IO Zinfandel Bottled
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
Our third batch of wine is complete. We bottled up a white zinfandel which really has a very pink color. Wendy is working on the new label as I post this.
Our third batch of wine is complete. We bottled up a white zinfandel which really has a very pink color. Wendy is working on the new label as I post this.
6 comments:
Very Nice! Hope the wine turns out well! I know you guys are out in the desert but are there dandelions out there? We started a batch of dandelion wine last weekend here in Michigan.
How do you pronounce IO?
we have dandelions and they're in bloom right now. do you have recipe you'd like to share?
IO is pronounced "eye-oh"
It's the name of Jupiter's moon.
Here's the basic recipe we used for dandelions:
6-8 quarts of dandelion flowers (pick them and twist the heads to remove them from the stem and small "ball" at the base of the flower. Basically remove as much of the green stuff as possible)
3 lbs sugar
Champagne yeast
Yeast nutrient
2 Lemons
4 small oranges (maybe two or three big ones)
Steep the flowers in 4 cups of boiling water. We put them in a nylon mesh bag for this. Dissolve sugar in 12 cups of water and add to fermenter. Add the juice lemons and oranges to the fermenter along with the yeast and yeast nutrient (this makes a 1 gallon batch, so follow the directions on the yeast for that quantity). Fair warning - it's going to look and smell funky. It has almost a vegetable-like aroma.
After a week or so when initial fermentation dies down (the smell should be much improved at this point) remove the bag containing the blossoms and rack into secondary fermenter. Leave it for a couple months and then bottle it. I've read that it takes about a year to mellow out.
This is my first time making dandelion wine, so I don't know quite what to expect, but the aroma and color seems very nice. Friends of mine who have actually had it before are all clamoring to get some, so it must be pretty good stuff. So much so that I might try and make another batch of it soon.
We really enjoyed making something out of the bounty of the earth that just springs up in our yard and that most people consider a weed.
Smell funky is right.
My grandfather used to make dandelion wine, and once when I was a kid, he cracked the container for me to get a look at it. The smell was terrible, like rotting radicchio and celery. A very green smell if one can use color to describe scent.
He laughed his butt off at my reaction, he knew I'd do that, the sneaky old coot. Heh heh.
As a result, however I tend to recall that smell when presented with dandelion wine, so I have a psychosomatic aversion to it.
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