings yet, but it goes well with blog writing.
I am honored that Joel Sommer, founder and guiding light of WinePress.us, included me among previews
of a DVD WinePress will be releasing soon. Joel Sommer's "Introduction to Winemaking" is exactly what
the title claims and is aimed at introducing and guiding the beginner through the essential techniques
of making wine at home. He begins with the basic equipment and additives used by winemakers -- often
a dazzling array of non-intuitive or technical names like racking cane, wine thief, hydrometer, and
potassium metabisulfite -- and explains or demonstrates them so their roles become clear. He then
guides the viewer through the various steps in making wine from commercial kits, from fresh or frozen
fruit, and wraps it up with making wine from fresh Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. At every turn, Joel
guides the viewer through the essential steps, explains how and why things are done, and opens the
path to more advanced techniques. Thanks, Joel.
Speaking of WinePress.us, the first subject below is a rework of entries I made to a discussion on
that forum. It occurred to me as I wrote my original comments that a greater discussion might be
useful.
A writer noted he had made apple, almond, and banana wines, all of which required pouring boiling
water over the base ingredients prior to pitching the yeast. He found all three were very stubborn to
clear. He added amylase to the banana wine and SuperKleer to the apple wine with relatively good
results. He then questioned the practice of adding boiling water to fruit bases because he had heard
that this causes the fruit to "set."
I have a lot of recipes, both adapted and original, that call for pouring boiling water in the
primary, mostly to dissolve the sugar but also to kill wild yeast, bacteria and fungi that ride in on
the skins of the fruit used to make good wine from. When one pours boiling water over the fruit and
sugar, you can usually get away without adding sulfites to the must until later, to preclude browning
and oxidation, but prudence says to play it safe because Murphy's Law says it can always go wrong.
Luc Volders even reminded me of 30 liters of dandelion must that went south when sulfites would have
saved it. Play it safe even if logic says you don't have to.
Because boiling water is poured over cold (or at least room temperature) fruit, the water quickly
cools down from boiling to just very hot (perhaps even scalding). It does not "cook" the fruit, but it
sure does things to the skin and pulp that is exposed to the heat. It softens tough skin so the yeast
can get into it and work on the pigments, tannins and other phenols beneficial to wine. It also
assists is dissolving sugars and flavorings from any pulp directly exposed to the hot water.
This brings me to the use of the word "set." The writer seems to use it as if it were a bad thing,
but to experienced country wine makers "set" has a specific meaning that is not undesirable. Some
pigments (mostly anthocyanins) are suspended in the juice and then the wine, while others are totally
dissolved. Anyone who has made blackberry wine may have emptied a bottle and discovered the inside
was coated with deposits of pigment -- anthocyanins -- that are no fun to remove. If you pour boiling
water over the crushed blackberries the heat helps to change the anthocyanins so that more of them
actually integrate into the must and become part of it. We say that the heat "sets" the fruit in that
it "sets" the pigments so that more of them do not cling to the sides of the bottle but rather cling
to the wine.
Does this heat "cook" the wine? What effect would it have on pectins in the fruit? First, water
boils at 214 degrees F. (at sea level) and, if winemaking instructions involving boiling are followed,
it is then removed from the heat and poured over the fruit. The much cooler fruit begin to absorb the
heat from the water and reduces the temperature rapidly. Does it cook it?
If you've ever wanted to freeze a bushel of peaches you might do some reading and discover that
people have been doing this for a long time. The best way to do it is to boil some water, drop a peach
into it for 30 seconds, then remove it and under cold water scrape or pull the skin off the peach. The
peach can then be cut into wedges, packed into containers and then frozen. Did the boiling water "cook"
the peaches? Nyet! It simply cooked the skin and allowed it to detach from the peach easily.
What about pectin? At sea level, pectins begin to "set" or jell at 220 degrees F. and at 222
degrees F. they are all "set" (there are different pectins, so different temperatures come to play).
If one removes the water when it comes to a boil (most instructions say something like, "Bring water
to boil and pour over sugar and fruit in primary") it will never reach 220-222 degrees. Still, pectin
may be there (most fruit have it) and prudence dictates that pectic enzyme be added at some point to
negate it. Adding SuperKleer will clear an apple wine, but so will simple pectic enzyme.
To the originator of the thread I said bananas contain starch so adding amylase, a starch enzyme,
is prudent. Bananas are actually 75% water, 23% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and 1% everything else.
Only about 5% to 5.5% is starch, but it is starch locked in soft tissues and easily released by fruit
breakdown and yeast activity. Pectins are found in trace amounts only. Thus, clarity problems with
banana wines are almost always related to starches first and proteins second. Amylase neutralizes
starch and dying yeast, excess tannins, bentonite, and Kieselsol all attract protein. With so little
of the latter present, protein should not be a problem.
Almonds probably have a different problem, as their primary constituents are water, fat, crude
protein, sugar, and ash (see Some chemical contents of selected almond (Prunus amygdalus Batsch) types).
There is nothing in there that cannot be dealt with. If any oils (fats) managed to get micro-suspended
in solution, they can be removed in several ways, but SuperKleer should do it. Certainly half-micron
filtration will. But the SuperKleer will also remove protein, so that is probably your best bet.
I have made almond wines many times. They all cleared over time (I may have filtered one -- I don't
really remember), but I bulk age most wines 9-15 months before bottleing. Most people don't, then get
different results and wonder what went wrong. You don't compare an under-aged thing with an aged one.
Sixteen-year old single-grain scotch cannot be compared to a 5- or 7- or even 12-year old.
The use of boiling water is not as cut and dried as I made it out to be. There are areas of
controversy, but generally not over the statements I made regarding pyrophysiology. The biggest
controversy is whether the heat destroys aroma and delicate flavor constituents in the must,
especially in flower and certain fruit wines. I think the heat is fine. My opinion is empirically
derived -- I make wonderful wines using this method. Others disagree based on some deductive belief
that heat destroys.
The beauty of making wine for you own enjoyment is that it is okay to do it your way…as long as it
works and as long as you don't misrepresent it to others. If cold maceration yields better aroma to
you than hot, then by all means omit the heat.
I like to remind readers that with wine having been made for 8,000-10,000 years and under intense
scientific scrutiny during the last 100-plus years, the things that work tend to be reflected in the
thousands of recipes floating around while the things that don't are generally not mentioned. People
don't write books about winemaking screw-ups.
On the other hand, there are bad books out there. I have a collection of winemaking books that
encompass the epitome of bad winemaking practices. I have seen some of those recipes posted on popular
forums, so they still circulate. Just because it is in print does not mean it is wise, worthy or true.
Study the methods and see if they make sense in light of what you know or what appears to be common
practice. If something really sounds off-the-wall, it probably is. On the other hand, if it simply
does something slightly different or in a different sequence than usual, it might (or might not) have
merit. You will be better equipped to determine what is plausible and what is just way out there if
you understand the underlying chemistry, physics or whatever science is at work. But if you have no
interest in understanding the underlying sciences then just follow the best methods you can find, and
if one appeals to you more than another then embrace it. Over time, successes and failures will
dictate your choices.
Today I listened to a financial planner talk about instilling attitudes and habits in your children
that translate into sound financial values. These are not at all overtly obvious, like "put some
money into savings each payday," or "always let interest work for you" or other traditional advice.
No, these lessons include:
Develop a sense of gratitude.
Children who are grateful for what they have are less
likely to grow up chasing status symbols or keeping up appearances. This skill of comparing value and
cost serves them well when investing as they compare the price of an investment to its intrinsic value.
Build strong relationships.
Children who build a community of friends and loved ones
are less likely to spend an entire weekend in malls and restaurants simply to be near other people.
Calling up friends is a low-cost form of social entertainment.
Prepare simple, nutritious meals.
Teach your kids to scan the pantry and refrigerator,
decide on an entrée and side accompaniments, get out the cookbook, and make a meal. Even a second-
grader can learn how to throw together a quick breakfast or lunch, which arms them with skills
necessary to avoid one of the single-most deterrents to adequate regular savings -- eating out.
Develop a low-cost hobby.
Hobbies force people to stop rushing around, focus their
attention and developed discipline, whether making something by hand or sitting patiently. It also
encourages "Get It Right" and "Try It Again" attitudes.
Upon hearing this last lesson I naturally though of winemaking as an excellent hobby. True, one
can get caught up in buying kits and the latest and greatest winemaking gadget, but that's where a
well-developed sense of gratitude acts as a balance. If you are genuinely grateful for the bounty you
are blessed with, you won't need to get caught up in consumerism. I think this especially applies to
foraged ingredients.
Some of my greatest wines were from foraged bases -- wild strawberries, blackberries, dewberries,
huckleberries, blueberries, elderberries, mustang and other wild grapes, persimmons, plums, paw paws,
dandelions, and on and on and on.... Going out into the country and collecting wild ingredients is
part of the whole experience. Admittedly foraging doesn't fit everyone's lifestyle, location,
circumstances, or desires but it is a lot of fun if it does and you manage to collect an ice chest of
winemaking goodies while avoiding poison ivy, stinging nettles and chiggers.
It's something to think about.
An Uninvited Guest, Luc Volders blog entry about his heartbreaking dandelion experience
I found a bottle of 2005 tomato wine I didn't know I still had. I opened it with the fervent
expectation I would dump it down the drain, so much so that I opened it in the sink! But, because you
never know, I gave it a tentative sniff, then just tilted the bottle up and took a sip, ready to grab
a glass and rinse. No need, It was terriffic -- much better than when it was just a year old. Had
I known it was this good, I'd have saved it for the competition on the 18th.
Changing subjects, I use the word "fad" in my first subject title below. Maybe "fad" is the wrong
word for some of you and I apologize if it is. "Compelling awareness" is far more accurate for some
people I know, but "fad" still fits most. However, if your dietary supplement choices are guided by
balanced, credible research and weighted decision-making, then by all means exclude yourself from the
faddish majority. As for me, I'm somewhere in between the two extremes.
Several times in the past two months the subject of açai (pronounced ah-sah-ee) berry wine has
come up, which is unusual, and that kindled a desire in me to write about it. I have in fact made two
wines with açai juice, but as I sat down to write about it little nagging issues crept into my
consciousness and could not be ignored. These had to do with where did this interest in açai
come from? I think it arose from several quarters, but three have registered in my memory -
appearance in markets, an avalanche of printed references, and Oprah reportedly said she loves it.
I'm not sure if the appearance preceded the avalanche but that is how I noted it, and for the record
I do not watch Oprah - I just see her mentioned in ads. The question, to me at least, then becomes,
so what? Why should I buy this super-expensive juice, let alone consider making wine from it?
Marketing it as a "newly discovered wonder fruit" does not work with me. I have a built-in
resistance to things I've never heard of before suddenly becoming the health supplement fad du
jour. Gogi (a.k.a. goji), noni, wolfberries, xango, mangosteen, açai, and jaboticaba are
all just fruit or berries from foreign lands that had limited export potential to the United States
until their antioxidant values were hyped and marketed. We have fruit and berries here in the States
with high antioxidant levels -- aronia, black raspberry, prune, bilberry, pomegranate, raisin, red
raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry are all high in antioxidant value as measured by oxygen radical
absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay. Oh, but comparatively the foreign stuff has "super antioxidant"
levels. That has to be better, right?
ORAC scores are just numbers. What is important is which phytochemicals that produce the scores
are in the source and whether these compounds are metabolized extensively or absorbed effectively so
that the antioxidants get used beneficially by our bodies. If you're marketing this stuff on the
internet (and tens of thousands of people are), you're not interested in telling the whole story -
just throwing out numbers you hope will drive up sales. I don't know for sure, but I think it
probably works.
I'm sorry, but when it comes to health foods and dietary supplements I think the average American
is a very poor shopper - some of you are excellent, I know, but I'm talking average. On average, we
have no idea what antioxidants and free radicals are, just that they are good for you and the more the
better. But that isn't necessarily true.
Let us suppose that you understand that effectively metabolized antioxidants scavenge free radicals
and this is good for you, and that the United States Department of Agriculture recommends we consume
3,000 to 5,000 ORAC units of antioxidants daily to optimize our health and mitigate unhealthy risk
factors. According to the USDA, just 0.7 ounces of açai berry or wolfberry will deliver 5,000
ORAC units, so just get this stuff, take a full ounce "just to be sure," and go out for a
bacon-double-cheeseburger, right? Of course not, and it isn't just because you forgot to put
avocado on that bacon-double-cheeseburger.
There are several rules of life you ought to memorize and follow. Three of them apply here.
First, with rare exceptions, simple solutions to complex problems are always inadequate. Second,
with even rarer exceptions, one size does not fit all. Third, also with rare exceptions, more than
the optimum is wasteful.
Because all antioxidants and free radicals are not the same, we need to consume a variety of types
of antioxidants to do the most good. Although açai and wolfberry may indeed be extremely high in
antioxidants, we still need to eat garlic, spinach, yellow squash, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, beets,
ground cloves (really high), vitamins C and E, cocoa powder, dark chocolate, red onions,
avocado (just without the bacon-double-cheeseburger), and all those healthy foods many of us eased out
of our diet once we were on our own.
Many berries get their high ORAC scores from anthocyanins in the pigments that produce the blue,
purple and red colors, but anthocyanins are not terribly stable and a great deal of it does not get
absorbed into our bodies. And, unfortunately, our bodies normally absorb only so many antioxidants,
so exceeding that amount is simply wasteful. Knowing that amount may require consulting a dietician,
but they are educated in these matters and most of us are not.
Açai juice has been appearing in more and more supermarkets in small, rather costly bottles,
usually displayed with other refrigerated "super juices" adjacent to or near the produce department.
It has become one of those juices you never heard of before but suddenly it is mentioned everywhere
healthy diets or supplements are discussed. Third, everyone peddling this stuff as dietary
supplements feels compelled to mention that Oprah loves it or some such meaningless attribution.
Okay. She's a billionaire and can afford to fill her swimming pool with açai juice if the itch
strikes her, but what about the rest of us? Does the stuff make such an outstanding wine that you
should suffer the expense to try it?
Açai berries: the wine may not be worth the price
I have tried and have not yet been able to obtain açai berries here in Texas, although one
gourmet store said they would try to get some (I fear the price and have not returned). I have had no
problem finding the juice, which is also quite expensive but different brands differ greatly on that.
I've done side-by-side label comparisons and it appears the ones claiming to be pure juice are just
that and cost the most. I don't trust the less expensive ones that are "reconstituted from concentrate
(filtered water, concentrate)" as they could easily over-dilute the concentrate by 20% and, not
knowing what the full flavor is, I would never know. Anyway, I have made two rather expensive batches
of açai wine.
The first batch was mixed with blueberry juice before fermentation and I think this was a mistake.
The wine came out nice I think, but possessed a minor fault. The mistake was in combining the two
juices before fermentation. I had no idea what the fermented açai should taste like and could
not judge whether a slightly sharp fruitiness experienced along the back sides of the tongue was
natural, an off-taste due to a minor winemaking fault or the result of the two juices possessing a
minor incompatibility. I added sugar to the finished wine in an attempt to mask the annoying
imperfection and in the process the wine became sweeter than either my wife or I care for. Other
people liked it, but at $11 a bottle I really wanted something I liked.
My second batch was even more expensive as I used just açai juice and additives but did dilute
it by half. However, my purpose was to do some blending trials and see what worked and what didn't. I
drew off several 500 mL samples and blended these with Niagara, Concord, blackberry, pomegranate,
cherry, and blueberry. Interestingly, I never found a blending ratio with pomegranate or cherry that
I liked at ratios of 80/20, 60/40, 40/60, and 20/80. Blackberry came close to blending well, but
lacked something I could not identify. Blueberry blended well, but as a minor (30%) component; heavier
than that and I began to notice that sharpness I noted in the first batch. It blended well with both
grapes and in various ratios, but I think the Niagara allowed the açai to shine better than did
the Concord.
In retrospect, I wish I had had some apple wine to try blending, but I didn't. That might be a
better choice than Niagara, as might rhubarb and possibly even banana. It also occurred to me that
there are two muscadine wines that might blend well with açai -- Tara and Southern Home. Magnolia
is a potential third and Nobel a fourth. It might also blend well with white mustang, but probably not
the red -- the mustang flavor would surely overwhelm the açai.
As you can see, I would like to play with this berry some more, but I'll have to wait until the
price comes down to where the rest of the economy resides. Açai juice is good, but I don't think
its flavor (or its "super antioxidant" value) warrants the current price.
If someone wins the lottery and wants to try this, I would I would suggest you consider fermenting
straight açai juice (you probably wouldn't want to dilute it if you won the lottery) and do
blending trials as I did. That way if you get it wrong you are only getting a small sample wrong, and
once you find the best ratio you can even correct the one(s) that went wrong.
Finally, I only blended dry wines. I well know the results could differ significantly if blending
sweet wines, or a dry and a sweet, or two drys and a sweet, etc. The only compound blend I did was I
added some Niagara to the açai -pomegranate in an attempt to rescue it, but I really needed more
açai wine to explore that avenue adequately. I was shy because I drank the remaining 780 mL of
açai wine. It was good, but not fantastic -- not as good as jaboticaba or aronia are as straight
wines.
On a popular winemaking forum someone asked about flavoring extracts he saw on a winemaking
supplier's website. I read the various replies and was surprised at how readily some of the
respondents embraced a practice I consider to be on the line between what is and is not acceptable in
winemaking. I then expressed that opinion and stirred up a controversy that is still drawing
comments. There is much to discuss on this subject, and I wanted to revisit and flesh it out here.
I take pride in taking base ingredients and making wine from them. Well, not always. I've dumped a
few batches I was not proud of. But when the flavor is not what I want, I work with it -- tweak it if
I can -- before rushing to the drain. By tweak I mean any of several things.
The desired tweak is adding a little of the unfermented juice of the base, if I have it; this is
called adding a "sweet reserve" whether the juice is sweet or not (if not, I usually add a little
sugar, as sugar usually does bring out flavor).
If I don't have any unfermented juice, I might just try adding a little sugar. Often it just takes
a little to rescue a "thin" flavor. By the same token, adding a little acid will also often rescue a
wine -- add the dominant acid of the fruit or acid blend.
I will add frozen concentrate if I have it (I have about 12 varieties in my chest freezer). This
requires drawing off a sample and playing with it to find the optimum amount to add lest you add to
much. Once you add too much to the whole batch, you've flawed it.
