Category Archives: Country Wines

The Great Country Wine Tasting

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Last year I set a goal to make 12 country wines with the promise to taste and report this year. Sadly, like so many projects, that one was only sporadically tackled. Fortunately, we have plenty of friends who also aspire to preserve the harvest in the bottle. So, on a recent Sunday four brave tasters gathered in our home. Their mission, to drink and describe five country wines from our larders. The five selected, out of our various efforts from the previous season, were an elderflower, a pear, a mystery (label lost, contents revealed), a mead, and finally, a parsnip sherry. The taster comments are largely as they appeared. As the evening progressed, or declined, the nature of the comments changed. Infer what you will.

Wine #1: Elderflower wine, 2021

Color/Appearance: Golden; Hazy IPA; fool’s gold; misty mornings.

Nose: Paint thinner; burning, like snorting sweet tarts; sweet with yeastiness; dusty herbs with plastic.

Mouth: syrup, long finish, light ale; makes the mouth pucker; makes the tongue feel like you ate a bowl of Captain Crunch; Not unpleasant, a bit too sweet but not sweeter than a port.

Conclusion/Drinkability:

  • Give me another glass x3
  • Let me detox my liver first
  • I’ll wait for the apocalypse
  • Good for marinating a bicycle tire x1

Final comments: A good dessert wine; maybe make another version with less sugar; good example of a country wine; wine not near as good as Max (one of our dogs); A Triumph! Continental! But like track suits and socks with sandals continental.

 

Wine #2: Pear wine, 2019

Color/Appearance: Straw; What color? Need some blue food coloring here; Makes Buster look like Josey (two more dogs of ours), a watery grave.

Nose: Strong paint thinner; foul, like a territorial cat; rubber tire and yeast sprayed over wet dog; yeast and overall good.

Mouth: weak but not unpleasant, good as cooking wine (not sure if this taster is saying it should be used as cooking wine or tastes like cooking wine); light and zesty, better if chilled; Unami? Sour, bitter, sour; thin, blech!

Conclusion/Drinkability:

  • Give me another glass x1
  • Let me detox my liver first x1
  • I’ll wait for the apocalypse x2
  • Good for marinating a bicycle tire

Final Comments: A stumble; Finished the sample and did not die; Excellent, if you can get it down the hatch; Should have exploded with the other pear wine, pairs well with…nothing.

Wine #3: Mead, August 2019

Color/Appearance: Intriguing cloudiness; unhealthy pee; golden delight; like a fine wood grain alcohol.

Nose: Time for a cigarette; smell of spice cake; Feet (confirmed after the person next to me (taster) left the room for a cigarette); clove and cinnamon.

Mouth: Sweet, dry, light style; It angers the blood, makes me want to wield an axe; A bit watery but would not reject if sitting in the mead hall; smooth, would raid a village.

Conclusion/Drinkability:

  • Give me another glass x2
  • Let me detox my liver first
  • I’ll wait for the apocalypse x1
  • Good for marinating a bicycle tire x1

Final Comments: Not bad; Raiding villages (second reference which makes me think the evening was beginning to decline in some measure); nice easy drinking example (possibly by the maker); Still tasting at 2 minutes, 5 minutes.

Wine #4: the mystery wine (a bottle without label. The maker later identified it as a 2020 mixed berry of blueberries, blackberries, and Aronia berries)

Color/Appearance: Blood, appeals to vampires; Beautiful, expecting happy fruits; Ugh; Deep rose.

Nose: Noticeable; Christmas cookies, I’m guessing, although nose hairs too burnt at this stage to smell; Complex; Industrial effluent on a warm spring day.

Mouth: Double Blech and wangy; Better than cough syrup; wonderful, like tango dancers on my tongue; effervescent, but in a spooky, Chernobyl sort of way.

