Wild Wine

This may be the last thing you would think of. After all, the whole point of growing your own fruit and veg is the eating of it, fresh from the plot.

But a surplus at certain times is inevitable. If you’re anything like me, you’ll spend time blanching and freezing, and a year later you’ll be clearing out the freezer, and dumping stuff, because there’s always something fresh to be picked which is more tempting than the frozen alternatives. Am I alone? Does that strike a chord, or is it just me?

Just hold on there. Don’t dump everything. There may yet be an alternative use for some of that frozen surplus. But I am getting ahead of myself here? Bear with me.

It is over thirty years since I first tried my hand at wine-making, so I’m showing my age, though I prefer to consider it as experience.

And like most of us who experimented with the domestic production of alcoholic beverages in our earlier years, my ambitions were firstly to make wine from anything free, or at least very cheap, and secondly to make wine of a strength to achieve maximum effect from minimum consumption.

At long last, I have grown up a bit. These two objectives are no longer primary ones. Far more important is to make palatable wines of good quality, and to make good use of surplus produce.

My days of fermenting tea-bags are long gone, though they were fun at the time. At least I think they were, although to be honest, after all this time it is only the mornings after I ruefully remember.

But I do remember the youthful days before I became addicted to gardening. I remember fighting with wild blackberries, and losing. I remember shedding more blood than the brambles shed juice. And I remember skimming the fermented maggots off the top of the brew, having second thoughts, and pouring all of the hard work down the toilet.

Such is the life of a wild wine-maker. These days, I have a more balanced view. I am not prepared to shed blood for wine, nor am I prepared to waste time on a brew so disgusting it ends up as a drain cleaner, albeit quite an effective one.

But I do enjoy a glass or two. And I enjoy it even more if it has put my surplus to a good use, and has cost me almost nothing.

Wine-making is like pruning. It scares people, and it shouldn’t. In both cases, the simple approach works 90% of the time. The other ten percent is for aficionados and devotees, of which I am neither.

So let’s get down to business. There are three things you might be tempted to make wine from. Flowers, fruits and roots.

In the flower category I would recommend rose petals (the more scented the better, but Rosa rugosa is excellent), honeysuckle, hawthorn blossom, dandelion and elderflower. If you are itching to begin early in the year, your best bet – and perhaps your only option – is Ulex europaeus, the common Gorse. In these climatically-challenged days, it seems to flower throughout the winter, and is usually flowering profusely in March, even here in the far north. It is certainly the earliest option for the wine-maker. It is as user-friendly as the bramble, so be prepared to bleed. But it does make a nice dessert wine, if your taste is on the sweet side.

For all flower wines, you can, if you wish, forget citric acid and grape juice concentrate. You don’t really need that artificial stuff. And don’t worry about quantities, either. Good books advise “a quart of petals, lightly pressed”, or “a gallon of blooms”. Gather what you have. It is an art, not a science. The juice of one lemon per gallon replaces the citric acid, and 250g of sultanas or raisins replaces the grape juice concentrate, all preferably organically produced. I do not claim to be wholly organic, but my heart is in the right place. And I eschew chemicals in my wine-making, if I possibly can.

For the fruit category my suggestions would be elderberry, blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry, raspberry, apple and strawberry. A great bonus with soft fruits is that they can be combined if you don’t have enough of one. Strawberry and redcurrant, for example has been particularly successful for me. And the soft fruits you have frozen are equally suitable. As I said above, don’t dump everything when you clear out your freezer. All frozen soft fruits work for wine. Indeed, some contend that frozen soft fruit makes better wine than fresh. I’m on the fence on that one, but I have made some very drinkable brews from frozen strawberries and rasps. The important thing with frozen soft fruits is, don’t defrost them, just use the frozen lump. For all fruit wines, fresh or frozen, you don’t need lemons or raisins. The only techy thing you need for fruit is pectolytic enzyme, or Pectolase, because most fruits contain pectins which produce a haze in wine. Pectolase destroys those pectins, and allows the wine to clear. Pectolytic enzyme is organically derived, or should be – check with your supplier.