If I do not have the same flavor to add (as a reserve or concentrate), then I add a flavor that
will complement the base. Adding cranberry, grape, chokecherry, aronia, serviceberry or any number of
things to a weak cherry will almost always work; it changes the wine, but rarely for the worse and
usually for the better. Think about it and you will come up with many complements for other wines as
well.
You can also blend wines to rescue a weak wine, but do trials first lest you simply create a
larger batch of weak wine. You have to have a strong blender or you are spinning your wheels, but
even if you don't have one you can make one. The weak wine will wait.
There are flavored fruit syrups - all kinds. These can be added to a must prior to fermentation
and fermented with the base. They increase the flavor and add some fermentable sugars to the must -
some add a significant amount, so add them before you add sugar so your specific gravity is correct.
But be very careful with fruit syrups. Many contain sorbic acid or benzoic acid to prevent the syrups
from fermenting, so obviously you do not want to add these to your must.
One thing you did not see in the list above is reaching for an artificial flavoring extract. Color
me old fashioned, but I was taught to take pride in my work, work out any problems honorably, and
don't "fudge" and pretend you didn't. Those flavorings may be fine for you, but to me they are
artificial and don't belong in wines made from scratch. However, if you do use them, they should be
listed on the label. When I say label, I am specifically speaking of the bottle tag or label used to
list essential information for wines entered in competition. What you put on the label of bottles you
drink or give away is your affair, but competitions have rules and all flavored ingredients are
routinely required to be listed. That means you don't list yeast nutrient or Campden tablets, but do
list oak essence ("oak" is usually sufficient), fruit syrups and candies added for flavor (Jolly
Ranchers, mints, etc.).
A question was asked about Island Mist Premium Fruit Flavored Wine Kits, which use an "F-Pack" of
fruit flavoring to create such wonders as Peach Apricot Chardonnay, Black Raspberry Merlot, Blackberry
Cabernet, Green Apple Riesling, Blueberry Pinot Noir, etc. Island Mist claims the "F-Packs" contain
"natural fruit flavoring and concentrate" which sounds natural to me, but the L.D. Carlson Fruit
Flavors for Wine and Beer sold by local homebrew shops do not use natural fruit flavors and
concentrate. Regardless of flavor, they are decidedly clear and colorless. The writer of that
comment was not insinuating there was equivalency between the Island Mist "F-Pack" and the L.D.
Carlson flavorings, but rather he equated natural flavored syrups to "F-Packs," something even I did
that in my list up above.
Someone else commented on McCormick extracts, available in almost every supermarket in America. I
went in the kitchen and looked at my wife's collection of extracts. We have a mix of three brands -
McCormick, Watkins and Adams. Every single McCormick extract we have (we have seven) begins with the
word "Imitation." Every single Watkins extract we have (we have six) contains the word "Artificial"
on the front label. We only have two Adams extracts, and both claim to be a "blend of propylene
glycol, water, alcohol, and oil of [almond or anise]." However, I know Adams also makes imitation
fruit extracts
People, especially new winemakers, want their strawberry wine to taste like fresh strawberries,
their blackberry wine to taste like fresh blackberries, and so on. I don't know why it takes time to
learn this, but the process of fermentation changes the flavor profile of the base significantly.
Grape wines do not taste like grape juice, so why would one expect a peach wine to taste like fresh
peaches or a cherry wine to taste like fresh cherries? I think it is the disappointment of not
tasting what one unrealistically expected to taste that leads people to doctor their wines with
flavorings. Well, if you do that and don't say so, expect to be embarrassed. Any experienced
winemaker will know the flavor is too fruity, more like fruit juice than wine. But they will often
taste an off-flavor as well because extracts have a certain off-ness to them. It doesn't show in
cookies or cake or jelly - maybe the oven or stovetop heat drives it off -- but it sure steps forward
in wines.
My wife and I visited a number of area wineries while attending a Pierce-Arrow annual meet in
Kalamazoo, Michigan. There were lots of fruit wines to sample, but we absolutely loved the cherry
wines. They did not, of course, taste like fresh cherries, but they did taste like very good cherry
wines. While in a tasting room, we heard a member of the winery staff tell a young lady, "You just
haven't developed your wine buds yet, those taste buds that taste the fermented juice - the wine --
and still recognize the essential flavor of the unfermented juice."
I've thought about that comment many times. I'm not sure I totally accept what she said, but quite
often I taste a wine and somewhere up in my brain a profound connection is made with some essential
quality of commonality between the flavor of the wine and the flavor of the unfermented fruit. This
isn't just recognition, but something deeper. Maybe it's my "wine buds," but more than likely it is
something else, something cognitive. Whatever it is, I like it and don't want it ruined with
artificial flavorings.
Bottling a mead this morning sent me to the keyboard to discuss varietal meads. I wanted to
provide the recipe I used, but also wanted to discuss making dry, semi-sweet and sweet varietal
meads. The method does not vary, so I was able to do this in an abbreviated format. I hope it is
as understandable to you as it is to me.
Then my day was interrupted by a nap, lunch and a trip over to the county fairgrounds to see
how my entries did. I entered 5 wines, a jar of Cabernet Sauvignon Wine Jelly, a jar of Black
Cherry, Orange and Walnut Marmalade, and a pint of pickled 'Moon and Stars' Watermelon Rind pieces.
Everything entered won at least a first place, plus I picked up Grand Champion with the marmalade
and a Lemon Wine and Reserve Grand Champion with a Strawberry Wine. On the way home, I decided
to share the Lemon Wine recipe. So today's entry contains four recipes, an unusual occurrence.
I woke up at 4:43, too early to think about breakfast, and so I bottled a varietal mead.
Varietals are traditional or show meads, made with honey and water and prudent additives,
but no additional flavorings. The difference between a common, generic show mead and a
varietal is the latter is made with a single-source or varietal honey and assumes the source's name.
My mead was made with mesquite honey originating from the Uvalde, Texas area and therefore is a
mesquite mead, but there are many varieties available.
My first varietal mead was orange blossom, then clover, columbine, sage, and wildflower. I went
through a long period without making any mead at all, but at a shop on a day-trip my wife and I
tasted a number of Texas honeys and I bought several. Our favorite was the lightly colored
huajillo, a native thorned brush of the Legume family with mimosa-like flowers, but we also bought
some mesquite, bluebonnet and huisache. I only made mead with the huajillo, as the other honeys
were bought in insufficient quantities for this purpose.
I have bought a number of honeys since then in 25-pound cans from Homebrew Adventures and other
sources. Among my favorites for mead were raspberry, tupelo, blueberry, firewood, and heather.
But a couple of years ago at a county fair I met a honey producer who had lost most of his bees due
to the honey bee die-off and was liquidating his inventory and retiring. As the fair was closing
up, I met with him and got a good deal on 15 pounds of mesquite honey, which I used to make the
third mead below.
These recipes are, I believe, the best for varietal meads. Different honeys, however, may
require adjustments. The method is the same for each recipe and each makes one gallon. For more,
do the math.
Varietal Mead, Dry
2-2.5 lbs quality varietal honey
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1-3/8 tsp citric acid
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
Water to make up 1 gal (about 3 liters
1 sachet Montrachet yeast
Boil the honey in half the water, stirring occasionally until the honey is dissolved. Reduce
heat to simmer for 30 minutes, skimming all scum off top as it forms. Stir in citric acid, yeast
energizer and yeast nutrient. Cover primary and set aside until it assumes room temperature. Add
activated yeast as a starter solution and recover the primary to keep dust and insects out. Stir
daily until fermentation ends - about 2 weeks. Transfer mead to secondary and attach airlock.
Retain in secondary for 60 days from transfer date. Rack to a sanitized secondary, top up and
reattach airlock. Set aside undisturbed for 60 days and rack again. If brilliantly clear, wait
30 days to see if light dusting develops on bottom. If so, wait additional 30 days and rack, top
up and reattach airlock for another 30 days. If not brilliantly clear, wait full 60 days and rack,
top up and reattach airlock. Then follow previous instructions when mead is brilliantly clear.
Sulfite with one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, bottle and set aside to age one year
minimum. [Author's own recipe]
Varietal Mead, Semi-Sweet
2.5 - 3 lbs quality varietal honey
1-1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
1-1/2 tsp citric acid
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
Water to make up 1 gal (about 3 liters
1 sachet Montrachet yeast
Method: Same as for Varietal Mead, Dry. [Author's own recipe]
Varietal Mead, Sweet
3 - 3-3/4 lbs quality varietal honey
1-1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
1-5/8 tsp citric acid
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
Water to make up 1 gal (about 3 liters)
1 sachet Montrachet yeast
Method: Same as for Varietal Mead, Dry. [Author's own recipe]
Lemon wine surprises people. They expect an alcoholic lemonade and instead get a full-bodied
wine with thirst-quenching, lemony taste. It is best as an off-dry wine, but I have made it
semi-sweet for competitions and it just claimed Grand Champion. Easy to make, it does require bulk
and bottle aging to come into its own.
There are basically six medium-sized, tart, juicy, commercial 'real' lemons most of us are
familiar with. 'Eureka' originated in California and forms an open, spreading tree, with virtually
thornless branches and twigs and is the most widely available variety. 'Lisbon' originated in
Australia and is characterized by a rather dense tree having numerous upright, thorny branches.
Most lemons in the supermarket will be one or the other of these two varieties. But you might also
fine 'Armstrong' or 'Femminello Ovale,' both of which grow on thornless trees, or 'Genoa' (very
thorny) or 'Villa Franca' (moderately thorny). All are very tart. Rarely encountered in the U.S.,
'Dorshapo' is a true lemon from Brazil that closely resembles 'Eureka' in fruit and tree
characteristics, but is a sweet lemon of very low acidity.
Then there are hybrids. The 'Meyer' has almost completely been replaced with the 'Improved
Meyer,' which is mildly tart, thin-skinned, yellow-orange skin and flesh, medium-sized fruit highly
prized for eating. 'Monachello' is similarly sized and mildly tart, but not very juicy. 'Rough'
and 'Sungold' are moderately tart and medium sized; 'Rough' has a rough-textured skin and 'Sungold'
has yellow skin with greenish stripes. 'Perrine' is a lemon-lime hybrid with some lime flavor.
'Ponderosa' is a very tart, juicy, very thick-skinned lemon of grapefruit size. 'Millsweet' is
another lemon-lime hybrid of medium size, with yellow-orange, bumpy skin and pale yellow, low-acid
interior with few seeds.
I used two specific lemon varieties - 'Implroved Meyer' and 'Millsweet' - you may or may not be
able to acquire. Both were gifts from friends who have trees and I used four fruit of each type.
You will note above that these possess mildly tart and low acid character, which muted the intensity
of the flavor. Do not expect the same results if you cannot obtain one or the other of these
varieties (both would be hoping for too much), but if you cannot obtain lemons with mild or moderate
tartness, then use only six lemons and two sweet, juicy 'Valencia' oranges.
Grand Champion Lemon Wine Recipe
4 'Improved Meyer' lemons, juice, plus zest from two
4 'Millsweet' lemons, juice only
11.5 oz. can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
2 lbs finely granulated sugar
2 finely crushed Campden tablets
1/2 tsp. potassium sorbate
200 mL Finest Call Premium Triple Sec Syrup
Water to make up 1 gal (about 3 liters)
1-1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
1 sachet Montrachet yeast
Boil water and dissolve sugar in it. Grate the zest from 2 lemons into primary. Juice all lemons
and add juice to primary. Add grape juice to primary and add sugar water. Cover primary and set
aside to cool to room temperature. Add yeast nutrient and one finely crushed and dissolved Campden
tablet. After 12 hours, add yeast. Ferment until specific gravity drops to 1.010 (6-8 days). Rack
into secondary, top up if required and fit airlock. In 6 weeks, rack, add potassium sorbate and
second finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and refit airlock. Age 6 months, checking
water in airlock periodically. Add Triple Sec Syrup, refit airlock and wait two weeks. Rack into
bottles and age additional 6 months before tasting. [Author's own recipe]
Honey Locator, National Honey Board's search engine, by country, state, supplier, floral type, etc.
I spent the last six nights watching Ken Burns' magnificent 12-hour series, "The National Parks,"
on my PBS channel. I am so glad I did. Not only did I learn much of the incredible history of the
parks, I was utterly overwhelmed by the shear beauty of the ideas expressed, the poetic prose used
to express them, the music that assisted so very well in the telling, and of course the breathtaking
photography.
I was fortunate enough to have visited many of the western parks with my family as a youngster and
on my own as the Army moved me to Texas, California, Washington, Virginia, and Colorado - all richly
blessed with their own caches of unrivalled beauty.
The series stirred many memories and awakened within a yearning to return to familiar valleys,
vistas and heights, and then go on to see the many national treasures I have missed. You don't know
what this country is until you have seen the awe-inspiring wonders our predecessors were wise enough
to preserve for us and the generations yet unborn. That each and every step of this preservation was
bitterly fought by selfish interests makes the whole that much more astounding. That anyone could
stand on the floor of Yosemite Valley or on the rim of the Grand Canyon or in the reflection of the
Grand Tetons and not naturally think of preserving them unspoiled is beyond my comprehension. I
sincerely hope it is beyond yours, too.
A wonderful couple in Tennessee who has been so generous to me by sharing their wines, recipes
and secrets have sent me a number of wines and meads made from mixed berries and fruit. While
drinking one of these, I became inspired and rummaged through my freezer for hidden treasures. I
found a few worthy ingredients and one I questioned but used anyway. I am truly glad I did.
I found some Kiowa blackberries, a gift from a fellow who traded them for a white mustang rooted
cutting. They would form the backbone of my wine. I then dug out some freezer-burned mission figs,
some chokecherries a friend brought me from San Juan, Colorado, about a cup and a half of blueberries
I didn't know we still had (or they would have gone into pancakes long ago), and an unrecognizable
mass I had to thaw to identify as oriental persimmons. As I weighed and contemplated my finds, my
eyes kept returning to those pathetic looking mission figs. I almost didn't use them, but they made
the total weigh 4 pounds 5 ounces - 69 ounces - and the number seduced me. The figs were in.
I bottled the wine tonight. Do not question magical numbers. They are magical for a reason. I
drank the 3-1/2 ounces left over from the bottling and I am so glad I used the figs. I could not
specifically taste them, but I am certain they counter-balanced the chokecherries and contributed
significantly to the heavy fruitiness. I added the grape concentrate as an afterthought when I
needed to top up. That, too, worked out well, so I am writing it up as I did it. Neither you nor I
will ever have the ingredients required to duplicate this wine, so use it as a guide and be your own
chef.
Mixed Fruit and Berry Wine Recipe
1 lb 6 oz frozen Kiowa blackberries
1 lb 3 oz frozen Mission Figs
13 oz frozen chokecherries
10 oz frozen Oriental persimmon pulp
5 oz frozen blueberries
1 cup Welch's frozen Red Grape Concentrate
1 lb 5 oz granulated sugar
1-1/2 tsp acid blend
3 quarts + 1 cup water
2 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablets
1-1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
Lalvin RC212 wine yeast
Thaw the fruit and berries thoroughly. Chop the figs and crush the chokecherries and anything
else needing it. Inside a primary, pour the fruit and berries together in a nylon straining bag and
tie closed. Add sugar, acid blend and yeast nutrient, then add water and stir until sugar is
dissolved. Add activated yeast in a starter solution and cover the primary. Stir and punch down
the bag twice a day until s.g. drops below 1.020. Drip drain bag about one-half hour but do not
squeeze. Discard pulp. Transfer to secondary and add 1 cup thawed grape concentrate. Attach
airlock and set aside 6 weeks in dark place. Rack, top up, reattach airlock, and set aside
additional 6 weeks in dark place. Rack again, add 1 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet,
top up, affix airlock, and set in dark place for six months. Add second finely crushed and
dissolved Campden tablet, reattach airlock, allow Campden to integrate for a week, then carefully
bottle. I will age it for 6 months before tasting. [Author's own recipe]
Long ago I made a decision to write for the beginner as well as the advanced winemaker. The
beginner uses teaspoons, cups, pints, pounds, ounces, et cetera, and their fractions. The advanced
winemaker uses grams, kilograms, milliliters and liters. The primary difference between the two
genres of measure is precision, and when measuring non-base ingredients (chemicals, enzymes, etc.)
to be added to wine, you really do want to be precise. Asked what instrument I would recommend a
winemaker obtain after a hydrometer, without hesitation I say an accurate, reliable gram scale.
The gram was originally defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the
cube of the hundredth part of a metre, and at the temperature of melting ice." Today it is easier
to think of it simply as one one-thousandth of a kilogram.
As long as we are discussing precision, we should also talk about correctness. Just as one can
be precise by using exact measures, so too can one be correct by using accepted conventions.
Together, precision and correctness leave nothing to interpretation. There is a difference between
gravity and specific gravity. Do not say one and mean the other. There is also a correctness in
abbreviations for measures. I have seen people abbreviate gram/grams as gr, gm, grm, gms, and grms,
but correctly it is simply g whether singular or plural. It should always be separated from the
numeric value by a space, so 17 g is correct and 17g is incorrect. When recording sub-decimal
numbers, they should be preceded by a number or a zero, so 0.44 g is correct and .44 g is incorrect.
The same rule applies to specific gravity; 0.994 is correct, but .994 is incorrect.
Incidentally, gr means grain, which is 64.7989 milligrams (mg), so if you write "add 1.5 gr" but
mean "add 1.5 g", your instruction is to add 97.198 mg when you actually mean 1500 mg.
Here are some useful conversions from "spoons" to grams:
You can actually get by with a gram scale that only measures down to a tenth of a gram - I used a
small balance scale for years that did just that and now use a digital scale that does the same -
but there are specific additives that require measurement to the hundredth of a gram to achieve
accuracy. For example, if you use potassium benzoate instead of potassium sorbate to stabilize your
wine before sweetening, the correct dose is 0.44 g per US gallon, not 0.4 or 0.5. Such scales are
available in a wide variety of prices. As with most products, you get the quality you pay for.
Last Sunday I drove to Victoria, Texas to judge the Czech Heritage Home Wine Competition. This
has always been a fine event with a wide variety of entries and this year was no different. Best of
Show was taken by a wonderfully fruity table wine made from a hybrid grape known as Favorite.
Runner-up was a blueberry port. I have often written about blueberry-elderberry port, but only once
have mentioned blueberry alone. I will correct that today.
