Category Archives: Country Wine

Wine from apples, rhubarb, herbs, cherries, or anything else except grapes

Tomato Wine: Gold Nugget tomato’s first flower

Leave a reply

I noticed the first flower among my gold nugget tomatoes a few days ago, and that marks another milestone on the path toward tomato wine.


A single five pointed yellow flower, the only one of its cluster that is blooming, stands out from the green foliage of this Gold Nugget tomato - 6/21/07


I took this photo on 6/21/07, and since then one or two other flowers have bloomed. These tomatoes are a lot more patient than I am. I’ve done my part. I tended them as seedlings, I transplanted them, and now its up to them. They’ve got flowers to open. They’ve got fruit to ripen! What are they waiting for?

Bottling Day

Leave a reply

I bottled four 1-gallon batches, three meads and an apple wine, yesterday.

2005 Apple Wine

I harvested 13 lb of Liberty apples from my backyard, in 2005, and turned them, along with a gallon of Trader Joe’s Gravestein apple juice, into a batch of apple wine. It’s got a rich golden color, a wonderful aroma, and it’s very smooth with just a hint of apple.

My first mead – with genuine Costco honey!

The meads were each a little different. One of them was part of the first batch of mead I ever made. The fermentation stuck at SG = 1.030, and it was three years old in February 2006. I decided to split the batch, stabilizing and bottling half as a sweet mead, and oaking the other half. It began to ferment again after I racked it onto the oak chips, and by the time I bottled yesterday it was a dry oaked mead that’ll be five years old in February. Even though it was dry (SG = 1.000), it had a lively sweet taste to it, possibly because of the high alcohol content (about 14%, by volume). The aroma was wonderful and powerful.

A mead like Brother Adam used to make

I made the next mead the way Brother Adam made his. He was a monk at Buckfast Abbey, famous for keeping (and breeding) honeybees and making mead. His method was to make it in large batches and age in oak casks for 7 years. He used soft (distilled or rain) water and a mild honey, like clover. He aimed for a lower alcohol content than most – about 8 or 9% ABV – and shunned most additives, though he often used cream of tartar and, for dry meads, “a little” citric acid. He boiled the honey-water mixture for 1-2 minutes and fermented cool (65F – 70F) with a pure yeast culture like Madeira or Malaga.

I didn’t have an oak cask handy (or the honey to fill it, or the space to store it, or …), and I have seen the inside of a rain barrel. So I used tap water and fermented in a plastic pail. I decided that 0.5 tsp = “a little” citric acid for a 1-gallon batch, and I added 1 tsp of cream of tartar. 2 lb of clover honey brought the SG to 1.074, which at about 10% potential alcohol, was slightly higher than the 8-9% I was aiming for. I boiled the honey-water mixture for about a minute and fermented cool with Côte des Blances yeast (I had never heard of Madeira or Malaga). So far, it has aged for a little over 3 years, including 9 months on oak chips. I don’t think I’ll be able to wait seven years!

I thought I could smell, not taste, the oak in this one. It was smooth and I enjoyed it.

A wine-like mead

The last batch of mead was the most wine-like of the lot, and the only one I didn’t oak. I started this one in March 2004 with clover honey from The Honey Store. I added tannin and tartaric acid to make a dry mead with 12% alcohol. The aroma was distinct from the other two; I would say “fresher” and I thought there was a hint of sweetness in the taste.

So now I’ve got twenty bottles of four different wines and meads to enjoy. Time to stop writing and start sipping!

White Wine From Tomatoes!

Leave a reply

Different for a reason: Why I’ll make it white

When most people think about tomato wine, they – ok, most people don’t think about tomato wine, but if they did they would – think about red wine. It’s the same way with cherry wine, and just as I wrote about white cherry wine a few days ago, I’m going to make the case for white tomato wine today.

Since I’ve neither made nor tasted tomato wine before, I’m a little concerned about the taste. If there are objectionable flavors, then I think they’re most likely to come from the skin and pulp. A white wine is just fermented juice, so that would avoid the flavor compounds, good or bad, in the skins. As for the pulp, I’d want to stay away from sauce tomatoes, like Romas. In the end, I chose to make a clean dry white from Gold Nugget tomatoes. Gold Nugget is a cherry tomato with yellow/orange skin and yellow flesh that’s a reliable producer in this climate.