The root category is easy. Don’t bother unless you fancy a gamble. Beetroot wine will produce a great colour, but will taste of beetroot. Parsnip wine will remain cloudy from now until eternity, and please don’t be tempted to buy filters and finings from online suppliers. It won’t help, and you’ll waste good money. I don’t bother with root vegetables because they make wines which taste of root vegetables. Need I say more?

My purpose here is to explode the myths and remove the mysteries surrounding home wine-making. Yes, there are difficult ingredients which need specialised tactics. But you don’t have to go there if you don’t want to. Stick with the easy ingredients, and if you want to experiment in the future, fine. But that’s for another year. Begin with the basics.

A good selection of wines can be produced by using only two simple recipes, one for flower wines, and the other for fruit. We are ignoring root vegetables, as I said above. The process and the equipment is the same for both flowers and fruit.

Flowers

Allow approximately a quart (a litre) of blossom (petals, or florets trimmed from stalks) per gallon (4.5 litres). For larger volumes, just increase all quantities pro-rata. Use a measuring jug to collect your flowers, but don’t worry too much about quantities. It is not critical. Stuff them in a muslin straining bag, along with half a pound (250g) of raisins or sultanas. Place the bag in a fermentation bin, or big white plastic bucket, and add a bag of sugar. Never worry about the quantity of sugar. One bag per gallon will almost always be right. Most recipes are over-sugared, and if your wine is too dry, you can add a little sugar later. Boil the kettle, repeatedly, until you have added boiling water to just over the one gallon mark. Stir to dissolve the sugar, and go and have a coffee..

Linger over your coffee until the last sip is cold. By that time your bucket contents should have dropped to room temperature. I don’t really care what temperature your room is, it will be close enough. As I  say, this is more of an art than a science.

Extract the juice of one lemon, and add. I always prefer real lemon to citric acid, but a level teaspoon of the latter will do. Dissolve one teaspoon of yeast nutrient in half a cup of tepid water. Add a level teaspoon of grape tannin. Stir to dissolve, and add to the bucket. Sprinkle a general purpose wine yeast on the surface. (GP yeast sachets usually contain enough for five gallons, but if you are making one, don’t use a fifth. Use at least a third. This is the only ingredient which you do not calculate pro-rata. Once again, this is art.)

Leave it fifteen or twenty minutes. Have another coffee.

Stir viciously, then put the lid back on. Keeping the air out is important.

Stir daily for three, four or five days, depending on your mood. Chill out, it doesn’t really matter.

When you have decided it is time, pull out the straining bag and squeeze it with all your strength. Twist it and screw it to extract every last drop.

Transfer the brew to a demi-john, fit an airlock, and put it in the airing cupboard or by a radiator. Now you need to have patience. The good books suggest two or three months. The ingredients I am suggesting here, in my experience, will ferment out in four to six weeks in an average summer temperature, with no artificial heat.

When the airlock stops bubbling, pour some into a trial jar, and insert your hydrometer. Spin it to get rid of air bubbles, which can affect the reading. Techies are obsessed with hydrometer readings, and I must confess I don’t always use one. But I include it here because it is a simple test of whether your fermentation has worked, or is stuck.

If your reading is less than 1000, the sugars have converted to alcohol, and you are on your way. If you don’t have a hydrometer, just have a wee taste. If it’s dry, it has worked. If it’s sweet, put it back in the airing cupboard or by the radiator. It will restart, nine time out of ten. Our forefathers didn’t have hydrometers, but they managed. Trust your instincts.

Once you are confident fermentation has stopped, rack it.

Racking is simply using a siphon tube to shift the contents of one demi-john to another, without disturbing the sediment. The sediment contains dead yeast, and can contaminate wine with off-flavours and other nasties. Always err on the safe side when racking, and leave and discard not only the obvious sediment, but the swirly, cloudy stuff which comes up at the end. Make up the level in your new demi-john with tap-water. I realise the purists are having heart attacks here, because the good books tell you that you should only ever top up with the same solution. But who in the real world actually ferments out a pint of wine in a plastic juice bottle with a cotton-wool plug in parallel with the main fermentation, in order to have the same solution top up with? Great-Grandpa didn’t, did he?  I certainly don’t. Tap water is fine.

