Class 19 Members Recipe 2022 National. Supplied by Chris Pinnock
I’ve based this wine recipe on one from Bill Smith’s book Making Award Winning Wines at Home for two reasons. Firstly, Sauternes is a family favourite, particularly of my Grandfather who enjoyed a glass or two. Secondly, this recipe was developed by the Chiltern Masters in 1975, my birth year. Clearly it was a good year – at least for the development of good wine recipes. The method below is slightly involved but I know you all love a good challenge.
Ingredients
| 370ml | White Grape Concentrate |
| 1l | Apple Juice |
| 57ml | Glycerol |
| 905g | Rhubarb, chopped, rinsed in metabisulphite & frozen |
| 225g | Honey |
| 115g | Strawberries |
| 595g | Sugar |
| Yeast, nutrients and pectolase |
The recipe in Bill’s book recommends Gervin #6 yeast (strain 8906).
Method
- Build up a yeast starter with the apple juice and yeast
- Thaw the Rhubarb and press gently through a sieve to extract the juice into a fermentation bucket
- Add the grape concentrate, sugar and starter to the juice fermenting at a volume of approximately 2.8l (5 pints)
- When most of the sugar has been used, gently pasteurise the honey and strawberries and allow to cool
- Strain the honey and strawberry mix, add to your favourite 1g/4.5l demijohn with the 2.8l of fermenting juice, add the glycerol and pectolase and ferment to dryness
- When clear, stabilise if necessary and sweeten to SG 1020 with sugar rounding off with white grape juice or concentrate to SG 1030
Thanks to James Smith who helped me with the choice of recipe and to Bill for permission to use the recipe. The featured image is by Biskuit and is used under a CCA-SA license.