Conclusion/Drinkability:

  • Give me another glass x2 would be better after several glasses
  • Let me detox my liver first
  • I’ll wait for the apocalypse x1
  • Good for marinating a bicycle tire x1 good for dissolving bodies in a bathtub

Final Comments: A complex wine for a complex world; not as bad as you might first think; most complex wine yet tasted (from the maker); who is hiding the bourbon?

Wine #5: Parsnip sherry, 2021

Color/Appearance: Full of questionable debris, although could be going blind from previous wines; a fine brandy; excellent color, would paint my walls this color; light rose, the color of my heart.

Nose: Madeira, award for best smelling; caramels; earthy; Yay!  

Mouth: If you keep sipping the last flavor can be overcome (not sure if this refers to the sherry or the mystery wine); like the smoking section in sad place, deeply melancholic, give me another glass; like a thin Madeira, give me another; Surprisingly not bad.

Conclusion/Drinkability:

  • Give me another glass x4
  • Let me detox my liver first
  • I’ll wait for the apocalypse
  • Good for marinating a bicycle tire

Final Comments: No; A fine drink for the peasant class; check back in five years; van con Dios! (They go with God).

I’m sure there will be a second tasting at some juncture this year. So, stay tuned. Do not let our tasting notes put you off from this noble endeavor.

A Year of Country Wines: August is for Pear Wine

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“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields 

This year I will make twelve country wines. Each wine is loosely based on the wine calendar in the classic British book, First Steps in Winemaking by C.J.J. Berry. I do, however, plan to freely substitute ingredients based on the principle that most should be available either on the farm or from a neighbor. Next year I will gather friends and taste each one and share the results with you.

Cheers, Brian

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and my 12 wines of 2021 is off schedule. Then again, as Mr. Emmerson said, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds….”

Pears are one of the fruits, typically, that we grow in abundance. Big and russetted, hard as a baseball, our Kelly pears are made to make perry.

The recipe:

Pear juice                               2.5 pounds

Honey                                    1 lb.

Yeast                                      Red Star premier cuvee

Yeast nutrient                       1 tsp

 

The process:

Put the pear juice and honey in a large pot and bring to a boil, stir, turn off heat. Take off stove, add to primary fermenter. Add yeast nutrient. When cool, add yeast. Stir daily.

After 14 days rack the wine into a glass carboy. In 3-6 months, transfer to ½ gallon jugs.

Next August we taste. What could be simpler?

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Reading this weekend: Southern Spirits: four hundred years of drinking in the American South, with recipes (R. Moss) and Honey From a Weed (P. Gray).

A Year of Country Wines: March was for Blueberry Wine

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“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields

This year I will make twelve country wines. Each wine is loosely based on the wine calendar in the classic British book, First Steps in Winemaking by C.J.J. Berry. I do, however, plan to freely substitute ingredients based on the principle that most should be available either on the farm or from a neighbor. Next year I will gather friends and taste each one and share the results with you.

Cheers, Brian

The blueberry bushes this year have cycled through blooms, then a leafing out, all before a terminal freeze reset the clock, several times. So with the understanding that which does not kill you makes you stronger, I will assume that a crop of blueberries will still grace our table and fill our freezers this year. And with that assumption, I committed 3 pounds of last years harvest to this project.

The recipe:

Blueberries                            3 lb.

Honey                                    3 lb.

Citric acid                              2 tsp

Water                                     3 quarts

Yeast                                      Red Star premier cuvee

Yeast nutrient                       1 tsp

Pectic enzyme                       ½ tsp

Tannin                                    1/8 tsp

 

The process:

Put the water and honey on the stove and bring to a boil. Put the blue berries in a straining bag and place in the primary fermenter. Pound the berries to release the juice. Pour the hot honey-water over the berries. Add acid, tannin, and the yeast nutrient. When cool, add pectic enzyme and yeast. Stir daily.

After 14 days, remove the strainer bag with the blueberries (do not squeeze). Then rack the wine into a glass carboy. In 3-6 months transfer to ½ gallon jugs.

