If you find you have some apples, but not enough to make cider, then you can make a delicious and refreshing Apple Wine.
It's a very easy recipe to make and all you need is 4lb of apples, that's a small carrier bags worth.
If you don't have an apple tree, then usually one of your neighbours will have one and most will be overrun with apples and needing an excuse to get rid of them. Failing that, pop to your local green grocer or supermarket, and if you are lucky, they may have some that have gone past their best for sale, but are still perfectly good to use to make cider or wine.
We don't always have the time to write up our recipes, but if we get an email asking for help and we have made it before, Davin can usually dig out a recipe from his grey folder and type it up.
So this morning, we had such an email. Hazel was praising us for our redcurrant, blackcurrant and gooseberry wine recipes and was asking if we had an apple wine recipe. So Davin had a look in his folder and yes, a few years ago, he had brewed up a very successful apple wine.
Tasting notes said, refreshing, citrus, green apple peel with an oaky vanilla finish, dry, but zingy too.
Davin took a look in the wine rack to see if there was a rogue bottle left over, but sadly not. All gone. It must have been good!
But this request from Hazel was just the excuse Davin needed to type it up and add it to our recipe page.
So if you fancy making apple wine, just get 4lb of apples (a random mix of eaters is best), 3lb of sugar and a few other bits that you'll find in your brewing cupboard and get to work.
So the basics are: Core then smash / pulp the apples, put them in a brewing bucket add in the sugar, water, pectolase, the juice and zest of a lemon and a campden tablet.
Then leave it for for 24 hours for the pectolase to do it's magic on the cell walls of the apple which will cause it to release its juices and flavours.
Then you add your oak chips, yeast and nutrient and let it ferment for a week.
Once the week is over, strain the wine into a Demi-John, fit an airlock and leave for another 2 weeks for the fermentation to complete. Yeah, there may be no more bubbles, but other things are happening. You cant rush these things.
Then it's a simple job of clearing, bottling and then hiding them away for 4 months to condition and become a really tasty wine, a bit like a Riesling.
So, if you fancy having a go, just visit our Apple Wine Recipe by clicking here.
