As some of you may know, wine-making has become an upfront hobby of mine since the summer of 2017 when a family acquaintance 'scolded' me for mowing over our yard full of dandelions. She shared her brother's Dandelion wine recipe with me, and truly......as the saying goes, the rest was history. Some of my favorites since then... the 2018 Cherry is ranked #1 followed closely by the 2018 Currant, but this 2017 Banana was just bottled last month after aging for 3 years. Yummmmmmmo.
The root-cellar wine racks are just about filled right now after bottling the 3-gallons of banana ('17), 6-gallons of Cherry ('19) and 3-gallons of Blueberry ('19) recently.
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| 2019 Cherry |
The emptied carboys from the recent bottling were supposed to be set aside for the Cherry and Currant harvests this summer, but a friend has a BEAUTIFUL rhubarb patch that she rarely makes a dent in, so she invited me over to save her the guilty feelings of watching it all go to waste this year. Besides, it's her MOM that is the family acquaintance mentioned earlier 👍
A morning of rhubarb picking lead to a freezer full of fruit. A few days later, the fruit was thawed, placed in my steam-juicer (one of my best purchase decisions last summer!) resulting in enough juice for a 6-gallon batch of Rhubarb wine.
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| a few of the wines underway |
It's not common to see Peach trees growing in Wisconsin; there are some, specially in the southern parts, but we cold folk up here in the north don't have much luck due to the higher chances of late spring frosts. Enter: the Pearson Farm of Georgia. Working together with the Tree-Ripe Fruit Co., truckloads of peaches are shipped up to us poor peach-deprived people of the northern states a few times over the summer, so when the truck arrives....
... you wait in line. But SOOOOOO worth it!
A few days of these ripening on the table should get them all good -n- ready for the 2020 batch of Peach wine in addition to some canned peaches 💛
I too have the hobbies of quilting a wine making. It is so fun to make wine and beer-grownup science experiments.
ReplyDeleteWould you be willing to share your dandelion and rhubarb wine recipes? I was not overly impressed with the dandelion I have previously made, especially with the amount of work to just get the yellow part of the blossom. I have rhubarb in the freezer waiting for the right recipe.
In MN I wait for the peach trucks too and Pearson peaches are excellent.
PS gorgeous wine racks.
OUr peaches aren't in yet. I usually wait for freestone... like Red Haven. Can't wait for them to arrive!!!
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