Next March we taste.

A Year of Country Wines: February is for Parsnip Sherry

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“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields

This year I will make twelve country wines. Each wine is loosely based on the wine calendar in the classic British book, First Steps in Winemaking by C.J.J. Berry. I do, however, plan to freely substitute ingredients based on the principle that most should be available either on the farm or from a neighbor. Next year I will gather friends and taste each one and share the results with you.

Cheers, Brian

It may be true that “fine words butter no parsnips”. But this month we gather to find out if these roots can turn out a respectable sherry. Will it become a fine Amontillado worthy of enticing an enemy into a cellar during Carnival? Or shall it be consigned to my still (that is, if I owned one) to produce some oddly flavored brandy?

This recipe contains many off-the-farm ingredients, including, alas, the actual parsnips. I had intended to get the roots from some friends and neighbors. But by the time holiday feasts had ended so had their supply of parsnips. So, this exercise turns out to be both expensive and a bit more commercial than intended. In a year’s time we shall see if it was all worth the effort and expense. If it was, then I am sure the recipe can be tinkered with to make it more farm friendly.

The recipe:

Parsnips (unwaxed)             4.5 lb.

Hops                                      ½ oz.

Malt extract                           ½ lb.

Light brown sugar               2.5 lb.

Citric acid                              1 tsp

Water                                     1 gallon

Yeast                                      Red Star premier cuvee

Yeast nutrient                       1 tsp

Pectic enzyme                       ½ tsp

The process:

Clean the parsnips, but do not peel. Cut them into slices and boil gently in half the water until soft. Then strain the liquid into a pot (leftover roots to the pigs). Put the hops in a bag and add to the remaining ½ gallon and simmer for a half hour. Mix the two liquids into the primary fermenter. Stir in the malt, sugar and citric acid and allow to cool to blood temperature. Add yeast, nutrient, pectic enzyme.

After 7-14 days rack the wine into a glass carboy. In 3-6 months transfer to ½ gallon jugs.

Next February we taste.

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Reading this weekend: A Cloud of Witnesses (D. Sayers). And selections from Rural Rides (W. Cobbett).

 

A Year of Country Wines: January is for fig wine

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“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields

This year I will make twelve country wines. Each wine is loosely based on the wine calendar in the classic British book, First Steps in Winemaking by C.J.J. Berry. I do, however, plan to freely substitute ingredients based on the principle that most should be available either on the farm or from a neighbor. Next year I will gather friends and taste each one and share the results with you.

Cheers, Brian

Figs are an either love ‘em or hate ‘em fruit. William Cobbett, in my much-esteemed copy of American Gardener, called them a “mawkish thing at best.” However, I read Cobbett precisely for the “I know better than you” opinions and not for his judgement on what I like to eat. Because I dearly love figs, even when some call them the vulgar fruit. And last year, my friends, was a banner year from our Brown Turkey tree. So, with a freezer still full of frozen figs, my thoughts have turned figgy for the first wine making of 2021.

The recipe:

Figs: 4 ½ pounds of fresh frozen figs

Muscadine raisins: 10 ounces

Honey: 2 pounds

Lemon: zest and juice (1)

Orange: zest and juice (1)

Yeast nutrient: 1 tsp

Water: 1-gallon boiling water

Yeast: Red Star premier cotes des blanc (ideal for fruit, cider, and mead wines)

Process: I chopped the figs and raisins, added the honey, citrus, and yeast nutrient. Then I added the gallon of boiling water and allowed to cool to blood temperature before pitching the yeast.

Once the primary fermentation stops, I will rack into a secondary fermenter. In 3-6 months, I’ll transfer to ½ gallon jugs. Then we wait. Next January we taste.

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Reading this weekend: The Prisoner of Zenda (A. Hope), because even after a dozen readings since I was a child it still brings enjoyment.