There are several highway routes from Pleasanton, Texas to Victoria, but for speed and ease I
usually take Interstate 37 south to U.S. 59, then take 59 northeastward through Beeville and Goliad
to Victoria. It is not the shortest route, but it is certainly the quickest. It offers a bonus.
There is a stretch of U.S. 59 bordered with hundreds if not thousands of acres of wild Texas sage,
and if it has rained within the previous two weeks the sage is adorned with a profusion of purple
flowers.
Due to recent rains, as I drove through sage country last Sunday I was greeted with a show of
millions of purple flowers. Since my arrival at the wine competition could not be delayed, I drove
past the showy display and promised to stop on the trip home, which I did. It took me about 25
minutes to pick two quarts of flowers. An hour later I was at home and prepared to make a wine.
Wild Texas purple sage brush and close-up of blooms after rains
Texas Sage (Leucophyllum frutescens) has several other names, with Texas Ranger and
Silverleaf Sage being the two most common. After observing it in bloom, many people mistakenly call
it Purple Sage. True Purple Sage has leaves with a purplish upper surface, which this does not have.
I will combine the names and call it Texas Purple Sage for popularity's sake, not for strict
correctness. I beg the botanists to forgive me.
Mixing bowl with two quarts of Texas purple sage blossoms
When I picked the flowers I purposely tried not to pick the leaves, knowing this was a futile
effort. I actually did want some leaves in there for flavor, just not too many, and trying to avoid
them turned out to be the right strategy. The ones I accidently picked with the blossoms turned out
to be just about the right number. I measured the flowers and had slightly more than two quarts,
not packed. Since I have never made this wine before and had no recipe to guide me, two quarts
would do fine.
Texas Purple Sage Wine Recipe
2 qts Texas Sage flowers
1 lb 12 oz finely granulated sugar
11-oz can 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
2-1/2 tsp acid blend
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
7 pts water
1-1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp dried wine yeast
Bring water to boil in large pot and stir in sugar until dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in
flowers and grape juice concentrate. Cover the pot and set aside to cool. When under 90 degrees F.,
transfer to primary and stir in remaining ingredients less yeast. Cover the primary and set aside
8-10 hours. Add activated yeast as a starter solution. Re-cover, set aside and stir daily. After
three days strain out flowers but leave must to ferment in primary. When vigorous fermentation
subsides, transfer to secondary, affix airlock and wait until all evidence of fermentation ceases.
Rack, top up, reattach airlock, and set aside for 30 days. If clear, rack again, stabilize, sweeten
to taste if desired, top up, reattach airlock, and wait final 30 days. If not clear, rack and wait
additional 30 days before racking, stabilizing, sweetening, and waiting final 30 days. If no new
lees form during this final 30 days, rack into bottles. If even a fine dusting appears, wait an
additional 30 days and very carefully rack into bottles. Taste at three months but be prepared to
wait longer if needed. [Author's own recipe]
The Best of Show wine at the Home Wine Competition last Sunday in Victoria, Texas was a blueberry
port. I do not know what recipe, if any, the winemaker used, but I know the recipe below makes an
excellent blueberry port. This recipe differs slightly from another recipe appearing elsewhere on
my site. This recipe calls for 6-8 pounds of blueberries. I have made it with both weights and can
honestly say that the port does not suffer using the lesser amount. As for the red grape concentrate,
I used Welch's frozen concentrate (Concord) one time and a Zinfandel concentrate the other time.
They were both excellent.
Blueberry Port Recipe
6-8 lbs blueberries
1/2 pt red grape concentrate
1/2 c light dry malt
1-3/4 lbs granulated sugar
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
1-1/2 tsp acid blend
4 pts water
1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
1 finely crushed Campden tablet
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp yeast energizer
dried wine yeast
Wash and crush blueberries in nylon straining bag in primary fermentation vessel. Stir in all
other ingredients except potassium sorbate, yeast and red grape concentrate. Stir well to dissolve
sugar, cover primary, and set aside for 24 hours. Add yeast, cover, and daily stir ingredients and
press pulp in nylon bag to extract flavor. When specific gravity is 1.030 or less (about 5 days),
strain juice from bag and siphon liquor off sediments into glass secondary fermentation vessel.
Volume may be low, which is okay at this time. Attach airlock. Rack in three weeks, top up and
reattach airlock. Wait two months and rack into clean secondary containing finely crushed and
dissolved (1/4 cup water) Campden tablet and potassium sorbate. When wine is clear and stable, rack
into larger secondary or primary and add red grape concentrate and 3/4 cup 100 proof vodka or brandy.
Stir gently to mix and integrate and then bottle. Allow a year to mature. [Author's own recipe]
There are people out there watching out for me and I appreciate them. I posted my September 23rd
entry late at night and then headed for the shower. I didn't visually confirm the page, which I
usually do. Too bad. It wasn't there. In fact, nothing was. I had edited a minor #include file
and uploaded it to the wrong directory. When the page tried to load it couldn't find the #include
and the whole thing failed. I was unaware until I woke up and turned on my email. Whoa! Lots of
people looking out for me! Thank you one and all!
It's easy to forget - well, not exactly forget, but not be thinking about - that just
because it is midnight here it does not mean it is midnight everywhere. Thankfully, people on the
West Coast, in Hawaii, the Philippines, Australia, etc. are still up, even if some are in a different
day (think about it), and some of them read my blog. Thank you all for your emails, and everyone
else who wrote that there was something wrong with my alignment of the heather images. There
certainly was. HTML 101: whenever you open a feature with an opening tag, you have to close that
feature with an ending tag. Duh!
Thanks again, all. I appreciate the concern (or annoyance, or whatever motivates you to tell me
something is wrong).
I received phone call last night from an old acquaintance in California who asked if I could help
him make a pluot wine. Pluots, a complex hybrid crossing of plum and apricot, were an oddity just
15 years ago but now are widely grown and marketed, with fruit readily available from late May
through October. Pluots are typically larger than plums and sweeter than either ancestor. They
make an excellent wine, but first a word about pluots themselves.
Pluots should not be confused with plumcots (simple plum X apricot crosses) or apriums (3/4
apricot, 1/4 plum). Plumcots were developed by the legendary Luther Burbank over a century ago;
they lack the intense sweetness and flavors of pluots. Apriums are about as sweet as pluots but
have a completely different flavor profile. They, too, make a wonderful wine. Pluots range from
being 60% to 75% plum, and everyone I know who has tasted pluot wine prefers it to plum wine any day.
Pluots vary in color, both outwardly and in the flesh. Their skin tends to be mottled, speckled,
dappled or non-specific multicolored in a wide range of colors. Their flesh can vary from almost
cream to green to yellow to orange to pink to red to purple to anywhere in between. Pluot varieties
include (only a partial list):
Crimson Sweet: Sweet flavor, medium-sized, Crimson skin with pinkish flesh. Available in June.
Dapple Dandy: Large size with mottled pale green to yellow, red-spotted skin, red or pink juicy
flesh. Available July through August and easily shipped (due to the firm nature of the flesh).
Early Dapple: Good flavor, medium-sized, mottled green over red skin with pink flesh. Available
mid June.
Flavor Delight: Medium-sized, fuchsia-honey colored skin with pink flesh. Available in June.
Flavor Fall: Large size, average flavor, Red skin with yellow flesh. Available the end of
September and the first of October
Flavor Grenade: Large size, oblong shape with red blush on green background, yellow juicy flesh.
Available the end of July through August.
Flavor Heart: very large, black with a heart shape, and yellow flesh.
Flavor Jewel: Sweet flavor, heart shaped, red over yellow skin with yellow flesh.
Flavor King: Fruit punch flavor, medium size, with burgundy skin and red super sweet juicy flesh.
Available end of August first of September. Flesh of this is hard until fully ripe which takes time to complete.
Flavor Prince: large round and purple, with red flesh.
Flavor Queen: Medium to large size, very juicy flesh. Taste is very sweet and when fully ripe
(golden yellow colour). Available the end of June to mid August.
Flavor Rich: medium-sweet, large black round fruit with orange flesh.
Flavor Royal: very sweet, medium-sized, dark purple with crimson flesh. Available end of May
through first weeks of June.
Flavor Supreme: medium or large, greenish purple skin, juicy red flesh.
Flavorosa: very sweet , medium-sized, flat round dark-purple fruit with red flesh. Available end
of May through first weeks of June.
Raspberry Jewel: medium, dark red skin, brilliant red honey-sweet flesh.[6]
Red Ray: medium, bright red with dense, sweet orange flesh
Splash: Small to medium sized red-orange colored fruit, with very sweet orange flesh. Available
mid July.
Sweet Treat: Super sweet with hints of thompson grape flavor, green golden skin with yellow juicy
flesh. Available end of June and first of July.
Tropical Plumana: Tropical punch flavor, medium-sized, red over greenish yellow background with
yellow flesh. Available middle of June.
Ripe pluots are firm, yet juicy within. Those that are slightly soft are at the tail-end of
ripeness and those that are yielding to the touch are over-ripe. The latter might make excellent
wine but I have only used them for jelly, and it was wonderful!
You could make this wine with a mixture of pluot varieties, but I would not. Each variety posses
its own unique flavor and I have always tried to capture that as purely as I can. I have made this
wine using Dapple Dandy, Flavor Queen and Red Ray varieties. I had to ask the grocer to check his
paperwork to get the name of the third, but he did so willingly. The first two are easily
recognizable after you've studied the fruit a while.
6 lbs pluots
1 lb 6 oz finely granulated sugar
1-1/2 tsp acid blend
3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
1/8 tsp tannin
1 tsp nutrient
Red Star Montrachet yeast
Put water on to boil. Wash the fruit, cut in halves to remove the seeds, then chop fruit and put
in nylon straining bag in primary. Pour boiling water over fruit. Add the sugar and stir well to
dissolve. Cover and allow to cool to 70 degrees F. Add acid blend, pectic enzyme, tannin, and
nutrient, recover primary, and wait 12 hours before adding yeast. Allow to ferment until vigor
subsides (about 5-7 days), stirring twice daily. Strain, transfer to secondary, and fit airlock.
Rack after 30 days, top up, refit airlock and repeat every 30 days until wine clears and drops no
more lees. Wait two additional weeks, rack again, stabilize wine, sweeten to taste, and allow to
rest a final 30 days before bottling. This wine can be sampled after only 4 months. If not up to
expectations, let age another 6 months and taste again. Semi- to slightly sweet (1.004-1.008 SG),
this wine will delight you even if you prefer dry wines. [Author's own recipe]
I cannot believe the U.S. Senate Finance Committee today voted 12-11 along party lines NOT to
post the whole health care bill online, thereby denying every citizen even the right to see what
their senators are voting on. One Democrat voted with the 10 Republicans, but 12 Democrats voted
against the public's right to know the details of the laws that are being proposed. What a low
moment this is in United States history!
It is difficult to think about wine after that revelation, but I shall try.
I judged a couple of wine competitions this weekend and endured a few bad wines in order to
experience some really fabulous ones. The punishment was minor when compared against the rewards.
I do like the perks of wine judging....
I had the pleasure of being paired with a novice judge during one event. To be honest, he isn't
a certified judge at all but makes wine, enjoys wine and was recruited as a "judge in training."
That was fine with me. It required that I mentor him through the process and that forced me to
think harder and judge better. While certain aspects are fairly easy to explain, understand and
judge (aroma, bouquet, color, clarity), balance is just a little more complex and difficult for some
to grasp.
Balance, harmony and equilibrium are closely synonomous. In judging balance, we look at body,
sugar, acid, alcohol, and tannin both individually and in relation to one another. Each should be
detectable, but none should be pronounced or deficient. In other words, each element should be
present but in harmony with the others. At the same time, the variety, type and style of wine also
delineates detection parameters for some elements. For example, a white wine is not expected to
possess pronounced tannin, but if the tannin content is too low the wine is without "bite" and
tastes lifeless and demur. Big reds, on the other hand, require tannic fullness to accompany their
bold and rich flavors.
Alcohol contributes to sweetness subtly, but also provides an underlying heat that should never
be so distinct as to dominate the flavor profile. Such wines are derisively referred to as "rocket
fuel", while a wine with alcohol in balance will be smooth along the back edges of the tongue but
just lively enough to be noticed.
One should remember that residual sugar, glycerine and alcohol all contribute to sweetness, which
is as distinct a taste as is sourness, saltiness, and bitterness -- and for those trained to detect
it, the fifth taste, umami (savory).
The most common balance problem we experienced, and is evident in most wine competitions, is
excessive acidity. A wine with a slight acid edge is not unappealing unless the acid itself is out
of place. Excessive malic acid, for example, denotes at least some underripe grapes went into the
wine and often delivers an impression of "greenness."
Balance is a fickle mistress. I have tasted wines that barely but perceptibly lacked balance
but, during the time I was evaluating them, they warmed up just enough to "slide" into perfect
balance. This probably is not as rare an occurrence as it seems, but if the wine is not tasted a
second or third time the "slide" will be missed. I cannot prove this, but when I have experienced
it I realized how serendipitous the experience actually was and each time I wondered how many wines
were just a degree or two away from being in perfect balance. This will remain an unknown.
A Guest Book entry asked if I had a recipe for a heather wine. Most certainly I do. However, I
suffer a great misfortune in that only cultivated heather is grown in this locale, not the common
wild heather of the Rockies I enjoyed in Colorado or that the Irish, Scots, Scandinavians and even
Russians enjoy in magnificent abundance.
According to Biology-Online, Calluna vulgaris is the only species of heather, despite the
fact that it practically circles the globe in the northern third of the Northern Hemisphere. While
well over a thousand cultivars have been bred from this single species, none are as hardy as the
original in the wild. Nor are any as prolific as the wild heather, with one bush capable of
producing 150,000 seeds.
Wild heather thicket and close-up of blooms
Heather flowers and new leaves each exude different but distinct fragrances with varied uses.
For example, the new growth is cut, dried and placed on burning peat to create dense smoke that both
dries and flavors the malt in certain Scotch whisky production. Quite apart, heather honey is
distinctly flavorful and highly prized in making a varietal mead. But for making heather wine, it
is the flowers that are needed, either alone or in conjunction with the small leaves.
Heather Wine Recipe
1 1/2 lbs Heather tips (in full bloom, woody stem removed)
1 lb 12 oz finely granulated sugar
2 small lemons, juice only
2 small sour oranges, juice only
2 thin slices of ginger root, 1 X 2 inches
11-oz can 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
6 1/2 pts water
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp dried wine yeast
Cover heather with 2 quarts water, place on high heat and bring to a boil; hold at low boil for
50 minutes, add ginger slices and remove from heat after additional 10 minutes. Strain off solids
and retain liquid only in primary and add grape concentrate, citrus juice and sugar. Stir until
completely dissolved, cover and set aside to cool. When cooled to room temperature, stir in yeast
nutrient and then activated yeast as a starter solution. Re-cover, set aside and leave for 14 days.
Transfer to secondary, affix airlock, and wait until all evidence of fermentation ceases. Rack, top
up, reattach airlock, and set aside for 60 days. Rack again, stabilize, top up, reattach airlock,
and wait 30 days. If no new lees have formed, rack into bottles. If even a fine dusting appears,
wait additional 30 days and very carefully rack into bottles. Age at least six months. [Author's
own recipe]
Today is the 222nd birthday of the United States Constitution. Although I think the framers of
that enduring document would be quite pleased with how infrequently it has been tampered with on
paper, I am absolutely certain they would all be appalled at the way the Supreme Court has found
meaning in it totally absent from its words. Their intent, so clearly expounded in "The Federalist
Papers," was to create a small federal government whose primary duty is the defense and protection
of its citizens and thereafter the negotiation of affairs of trade and state with other nations.
And they granted it power to create and regulate a national infrastructure, recognizing its
essentiality in promoting the free movement of people and commerce.
The architects of the U.S. Constitution specifically vested a greater degree of governance of the
people and their affairs in the individual states than in the federal government. We learned this in
7th and 8th grade civics classes - when they still had 7th and 8th grade civics classes. Thus, I am
equally certain those architects would be astounded at how enormous the federal government has
become, by how much power it has usurped from the states and how liberally it assumes jurisdiction
over matters not enumerated to it in the document whose birth we celebrate today.
We forget at our own peril that Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention on
September 18th, 1787, was asked by a woman whether they had crafted a republic or a monarchy. He
responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." I have bookmarked the reminder that Franklin could
have simply said, "A republic", but he added the five words, "if you can keep it." In so doing (I
shall quote from my bookmark), "Franklin was suggesting that a republic is not something that can be
expected to survive without nurturing and constant attention. Much like an infant, a republic
requires the supervision and disciplinary hand of a watchful guardian. If that guardian takes his
responsibility lightly, it can be expected that the republic will stray from all that is good and
pure and will grow into an unrecognizable monster that knows not how to function properly, defiant
and thirsty for self-gratification." Please look around and note a defiant Congress, thirsty for
self-gratification. I think Doctor Franklin would simply say, "You were warned."
I am often asked if one can substitute something else for one or another winemaking ingredient.
The answer in most instances is simply of course you can. But you should only do so with the
understanding that you are changing the outcome of the process. You will still end up with wine,
but it almost certainly will not be what it could have been if substitutions were not made. A dozen
or so years ago a couple wrote to me from Senegal, asking what could be used as a substitute for yeast
nutrient. I am going to repeat here my advice then, for I think I answered exactly as I should have.
There are numerous authorities that cite different ingredients and proportions. Proprietary yeast
nutrients usually contain DAP (diammonium phosphate), which supplies nitrogen and phosphorus; urea,
which supplies nitrogen; citric (and perhaps other) acid; trace amounts of biotin; and yeast hulls.
The formulations of these nutrients are not generally public knowledge.
Less secret are the formulations of yesteryear. Pre-World War II recipes used malt extract and
lemon juice as nutrient, while many post-war recipes used to use ammonium sulphate, magnesium
sulphate, potassium phosphate, and citric acid for yeast nutrient. Both, I am told, worked well
enough, but not as well as today's formulations. I would suspect that it would be easier to order a
packaged nutrient from an out-of-country supplier and pay shipping than to find DAP and the other
constituents locally and experiment with proportions. Still, a chemist (or druggist) might be able
to mix the following nutrient for you without problem:
ammonium sulphate...........130 grains
magnesium sulphate........... 20 grains
potassium phosphate.......... 70 grains
citric acid .......................... 260 grains
This makes an ounce of nutrient, enough to make four gallons of non-grape wine or two gallons of
mead. While not as good as commercial formulations, it still should work well enough. The absolute
against-the-wall substitute is malt extract and citric acid (lemon juice) mixed half-and-half. By
"against the wall" I mean "last resort" -- if you absolutely cannot find DAP at a garden supply store
or a chemist to mix the above, but somehow can obtain malt extract.