How to make it: Good fruit, balanced acid, and the right amount of alcohol

I have ten vines in the ground, and I don’t know how big a harvest to expect. I’ll pick each tomato when it’s ripe and put the day’s harvest right into the freezer. It won’t come in all at once, though, so I’ll store the fruit until the harvest is complete. That’s not the only thing about tomatoes that’s different from grapes. Tomatoes are about 95% water, by weight, compared to 80% for grapes.

The dominant acid in tomatoes is citric, rather than tartaric. I haven’t been able to find information on the acidity of tomato juice, but if the TA is low, then I’ll have to add acid to the must. In that case, I can choose one, or a combination, of the three major organic acids found in most fruit: citric, malic, and tartaric. Winemakers always use tartaric acid for any additions to conventional grape wine, but there are two schools of thought for acid additions to non-grape wine. The first approach is to use the dominant acid in the fruit. In the case of tomato wine, that would be citric. Another idea is to use a complementary acid. That is, instead of the dominant acid, add one of the other two. So I could use either malic or tartaric with this method. Should I need to acidify, I’ll probably use tartaric. I think it’ll make the a wine a little more familiar by giving it a bit of conventional white wine character. Also, I understand that citric acid can make the wine more vulnerable to vinegar spoilage and that malic can be harsher than the other two.

There will be a lot less sugar in the tomato juice, than in grape juice. I understand 5-8 degrees brix is common, so I’ll be adding sugar. It’s pretty straightforward to find out how much sugar to add for a given amount of alcohol. The question is, how much alcohol should I target? I often aim for 12% alcohol, by volume, in my wines and meads. That would be about 22 brix and a specific gravity of 1.090. Some research, by the late Dr Kime of Cornell, suggests that fruit wine (I’ve never liked that term – grapes aren’t fruit?) is better below 10.5% alcohol. There isn’t a whole lot of research into non-grape wine, so when a little bit come along, I pay attention. I’m leaning towards 10% alcohol for my tomato wine (18-19 brix, SG = 1.075). I’ve still got some blanks to fill in, but I’m getting a pretty good “big picture” idea of how I’ll make my white tomato wine.

Thinking about the next step

If this is a success, then I can continue investigating tomato wine. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I can see a red tomato wine next year. Red wine is all about the skins, and smaller fruit has more skin, pound for pound, than larger fruit. That’s why wine grapes are a lot smaller than the table grapes in the grocery store. So I would need cherry or grape tomatoes, for red wine, with deep dark color. I wonder if there are any dark colored small tomatoes that do well in this climate? I don’t know, but if my white tomato wine is a winner, then I’ve got plenty more to think about!

Update 12/22/2007: I finally did it!

The acidity of tomato juice is low, and I added tartaric acid just as I planned. I changed my mind about targeting a low alcohol level, and decided that my first tomato wine should be a more “normal” 12% alcohol. You can read all the details here.

Montmorency Cherry

Leave a reply

When selecting my cherry trees, I was thinking in terms of making red and white wine from sweet and tart cherries. I need clear juice to make white cherry wine and red/black skins to make red cherry wine. That means at least four different cherry trees: two tart and two sweet, and at least one of each has to have clear juice. Montmorency is the tart cherry with clear juice, making it an amorelle type. Since it has red skin, I’ll be able to make red wine as well. That means I could have managed with just three trees and skipped the tart cherry with red juice. I don’t know of any dark skinned sweet cherries with clear juice, so I still needed two sweet cherry trees.

White Wine From Cherries?

4 Replies

Isn’t cherry wine is supposed to be red?

I mentioned white cherry wine in passing here, but most people think of cherry wine as a red. The only commercial cherry wine I’ve tried is a red – crushed, fermented on the skins, then pressed. Every recipe I’ve seen involves either fermenting on the skins or fermenting red juice. When I first made cherry wine, last year, I wanted to make it like a conventional grape wine rather than a “country wine” (4-6 lb of fruit per gallon, with added water, sugar, and acid). I made a red cherry wine. In fact, it never occurred to me that I might make a white.

