Yennefer's Lilac Witcher Wine
This enchantingly blush crimson floral wine conjures an evocative spell of a crisp spring day, the sweet warmth of the sun with the threat of cold winds that still might blow. It's sweet and tart in balance, and like Yennefer, shouldn't be underestimated! You don't have to be a gamer or fantasy fan to make this delicate floral and berry wine, but it certainly can't hurt!
Ingredients
- 8 cups lilac blossoms, plucked (no green stems or leaves)
- 1 gal water 128 oz
- 2 ½ lbs sugar
- 4 oz currants or golden raisins (or substitute 4 oz. white grape juice concentrate)
- 2 oz blackberries or blueberries (optional, for color, use 1 to 2 oz)
- 1 tbsp acid blend
- 1 tbsp untoasted oak chips substitute 1 tsp tannin
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 KMS campden tablet crushed
- 1 packet wine yeast
Instructions
Brewing and Primary Fermentation
- Pick your lilac flowers when the flower clusters are mostly open but not browning. It's best to cut them early in the morning, when they are most fragrant. Pick over them carefully, and pluck just the flowers from the green clusters (the stems are toxic and bitter), discarding any twigs or insects.
- Combine the flower petals with the currants or chopped raisins, oak chips or tannin, and the berries, if you are using them, in a heat-resistant nylon fine mesh brewing bag. This is optional but makes everything a lot nicer to work with. Tie off the bag so it stays closed.
- Heat a gallon of water to a boil in a stockpot, and dissolve the sugar into it, bringing it back up to a boil for no more than a minute. Turn off the heat, and add the nylon brew bag with the lilac flowers and other ingredients. Dunk the bag until it sinks, and cover the pot to let it steep.
- Sanitize your wide-mouth fermentation jar or small bucket and airlocks, using your preferred homebrewing sanitizer (I like Star-san). The Camden tablet will also help sanitize everything but it's best to keep everything as clean as possible.
- Let the flower and fruit must mixture steep until the pot is cool to the touch. Add the acid blend and yeast nutrient, and with clean hands, transfer the nylon bag of fruit into the sanitized fermentation vessel.
- Pour the cooled must (sugar + water + fruit juice) carefully over the bag into the wide-mouth container.
- Crush the campden tablet (or use K-meta powder) into the mixture and stir it in with a sanitized metal or plastic spoon. Wait 12-24 hours for the sulphites to do their work and dissipate.
- Check the initial specific gravity of the must if you have a hydrometer, and write that down in your brewing notebook or on a piece of painter's tape on your fermenting vessel.
- Add the wine yeast, and place it somewhere warm and protected from light (check the preferred temperature range for the yeast you are using).
- Let ferment for 7-10 days in primary, pushing the mesh flower bag down with a clean spoon regularly so the exposed part of the bag doesn't mold. Once the initial vigorous fermentation has settled you can transfer the wine off of the flowers and into the secondary vessel to finish fermenting and let the wine clear.
Secondary Fermentation
- Carefully remove the nylon brew bag from the fermenter, letting it drain completely into the container (without squeezing, which can make your wine cloudy).
- Siphon and rack the wine from the primary into your sanitized secondary container (usually a narrow-mouthed glass jug or small carboy). Use a piece of sanitized tubing and racking cane, or carefully transfer it with a sanitized filter funnel.
- Check the specific gravity and record this again.
- Top with an airlock and stopper, and put in a cool, dark place to age and finish fermenting. If a lot of sediment forms in the jug, after a few weeks you can carefully rack it off the sediment and into another sanitized jug.
- When the wine is completely clear, and completely finished with fermentation, you can bottle it. When the specific gravity is no longer dropping with measurements taken 7-14 days apart, it should be safe to bottle. If you want to make sure that it doesn't restart fermentation (which, in a sweet wine like this, can pop corks, or worse, break the bottle), you can add a small amount of potassium sorbate at bottling.
- Bottle in cleaned and sanitized wine bottles with new corks, or swing-top bottles. You can also use sanitized crown cap bottles and new bottle caps.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