Many years ago I was asked if there is a substitute for pectic enzyme. Technically, yes there is,
but if you cannot obtain a simple, inexpensive powder (or liquid) available at any homebrew shop, you
almost certainly will not have the means to hydrolyze pectin molecules. However, there is a
substitute for commercial pectic enzyme.
Years ago I was asked this and replied that the best substitute for pectic enzyme is papaya peel.
The layer of green immediately under the skin of the papaya contains natural pectic enzyme.
At that time I was familiar with a rather small papaya imported from Mexico that was seasonally
available at a local market. Basing my experience on that size papaya, I advised that one could "...
use the peeling from half a papaya as a substitute for one teaspoon of pectic enzyme, noting you can
freeze the other half in a ZipLoc bag for later use. Just put the peeling in the primary and ferment
it along with the other ingredients. It would be best, however, to order some pectic enzyme from a
winemaking supplier over the internet."
Small and large (but not very large) varieties of papaya
Since that time the availability and variety of papaya in my local markets have dramatically
increased. Very large papayas are now more common than the smaller ones I had in mind when I
originally wrote the above advice, and every now an then some really huge ones appear. I am just
guessing, but I would estimate only an eighth of the peeling from a very large papaya would be
sufficient, but using more will not harm the wine.
A final reminder: the peeling needs to be thinly removed so the green layer is visible, not the
gold or orange or reddish color of the papaya pulp.
I went to the supermarket to buy some fruit and saw a "bargain bin" set up filled with mesh bags
containing 20 key limes each for $.80 a bag. Why the bargain? Because the limes had all turned
yellow, the exact color they become when ripe. There were eight bags in the bin. I wanted three,
but spotted the produce manager on another aisle. I wheeled my cart around to him and offered him
$.50 a bag for all of them. He said to wait and disappeared into the back room where records and
stock are stored. After a few minutes he came out and said he would sell them for $.62 a bag. I
said okay and he grabbed a pricing gun, set it for $.62 and changed the price on each bag.
What a deal! People don't realize that yellow limes are riper than green ones. I hope that
produce manager doesn't read my blog.
About six months ago I visited a health food supermarket in San Antonio and came across bulk
honeybush (Cyclopia intermedia) tea leaves. Later, on the tea aisle, I ran across TAZO brand
Honeybush tea. Having made wine before with Tazo Passion Tea, an idea formed and I went back to the
bulk tea. Not really knowing how much I might need, bought 4 ounces (which was a lot). The aroma of
the leaves was slightly herbaceous, but reminiscent of spun honey. I decided to make a mead with it
and picked up a 3-pound jar of honey.
When I checked my notes on the Passion Tea Wine, I saw that I only used 1.7 ounces. I brewed a
cup of honeybush tea with a teaspoon of leaves and savored it. The flavor was very nice - creamy,
vanilla-like, honeyish, yet almost fruity. I decided to use 2 ounces in the mead. A little on-line
referencing and I noted that honeybush contains no caffeine and very little tannin.
Honeybush in full flower in the wild
Honeybush Mead Recipe
2 oz honeybush tea, loose, or 29 Tazo Honeybush tea bags
3 lbs honey
11 oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate (optional, for body)
juice of 2 small lemons
water to make 1 gallon
1/4 tsp dried grape tannin
1-1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
1 sachet Lalvin DV10 wine yeast*
Pour the honey into a pot with a 1-gallon gradient line on the side and add water to that mark
(NOTE: if you are going to add grape concentrate for body, mark must be 11 ounces shy of a gallon).
Put honey-water on to boil while carefully measuring 2 ounces of crushed leaves; tie these in a very
fine-meshed infusion bag with two glass marbles for weight. Stir the water intermittently until it
comes to a high-boil, add lemon juice, then reduce heat to maintain a low boil for 15 minutes,
skimming off the scum from the honey as it rises. Take pan off the heat, submerge the infusion bag
(or add tea bags) and cover the pan. About four hours later remove the infusion bag, squeeze it
well, and transfer the must to a primary. Add thawed grape concentrate if desired (I did not use
it). Stir in tannin, yeast nutrient and activated yeast in a starter solution. Cover primary and
set aside. When vigorous fermentation subsides (about 8-10 days), transfer to secondary and attach
an airlock. Ferment to dryness and rack, top up and reattach airlock. Wait 45 days and rack into
sanitized secondary containing 1/2 teaspoon potassium sorbate and one finely crushed and dissolved
Campden tablet. Carefully rack into bottles 30 days later. Allow to age 6 months before consuming.
[Author's own recipe]
*If you wish a sweet mead, use Red Star Montrachet yeast. Do not sweeten after fermentation
stops, but trust residual sweetness. Adding the grape concentrate will increase the residual
sweetness.
Friday I had one of those magnificent Cajun meals that require you to loosen your belt halfway
through. My dog knows enough to stop eating when she's full, but not me. I swear I gained 6 pounds.
I've barely eaten since and still need to shed 4 pounds (my doctor says 14, my wife says 24).
For those who never thought about it, Smoked Burgundy pairs excellently with smoked barbeque
pork. If you don't know what Smoked Burgundy is, read on. I won two blue ribbons with my 2001.
Smoked Burgundy started out as a kit wine. I don't recall the brand (and that log is definitely
boxed up in the garage) but it was still in a 5-gallon format, something I dearly wish they would
return to. And it was, I'm quite sure, still called "Burgundy" rather than "Bourgeron," something
else I wish they would return to but for treaty reasons will not. So, looking at the evidence, it
might have been an older kit that was marked down for reasons I didn't really think about at the
time. It had a mid-line label, a lower-line price, and I wanted to make a Burgundy.
Upon opening the box the kit came in, I scanned the instructions and tossed them out with the
empty box. Those were the days when some wine kit manufacturers were still competing with beer kit
manufacturers to see who could bottle their product first. Thank God those days are past. Anyway,
I began making my wine.
I had made a decision that I would oak this wine. I dug around and found a gallon-baggie of
small, untoasted oak cubes a fellow in Missouri (I think) sent me, made from barrel staves discarded
by a cooperage for defects. My wife had recently bought me a small smoker and I laid down a layer
of charcoal briquettes and let them reduce considerably in size before applying a layer of
water-soaked mesquite chips to the coals. As huge amounts of smoke began engulfing me I set the
grill in place, laid a piece of hardware screen on it, and then spread out a layer of the untoasted
oak chips on the screen. I closed the lid, choked the damper and went inside to watch a football
game.
As I recall, I turned the cubes every 30-45 minutes and added new mesquite about as often. After
about 4 hours (there are 6 sides on each cube), I took my mesquite-smoked oak cubes, now well
toasted on two sides and medium-to-mildly toasted on the others, tied them in a nylon straining bag
with about 30 glass marbles (for weight), and patiently worked these into the carboy. I think I
left them in the wine about 8 weeks. I made the wine my own way, in my own time, but pretty much
used their ingredients (except yeast and the smoked oak). And now you know my secret. The flavor
is unique and complex, and two bottles survive. But I doubt they will see Christmas.
Well, I am surprised by how many of you are interested in this. Your questions, for the most
part, have been good ones, but I want to correct an impression I may have left you with and expand
upon selected other aspects of the subject.
If this and previous entries have left you scratching your head wondering what I'm talking about,
you can turn to Google and Wikipedia. For those wanting deeper understanding, I highly recommend
investing in The Grape Grower: A Guide to Organic Viticulture by Lon Rombough.
In my September 11th Part 2 entry on this subject I stated near the end that if your seeds came
from a Merlot and your pollen came from several different cultivars and species, "the resulting
seedlings would be very different and only the Merlot X Merlot should be expected to yield vines
with fruit resembling the original mother vine. All the others will be hybrids, some good and some
less so." This is only partially correct. There will be a great deal of variation even within the
Merlot X Merlot seeds. This is because the Merlot grape is a variant created by crossing many
previous variants of the parent species, V. vinifera. Each crossing resulted in unique gene
encoding and each of those uniquely coded variations is stored in the DNA of the ovary and the
pollen that combine to form a seed. Which variations will manifest themselves is anyone's guess.
Think of it another way. My father is 88 and still has a full head of hair. One of my brothers
and myself have a growing bald spot while two others do not. Two have receeding hairlines while two
do not. My father has black hair and my mother has brown. None of us, their offspring, have black
hair. Yet any of us could have children with black hair because we carry our father's genes.
However, if our spouses have no immediate history of black hair then the odds increase that our
offspring will not. And yet, even several generations into the future, the possibility of a
black-haired child is real because our father's genes will still be carried into the future and could
become determinate.
Merlot is an ancient grape whose mother was a previously unknown cultivar from northern Brittany,
cultivated in the late Middle Ages in at least four places in Charentes and now named Magdeleine
Noire des Charentes, and whose father was Cabernet Franc. This parentage is deduced from inheritance
at 55 nuclear and three chloroplast microsatellite loci and is fairly definitive. But we do not know
the generational lineage of the grape, so do not know what latent characteristics are lurking in the
DNA of Merlot. Also, there are many clonal variations of Merlot, meaning they possess the same genes
but express them slightly differently just as my brothers and I express different genes for hair
retention, height, eye color, skin hue, and even right-hand/left-hand dominance.
The preferred method of grapevine propagation that yields new vines identical to the mother is
rooting cuttings from the mother herself. The new vines are, in fact, clones of the mother and
express the same genes as her. However, over time ever so slight mutations can occur in buds that
grow into fruiting wood from which cuttings are taken, resulting in "clonal drift". The easiest
mutation to explain is when cuttings are taken from "sports." A sport is a somatic mutation in a new
trunk, cane or lateral shoot of perennial fruits. The first navel orange, for example grew on a bud
sport of a seeded Citrus sinensis, yet was itself seedless.
The point here is that just as you get great variety from seedlings, you are not guaranteed of
getting an exact clone of the mother vine even if you root cuttings. The latter, however, is still
thousands of times more likely to produce vines "true" to the mother vine.
Do not shy away from growing seeds from the grapes you like simply because you probably won't
grow an identical grape. Plant the seeds, transplant the seedlings, grow the vines, evaluate the
results. If you aren't satisfied, plant some more seeds. Once upon a time someone did that and the
result was V. vinifera cv. Merlot. Who knows what you might grow?
It is hard to believe it has been eight years since the guy on the radio said, "Wow, this is
weird. A plane has just crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings in New York. No
other details are known but we'll keep you posted as we learn them." Sweet Jesus, what a horrible day
that turned into.
My friends, we have to remember it. And I mean remember it as it really unfolded, not the way
Michael Moore and all the latter-day, Bush-hating revisionists want you to believe it was. Remember
the reality, not their propaganda. It was real, a day of disbelief, of dawning realization, of fear
and terror - totally surreal as every private and commercial aircraft over and inbound to the United
States and Canada was landed and parked somewhere ill-prepared to receive them, their passengers and
crews accommodated somehow, and nothing, absolutely nothing flew overhead but emergency and combat
aircraft.
On a dime, the world changed. Remember it. Remember the 3,000 victims. Remember the first
responders who went bravely into the twin towers and climbed those endless stairs into the arms of
the Lord. Remember it vividly and emotionally so that in 50 or 60 years when some hate-mongerer in
Tehran or some other backwater of civilization says it didn't happen you can look your great-grandkids
in the eye and say with certainty, "Oh yes it did, and I remember it well!"
Keep it with you, securely preserved, as life goes on, as we turn to other, more ordinary things.
My piece two days ago on propagating grape vines from seeds generated a lot of questions. Most
revolved around my statement, "You can [plant seeds], but you probably will not get a vine that
produces fruit anything like the grapes you got the seed from." There were other issues as well, and
I promised I would address them in time, but this was the key topic.
As I explained two days ago, most grapes are "open pollinated," meaning the inflorescence [grape
flowers] that developed the grapes was pollinated by what ever pollen was blowing in the wind which
could have come from any flowering grapevines near or far away. People are insisting it's "good
pollen" because the grapes are all Merlot or Syrah or whatever because they simply don't understand
the role of pollen in producing fruit and then in producing seed. A mini biology tutorial is
necessary.
Some grape flowers are strictly male or female while others contain both male and female parts.
The latter can actually pollinate themselves and often do, but windblown pollen can also slip in
there and "do the deed" before the flower's own pollen matures enough to release itself to the whims
of gravity and the wind. The female part of the flower is ready to accept any viable grape pollen,
and once it does it rapidly begins producing a berry containing one or more seeds (seedless grapes
are beyond this discussion, so don't even ask).
The berry (grape), unless somehow mutated, will always be true to the genetic coding in the mother
vine and will look, smell and taste like just about every other grape borne by that vine. The pollen
that triggered the formation of the berry can be from any other type of grape without affecting the
size, shape, color, aroma, or flavor of the newly forming grape in any way. It's legacy, if there is
to be one, is strictly confined to the genetic coding of the seeds developing within the individual
grape. Each grape's character is solely determined by the genes of the mother vine. The seeds within
each grape are determined by the genetic union of the vine contributing the pollen and the vine
contributing the ovary. If both come from the same vine, then the seeds will be true (within a
natural range of variation) to the single parent.
If you understand the preceding two paragraphs, you should also understand that it is possible for
every single grape in a cluster to be pollinated by a different vine. The vines may all be of the
same variety or they can be from different varieties or even species. This is not likely, but it is
possible, and if it were true then the seeds of each individual grape would contain different genetic
coding. If all were extracted, dried, stratified (wintered), and planted and just one from each
grape germinated and grew into a vine, each vine and its fruit would be uniquely different.
This is not to say that the fruit would not be good, although we might expect some not to be. It
is just that if the mother vine were a Merlot and the pollen came from Merlot, Riesling, Muscat of
Hamburg, V. labrusca cv. Concord, V. aestivalis var. lincecumii, and V.
monticola vines, the resulting seedlings would be very different and only the Merlot X Merlot
should be expected to yield vines with fruit resembling the original mother vine. All the others
will be hybrids, some good and some less so.
That's a layman's explanation of a complex subject with a lot of qualifiers left unexplained, but
I hope you at least get the general picture. If you do, then you should recognize that planting OP
(open pollinated) grape seeds is like rolling dice. You might get some really good vines from your
effort but you might get a few you'll want to cull. Don't be afraid to plant the seeds just because
the odds of you getting 30 Merlot vines from those 60 Merlot seeds are slim to astronomical. You may
get a vine or two that are in fact superior to the vine that gave you the original grapes. It is the
crossing of genes by professional and amateur breeders alike that give us new varieties in the first
place. So do it, and you have my permission to name any outstanding prodigy after me...or not
Okay, okay, I give up. My mentioning of watermelon rind pickles has generated a number of
requests for the recipe. It isn't a secret or anything, so I'll gladly share it. Let me just
preface the recipe with a couple of remarks. First, don't attempt this if you do not have the
canning jars, fresh lids and canning pot for the boiling water bath. Second, thick rinds make better
pickles than thin ones, but thickness is relative.
Two pints of watermelon pickles
The pickles above were made with the "Moon & Stars Watermelon" I mentioned in earlier entries.
I apologize for not wiping the outside of the jars clean after they were lifted and sat a few moments
in the hot bath while I readied a cooling rack, but what's done is done and the slight film does not
affect the taste. Every single person who has tasted these pickles has raved about them. They are
really good semi-sweet pickles that utilize a huge portion of the melon we almost always throw away.
My last melon made 9-1/2 pints; I am down to 6. The pickles are very attractive if a thin layer of
pink flesh is left attached.
Preparation
Slice melon rind into 1-inch wide strips and then cut away the hard, green, outter peel and
discard. (I sliced with a chef's knife, laid the strips on their side and used a paring knife to
separate the peel from the inner rind.) Cut strips into bite-sized pieces. The size depends on the
thickness of the rind, but 2/3 to 3/4 inch pieces worked well for me.
I processed half the melon's rind at a time, a little over 2 quarts each batch. This will all
depend on the size of your melon, how many bowls and saucepans you have, and how much refrigerator
space you have free.
Watermelon Rind Pickles
Preparation Time: 3 days. For each quart of melon pieces you will need:
1/4 cup pickling salt
1 quart water
2 cups granulated sugar, added in stages
1 cup white vinegar
1 medium lemon, thinly sliced
2 cinnamon sticks, 3-4 inches long
2 very thin strips fresh ginger root, 2 inches x 1/2-inch wide
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon whole allspice berries
First Day:
Place rind pieces in large, non-reactive bowl. Dissolve salt in water and pour water over rind,
cover and let stand for 4 hours. Drain off brine and rinse rind twice.
Place rind in large stainless steel or enamel pot. Cover rind with cold water and bring to a
boil over high heat. Reduce to low boil, cover and boil gently for 8 -10 minutes -- until just
tender and slightly translucent. Drain and return to large, non-reactive bowl.
Combine half the sugar (set other half aside in air-tight container), vinegar, lemon slices,
cinnamon, ginger slices, cloves and allspice in non-reactive saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring
until sugar is dissolved. Pour over rind. Insert a plate into bowl to weigh down rind and keep it
submerged. Place in refrigerator for 24 hours.
Second Day:
Place half the remaining sugar into saucepan and drain liquid from rind over sugar. Bring to a
boil while stirring to dissolve sugar, then pour back over rind. Replace plate weight and return to
refrigerator an additional 24 hours.
Third Day:
Before beginning next step, fill canning pot with water to level sufficient to cover jars being
used. Place jars in water and put on high heat to bring to a boil. In small saucepan, cover ring
caps and lids in water and bring to a boil.
Place remaining sugar in pot or large saucepan and drain liquid from rind over sugar. Bring to
a boil while stirring to dissolve sugar. Add the rind pieces to saucepan and return to a boil.
Remove from heat.
Using tongs or jar grips, remove jars and ring caps and lids. Remove cinnamon sticks from rind
liquid and stand one inside each jar; place one slice of ginger in each jar. Remove rind pieces and
lemon rings with slotted spoon and pack into jars. Pour liquid over rind to within 1/2 inch of rim.