So why a white cherry wine?

There’s a story about white Zinfandel, and how difficult it was to get it accepted. Reviewers reviewed harshly and judges judged skeptically because everyone knew than Zinfandel was supposed to be red. Eventually this new white was judged on it merits and has become a popular wine. Now, I’m not sure if this story is actually true (anyone out there know?), and I don’t even drink white Zin, but why not a white cherry?

How do you make white cherry wine?

Two of the cherry trees I grow, Montmorency and White Gold, will produce fruit with clear juice. I was looking for that specifically, because I wanted to make white wine from them. The idea is to keep the process as close as possible to a conventional white wine from grapes. Crush and press the fruit, adjust the sugar and acidity of the juice, then pitch the yeast. I’m open to diluting with water if the acidity is too high, but I’m hoping that won’t be necessary. I’m also willing to be flexible about what “too high” is. If the acid profile looks like Riesling, I may just treat it like one rather than “correct” it to more normal levels. If I get enough fruit from each tree, I’d like to ferment them separately. That way I can see how each tastes on its own, then try different blends. Plenty of ideas, not enough cherries!

Surefire Cherry

1 Reply

Surefire is one of four cherry trees growing in my bonsai orchard, and the only one that will produce fruit, if just a handful, this year. It’s a tart cherry with red skin, flesh, and juice; I can’t wait to make red cherry wine and liqueur from it.


Surefire cherry fruiting on 5/30/07. The young cherry is green with some dried flower petals still visible.

I bought the tree this year, so I wasn’t expecting fruit. That little tree gave me a terrific surprise though! I took the above photo at the end of May, and it shows the young cherries, still green, with some of the flower petals visible. By June 12, the fruit began to change color. I never imagined that I’d be so excited about five or six cherries!


Surefire cherry fruit changing color on 6/12/07


You can see the color change in the above photo, and that will get the birds just as excited as I am. I think I should have first crack at them, so I’ll be putting up bird netting soon.

Why I Picked The Surefire Cherry Tree

I wanted both sweet and tart cherries because wanted to see how different cherry wine, made from sweet cherries, is from tart cherry wine. Of the tart cherries, I wanted both morello (red flesh and red juice) and amorelle (yellow flesh and clear juice) types. I plan to make white cherry wine from the amorelles and red wine from the morellos. Surefire is a morello type of tart cherry that is productive and bears at a young age. It also has some resistance to cracking and bacterial canker, two of the three problems cherries face in western Washington. There’s only one solution for the third problem, birds, and that’s netting.

Oregano Wine Recipe: Daily stirring

Leave a reply

Oregano wine in it's 2-gallon glass jar after stirring. It is translucent with a golden color and looks completely still. Here’s a photo of the oregano wine I started the other day. It was quite frothy just after I stirred it, but the bubbles subsided before I could capture the image. I stir for two reasons: During the first day, I want to incorporate oxygen into the fermenting wine to help the yeast grow. Later, I stir to keep the yeast in suspension. If I didn’t do this, the yeast might settle near the bottom, quickly consume the nearby sugar, then start to go dormant.

Oregano Wine Recipe

16 Replies

And you thought tomato wine sounded strange! Years ago I started an oregano bush from seed. Each year I harvest a little for cooking, but it’s huge and most of it goes to waste. What’s a winemaker to do? Use this recipe from Terry Garey’s Joy of Home Wine Making, my first winemaking book. It’s a great way to start – it’s how I got started – making your own wine.

Ingredients

4-6 cups (1-1.5 liters), packed lightly, of fresh herbs
1 gallon (3.785 liters) water
3 lb (1.4 kg) sugar or 3.5 lb (1.6 kg) honey
1 tsp (5 grams) yeast nutrient
0.125 tsp (0.3 grams) tannin
3 tsp (15 grams) acid blend
sulfite to 50 ppm (equivalent to 1 campden tablet)
wine yeast

Equipment

Initially, you will need a fermenter, hydrometer, thermometer, stirring spoon, measuring spoons, and a couple of pots. Later, we’ll use a gallon jug, a racking cane, some siphon hose, and pH papers.

