Wine Making Recipes

This page of wine recipes are provided by some of our friends and some extracts from other wine sites, for which we are extremely grateful. Why not give them a try? If you have a recipe you'd like us to post it, please send it and we will publish it!

 

The Principal kinds of Wine:

Red Wine     This is a wine made from red/black grapes in which the skins of the grapes are retained during the initial fermentation process.

Rosé Wine     This is a second form of wine made from red/black grapes in which the skins are removed either immediately or after only a few days' fermentation.

White Wine     This is a wine made from white grapes where the wine skins are removed from the must almost immediately.

Fruit Wine     This is a wine made from any fruit apart from grapes. Common fruit used are apples, cherries, elderberries, but any fruit with a good sugar content can be used. Fruit wine is also sometimes known as 'country' wine.

Jug Wine

"This is the first wine I ever made. It's a very easy recipe. Great for a first-timer!"

Ingredients:
2 cans frozen 100% grape juice
1 gallon distilled water
3 ½ cups sugar
1 package yeast
1 glass gallon jug
1 punching balloon

Directions:

1. Thaw grape juice and put in sterilized glass jug.
2. Warm distilled water to 110 degrees Fahrenheit and dissolve sugar in water.
3. Add yeast and mix well.
4. Using a funnel pour water/sugar yeast mixture into jug until about 1 inch from top.
5. Rinse inside of balloon.
6. Stretch balloon over bottle and tape it securely.
7. Put in a warm dark place; be sure to give room for the balloon to expand. It will get quite large.
8. After 30 days (or longer if you like) remove balloon and carefully strain wine with cheesecloth into another jug.
9. Enjoy!!!!

Grapefruit Wine

Ingredients
5 large West Indian grapefruits (preferably from the Dominican Republic!)
3 ½ pounds brown sugar
2 tablespoon concentrated tea liquid (Tetley, Red Rose, Typhoo, etc.)
1 Imperial gallon water
1 pound dried raisins
1 package yeast

Directions

1. Extract juice from grapefruits into a sterile container.
2. Place sugar into water and boil until completely dissolved and allow to cool down to approximately 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Add grapefruit juice, raisins and tea and place all in a properly sterilized fermentation vessel and add the yeast.
4. Place fermentation trapping device and allow to ferment for six weeks. After six weeks, rack, i.e. syphon off the clear wine from the bottom sediment into bottles, cork and place them horizontally allowing at least least four weeks for the anaerobic or secondary fermentation process.

Elderberry Wine Recipe

Ingredients
3 lb elderberries (remove the stalks)
3 lb sugar
l lemon
l lb rasins (could use sultanas)
½ ounce of yeast

Directions
To remove the berries from the stalks, use a fork.
Put berries in a sanitized bucket and pour on gallon of boiling water. Mash the berries against the side of the bucket then put in the raisins. Cover and leave for 3 or 4 days. Strain and tip the liquid back into bucket; add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Squeeze the lemon and add all the juice (to get the most juice from your lemon, cut it in half and put in microwave for 30 seconds). Sprinkle on the yeast. Cover for 3 days, strain again and pour wine into demijohn. Fix airlock and leave until bubbling completely stops (I left mine for about 5 months). Strain and bottle off. The wine could be ready to drink in about 4 months (if too young leave it for much longer). Has a lovely red color.

Strawberry/Rhubarb Mead

Ingredients:
4 lb. or 64 oz. of clover honey
1 lb. frozen rhubarb
1 lb. frozen strawberries
3 tsp. of citric acid
1 tsp. of yeast nutrient
4-5 drops of pectic enzyme
potassium sorbate
sparkalloid wine clarifier
1 gallon glass apple cider/type jug
airlock

Directions:

1. Bring 1 ½- 2 qts. water to boil in large pan.
2. Add 3 lb. or 48 oz. of clover honey, stirring right away to keep it from the bottom. Stir until boiling, simmer on low heat for 20-30 minutes.
3. Add one pound each of frozen strawberries and diced rhubarb, and simmer an additional ½ hour.
4. Let sit overnight to cool and extract flavor.
5. Pour mixture through a screen of some sort or cheese cloth into another container.
6. Pour mixture into your glass jug, to the level of the neck.
7. Add the citric acid, yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme.
8. Rehydrate your yeast in 95-100 degree water (Fahrenheit) for 15-20 minutes, and add to your mixture in jug.
9. Cap and shake well to dissolve the ingredients added
10. Remove cap, and fit some cheesecloth with a rubber band over the opening, or an airlock with a cotton ball covering the opening.

The must will take 1-2 days to start fermenting; wait until the vigorous fermentation has taken place (the froth will disappear after about a week), then fit with an airlock so that the anaerobic fermentation will occur. Rack each time you notice a firm sediment building up on the bottom of the jug. Take this opportunity to add the additional 12 oz of honey; this will feed the fermentation at a slower pace, but will allow for a higher alcoholic content of the finished wine. After about 3-4 months, fermentation will be negligible to nonexistent; at this time kill the yeast to stop fermentation with potassium sorbate. This is also a good time to add sparkalloid, to clear the wine and allow all sediment suspended to form a sludge at the bottom of the jar. After you have killed the fermentation, let the jug sit for a good 3 weeks to a month, and very carefully siphon the wine off of the sediment into 750 ml bottles and cork. I can usually get 4 bottles out of a jug after racking the good stuff off of the sediment. Age for at least 8 months, the longer the better, although what I sampled at bottling was excellent.