Using wet paper towel, wipe rim clean. Using hot mitts, assemble ring caps and lids and tighten onto
jars.
Place jars in hot bath and return to boil. Process 10 minutes for pint jars, 15 minutes for
quart jars. Remove from water bath and place on cooling rack.
Refrigerate overnight before opening to crisp rinds; keep refrigerated after opening.
I just received the new Fourth Edition of Jon Iverson's Home Winemaking Step by Step.
I'll be comparing it over the next few evenings with the July 2000 Third Edition to discern the
changes - certainly there were some as this edition is notably larger than the last. Thank you,
Jon.
I also received some SB, Gervin and Unican yeasts in the mail from England. It's getting
expensive to order them this way. I do wish someone would import and distribute them in the
United States.
I picked up a pound of bulk dried cherries from Whole Foods. I recall how good the wine was the
last time I used dried cherries - took a gold medal as I recall. I don't need another medal, but I
sure would like a few bottles of the wine.
Dried Cherry Wine
1 lb dried cherries (sweet)
1 11-oz. can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice Frozen Concentrate
1 lb 10 oz finely granulated sugar (to S.G. of 1.090)
1 tsp acid blend acid
3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
1/4 tsp tannin
7 pts water
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 pkt Montrachet or Champagne wine yeast
Soak cherries in 2 quarts water for 24 hours. Bring water to a boil, lower heat and simmer 8
minutes. Strain, stir sugar in liquid until dissolved, cover and set aside to cool. Add remaining
ingredients except yeast, stir and re-cover. After 12 hours, add activated yeast in a starter
solution, re-cover, and stir daily until specific gravity drops to 1.010. Transfer to secondary,
attach airlock and ferment to dryness. Rack when fermentation ceases, top up and reattach airlock,
Rack, top up and refit airlock every 60 days for 6 months. Stabilize and sweeten to taste, wait
additional 3 weeks and rack into bottles. Age another 6-12 months before tasting. [Author's own
recipe]
Shortly after answering one email on propagating grapevines by use of cuttings (in which I
discouraged propagation by use of seeds) I received a phone call on that very subject. A very
excited novice (his word, not mine) had been given quantities of grapes sufficient to make a gallon
of wine each from three different varieties. He wanted to know if he could simply save some of the
seeds from each variety and plant these in the spring.
I said, "You can do this, but you probably will not get a vine that produces fruit anything like
the grapes you got the seed from. This is because the seeds were almost certainly 'open pollinated,'
meaning the inflorescence [grape flowers] that developed the grapes was pollinated by the wind and
the pollen could have come from any flowering grapevine within a few feet to a mile away, depending
on the wind."
Some years back I received two shipments of Vitis californica from two kindred souls who
went to considerable trouble to collect the seeds. After reading the letters accompanying each batch
of seeds, I selected one batch over the other because I could only plant so many seeds and this batch
seemed more likely to have "true" seeds as the seeds came from vines in "deep woods" in the Russian
River Valley.
I wintered the seeds in the refrigerator to simulate winter and in early spring I removed then and
planted 30 seeds very carefully in a flat of vermiculite and sand. Eventually, 16 seedlings made it
past the first leaf stage. The first leaves presented a variety, but I was more interested in the
third and fourth leaves, as these would prove the seedlings sporting them were thriving and would
also be closer to what the adult leaves would look like.
I wish I had photographs of those seedlings. There were at least eight different shapes of grape
leaves on those seedlings. So much for the isolation of "deep woods," but I had identified three
that most likely were closer to true V. californica than any of the others. Unfortunately,
the seedlings all died when my wife and I went on a trip and the friend who looked after our plants
while we were gone simply never saw them in their flat next to the garage and therefore never watered
them.
Still, if you want to try your luck and see what grows, you can collect seeds from any wild or
cultivated grape and plant them next year. Wild grape seeds are easier to germinate than V.
vinifera or even French-American hybrids. Simply remove the seeds from the grapes you wish to
grow and air dry them for a couple of weeks.
Place the dried grape seeds inside a moist paper towel and place the towel with seeds inside a
Ziploc freezer bag (you can annotate the bag with the type of grape seeds) and seal it. Place the
bag containing the seeds in the refrigerator until spring. This needs to be done because the seeds
have to experience a "winter" so they know when it is time to germinate. But do NOT place the seeds
in the freezer.
Consult the Farmers Almanac, your county extension agent or otherwise determine when the
last frost occurs in your area. About a month before this date, remove the seeds from the
refrigerator and plant them in a grid pattern in a nursery flat containing at least two inches of
potting mixture. I place the seeds about 1-1/2 to 2 inches apart and then add about 1/2 inch of
potting soil to the whole flat, covering the seeds with that much soil. Use a hand mister or
refillable spray bottle to slowly moisten the soil. If you have a watering can with a really
fine-spray head, you can use it to moisten the soil but you risk digging up the seeds if the spray
is not fine and gentle. The soil should be damp but not soggy all the way down and the flat has to
drain evenly and without restriction. Place the flat in an area that gets natural sunlight most of
the day or, if inside, is exposed to a grow light. The area should be approximately 70 degrees
during the day and no cooler than 50 degrees at night. If placed outside, be sure to bring them in
just before any cold spell arrives.
Seedlings pushing and sporting 2nd leaf set
The seeds should germinate in about 30 to 40 days, but don't expect them all to sprout. Half would
be a good number. There are techniques you could employ to raise the percentage, but you can research
this yourself.
Seedlings inside and growing out of grow tubes
When the seedlings have fully developed their second set of leaves, transplant each seedling into
a separate pot. By the time they reach a height of 8 to 12 inches, all danger of a late frost should
be past and you can plant them permanently in the prepared ground where you want them to grow. Give
them at least a month to get established and then fertilize as needed to promote healthy growth. I
place a 30- to 36-inch grow tube around each vine and leave it in place until each vine grows past
the top.
Vines grown from seed tend to require an extra year or two to establish a healthy root system.
Small doses of fertilizer will do them more good that twice-yearly larger doses. Also, after they
have been in the ground about three months a quarter- to half-inch surface application of compost
in a 12- to 18-inch radius around the vines will greatly assist them in developing winter roots.
This, in turn, will help them make a vigorous start the following spring.
Today, the first Monday in September - not May 1st - is Labor Day in the United States, a holiday
with origins in Canada and codified following the deadly Pullman Strike in 1894. This holiday is the
last chance for a summer outing for many - especially families with school-age children - and
commercially is the occasion for final "back to school" sales.
Labor Day formally honors the strength and spitit of trade and labor organizations. That is the
serious and reflective side of the holiday. But in this country, it also marks the beginning of
college and professional football seasons (and I am talking about American football, not rugby or
soccer). And therein lies its hidden charm for millions of fans of the game. I don't wish to
belabor (pun intended) this point or debase the seriousness of the holiday, but I do have my favorite
college and professional teams.
Several years ago I received three requests for a Dragonfruit Wine recipe. I posted one and
since then have only received 8 emails referencing it, but 6 have come in the past two weeks from
one gentleman. Some of his questions are about alternative ingredients because of his inability to
find winemaking supplies in the Philippines, so if anyone knows of a source of supplies there please
write to me so I can pass it on. Other questions cover basic steps and processes, which are well
enumerated on my site. I don't know if he simply hasn't read them, they aren't clear or I have left
aspects out, but I will repost the recipe here and explain it in detail. I simply cannot exchange 9
emails explaining each recipe, so perhaps if I do the job well here I can avoid similar exchanges. It
isn't that I don't want to communicate with you, but I have very little free time to answer email and
I do want you all to learn how to do this.
The dragonfruit, or dragon fruit if you prefer, is the name variously given to Hylocereus
undatus and Selenicereus megalanthus. It is also known as the red piyata, thang loy,
dragon pearl fruit, strawberry pear, cactus fruit, and, in the case of Selenicereus, yellow
pitaya. They are a type of pipe-organ cactus, although their trunk and branch segments are not
round. These cacti can form very dense thickets and are cultivated for barriers, for their large,
white or yellowish-white, strongly scented flowers, and for their spineless, very tasty fruit.
Dragonfruit (Hylocereus undatus)
The flesh of the Selenicereusmay be white or various shades of red whereas that of
Selenicereus is white only, but their fruit are both sweeter and smaller. Numerous small
seeds are embedded in the flesh and may be eaten. The fruit of Selenicereus has many fine
spines which rub of upon ripening. Selenicereus fruits have many scales. They contain glucose,
fructose, and sucrose sugars and are eaten raw, made into refreshing drinks, or dried for later use.
Of course, they also make a very good wine, for which they may be washed and chopped with their outer
skin intact or peeled to the white pulp and then chopped. Chopping the whole fruit produces a wine
with a slightly pinkish tint. The recipe below makes one gallon of wine.
1 pkt wine yeast (Red Star Pasteur Champagne works well)
Put the water on to boil. Meanwhile, carefully trim the greenery from the fruit, wash the fruit
well, and chop it coarsely. Put chopped fruit, acid blend, sugar and yeast nutrient into a primary
container. When the water boils, pour it into the primary and stir until the sugar dissolves
completely. Cover the primary with a sanitized cloth (I use muslin, but a very clean towel will do)
and set aside to cool.
When the water is at room temperature, add a finely crushed and dissolved (in 1/4 cup of water)
Campden tablet (or 1/16 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite) and stir; this will kill any spoilage
bacteria in the must that survived the boiling water. Re-cover the primary and set aside for 6-8
hours. Add the pectic enzyme, stir, re-cover the primary, and set aside another 6-8 hours; this will
help break down the fruit so the sugars, flavors and other constituents are more easily extracted by
the yeast. Add the yeast, activated several hours earlier in a yeast starter solution. You can
use baker's yeast, but it might stop fermenting before all the sugar has been converted into alcohol,
leaving a sweeter wine than desired, and/or it might produce slightly yeasty off-flavors (although
some people actually like this).
Stir the must at least twice daily for 7 days. The fruit will rise to the top, pushed there by
the CO2 created by the yeast. You must stir the must at least
twice a day to keep the fruit moist, the yeast working on all surfaces, and prevent the tops of the
elevated fruit from drying out and sporting mold.
After 7 days, strain the must through a nylon straining bag and gently but with slightly increasing
firmness squeeze the trapped juice out of fruit pulp. Homebrew shops sell nylon grain bags for
brewing that winemakers use for straining, but any nylon bag will do - paint stores sell nylon mesh
bags for straining paint, but the legs of ladies' pantyhose work just fine. Strain into another
sanitized primary or into a large funnel directly into a sanitized secondary (gallon jug). If you
strain into a primary, transfer all liquid immediately into the secondary. Top up with good water
(distilled or boiled) if required and attach an airlock.
Wait a month and then rack, top up and refit the airlock every 30 days until the wine clears and
no new sediments form during a 30-day period. Stabilize the wine with 1/2 teaspoon of potassium
sorbate and one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet [or 1/16 teaspoon of potassium
metabisulfite] to prevent renewed fermentation later. These chemicals (and diammonium phosphate) can
be obtained from any homebrew shop or good chemist and they really are essential if you are going to
sweeten the wine. Sweeten the wine with simple syrup made with two parts sugar dissolved into one
part of boiling water. Add two tablespoons at a time and stir until it suits your taste. Wait 3
weeks to make sure fermentation does not restart (the potassium sorbate might be old and not work)
and then rack the wine into bottles and cork them. Like most wines, it should improve with age.
[Author's own recipe]
I mentioned earlier (August 23rd) I had made watermelon rind pickles from a large "Moon and Stars"
watermelon and that they were quite good. After prodding, I typed up the recipe for the pickles and
sent it to those who asked for it as well as a few who didn't, including my uncle in Florida. He
replied that he has never acquired a taste for watermelon rind pickles. My immediate reaction was
(sorry Gordon) "Duh!"
With few exceptions it is the pickling brine, not the thing being pickled, that imparts the taste.
If you don't like dill pickles, try non-dill Kosher. If you don't like sour pickles, try sweet ones.
I like dill pickles, but not those made with too much vinegar. The point is, it isn't the watermelon
rind one acquires a taste for, but the type of brine used. My recipe makes semi-sweet pickles and
they are quite good.
If these thoughts tie into my blog entry in any way it is that they illustrate faulty thinking. In
this case it simply restricts my uncle's potential enjoyment of what I consider to be a very good
pickle. In other cases, like the one I will discuss next, it can create anxiety where none is
warranted.
Sorbic acid is used in conjunction with sulfite to render a sweet wine biologically stable so it
does start fermenting again in the bottle, an event that could have explosive consequences. Sorbic
acid is stored in a dry form called potassium sorbate that produces sorbic acid when added to wine. A
forum reader asked about the shelf life of the acid. "If it does expire when dry, it should also
expire in solution which makes me wonder if my sweetened wines are ticking timebombs for
refermentation once the sorbate has expired." This worry was compounded when the reader discovered
that 90% of sorbic acid in solution decomposes within a year. This was, I thought, a very good
question, but one based on faulty understanding.
I replied that sorbic acid in wine effectively neuters any residual yeast, leaving them incapable
of reproducing. Within a month or two, most will simply die of old age. Even if some of them somehow
manage to outlive the half-life of the sorbic acid, they are physiologically incapable of reproducing
and kindling a wholesale refermentation. If a winemaker uses appropriate doses of potassium sorbate
in conjunction with potassium metabisulfite, the wine will become biologically stable and the
winemaker can sleep well without worrying about ticking timebombs.
As for whether potassium sorbate has a shelf life, the answer is most decidedly yes. It is
considered effective for up to three years from date of manufacture if immediately and properly
stored. However, once the sealed vial, jar or container is opened, it has a shelf life of about six
months - less if exposed long to high humidity.
If you are new to winemaking, you might wonder why I mentioned using sorbic acid in conjunction
with sulfite. The reason is that if a wine that has been treated with sorbic acid later undergoes
malolactic fermentation, it will produce a byproduct compound called 2-ethoxy-hexa-3,5-diene that
produces an offensive odor reminiscent of geraniums; an aseptic dose of sulfite will kill any
malolactic bacteria present and prevent the wine from undergoing malo-lactic fermentation in the
bottle. Sulfites are added in the form of crushed Campden tablets or potassium metabisulfite.
A reader made both elderflower and honeysuckle-rose petal wines. He claimed, "The bouquet of each
is great, the color and mouthfeel good. Only one thing mars the taste...." He then describes an herbal
bitterness that hasn't gone away after a year in storage. He said he was careful to remove all
greenery beforehand and used boiling water poured over the flower petals as both an extraction means
and a sanitizing agent. He naturally wondered if that could have been the source of the herbal
bitterness and, if so, there might be a better technique for extracting color and aroma from flower
petals?
I replied that I use the boiling water extraction method and do not get a bitterness. However,
once I used about twice the recommended amount of elderflowers that resulted in a bitter wine. More
is not always better. I asked if this might be his problem too? I then recounted that solved the
problem by making a gallon of Niagara wine using Welch's white grape juice frozen concentrate and
then blending the two wines. I did not simply mix them one to one, but actually did taste trials to
see when the bitterness disappeared. This experience led me to devise the following recipe.
The white or whitish-yellow flowers of all species and varieties of elder are pleasantly fragrant
and impart a muscat flavor to wines, ciders and vinegars. They are also edible and can be fried in a
fritter or beer batter, added to pancake or muffin batter, cooked into pies and tarts, and added
fresh to salads or many other food dishes. Obviously, they can also be used to flavor wines.
Elderflower wine is an acquired taste and not appreciated by everyone. Too many flowers will yield
a bitter, almost undrinkable wine, so do not exceed the amount specified below. I have made several
batches of elderflower wine using different recipes, but the recipe below yields a fuller-bodied wine
and is more drinkable to a wider population than others I've made because of the addition of the
grape juice concentrate.
1 pt fresh elderflowers
12 oz can frozen white grape juice concentrate
1 lb 12 oz granulated sugar
1-1/2 tsp acid blend
2 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet
1/2 tsp potassium sorbate
7 pts and 1/2 cup water
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Red Star Pasteur Champagne wine yeast
Thaw grape juice concentrate and then put water on to boil. While water rises to a boil, wash
flower heads to remove insects and road dust and then separate flowers from stalks. Put flowers,
sugar and grape juice concentrate in a primary container and pour boiling water over them. Stir well
to dissolve sugar, cover with sterile cloth, and set aside several hours until cool. Add acid blend,
one finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet and yeast nutrient, stirring briefly. Recover with
cloth and set aside 12 hours. Add activated yeast in a starter solution. Ferment 5-6 days, strain
off flowers, pour liquid into secondary, and attach an airlock. Rack when specific gravity is at or
below 1.005, top up and refit airlock. Set aside additional three months, rack, stabilize with
potassium sorbate and remaining finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, and sweeten to taste.
Wait three weeks to ensure stillness and rack into bottles. Age six months before tasting. [Author's
own recipe]
There are six deer in my back property as I write - two bucks, three does and a fawn - eating the
grass where the sprinklers overshoot the fence. They are in the back acreage, not in the yard itself
where my grapevines are planted. They used to jump the six-foot chain link fence and eat the grapes,
but I now have mustang grapes growing on the fence and they don't jump over it anymore. An old-timer
told me that one - deer won't jump a fence higher than themselves that they can't see through, so let
some wild grapes grow on the fence and they'll stay out. It worked. They haven't jumped the fence
in the three years since the mustangs filled out the fence.
I wonder if they would be so brave if they knew what was going on inside the house. Last night I
took 3.8 pounds of precooked venison neck meat out of the freezer and am in the process of making
venison chili. It smells wonderful, so I know it will taste great. The neck was heavily rubbed with
Cajun spices, wrapped in foil and cooked in a roasting pan at 200 degrees F. overnight. What didn't
fall off the bones was pulled off with a fork so it is mostly shredded, just the way I like it in my
chili.
Hmmm, another doe and fawn have joined the herd. The doe jumped the back cattle fence out and the
fawn sort of stepped through it. One of the bucks has ten points. The other has six. My dog is
sleeping through it all but will be up half the night barking at things that like the dark. What a
job...!
A winemaker recently complained in a forum that many recipes call for way too much sugar. He gave
as an example a blueberry wine recipe that called for 2.5 lbs per gallon. He starting with 2 pounds,
and when he checked his specific gravity it was 1.115! My reply really was a quick, off-the-cuff
recitation of points I have made many times but new-comers fail to read because they don't search for
past entries on a given subject. Because I penned a hasty reply, it was incomplete. Below is my
reply. Please note that the writer was actually asking about elderberry wines and mentioned the
blueberry experience to punctuate a point about too much sugar in recipes.