Once racked, keep the demi-john in a warm place for a day or two, to make sure the fermentation has finished. If the airlock stops blowing bubbles, it has finished. Move it to a cooler room, or even a shed or outbuilding, to clear. Be aware, though, that while some wines clear quickly, others will take many months. Don’t worry. This is normal. If it still looks like soup after six months, you may be in trouble, but I’m not going to be drawn into the aficionado side of things here. Just leave it a while longer and have patience. The majority of wines will clear of their own accord eventually.

Once it is clear, bring it back into the warmth again for a day or two, to make sure the fermentation doesn’t restart. Once you are satisfied it has definitely stopped, you can bottle it safely.

Fruit

For most fruits, around 1 1/2kg, or 3lb, per gallon is about right. But there is quite a bit of leeway. Put the fruit in a straining bag, then into the fermentation bin. If you are using fruit from the freezer, as I said above, don’t defrost it. Just put the lump in the straining bag. Add a bag of sugar per gallon, and pour on boiling water to make up to slightly above the desired level. Allow it to cool to room temperature, then add pectolytic enzyme (Pectolase) at one teaspoon per gallon, dissolved first in half a cup of tepid water.

Stir daily for two or three days. Then add yeast and nutrient.

That’s the only difference from the recipe for flower wines. The rest is absolutely as per the recipe above. The pectolytic enzyme process is the only major difference, although with fruit I omit the sultanas and tannin. The citric acid/lemon juice is optional.

Bulky fruits like apples can be put straight in the bucket, if you don’t have a giant size straining bag. When the time comes to transfer it to a demi-john, I invert a muslin bag over a large funnel placed in the demi-john, and transfer it carefully, a jug-full at a time. Squeeze periodically to make sure you extract all the juice.

A final thought – bottling is not only a tedious process, it is very wasteful of resources. When you produce a really nice wine, bottle and label it, for sharing with friends.

But country wines are best consumed young. Don’t believe all you hear about keeping your elderberry for three years or more. It will probably taste like vinegar.

Most country wines deteriorate in the bottle. I only bottle a select few. The rest I decant from the demi-john into plastic juice bottles, and stick them in the fridge. Even if it was still a wee bit cloudy in the demi-john, you’d be surprised how clear and drinkable it is after an hour or two in the fridge.

I realise I may have upset some wine-making purists with this article. But this is my personal approach to home-made wine, and it works for me. There is no reason why it cannot also work for you.

Strawberry Wine, step by step.

01 It is a crime not to eat the best fruit. Berries of jam quality will make perfectly good wine.

02 Wash, husk and chop fruit, and weigh it. About 2 1/2 lbs will do. If you are short of strawberries, make the quantity up with other soft fruit, but remember quantities are flexible.

03 Transfer the fruit to a straining bag.

04 Put a bag/1kg/2lb of sugar into a fermentation bin for one gallon of wine. For larger volumes, just scale up the quantities pro-rata.

05 Add the fruit to the bucket, including any juice which may have drained from it in the meantime. Don’t waste a precious drop!

06 Add boiling water to make up to just over a gallon. It is wise to exceed the volume at this stage by about 10%, to allow for the solids which will later be discarded. This means you have less volume to make up with water at a later stage.

07 Stir it all vigorously to ensure all the sugar is dissolved.

08 Fit the lid, or cover securely to exclude air-borne bacteria, and place the bucket in a warm place. Once at room temperature, add yeast and nutrient.

09 After a week or ten days, transfer to demijohns and keep in a warm place to continue fermentation. Rack after a couple of weeks.

10 Once fermentation has stopped, transfer to bottles if you can resist the temptation to drink it straight away!

11 Enjoy the finished product with friends if it turns out well. If something has gone wrong and it is vile, you can always give a bottle to your bank manager at Christmas!

© Mike Clark 2008

Published in Organic Gardening March 2008