Old Style Dandelion Wine

Ingredients
2 quarts of dandelion flowers (no stem on flowers)
One gallon boiling water
Juice of two lemons
2 ½ lb. granulated sugar

Directions
Use 4 quarts boiling water to scald the flowers in an earthen crock. Let stand for 24 hours. Cover the crock with a cloth. Squeeze or strain juice through a clean muslin bag but not too hard. Let it drip out until most is all dry then squeeze not too hard or your wine will be bitter. Add juice of two lemons to one gallon of juice and 2 ½ lb. of granulated sugar. Put sugar in the glass jugs before you add the lemon juice and flower juice. Set in the sun to ferment until you see no more bubbles in the jugs and the bees stop coming. When the juice overflows at the top of the jugs, add water to fill up whenever it's overflowed. Add the clear water to the top of jug when you see no more bubbles. Takes about 2 ½ to three months to ferment. Strain through a muslin bag and put in clean jugs and seal tight. I put a small piece of muslin over the top neck of jugs and a stone on top to keep out the bugs while fermenting.

P.S. As the water evaporates at the top neck of jug, add fresh cold water to make sure the neck is full. You have to fill this once or twice a week if the sun is very hot, as you need hot sun to make good dandelion wine.

 

Blackcurrant Mead

Ingredients:

3l unchlorinated water
2.7kg honey
1kg fresh blackcurrants boiled until soft with 3kg honey and 2l water
pared zest of 2 oranges
4 tsp yeast nutrient
6 tsp pectic enzyme
Yeast (Epernay II is good but champagne yeast would also work)

Method:

As with most of the other recipes here, this has been gauged to make 5l of mead. Only a basic listing of ingredients is given, and for a brewing method please see here for a step-by-step mead brewing guide . Also I have a list of brewing materials you will need if you've never tried mead making before.

Prepare the blackcurrants by boiling in with 3kg honey and 2l water until the fruit 'pop' and soften. In a separate pan combine the 3l unchlorinated water and 2.7kg honey. When the honey has dissolved mix in the blackcurrant mixture. Stir-in the orange zest and yeast nutrient then pour into your fermenting bucket. Cover and allow to cool to room temperature then stir-in the pectic enzyme and set aside for 12 hours.
Add the yeast and cover then set aside in a warm place to ferment for about 8 days, stirring every day until vigourous fermentation subsides. Remove the nylon bag at this time (but make certain you squeeze any liquid from it into the fermenting bucket before discarding.

Strain the liquid into a demijohn then make up to 5l with more water. Fit a bung and a fermentation lock and leave to ferment in a warm, dark, place for between 60 and 90 days (or until all fermentation has stopped. Rack the wine ino a second fermentation jar, add a bung and a fermentation lock and set aside for 45 days. Rack once more into a clean demijohn and set aside in a cool, dark, place for 45 days more, or until clarified. Rack the mead into bottles and cork securely then lay the bottles down in a cool place and allow to mature for at least 6 months. This mead, however, will age and develop over 2 years if you can leave it that long.

Apple Wine

Apple Wine is a classic Ancient method to form a fruit wine based on apples. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic traditional version of an Apple Wine.

Ingredients:

11kg windfall apples
2kg granulated sugar
tartaric acid (if required)
5l of unchlorinated water
1 tsp pectic enzyme
2 tsp yeast nutrient
Yeast (Sauterne is good but champagne yeast would also work)

Preparation:

Collect a mixture of apples and ensure that sour varieties predominate and avoid sweet eating varieties. Crab apples, Bramleys and Cox's are all excellent. Chop the apples into very small pieces and place them in your fermentation vessel before adding the pectic enzyme and water. Here the water will probably not cover the apples, so stir several times a day to ensure that the apples are mixed. After 24 hours check the acidity with your acid titration kit and adjust to 0.5 by adding tartaric acid. Now add the yeast nutrient and the yeast. Cover with a cheesecloth and place in a warm site for about ten days, still stirring several times a day. When When the vigourous fermentation of the pulp subsides, strain the juice from the pulp and set aside. Place the remaining pulp in a nylon straining bag and either press or squeeze the juice from the pulp and add to the set-aside liquor. Measure 1.7kg of sugar per 5l of liquid and pout into your sterile secondary fermentation jar. Pour the apple liquor over this, and fit with a sterile bung and fermentation lock. Allow to ferment and settle for at least ten days then rack when clear into your second fermentation jar. Fit a bung and fermentation lock and leave for two months. At this point your apple wine is ready to rack and bottle.
Once corked, leave in a cool dry place for at least six months before tasting or one year for best results.