Procedure

Simmering Oregano
Start by sanitizing the clean equipment by immersion in boiling water or sanitizing solution. Harvest about 6 cups (about 1.5 liters), lightly packed, of oregano. Then remove dead leaves and any other plants that have gotten mixed in. After a quick rinse in cold water, place the oregano in a 2 quart (2 liter) saucepan, add 1 quart (1 liter) water, and bring to a simmer. As soon as it started simmering, take it off the heat and let sit for 1-2 hours. In the meantime, I dissolve the sugar in boiling water.

Pouring the oregano infused water through a strainerStrain the oregano and add the sugar water. Next, I dissolve the tannin and nutrient in water and add to the fermenter. Wait until fermentation is complete before adding the acid because the pH could drop too much during fermentation and inhibit the yeast. Finally, I add 1 tsp of sulfite solution (equivalent to 1 campden tablet).

Always take a hydrometer reading before pitching the yeast. I recorded a specific gravity of 1.108 @ 82 Fahrenheit (about 28 Celsius) when I made this recipe. My hydrometer is calibrated to work at 60F (15.5C), and I adjusted for the higher temperature with a lookup table. The adjusted SG was 1.110, so the potential alcohol was 15%. I thought it might turn out to be high, but I like to follow recipes closely the first time. I’ll probably cut the sugar and aim for and SG of 1.090 (12% alcohol) the next time.

At this point, turn if over to the yeast. Once fermentation subsides, rack the wine to an airlocked glass jug. When fermentation is complete (check with a hydrometer), add the acid.

Tomato Wine: Transplanted some more last night

Leave a reply

I transplanted more Gold Nugget tomatoes last night, six more to what I’m calling the “east block.” That’s to distinguish them from the four in the “north block” that I transplanted on the 29th. I did it the same way: deep planting hole, pinched out the lower leaves, added a ground up antacid tablet and some homebrew organic fertilizer. So far so good. The north block tomatoes showed no signs of transplant shock at all.

Gold Nugget tomatoes transplanted to the east block

In the photo, it’s hard to see all six Gold Nugget tomatoes, but the stem of the sixth one is just visible on the left side. The row of plants in the front of the tomatoes, the ones that look like onions, are onions (a man’s gotta eat too). So my tomato vineyard is a reality, with 10 vines in the ground! I’ve still got two in pots that I’m not sure what to do with.

Tomato Wine: Transplanted yesterday

2 Replies

I’ve been reading up on blossom end rot, and it turns out that there may be something to the old (I would have called it a “wive’s tale”) practice of putting some powdered antacid in the planting hole of each tomato. The rot is caused by a calcium deficiency in the fruit, and the calcium chloride in antacid tablets might be just the thing my tomatoes need.

Antacid tablet in a bowl ready to be ground up and added to the tomato's planting hole

So each tomato got one ground up antacid tablet. I mixed it, and a handful of my homebrew organic fertilizer, into the soil in the bottom of the planting hole.

Antacid tablet ground, homebrew organic fertilizer scooped, planting hole dug, we're go for transplant!

I ground up the antacid tablet, scooped out a bit of fertilizer, and dug the planting hole. I made the hole deeper than you’d expect just by looking at the plant or the pot it was in. That’s because I planted each tomato deeper in the soil than it was in the pot. I’m taking advantage of the tomato’s ability to easily grow new roots from the stem. Doing this puts the existing roots deep into the soil and stimulates new root growth from the just-buried stem.

Pulling the bottom leaves off the tomato to bury part of the stem

In the above photo, I’m pinching out some of the bottom leaves because that part of the stem will be underground. When all was said and done, I had four tomato plants tucked into their new bed.

Four just transplanted tomato plants and two foreground pepper plants

The two small plants, in the foreground of the photo that don’t look like tomato plants, aren’t tomato plants. They’re peppers, and I know that has nothing to do with tomato wine, or any other kind of wine. I do grow some things to eat, though, and they’ve got to go somewhere. So four pepper plants, I cropped the other two out of the photo, will be sharing some real estate with the “North Block” of my tomato vineyard.