"The question of sugar amounts called for in recipes has been addressed many times. I cannot
speak for others, but I usually top up with plain old water. If I rack a wine 3-4 times (average for
wines made from fresh fruit), I'm going to lose anywhere from a cup to a pint per gallon the first
racking (possibly more if the fruit totally disintegrates) and a half-cup to a cup each racking
thereafter. Since most of my wines are intended to be table wines, I want to start at around 15-16%
PA so that I end up with 12-13.5% alcohol after dilution from topping up.
But fruit do contribute sugar to the must. It just may not be as much as you thought.
Blueberries are typically 7-7.5% natural sugar (although superior blueberries picked just right
can go as high as 13%), so crushing 100 pounds of blueberries typically only provides about
7-7.5 pounds of sugar. Go to Sugars in Winemaking (see link below) and scroll down to the
table, "Sugar Content of Selected Fruit and Fruit Juices, 100 Grams". I don't have the data on
elderberries, but [another member] might."
What I failed to question was his s.g. reading of 1.115 for the blueberry must. It is roughly
0.010 points higher than it should have been. Assuming his hydrometer was correctly calibrated and
temperature adjusted, either his blueberries were exceptionally sweet or his must had a lot of minute
suspended pulp in it. The former is possible for home grown berries picked just as the firmness in
the berry relaxes, while the latter is not at all unusual under any circumstances - but especially if
the berries were frozen.
Many of my older, "adapted" recipes call for more sugar than even the above can justify ("adapted"
recipes originated with another winemaker and was "tweaked" by me). There are several possible
reasons for this. I cannot speak to the motives of other winemakers but can often infer a rule or
inclination from the body of their work. I think many of the "old school" winemakers used 3 and even
4 pounds of sugar per gallon to ensure the wine was very sweet. This is both a matter of preference
for sweet wines on the part of the original winemaker and recognition that sugar is a natural
preservative. Then again some recipes are for Imperial gallons, which are roughly 1/5th larger than
American gallons (while American gallons are about 1/6th smaller than Imperial gallons). I usually
adjusted these amounts to allow for the difference, but sometimes I missed it. To adjust, add 20% to
go from American to Imperial gallons and subtract 16.7% when down-sizing from Imperial to American
gallons.
A reader wrote to ask why a number of red wines would start browning prematurely. By prematurely,
he meant in 2-3 years. These are French-American hybrids fermented with minimal sulfites and without
cooling jackets, barrel aged for less than a year, and bottled without sparging with inert gas.
Three possibilities come immediately to mind.
The first is obvious - oxidation. This would not be too surprising given the low sulfite
additions and possible warm fermentation temperatures. Also, barrel aging can be a double-edged
sword. The edge cuts as intended if sharp and used properly - in this case the barrels are properly
maintained between usage and kept topped up when in use. If either one is lacking, the wine suffers.
Finally, while not sparging your bottles is probably more common than using a gas, it is just
one more thing that can contribute to excessive uptake of O2.
The second thought was that excessive phenolic compounds could contribute to premature browning.
Red French-American hybrids can be rich in phenols, even richer if not destemmed during crushing and
if fermented too long on the skins, pulp and seeds. Oak barrels also contribute phenolic compounds,
but good barrel management should negate any deleterious effects. For example, wines are not held
nearly as long in new barrels as they are the second or third times the barrels are used.
A third possibility is that a very acidic wine can brown if the acid is neutralized with a base
rather than manipulated to remove excess acid as tartrate or malate.
There are other possibilities, but they were not suggested by the limited conditions mentioned by
the writer. Also, certain possibilities exist for white wines that don't apply to reds; the reverse
is also true. More information would be helpful and may be offered, but the above are the common
reasons for browning of reds.
The media knows no restraint. There was WAAAAAY too much coverage of Michael Jackson's death, and
now there is too much Ted Kennedy. The man served Massachusetts for the better part of five decades
and he certainly suited his state's liberalism, but he, more than anyone, proved that if you are rich
enough and have the right last name you can get away with manslaughter. I hold no esteem for a man
who would swim to safety while leaving a woman to drown in his car. I do believe he lived his life
thereafter trying to overcome this singularly profound failing in character, but my personal measure
of honor required that he step down as Senator. If you strongly disapprove of my litmus test for
honor and character, then we can either agree to disagree or you have my blessing to navigate
elsewhere. I will not hold it against you.
If you're sticking around, I hope you enjoy today's WineBlog entry. The first topic is
dear to my heart, literally. The second is an examination of possible ways to make a specific wine.
In an 8-year post incident study of 1169 non-diabetic heart attack patients, Swedish doctors have
found that survivors who eat chocolate two or more times per week reduce their risk of dying from
heart disease about threefold compared to those who never eat chocolate. Consuming chocolate less
frequently confers less protection, but less is better than none.
Antioxidants in cocoa are thought to be responsible for these and other beneficial results of
consuming chocolate, which include a reduction in blood pressure. Antioxidants are compounds that
offer protection against free radicals, cumulative molecules believed to contribute to heart disease,
cancers and aging.
With evidence mounting that both chocolate and red wine can contribute to a healthier and longer
life, the golden years are looking decidedly brighter. While I am not suggesting that chocolate
should replace tofu in your diet, I have to admit it appears that a healthy diet can allow a few
indulgences previously discouraged. But you must remember one important thing; chocolate consumption
and weight management are almost always in conflict. Perhaps a little longer exercise session after
chocolate consumption would balance things out. I don't know. Ask your dietitian.
I posted a tweet last night that I was drinking my last bottle of 2006 Cranberry-Raspberry Wine
(with a tiny splash of Elderberry added for color), and noted it was a very good wine. In response
I received two messages almost immediately requesting the recipe.
I have previously posted two recipes for cranberry-raspberry wines. The first was made with a
commercial, frozen "cranraspberry" concentrate and the second, a social wine, was made with cranberry
juice and raspberry mix syrup (see recipe links following this entry). This recipe mimics neither of
those recipes, but rather uses whole raspberries and whole cranberries.
We are approaching the end of the red raspberry season, so get out there and pick some, cull and
weigh them, and set aside a pound for the wine. Put these in a freezer-grade Ziploc bag and freeze
them. I had to buy my fresh raspberries (I found a great bargain at Costco and had plenty to eat and
enough to freeze). You can also buy the frozen berries in most supermarkets.
If you can still find elderberries, get out there and pick some. You won't need many for the wine
- a quarter of a cup will do. Put these too in a freezer-grade Ziploc and store for future use (I
put mine in a snack-sized Ziploc and put that inside the quart-sized bag of red raspberries. If you
cannot get fresh elderberries you can use a tablespoon of dried elderberries, available in most
homebrew shops.
Cranberries are another matter. If you are a purist in the Great North and are blessed to know of
a stand of highbush cranberries, then go forth at the appropriate time (they DO taste better in late
winter or early spring, even though the odds of them avoiding being eaten between October and March
are slim) and harvest some. Taste them. Some have to be cooked to become enjoyably edible. If
yours require that extra step, you're on your own as I have no experience cooking them before making
wine.
Most of us do not live in wild cranberry country. We have several options, but three are most
appropriate. (1) Look for commercial fresh cranberries around Thanksgiving and buy a few bags. (2)
Look for frozen bags of cranberries at other times and get what you need. (3) Buy fresh cranberries
over the internet and have them shipped to your home.
Why, you might ask, would anyone select the third option above? Certainly they are going to be
super expensive, with shipping and all. The answer is two-fold. First, they are not all that
expensive (certainly cheaper than a day at Sea World). Second, the best cranberries I've ever eaten
and made wine with were purchased this way after an internet acquaintance swore the flavor of these
berries were far superior to any he had tasted. Having said that, I cannot steer you to the place I
bought mine. That was four years ago and I lost the address. But if you join rec.crafts.winemaking
and ask about buying fabulous tasting cranberries, someone will steer you in the right direction.
Finally, you can get canned whole cranberries pack in water year-round in just about any
supermarket. Read the label carefully before you buy them. You do not want to buy any containing
potassium sorbate (or sorbic acid) or sodium benzoate (or benzoic acid). I have never made wine with
canned cranberries but know people who have and it is not rocket science. As for how many cans to
buy, if the can does not list the weight of the contents (don't confuse "oz. wt." with "fl. oz."),
just drain and weigh them, but keep the water they are packed in to use in making the wine.
Some may wonder why I used a white grape juice frozen concentrate and then added elderberries for
color when I could have used red grape frozen concentrate and cinched the color without the
elderberries. There are three reasons. First, the white grape juice does not compete with the
flavors of the cranberry and raspberries to the extent red grape concentrate would. Second, I
wanted to add the elderberries anyway for their contributions in flavor complexity and (third)
tannin.
So, you can see that there are many ways to assemble the must for this wine. I'm simply going to
tell you how I did it. Use your own circumstances to your advantage and make adjustments as required.
2 lbs 4 oz fresh (or thawed) whole cranberries
1 lb fresh (or thawed) whole raspberries
1/4 c fresh (or thawed) elderberries
11-1/2-oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
1 lb 12 oz finely granulated sugar
Water to achieve 1 fluid gallon
3/4 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 sachet wine yeast (I used Pasteur Champagne)
Wash the cranberries and cull out unsound or unripe berries. Put the water on to boil. Meanwhile,
coarsely chop the cranberries and put in primary with raspberries and elderberries. Use rubber-gloved
hands to mash raspberries and elderberries. Pour sugar over fruit and boiling water over all. Cover
with sanitized muslin cloth. When cooled to room temperature, add thawed grape concentrate, pectic
enzyme and yeast nutrient. Stir, re-cover and set aside for 12 hours. Add activated yeast in starter
solution, re-cover and stir daily. After 10-14 days of fermentation, pour through a fine-mesh nylon
straining bag, squeeze gently to extract all juices without exuding raspberry pulp, transfer to
secondary, and fit airlock. Rack after 30 days, top up, refit airlock, and ferment to dryness. Rack
again after 30 days, add 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate and 1 finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet
and stir to integrate. After 30 days, may sweeten to s.g. 1.002-1.004. When wine is brilliantly
clear, rack into bottles and age at least 9 months before sampling. [Author's own recipe]
I want to thank all of you who are following me on Twitter. However, please understand that I do
not visit the site every day, so tweeted questions may not get answered promptly if at all -- address
it to me if you intend that I see it. My Twitter handle is jackkellerwine.
The "Moon and Stars" heirloom watermelon wine did not make it. I mentioned back on August 16th
that there were two ways to approach making a wine if the melon's flavor were good enough. It was.
I tried the first method, but the juice had spoiled by the third day and I dumped it. I did not use
Montrachet yeast (which I usually do with melon wines) but should have. But there was melon left
over to eat (about a quarter of it) and I also made watermelon rind pickles that are quite good.
I've received some really strange communications regarding the Green Tomato Wine in my last
WineBlog entry. Lisa, unless you have tasted it, "Yuck!" is an entirely tasteless (pun
intended) response. To those who asked why even make it, I have two very good answers.
The first reason is taste. It just so happens it has a unique taste, and if the wine is well-
made the taste is very, very enjoyable. Red tomato wine usually has an aroma of tomatoes and the
taste usually suggest its origins, but green tomato wine is less obvious. And taste-wise, you would
never know what it is unless it was made poorly. I received two emails claiming to have made it
before with undrinkable consequences. I'm not saying this is a bulletproof wine, but mine was good.
The second reason, frankly, is to utilize what the Good Lord has provided us while minimizing
waste. The first time I made green tomato wine was when I had a huge autumn crop on the plants and
an early norther had dropped down from Canada and marched to within a couple hundred miles of us
without slowing. Knowing all my tomatoes would be frozen by morning, I went out and harvested
almost 90 pounds of green tomatoes. That night I started four 5-gallon batches of green tomato
wine while my wife made a green tomato hash casserole for dinner and then we canned many jars of
green tomato salsa, stewed green tomatoes, green tomato chow-chow, green tomato chutney, green
tomato relish, and green tomato and onion pickles.
We canned all night, but if it weren't for a disc I had bought called Easy Chef's One Million
Recipes that contained 308 green tomato recipes, we'd have made the four batches of wine (I only had
4 empty carboys at the time) and the remaining 28 pounds of tomatoes would have been largely wasted.
I made two trips to our Super Wal-Mart during the night for cabbage, onions, bell peppers, jalapenos,
pickling salt, pickling spices, etc., but it was well worth the time and effort. There is a lot you
can do with green tomatoes if you embrace the motto "waste not, want not."
When a kind neighbor gave us several Hubbard squashes we were at first stymied. These suckers
can be huge and a couple of them were. My wife made two pies when I told her they would be
indistinguishable from pumpkin if she spiced them accordingly. She did and our guests thought they
were pumpkin pies. She also baked some with brown sugar and spices like you would sweet potatoes,
with marshmallows on top. Tasted close to sweet potatoes, but buttercup squash is a closer substitute.
I have never seen a recipe specifically for Hubbard squash wine, but we had too many squashes and so
I thought I should try it.
Both Leo Zanelli and Terry Garey have recipes for squash wines and I have made both pumpkin and
sweet potato wines, so I sort of did a blending of them all. The trick to making a good pumpkin
wine is to use small pie pumpkins, so I thought this might also work with the Hubbards. I selected
the smallest survivors and peeled, cleaned and grated just over 5 pounds of yellow meat.
Hubbard Squash Wine
5 lbs peeled and cleaned squash, grated
2 lbs Demerara (or Turbinado) sugar
11-oz can Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
1 tsp finely diced fresh ginger
zest and juice of 3 Valencia oranges
zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 3-inch cinnamon sticks
6 whole cloves
1/8 tsp grape tannin
Water to one gallon
1-1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
Champagne wine yeast
Put water on to boil. Meanwhile, peel squash, remove seeds and grate with food processor. Put
squash, sugar and juice of citrus fruit in primary. Combine zests and spices in jelly bag, tie
closed, and place in primary. Pour water over ingredients in primary. Stir until sugar is
dissolved. Cover primary and allow to cool to room temperature. Meanwhile, thaw grape concentrate.
Then must is cool add grape concentrate, yeast nutrient and then stir briefly. Add activated yeast
in starter solution and recover the primary. When fermentation is vigorous, ferment three days,
stirring daily. Remove spices and strain liquid into secondary, fit airlock and ferment 30 days.
Rack, top up and refit airlock. After 60 days, stabilize with 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate and one
finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, rack again, top up, and refit airlock. After additional
60 days, sweeten to taste if desired and rack into bottles. Allow to age one year; two is better.
[Author's own recipe]
This was a marvelous golden-white wine that aged wonderfully. If you cannot get the smaller,
more tender Hubbards, use what you have but combine half-and-half with the grated flesh of one or
two small pie pumpkins.
One never knows what the mail will bring. I've been expecting some meds I ordered from my HMO's
on-line pharmacy, so I was surprised when it appeared they had arrived packaged differently than in
the past. Upon opening the large reinforced envelope, I discovered several containers of various
herbs, plus a letter. A woman in Santa Barbara, California had sent me quantities of damiana leaf,
angelica root, dandelion root, sarsaparilla leaf, and a blend of three kinds of anise. She said she
hopes I can find a use for them. She makes tea, liqueur, and carbonated beverages from them but had
never considered wine until she started exploring my website. She figures if anyone can make wine
with any of them, it would be me. I'm flattered and will have to do some experimenting. Thank you,
Angie.
In another large, stiffened envelope I was sent several pressed flowers identified as Sundial
Lupine (Lupinus perennis) and asked if these were okay to make wine with. I have previously
written about these and other Lupines (including the Texas Bluebonnet, Lupinus texensis but
cannot find the passage so perhaps it was on a forum.
There are a few hundred species of the genus Lupinus. Only a few natives and a few
cultivated hybrids are edible, although it is the beans, not the flowers, that are consumed. The
overwhelming majority found in the wild are not. They contain two toxic alkaloids, lupinine and
sparteine, which attack the nervous systems of humans and grazing livestock. At least three
Mediterranean species contain only minute levels of the toxins and are grown for livestock and
poultry feed. I am not familiar enough with the species that are edible to trust my health to
chance, especially when the odds are against guessing correctly.
An emailer wrote, "I got started making wine by discovering an old recipe for Green Tomato Wine
from my great uncle Paul...and I was wondering if you could help me adjust uncle Paul's recipe so I can
make it safely but keep its great flavor. Here is the old recipe verbatim:
6 lbs green tomatoes
6 lbs sugar
2 lbs raisins
2 large oranges
1 gallon water
yeast"
The writer does a good job of analyzing the recipe, judging that it makes 2-3 gallons, the sugar
is excessive, the raisins are for body, etc. "Basically I would like to modify this to a workable 1
gallon recipe and none of the green tomato recipes I have found seem to be sufficient. Any advice you
could offer would be a great help."
I compared this one with C. J. J. Berry's recipe, which I adapted and posted on my site and the
ingredients repeated here:
3 lbs fresh green tomatoes
1 qt balm leaves, including stalks
1 lb raisins (or sultanas or currants)
1 lb maize, barley or wheat
2-1/2 lbs granulated sugar
3-1/2 qts water
2 lemons or oranges
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1/8 tsp grape tannin
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 crushed Campden tablet
1 pkg Champagne or Montrachet yeast
Berry did some very insightful things in this recipe, weaving flavors and body while finding
balance in unlikely ways. It has more finesse than Great Uncle Paul's recipe, but I think Great
Uncle Paul's recipe has great character as well as the obvious essential core ingredients. The
question now is how to scale it to a gallon.
If we compare the two recipes, we can see that we need to cut the tomatoes and raisins by half.
