Recipe; Orange Wine

Really I should call this Citrus wine, but old habits die hard so I still call it Orange wine. This is the only sweet, strong, desert wine that I make. It looks like an old time recipe, the sort of thing that would come from one of C.J.J.Berry's books. Generally speaking I avoid those sweet strong wine recipes. I find they take an age to become good, like years. However this one works well in months, I guess it's because the acidity balances the sweetness and as both are big it means it can handle the high alcohol and the edge and oiliness from the zest too. It's all in balance.

I've blogged the recipe before, you can find it here, but as I made it a little differently this time I'm writing it afresh.

Ingredients for 3 Gallons;

30 Organic Juicing Oranges
9 Organic Clemantines
9 Organic Mandarins
6 Organic Lemons
2 Organic Pink Grapefruit
2 Teaspoons Tartaric Acid
2 Teaspoons Citric Acid
4.5 Kg Sugar
Yeast Nutrient
4 Teaspoons Pectolase
Water to 3.5 gallons
2 Campden Tablets
Yeast, Sauternes.

OG; 1122

Some of the ingredients

So you'll notice a lot of organic fruit, this is mainly because you'll use lots of zest in making this wine. Organic fruit won't have a heap of chemicals on it, which is a risk with other farming methods especially cos using zest isn't usually a daily thing, and certainly not in large quantities. So do go for organic. It's more expensive but it's the best option by far. It'll probably taste better too. Also this is a wine for special occasions, not something you drink with your feet up watching TV, so you may aswell splash out. Even buying organic fruit it'll cost you less than £1.50 per bottle.

Method

Get a gallon of water on the stove with the sugar in it. While it is heating up and dissolving wash all the fruit well and then zest 24 of the oranges and 4 lemons. Be extra careful to avoid the pith, it'll make your wine bitter. I use a potato peeler followed by a very sharp knife to slice the remaining pith off, and then chop the zest finely. It takes an age but it's worth it. Put the zest into a muslin or nylon bag, tie it up and drop it into your fermenting bin. This will probably have the hot dissolved sugar solution in it by now.

Juicing oranges; the likes of Maroc or Helios are good.

Squeeze all the fruit. Don't be tempted to use a processor or juicer because it will result in pith getting into the juice. Again, it's laborious but worth it. Add the juice to the fermenting bin, and all the other ingredients apart from the yeast. Give it a sloshy stir to mix well and cover, leave overnight.

Other Citrus fruits used; Clementines and Mandarins (but you could use Satsuma, Tangerine, Mineola etc). Also lemons and pink grapefruit.

Next day give it another sloshy stir for a few minutes and then add the yeast. Cover and leave overnight. 24 hours later your brew should be on the go. It's always a bit nerve-racking starting a brew with such a high gravity, but I've never yet had a problem with it. I put that down to the yeast, sauternes is great. This time it was even 5 months past it's best before date and it still fired up no problem.

Everyday for the next few days, give it a sloshy stir for a few minutes and then cover again. After a week or so transfer to secondary fermentation vessel under airlock. If you have to use single gallon demi-johns then you'll probably have to remove the zest. If you have a bigger then you can leave the zest in. I do the latter, this wine is big in every department and it can take it. I'll usually remove zest about a week later.

When it's finished fermenting do all the usual stuff. Rack to demi-johns, degas, stabilise, fine if needed, rack when clear.

Thoughts

You may be wondering how much juice you get from all those fruits. Its between 2.5 and 3 litres. So you may be tempted to make the wine from bought juice. It'll save you a load of time and money, but you won't have any zest, and using a little won't be the same. Still, if your budget or time is constrained then you may want to give it a go.

Make sure to use mainly juicing oranges, certainly more than half of the fruit. After that use a mix of citrus fruits. I never do the same recipe twice, it just depends on what is available and/or a good price if there is a choice.

I think the pectolase helps with any pith you may have let get passed you! But don't depend on it, be fussy about getting rid of pith and then use the pectolase as a belt and braces precaution.

I haven't been able to find Sauternes yeast locally for a while. I could just mail order it, but i've decided to try a new yeast for next time. It will be GV3 (Gervin number 3). It looks to me like it's probably the same strain, but I don't know for sure.