After a year and a half of wine-making, I’ve gotten to the point where I have hundreds of gallon batches (and a few 5 gallons) under my belt, cupboards stocked full of corked and aging bottles, and a solid base of knowledge for growth and experimentation.
With spring temperatures (finally!) becoming the norm, it’s the perfect time to step up production. I’ve been through two winters, now, as a home wine-maker, and one of the most frustrating things about the cold weather is that fermentation slows to a crawl. This winter in particular has prompted me to start dating each batch with start of fermentation, just out of curiosity. I have at least one gallon batch (cranberry apple) that has been fermenting since October (learn more about my process here), and while it is slowing down, its staying power is persistent.
The promise of faster fermenting provides the perfect opportunity to stock up on one of the staples of my repertoire: Apple Wine. After the long winter, I’ve found myself in a “wine, wine everywhere and not a drop to drink” situation. Many of my summer batches bottled last year have only just reached the 6 month mark, and while that is an important aging milestone for significant improvement of taste, I find myself reluctant to delve into a well-aged bottle a) unless it’s a special occasion and/or I’m sharing with friends, or b) because if I can hold out just a little longer, the one year mark promises an even bigger improvement.
Apple Wine is one of my staples because it is cheap to make (as little as $3, give or take, per gallon), easy to clear, and pretty drinkable even without significant aging. Moreover, the cheaper and easier it is to make, the less I’m concerned with letting it age to full potential. I might set one bottle per batch aside for aging, but the rest gets used up pretty quickly. Some gets made into Sparkling Apple Wine (a fan favorite among my regular group of tasters), some gets consumed as a light, crisp, everyday white, and good bit gets used for cooking. The light, and relatively neutral flavor makes it ideal for recipes when other flavors present a culinary head-scratcher (“Would mango wine taste okay in this risotto?”).
It is also neutral enough to serve as a base for other fruits and flavors, including various spices, citrus and/or vegetables. White grape juice serves a similar function in this regard, but white grape juice is more expensive, clocking in at around $2.50 for a single canister of concentrate (i.e. 2 quarts), where I can get the same amount of apple for 99 cents. The price tag of apple inspires greater risk taking in recipe experimentation.
Let’s start with a basic recipe for Apple Wine:
2-3 cups of sugar
Champagne yeast
1 or 2 canisters frozen apple juice concentrate
1/2 teaspoon yeast energizer
1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme
1 or 2 teaspoons acid blend
If you haven’t already, please read my general instructions first, as this and all my recipes will assume previous knowledge of the process of wine making and the equipment necessary.
Start by making a sugar syrup and hydrating your yeast. When I’m using frozen concentrate, I like to thaw it and mix it in with the sugar syrup as it heats in order to sterilize the juice — I started doing this after one batch of apple went bad. You just never know if frozen concentrate has been accidently semi-thawed during transit.
For a one gallon recipe, I use a dusting of yeast, rather than a whole packet. I used to use an entire packet, but I find that a small amount of yeast (say, an 1/8 to a 1/4 of a teaspoon — I don’t measure), if it’s well hydrated ahead of time, will do just fine since yeast multiplies as needed during fermentation.
Measure your additives into a clean and sterile gallon jug using a large funnel. Add the sugar solution and juice when slightly cooled. Fill about 3/4 of the way with water (I use a Brita faucet mount to filter my tap water for wine-making). Feel the side of the jug. If it is still hot to touch, don’t add the yeast. Let it cool to the point where it is only as warm as hand-comfortable tap water.
Add yeast to the cooled-down jug. Fill to about the neck with water. Cover the mouth of the jug with your balloon airlock and secure with a rubberband. At this point I like to label my jug with a large post-it note indicating the type of wine and the start date.
Fermentation should be in full swing within two days. You know that it is fermenting well when the balloon inflates to the point where it can stand up on its own.
During the warmer weather, my apple wine tends to finish fermentation within a couple weeks, depending on the precise ingredients. Using 3 cups of sugar makes the wine stronger and fermentation takes longer. I found 3 cups a bit too strong for an everyday table wine, so I reduced my regular recipe to 2 cups.
Using one cannister of concentrate produces a very light wine, and some of my tasters have found it a bit too light-bodied for their liking. I’ve also made batches with 2 canisters per gallon; they are certainly more flavorful, but they also come out of fermentation with some harsher notes, requiring a longer aging period to smooth out the flavor profile. The single-canister batches are much more drinkable, even with only a week or so of aging. I’ve also been experimenting with 1.5 canisters per gallon (for which I usually start 2 gallons at a time, dividing three canisters equally among them), hoping for a happy medium.
I’ve also experimented with a number of spices. I’ve done Apple Ginger, Apple Cinnamon, Spiced Apple (with a mulled cider type of spice mix), Apple Cardamom and even Apple Ginger & Cinnamon. In search of a flavor more tartly cider-like, I’ve increased the acid content either by using double my normal amount, or by adding limes and lime juice. I juice the limes (2-3 per gallon) into the jug and then simmer the rinds in with my sugar syrup and juice. I’ve made Apple Lime, Apple Ginger Lime and Apple Cardamom Lime. I was once told that my Apple Lime tastes like a fine Sauvignon Blanc… though, consider that the taster was drunk at the time. My co-worker refers to my Apple Lime as “Corona Wine.”
The newest wrinkle on my apple wine experimentation is to try using a different strain of yeast. When I started wine-making, I used Champagne Yeast for everything. I invested in a supply of Pasteur Red when I pushed my recipes toward deeper blushes and reds. Recently, while browsing wine supplies online, I happened upon a good deal for Montrachet Wine Yeast. According to the description, this yeast aids in developing aroma complexity and aids in producing full-bodied reds OR whites. I decided to try using the montrachet in my latest 5 gallon batch of Apple Wine. The single-canister-per-gallon apple is far from full-bodied, but I was curious if the Montrachet would bring out more flavor. This past weekend I did an initial bottling of this batch. Three gallons went into 15 bottles of Apple Sparkling, while two gallons went into jugs for clearing.
As with many apple batches in the past, these two batches cleared very quickly, and I bottled them only a few days later (in part, anticipating a batch of fondue this weekend for which I’d need some wine, and in part because I’m trying to keep gallons open for when my five gallon Sangiovese kit is done). I’ve sampled a bit already, and I find it… well, so far not that different. Certainly still very light, perhaps a bit cleaner in initial flavor. Aging will likely tell a better tale but, how do I compare it to apple wines that have been aging a longer time or shorter time? It occurs to me that if I truly want to put different yeast strains to the test, I’ll have to start two otherwise identical batches simultaneously to see how they fare side-by-side as they age.
Tough job, somebody’s got to do it…
Also this week…
I started my second wine kit, a 5 gallon batch of Chilean Cabernet Merlot. I added a tablespoon of my own yeast energizer, and fermentation has been vigorous! Perhaps too vigorous… I hate when the fermentation foam froths up so high it leaks out of the pinholes in the balloon.
I bottled a gallon of Mango Guava and a gallon of Apple Ginger Cinnamon as five bottles each of sparkling wine.
My Mango with Montrachet yeast has been transferred to a second jug for clearing.
I started a gallon of Berry Burst Blush with the intention of making it the second entry in Sabrina’s Pink Sparkly Wine Challenge. Also, I am experimenting with a new formulation of a wine I like to call “Strawberry Julius,” the process of making it much improved by the discovery of bentonite! And finally, I am starting a batch of concord red with no acid.