We can cut the sugar by a third and still make a potent wine as the raisins are 65% sugar, but we
should keep the oranges. We will then bring the recipe "up to date." It should look like this:
3 lbs green tomatoes
2 lbs sugar
1 lbs raisins
2 large oranges
1 Campden tablet
1 tsp pectic enzyme
water to make up 1 gallon
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Champagne yeast"
Bring 1 quart water to boil and pour over raisins and let soak about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, chop
tomatoes and thinly peel oranges (orange portion only, no pith). Drain and chop the raisins, then
combine them, the chopped tomatoes and the orange peel in nylon straining bag. Tie and place in
primary. Add sugar and 3 to 3-1/2 quarts boiling water and stir well to dissolve sugar. Cover and
allow to cool. Add finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet and juice of the two oranges. Wait 12
hours and add yeast nutrient and pectic enzyme, stirring to mix. Wait additional 12 hours and add
activated yeast in a starter solution. Cover and gently squeeze bag 2-3 times a day. When vigorous
fermentation subsides, remove bag and drip drain, then squeeze well but not too hard. Pour all liquid
into secondary and top up with water if required to within 2-1/2 inches of airlock. Rack after 3
weeks, then again every month until wine clears and no additional deposits form during two-week
period. Bottle and allow to age 6-9 months. [Adapted by author from Great Uncle Paul's Green Tomato
Wine recipe]
I am asked this question all the time, although it really baffles me sometimes. I mean, some
recipes say to use a specific herb or flower, add sugar and other dry ingredients, and then add from
7-1/2 pints to a gallon of water. Since the herbs contain no juice or other liquid, it shouldn't be
difficult to conclude that the recipe makes about a gallon of wine. I say about because sugar has a
volume, some liquid is lost as sugar is converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide (a gas), and
different yeast's lees compact differently -- meaning that you lose more wine with some lees than
others when you rack. However, if you top up as instructed, you should always end up with a gallon.
So, as to the question of how much wine do my recipes make, unless they specifically cite another
volume, all the recipes on my site are for one U.S. gallon batches. There are several reasons for
this:
I am constantly experimenting with new wines or improving old ones, with approximately 22-30
batches going at all times. One-gallon jugs take far less room than larger carboys.
One-gallon batches are more economical to gamble with, especially when some of the ingredients
have to be shipped refrigerated and are therefore quite expensive to me. No one pays me to do this,
so if I decide to try cloudberry wine and have to import cloudberries from Finland, I have to suffer
the cost. Devising a recipe is therefore a gamble (it might not work) and I try to keep the amount
gambled at a minimum.
It is less painful to dump out a 1-gallon batch that didn't work out than a 5- or 6-gallon one,
and I have dumped out a few.
When they do work out, most wines have to be aged for 6 months to a year, and 5 bottles take less
room to store during aging than 25 or 30.
For people who want to make larger batches, all they have to do is multiply the ingredients (except yeast) by the number of gallons desired. This is far easier than trying to adjust a 5-gallon recipe to 3 gallons, for example.
So, if you wanted to make a 6-gallon batch of a particular wine, just multiply the ingredients by
6, except use two packets of yeast instead of one (each sachet of yeast is usually enough to start a
batch of 1 to 5 gallons in volume).
Some recipes initially make a little more than a gallon (and I mean an American gallon or 3.7854
liters). I usually say to crush the fruit, add the sugar and other ingredients, and then add water
to make one gallon. Many people mistakenly read this as adding one gallon of water. If you do this,
you'll have a problem. Obviously, when juice is extracted from the fruit and sugar is dissolved, if
you add a gallon of water you're going to end up with more than a U.S. gallon.
Sometimes I say to crush the fruit, extract the juice, add the sugar and perhaps a grape
concentrate (for body), and then add a specific amount of water (e.g. 6 1/2 pints). I say this
because that is what I did, but your fruit might be larger and contain more juice than mine, and
when that occurs you end up with more than a gallon.
In either case, when you transfer from primary to secondary it would be nice if you had a jug that
would take all of the liquid without overflowing and with exactly an inch of ullage (airspace between
the top of the wine and the bottom of the bung) -- a 4-liter, 4.5-liter (British gallon), or 5-liter
jug, for example, might work perfectly. It would behoove you to collect a few of these over-sized
jugs for situations like this.
I'm happy to report that my pineapple-coconut juice mead (see WineBlog entry of August 1st)
has just about completed its fermentation. After its extreme foam generation in primary, I
transferred it to a 4-liter secondary only after the foam subsided to a thin head. Even with about
4 inches of headspace, it pushed foam into the airlock for about two days. After cleaning the
airlock about 6 times, it finally calmed down and slowly finished fermenting over the past week.
The pressure in the airlock is still positive, but specific gravity is just below 1.000 and I
watched it for 12 minutes and it did not push a bubble. I think it is done or very close to it.
Now the waiting game. The must is very milky and I really do not know if it will clear. But I
am patient and have a few tricks up my sleeve if it is stubborn. But, in the end, if it doesn't
clear then I will have a milky mead. We shall see.
A friend gave me a 32-pound "Moon and Stars" watermelon, a dark green rind with small, bright
yellow spots (the stars) scattered over it and a 4-inch circular yellow spot (the moon) atop it. The
bottom is yellowish-green. I am feeding a yeast starter in orange juice before I cut it. When the
starter is at least 24 hours old I will open the melon. The piece I ate (from another melon off the
same vine) was very sweet and just on the pinkish side of brilliantly red. If this one tastes as
good, there are two ways I could approach this.
The first is to press a gallon of juice, adjust gravity with simple syrup, stir in yeast nutrients
and acid blend, and immediately inoculate with the starter. Both the starter and the juice will be
room temperature and fermentation should take off very quickly. The goal would be to get the alcohol
up to 10% quickly, and only then will I worry about sulfites and tannin (I like a little in all my
wines). This melon certainly has much more than a gallon of juice in it, so I'll eat what is not
required for a gallon-batch. If the melon is not quite as good as the one I tasted, I'll simply eat
it all; it is a waste of time and effort to attempt making wine with less than perfect melons.
Moon and Stars watermelon
For those who do not understand the reasons for the steps I am taking, I invite you to read the
introduction to my watermelon recipes collection. Watermelon wine is terribly difficult to make
because it spoils so quickly, but if a 10% alcohol level can be obtained fast enough it will prevent
spoilage bacteria from ruining it.
The second method is more traditional. I would press the juice, then sulfite and refrigerate it
for 12 hours before pitching a 24 hours old yeast starter solution. The sulfite would help combat
the spoilage bacteria while the alcohol builds up. This method has a better chance for success if
the yeast starter solution and the juice can be brought to the same temperature before joining.
I'll be using Montrachet yeast. The low end of its fermentation is 59-60 degrees F., so I would
have to allow the juice to sit outside the refrigerator for an hour or so to warm up from the 39
degrees the refrigerator is set at. During that hour I would also put the starter in the refrigerator
for 10 minutes and then remove it for 5, then repeat this several times until the starter is slowly
chilled to 60. The reason for playing these temperature games is to prevent the yeast from going
into cold shock and shutting down for 24 hours.
If I follow the latter approach I'll add sugar to reach 1.085 s.g., 1-1/2 teaspoons of acid blend
initially (probably will need to add a little more after fermentation), and one teaspoon of yeast
nutrient. I have a measure that holds exactly 1/16 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite. Wish me
luck.
I mentioned on Twitter that my antique red roses bloomed again and then got pretty well
deflowered by rain and wind. I didn't have nearly enough petals left for a batch of rose petal
wine, but did have enough for two bowls of rose petal soup. That resulted in several request for
the recipe. Okay, here it is.
This soup is an adaptation of one posted by Angela Harris (link following entry). Mine differs
a bit and is for two 24-ounce bowls of soup. You need two large- or three medium-sized roses,
preferably red or pink and with lots of fragrance. You cannot use hybrid roses; use antique (old
garden, old fashioned, heritage, traditional) roses. Gently peel away the rose petals one at a time.
Cut away the bottoms of the petals that have no color. Cut up a few of the rose petals (1/4-inch
squares) to sprinkle on top of the soup just before serving.
Rose Petal Soup
2 large or 3 medium antique roses
32 oz (1 qt) cold water
8 ounces sugar
2 pinches cinnamon
1 tsp Tabasco sauce
2 16-oz cans of pitted sweet cherries
16 oz dry white wine
16 oz sour cream
4 oz Cherry Schnapps or favorite (Heering?) cherry liqueur
Add water, sugar, and cinnamon in 2-quart pan and bring to a boil on medium heat, stirring
occasionally. Drain the canned cherries, add to the pan and return to light boil. Reduce heat and
simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in Tabasco sauce. Next, add wine and rose petals.
Let cool. Put in blender and mix on liquefy setting. Divide into two bowls and stir in the sour cream
and Cherry Schnapps. Refrigerate until cold. When ready to serve, sprinkle the remainder of the rose
petals on the soup. Sprinkle with cinnamon and by all means serve cold.
I bottled my latest rose petal wine last night - a beautiful blush, finished just off-dry, made
from our antique, deep red roses (variety unknown). The aroma is very nice, the color very good for
rose petals and the flavor is slightly herbal but pleasant. I'm quite pleased with the result.
Having bottled two wines this week, I thought it only proper to start two new batches - one a
mead and the other a wine. The mead is honeybush and the wine a remake of my classic sand burr
concoction that won numerous awards.. I will talk more about these at a later date.
I received an email from a cousin who had appended a file which looked like a Word document but
wouldn't open. After numerous attempts employing various strategies, I finally threw in the towel
and sent an email asking what kind of file it was. Three minutes later the phone rang. It was a
Word 2007 file and I am still using Word 2000. No problem, as my cousin opened the file, saved it
as a Word 2000 document and resent it. Problem solved -- sort of. The document copied the April 16,
2009 entry of Barbara Keck's blog, WineBizNews. In it was a critique of my blog's artistic
layout and design.
I know there are an endless number of possible layouts and design features that would improve the
appearance and readability of the WineBlog and The Winemaking Home Page. I get dozens
of respectful emails every year pointing this out with varying degrees of tact or absence thereof.
Most are by people who make a living designing and possibly maintaining blogs for people who just
want to write and not be bothered with the mechanics of the display. A few are from folks who offer
to do this free, as a sort of payment for the years of benefit derived from my musings. The first
group I delete - I cannot afford their services. The second group I try to thank for their offers,
their willingness to redeem a perceived debt.
And some, a few, express another motive kin to the last. The following comment sums up this
corollary fairly well: "...[A]nd while I greatly admire and even revere your writings, your web site
is, in a word, boring. It is stuck in the mid-'90s in both design and layout and I am embarrassed
for it. It needs a makeover badly."
So let me explain briefly why things are as they are. First, I don't write something and plug it
into an online template or code generator as most bloggers do. I write the whole thing out,
selecting and placing every tag where needed. I insert every image using the simplest format I know
- admittedly from the mid-'90s - because I know how to do it and it usually works. Occasionally I
make a boo-boo and I hear about it soon enough. Most I can and do fix as soon as I can. A rare few,
like the seven lines of ">" (greater than signs?) in my February 28, 2009 entry immediately
preceding the table of songs are total mysteries to me. Neither I nor two other programmers could
find anything in the encoding that would produce them. But generally, doing it myself exerts the
greatest and most absolute control over the content and its appearance.
Secondly, over the years I've fallen in love with innumerable websites and blogs and grown
comfortable with their layout, look and feel. Then they change drastically, and old, familiar
features disappear or get lost in a new hierarchy or schema that escapes my intuition. I generally
don't like these changes and have resisted making them on my sites. I want my viewers to grow
comfortable with it as it is. Things usually are where they were last week, last month, last year.
There are areas I would like to improve, but I don't know how to enact the changes and do not
currently have time to learn (a recurring theme).
Thirdly, I have a vision for a "makeover" and have tried several times over the past 5-6 years -
experimentally, out of public view - to integrate CSS and a couple of HTML variants into the site.
The initial learning curve is steep and I really don't have the time to see it through. I have
abandoned each attempt after a couple of days. One day, after retirement, I will tackle it again.
Until then, what you see today is what you will see tomorrow.
Finally, as much as I appreciate the several offers to do a "makeover" for me, each offer has
included turning the admin privileges over to someone else, and in every case but one that someone
was a total stranger. Sorry, but I cannot do that. To one fellow who wrote me at the exact moment
I was trying to get a grasp on CSS and object spatial placement, I invited him to send me the code
for his "makeover" of three pages I selected as being particularly resistant to my self-learning
methods. He said he would do this if I gave him admin rights to my site. I said no, just send me
the code. I never heard from him again. And so my site remains as it is and that is why things are
as you see them.
I have received several emails from Sweden, Finland, Minnesota, and Idaho over the past three
months about wild strawberries. I really should have posted something before now, as their season
is past everywhere that I know of. Still, I feel compelled to write about them. They simply make
the best strawberry wine imaginable and maybe you can plan a batch for next year.
My earliest memory of eating wild strawberries was as a Boy Scout at Camp Arataba in the San
Bernardino mountains when we happened upon a patch while on a day hike. The Scoutmaster did not
notice them, but I was surveying the areas adjacent to where we hiked for snakes and I spotted the
small red berries just above the ground. I stepped out of formation and gathered perhaps 6 or 8
before being called to get back into the file. Only after I resumed my place did I taste one.
Instantly I was sorry I had obeyed.
I found some on an Explorer Scout camping trip at Tuolemne Meadows in Yosemite National Park and
that time I ate scores of them. Years later I encountered some on the lower slopes of Mount Rainier,
in Washington State. These were larger than others I had encountered but not nearly as large as even
the smallest commercial berries. But my fondest memories were the enormous patches my brother and I
found on 22 acres I owned near Pikes Peak and other patches I happened upon while hiking north of
the Flat Irons, above Boulder, Colorado and others near Estes Park. Years later I found them on the
Presidio of San Francisco and on Mount Tamalpais north of there. Wherever I have found them, they
are by far the tastiest and most aromatic strawberries there are.
In Europe, the wild (Woodland) strawberry is the Fragaria vesca. In North America it is
Fragaria virginiana. The fruit ripens in late spring or early summer. Much smaller than
commercial strawberries, they typically vary from the size of a pencil eraser to that of a woman's
thumbnail. It takes a while to collect enough for a batch of wine and your back will ache
unmercifully if you bend over for them, so squat or sit and pick all you can reach before moving.
If it takes two hours to collect enough, it will be worth it. As one website said, "They're so
good, they're the symbol of perfect excellence." I have to agree.
Technically, the strawberry is neither a berry nor a fruit, but a "false fruit" or "accessory
fruit." This means the fleshy part we enjoy does not develop from the flower's ovary, but from the
stem supporting the ovary. The seeds, called achenes, are actually the fruit. However, for the
average Joe, the fleshy part is a "berry" or "fruit" and I too use that terminology when not being
scholastic.
Wild Strawberry Wine
3.5 lbs wild strawberries
8 oz Welch's 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
2 lbs finely granulated sugar
1 tsp acid blend
1/8 tsp powdered grape tannin
1 finely crushed Campden tablet
water to one gallon
1 tsp yeast nutrient
wine yeast (Champagne, Montrachet,
Bring quart of water to boil and dissolve sugar in it, stirring frequently and well. Put berries
in nylon straining bag, tie and place in primary. Mash the berries with your hands. Pour boiling
water over berries. Add grape concentrate, acid blend, tannin and yeast nutrient. Add water to
bring liquid to one gallon. Cover and set aside to cool, then begin making a yeast starter solution.
When water is 85-90 degrees F., add finely crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, recover the primary
and set aside additional 10-12 hours. Pitch activated yeast starter, recover primary and stir daily.
When s.g. drops to 1.020 or lower, remove straining bag and drip drain over bowl to collect juice.
Allow to drain without squeezing (1-2 hours). Pour all liquids into secondary, top up to one gallon,
attach airlock, and set aside. Rack every 30 days until wine clears and goes 30 days without dropping
dust on bottom (3-6 months). Bottle as dry wine. Allow to age at least 6 months, then drink within a
year. [Author's own recipe]
I'm starting to get more emails (and twitter questions) than I can answer. Some questions, like
for a recipe I haven't published, are fair game. Others, like why do we have to top up, are
explained on my site already. You simply have to read more. Here's a hint: air space in a
secondary is called ullage and contains oxygen, and oxygen causes wines to oxidize.
On the other hand, someone asked why my elderflower wine recipe has the wine ferment and clear for
three months without racking - why? Fair question. The original recipe was developed by Steven A.
Krause in his book Wines from the Wild and it works. Wines will not go bad sitting three
months on their yeast lees, but could go bad sitting on gross lees containing bits of fruit pulp or
other decomposing organic matter. Just why this is so would require a chapter in a book to explain,
so just trust me on this.
Scientists at the University of Glasgow have discovered another health benefit of resveratrol and
by extension its source, red wine. Researchers found that mice pre-treated with resveratrol were
protected when exposed to a strong inflammatory agent. Mice not pre-treated developed a serious
reaction similar to sepsis.
The study, published in the journal of the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental
Biology (FASEB Journal), found that resveratrol blocks two major proteins that trigger
inflammation. Resveratrol is a phytoalexin - a compound produced by plants to ward off fungal
infection. That it can also protect human cells from various types of assault is our fortune.
But fortune appears to come with moderation. Two glasses of red wine with a meal is adequate for
a health maintenance dose, we're told. More than that and the effects of alcohol can offset the
health effects of resveratrol.
Personally, I have begun taking a daily dosage of resveratrol as a supplement. My cardiologist
has approved this, but I think he is watching me to see what happens. The gel-caps I take contain
100 mg of red wine extract (24% polyphenols with 100-200 ppm resveratrol), 50 mg grapeseed extract
(90% polyphenols), and 30 mg resveratrol (from Polygonum caspidatum root extract). I don't
think it can hurt.
I received a request for a Champanel wine recipe and am happy to oblige. First, however, a word
about Champanel grapes for those not familiar with them. This is a T.V. Munson hybrid, a cross
between V. champinii and a Worden seedling, that grows well in Texas and other Gulf Coast
states due to its resistance to Pierce's Disease (it can carry the bacterium but will not succumb to
it). It has excellent resistance to nematodes, tolerates the black-waxy alkaline soils of Texas and
mild resistance to Phylloxera. It is vigorous to a fault, ripes with Concord, and the black-skinned
berries make an excellent wine if allowed to fully ripen, which means netting against birds. It
tolerates heat and drought better than 98-99% of the other grapes and grows so well on its own roots
that it is often used as a rootstock in very alkaline soils.
If left unchecked, this vine will put out a dozen or more 12-20-foot shoots each year. Since
grapes are only produced on the first 2-3 (rarely 4) nodes, 75-80% of that growth ends up shading
the grapes of the adjoining vines. Yes, you need extra growth to support the vine and clusters,
but Champanel can tolerate at least two summer prunings. And vigor does not equate to high yields.
The clusters are not large, so 10-12 pounds per vine is about normal yield. This is barely at or
just shy of a gallon of wine per vine. But the wine can be excellent if the berries are fully ripe.
