WINE!

I have been a total slacker with my blog for about 2 years now. Since I am trying to get back into the blogging groove I decided to share my wine making journey.

A couple of years ago I bought my man a wine making kit. It was a box kit that was supposed to be easy to do, had all of the ingredient and directions. We made the wine but had no idea as to what we were doing and ended up with yummy juice! No alcohol in it at all! I finally poured it down the drain. I just can't drink the calories without the alcohol.  I'm not a juice person... just saying :0)

Fast forward to last summer. My good friend moved into a house that has a bad ass peach tree. I picked about 20 pounds of peaches and made wine with them. Since I still had no clue I didn't use as much yeast as I was supposed to and the wine had an odor to it.

It tasted great but it had a terrible bouquet. Desperate to save my first batch of actually drinkable wine I went to the local home-brew supplier and prayed he had an idea on how I could save my wine. He did. I spent a couple of hours pouring the wine through a copper tube to remove the mineral that was causing the smell and the result was ... yummy, great smelling peach wine. I bottled 2 cases of peach wine and gave some of it to friends.

This year I made blackberry wine, apricot wine and 2 different batches of peach wine - 1 sweet, 1 dry. I bottled 2 cases of the blackberry, the apricot is getting bottled this coming weekend, the peach will be bottled in about 4 weeks. I am having a lot of fun making wine!

The blackberry was a bit of a challenge. I used frozen fruit and left it in the fermenter to defrost. The next morning I woke up to a sarcastic note from my son. It said -  Nozzle down = bad, Nozzle to the side = bad, Nozzle Up = Good. I had forgotten to close the nozzle on the fermenter and blackberry juice leaked all over the kitchen floor. Fortunately my 20 year old son was visiting and heard a weird sound. He walked into the kitchen and saw "blood" all over the floor. So what does my kid do... he looks up. My bedroom is over the kitchen. I have no idea why he looked up but it made me laugh when he told me.

My amazing, wonderful kid cleaned up the juice that had leaked onto the floor and closed the nozzle at 3:00 AM! He will never let me forget that. The blackberry wine that I made from those berries had a HIGH alcohol content and tasted like cough syrup. Since it was my second batch of "drinkable" wine I fiddled with it, diluted it a bit and let it sit. I really didn't want to bottle something that I wouldn't drink but I also didn't want to pour 5 gallons of wine down the drain so I procrastinated and let it sit.

I eventually had to either bottle it or toss it because I needed the fermenter for the apricot wine. I tasted the diluted blackberry wine that had been sitting about 3 months longer than it was supposed and it was amazing! I bottled 2 cases of it and love the taste. I can't wait to taste it in another 3 months.

If you haven't made wine I highly recommend it. My man makes beer. He makes really amazing beer. It is a serious process when he makes beer. Once he is done the beer is drinkable but if the recipe is not right the beer isn't great. So far (knock on wood) he has made some really great beers! I make wine. It takes about 1 hour for me to make the wine. Then I let it sit for 5 days, then I removed the fruit and let it sit again. In a few months I drink it. The longer it sits the better it tastes but it is totally drinkable in 6-8 weeks. While my process takes longer, it is much easier. I process the fruit, add then necessary tannins, yeast, energizers, etc... and let it sit. I remove the fruit, add camden tablets to kill any bad bacteria (after fermentation of course) and let it sit. Then I add more camden tablets (just to be safe)bottle it and let it sit. Wine making takes patience but it is easy peasy!

If you have read this far... thank you and welcome back to my magical world.