I cannot stress the latter enough.
The best Champanel wine I have ever tasted was Rob Overley's. It was a off-dry but not quite
sweet and I hinted for a bottle but didn't get one. Instead, I obtained Champanel cuttings and
started growing my own. This recipe is for one gallon. It is pretty much a standard recipe for
making a grape wine, but the pectic enzyme used extracts much more color and polyphenols. Without
using Rapidase Ex-Color, the wine will probably be a blush. Do the math to make larger batches.
Champanel Wine
12-15 lbs Champanel grapes
possibly sugar to bring up to 22.5 degrees Brix (s.g. 1.095)
1 tsp Fermaid
1/4 tsp drops Rapidase Ex-Color pectic enzyme (and color extractor)
Crush and destem the grapes. Move to primary and sprinkle the finely crushed Campden or 1/16 tsp
potassium metabisulfite over the grapes. Cover the primary and set aside 8-10 hours. Begin a yeast
starter solution. Sprinkle the Rapidase Ex-Color over grapes and stir with wooden spoon. Recover
and set aside 12 hours. Adjust Brix if required and stir in Fermaid. Pitch the yeast starter and
cover primary as before. Stir daily to punch down the cap. When s.g. drops to 1.015 (5 degrees
Brix), Strain must through Nylon straining bag into secondary and press pulp firmly. Discard
pomace. Attach airlock to secondary. Rack two weeks after wine falls still. Top up, reattach
airlock and allow to clear. Wait additional two weeks and rack again into clean secondary with
finely crushed Campden tablet or 1/16 tsp potassium metabisulfite. Top up and reattach airlock.
Wait additional 30 days. Use flashlight and illuminate bottom of secondary. If absolutely clear,
bottle it. If even a fine dusting of dead yeast, rack, top up and reattach airlock for another 30
days, then bottle. Wait 3 months before tasting. Should improve with age for 2-3 years. [Author's
own recipe]
For those who prayed for my brother, thank you. He is home again and on a two-week, self-
administered, IV antibiotic cocktail protocol. But he is already improved enough to be in his own
bed. Again, thank you.
I'm finally making a wine from my pitiful harvest of Champanel and Cynthiana grapes. The
Champanels, a T. V. Munson hybrid, ripened just as my parents arrived and we took off for family
visits in East Texas and Louisiana. The birds had a feast while I was gone, but I picked what were
left and froze them. The Cynthianas were reduced to one vine after a dog we had for six weeks
chewed 13 vines of various varieties off at or near the ground. The Cynthianas ripen unevenly and
the only way to beat the birds to them without netting is to either pick bunches before they are
fully ripe or to pick individual berries as they ripen. Because I only had one vine, I did the
latter and stored the daily pickings in the freezer. Still not having enough Champanels and
Cynthianas to make a decent batch, I picked some of my Dog Ridge (a natural V. champinii variety)
to make up the volume. I've done this before in different proportions, so this is not unknown
territory. Wish me luck.
Back in November 2008 a reader asked me to publish a few barbeque sauce recipes featuring wine as
an ingredient. I posted one and asked readers to contribute, fully expecting the fellow who
requested this topic to join in. He has not. I received an excellent recipe after Christmas from
Georgia and in April of this year received a homemade sauce with attached recipe from Pennsylvania.
That's it. I didn't think anyone else was interested in barbeque sauce until an email arrived last
night with a new recipe. I have just made a batch for a rack of baby back ribs and I think it is a
winner.
Randy's Wine Barbeque Sauce
1 white onion, finely diced
1 Tblsp butter
1 Tblsp 6% acidity wine vinegar
2 Tblsp lemon juice
2 Tblsp dark brown sugar
3 Tblsp orange marmalade
1/2 cup ketsup
1 1/2 Tblsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp Tabasco or other hot sauce
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1 cup garlic wine*
1 Tblsp celery salt
*or onion, chile pepper or any other white wine
Brown ribs on rack in roasting pan in 350 degrees oven. While ribs are browning, make sauce
(below). Drain roasting pan before basting ribs with sauce.
On low heat, melt butter in skillet, add onions and barely brown them. Add remaining ingredients
and bring to simmer, stirring, until ribs are browned and ready for sauce. Baste ribs liberally
until done.
I received a pitiful phone call from a good ol' boy up near Shreveport who told a sad tale of
losing his uncle. Of course he missed their afternoons fishing and conversations about women and
politics and things, but what he really missed was his uncle's corn squeezins, a wine he made
from the juice of corn stalks run through a crusher-wringer. He intended to obtain the crusher-
wringer but the probaters seized it and sold it at auction. Did I know another way to make corn
squeezins? Well shucks, I think I do - sort of.
This will not be the same thing because it doesn't use the squeezins from the corn stalks, but
it is palatable wine and goes down cleanly after the first glass (or mason jar). There are two hard
parts. The first is that you have to cook (boil) about 12 ears of corn, which means either cooking
a meal for a sizable gathering, bringing corn on the cob to a pot luck affair, or cooking the corn
and shaving the corn off the cobs with a good knife for subsequent meals. The second hard part if
the corn was eaten off the cobs at a single sitting is that you need to retrieve the cobs and not
think about who might have cleaned the corn off them. Admittedly, this could be the show stopper,
but remember that alcohol kills most micro-bugs. Digging those cobs out of the trash could be
embarrassing, but if you're into corn squeezins then maybe not.
One last thing. You can use more corn cobs if you want more flavor or plan on serving it at your
cousin's wedding.
Corn Squeezins (Wine)
12 ears of corn
1 Tblsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp grape tannin (powder)
32 oz light corn syrup
water to one gallon
1 Campden tablet, finely crushed
1 tsp yeast nutrient
any general purpose wine yeast
Boil the corn, save the water used for the boiling, save the cobs after the corn is cleaned off
them, cut the cobs into 1/2 to 3/4 inch pieces, toss them back into the water used to cook them, and
barely bring them back to a boil and hold it for about 45 minutes to an hour. Remove and discard
the pieces of cob with a slotted spoon, stir in the corn syrup, lemon juice, yeast nutrient, and
grape tannin and stir until dissolved. Pour into primary, add cold water to bring volume to one
gallon, cover the primary, and set aside to cool. When cool, stir in finely crushed Campden tablet,
recover the primary, and let sit overnight. Add activated yeast in a starter solution and let
nature do its thing. When vigorous fermentation subsides, pour water into secondary through a
muslin-lined funnel. Attach airlock and let finish fermentation. When still, rack, top up and
reattach airlock. Repeat every 30 days until wine clears. If not clear after third racking, add
1/4 teaspoon amylase. When clear, bottle (or jug) it and set aside a month. Mason jars are also
acceptable. [Author's own recipe]
WineBlog, see "Healthy Heart Barbeque Sauce" in April 5, 2009 entry
Last night was a truly memorable evening for me. I've been corresponding with a gentleman in
Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India for seven or eight years. Last night he and his wife were in San
Antonio and we met for dinner and good talk. We had exquisite Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine at El
Mirador and shared a genuinely enjoyable evening with their local hosts. Balaji, Tamara, Stacy and
Dale, thank you for the fine fellowship, stimulating evening and enriching conversations. I cherish
the memories.
Thank you one and all who have said prayers for my brother Larry following his quadruple by-pass.
He is back in the hospital with cellulitis, an infection that in most cases is non-threatening and
easily cured with. The danger is severe if it migrates subcutaneously to the fascial lining and goes
systemic or turns necrotizing. There is no indication it will do that in my brother's case, but if
you have the time and inclination please keep those prayers going just a little longer.
Some time back I visited a Texas winery and chatted with the winemaker about winemaking things.
We got to talking about yeasts and I mentioned that I really miss the old packets of Epernay, sold
today by Lalvin as DV10 but only in bulk. He had some and gave me a 20 mL vial of it. When I got
home, I put it in the refrigerator with my other yeasts and sort of forgot about it for a while. I
recently started three batches of wine and mead with it, including a one-gallon batch of pineapple-
coconut juice mead. I was flabbergasted when I found two gallons of foam on top of the must.
I had made a yeast starter by hydrating a half-teaspoon of DV10 in 1/2 cup of warm water into
which I had dissolved a pinch of yeast nutrient and a teaspoon of sugar. After a half-hour I added
1/2 cup of white grape juice, covered the container and let it "work" for about 8 hours. I added
another 1/2 cup of grape juice over the next 8 hours and then added the starter to the must. The
must was placed in a 3-gallon glass canister. I have used this primary many times and have a "one
gallon" marker taped to it for reference. After 18 hours it showed clear signs of vigorous
fermentation, with about 3/8 inch of foam floating atop the must.
Primary after 18 hours and 23 hours of fermentation
The next morning I awoke to find about a gallon of foam above the must. While this worried me, I
had chores to do and left the house for two hours. By then the foam had risen another couple of
inches and I figured it had reached its apex. I left again and was gone about six hours. When I
returned, the foam had overflowed the canister and made a mess on the countertop and floor. After I
cleaned this up, I put the canister in my largest skillet and it continued to emit foam for three
days. Then the foam started to subside. Now, a week later, the foam is back to around 3/8 inch and
the fermentation is about done, which is very fast for a mead.
Primary after 25 hours and 32 hours of fermentation
As I said before, DV10 is what we once called Epernay, named for a town in the Champagne region
of France where it was isolated. In fact, it is the originally isolated Champagne yeast and one of
the most widely used strains in Champagne. The reason for its long, long popularity is because it
possesses several traits desirable in a wine yeast. It tolerates a wide range of temperatures
(50-85 degrees F.), high SO2, low pH, low volatile acidity, and
low H2S production. It has relatively low nitrogen demands and
gives clean fermentations with roundness, volume, preserved varietal character, and low foam
production. These qualities make it a favorite for premium still varietals, as well as fruit
wines and meads. Finally, because it will tolerate up to 18% alcohol, it is a favorite for clean,
crisp sparkling varietals as well.
Oh, did you notice the low foam production part? So what happened to my pineapple-coconut
juice mead? None of the other three batches started with this yeast produced any noticeable foam at
all. Actually, I have a theory.
Coconut juice is more commonly called coconut water. This is the thin, clear, non-fat liquid
contained in immature coconuts. As the nuts mature, the liquid thickens, clouds and is absorbed
into the gel that becomes the coconut meat. Fully mature nuts contain no liquid inside.
My mead is made from a blend of pineapple juice and coconut water. The coconut water was not
thin and clear, but thicker than water and milky in color. I was careful NOT to buy coconut milk,
as that is made from coconut meat and contains coconut oil. However, considering the color of the
canned coconut juice I obtained, it perhaps was from coconuts that were too mature or had some
coconut milk added for reasons I cannot imagine. But in either case, the juice contained a slight
amount of coconut oil and it is the oil that facilitated the creation of a large amount of foam.
If anyone else has a better theory, please send it to me.
I've been very busy and apologize for my absence. Life happens. Family comes first.
My brother went into surgery three weeks ago for a triple-bypass and came out with a quadruple.
That means his doctors were following the problem instead of following the HMO-preapproved protocol.
If you don't know what that means, you don't know what government-run healthcare means. If you're
clued in, pray we don't follow the path to socialized medical mediocrity. My brother did very well
after the surgery, surrounded by family, home after three days. Wow!
Like me, he is now on a long list of medications. Most will be taken for the rest of his life.
To that list I recommend resveratrol. It comes in several forms and strengths. I prefer Cabernet
Sauvignon, but also take a supplement. It can't hurt.
A friend recently asked me to look at a sugar cane wine many, many months in secondary that still
had a noticeable haze. He thought it was pectin and had added pectic enzyme (pectinase) in stages
to no avail. Although sugar cane is quite fibrous, I could not imagine pectin being the problem.
Also, having researched making sugar cane wine, I remember reading that one of the problems
encountered when processing sugar cane juice to clarity is the presence of starch. Although I did
not bookmark where I found this, I did bookmark an article on problems of starch hydrolysis.
The main problem with sugar cane is that there are some starches that contribute to total sugar
content and some that don't and simply need to be removed. One teaspoon of amylase, a starch enzyme
readily available to most winemakers, will aid in clarification of sugar cane wine by hydrolyzing
starch. One tablespoon of Amylozyme 100 is an alternate treatment. Fining or filtration might be
required to polish the wine.
I recently bottled a two-year old wine and shared some of it at a function of the San Antonio
Regional Wine Guild. The reviews were hugely positive, but my wife and a friend each said they
thought it was "too young." It isn't the pomegranate in the wine that they consider immature; it's
the elderberry.
This wine was made with diluted pomegranate juice to which I added one and one-half pounds of
thawed elderberries that had been frozen several years and forgotten. Of course, sugar, nutrients,
etc. were also added, but the maturity issue derives from the elderberry.
This wine began with a quart of pure pomegranate juice. This is about what I usually use for a
gallon of pomegranate wine. I decided to add elderberries because I found the frozen berries in the
bottom of my chest freezer and there wasn't enough for a gallon of elderberry wine. I normally use
3 to 3.5 pounds of elderberries per gallon of elderberry wine, but have used more. I thought the
elderberries would add complexity to the pomegranate and there I was not wrong. The wine is
delicious, but the bottles may be cellared for two more years. We shall see. Two bottles are screw-
capped, so I can taste minute amounts of the wine from time to time
Pomegranate-Elderberry Wine
1 qt pomegranate juice
1.5 lbs frozen and thawed elderberries
1.5 lbs finely granulated sugar
0.75 tsp pectic enzyme
1.25 tsp yeast nutrient
2 finely crushed Campden tablets
0.5 tsp potassium sorbate
water to 1 gallon
Lalvin RC212 yeast
Bring 1 quart water to boil and dissolve sugar in it. Wearing rubber gloves, inside your primary
pour the thawed elderberries into a nylon straining bag, tie the bag closed and leave the bag in the
primary. Crush the berries where they lie. Pour hot sugared water over berries and allow to steep
30 minutes. Add pomegranate juice, yeast nutrient and water to one gallon. Stir in pectic enzyme
and cover the primary. Wait 8-10 hours and add activated yeast in a starter solution. Stir daily.
After 5 days of vigorous fermentation, put on rubber gloves and remove the nylon straining bag,
squeezing well. Discard spent elderberries, recover the primary and ferment until vigorous
fermentation subsides. Transfer to secondary and attach airlock. After 45 days, rack into clean
secondary into which one finely crushed Campden tablet was scattered. Attach airlock and set aside.
Wait 45 days and rack again. Wait additional 45 days and rack again, dissolving potassium sorbate
and second finely crushed Campden tablet into wine when topping up. Sweeten to taste if desired.
Reattach airlock and bulk age two months before bottling. Cellar at least one year before tasting,
but may require more time. [Author's own recipe]
Resveratrol, my WineBlog archives - scroll down to March 23, 2008 entry
Live to be 150?, same archives - more on resveratrol in the April 6, 2008 entry
Yesterday was the 233rd birthday of the United States of America. I observed it with very mixed
emotions. I had planned for 6-8 months to spend it with one set of friends and instead spent it
with another. We were disappointed that our original plans were derailed, but the alternative
turned out to be very enjoyable as we spent the day with great friends, met some new people, ate
some fabulous barbeque and side dishes, and drank some wonderful wine.
Yesterday I also learned I lost a friend of nearly four decades - a medic from my days in Special
Forces -- to liver failure. Geoff once caught my safety line when I fell while rock climbing in
Colorado, sent me to the hospital when I tore a cartilage in my knee on a parachute landing fall,
and diagnosed a ruptured disc in my back by feel which x-rays later confirmed. I owed him more than I repaid him, and the finality of the imbalance troubles me. We must do more to settle our accounts while we can. My faith assures me Geoff is in a better place and in better company and I trust my faith, but I grieve his passing anyway.
On another note of disappointment and sadness, we drove through several neighborhoods yesterday
and all of us in the car remarked that we had never seen so few American flags flying at residences
on the 4th of July. Why this is so I cannot say and will not speculate, but it does not suggest a
healthy faith in the nation's future. This troubles me deeply.
Some of you know I have suffered two heart attacks. This morning I learned my immediate younger
brother was hospitalized yesterday after suffering shortness of breath his asthma medications did
not resolve. He had suffered a heart attack that will be more accurately diagnosed today. I
am departing from my normal discussions of winemaking to share some concerns dealing with common
symptoms of heart attack.
When I had my first heart attack I exhibited some of several classic symptoms but, through
ignorance, thought I was experiencing something else. When I had my second heart attack I again
experienced several classic symptoms, but they differed from the first episode and I went into
denial for several days; I turned a multiple blockage into congestive heart failure. I should
have known better. I am determined to do my part to help you know better.
Men and women can have several different symptoms of heart attack, but they share some common
classics. There is ample literature out there for you to peruse and I have referenced some of it
following today's blog entry, but if you ignore prudence at least look at the table below. The
information therein could save your life.
Common Heart Attack Symptoms
SYMPTOM
DESCRIPTION
Shortness of breath
Panting for breath or struggling to take deep breaths; symptom may precede chest discomfort.
During my first heart attack I tried repeatedly to take a deep breath without success.
Chest pain or discomfort
Feeling a tight ache, pressure, fullness or squeezing in center of chest lasting more than a few
minutes; may come, go or persist. May feel similar to rising heartburn. During my second heart
attack I thought I had heartburn that persisted for 5 days.
Stomach pain
Pain extending downward into abdominal area. May feel similar to sinking heartburn. During my
second heart attack I was convinced my stomach was full of gas.
Sweating
Sudden-onset of sweating with cold, clammy skin. During my first heart attack I sweated
profusely and thought I was having heat stroke.
Lightheadedness
Dizziness or feeling like you might pass out. During my first heart attack I passed out cold.
Upper body pain
Chest pain or discomfort may spread to shoulders, arms, neck, back, jaw or teeth. Could have
upper body pain without chest discomfort. During my first heart attack my shoulders began to ache.
Anxiety
Feeling a sense of doom or having a panic attack for no apparent reason. I did not experience
this.
Nausea and vomiting
Feeling sick to your stomach and/or vomiting. I did not experience this.
The bottom line is if you experience any of the above, but especially several in concert, seek
immediate emergency medical help. Do not try to diagnose the symptoms yourself. I did that twice
with severe consequences. I encourage everyone to read more. Some of these symptoms are more
likely to be experienced by women than men, but shortness of breath and chest pain are universal red
flags. Read more and be prepared.
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