Ordinarily I get to December and worry that I have made too much wine. This year that thought has struck in July. I did not intend to make a double batch of Rose Petal Wine. It just sort of happened.
My father had strict instructions to collect withering petals and freeze them while Mom was in Nebraska. Meanwhile, I harvested roses from our garden - mostly white, but two blooms from the red. We both overperformed and each collected enough for a single batch. It would have been a tragedy to see all these petals go onto the compost heap, so I have made a double.
I collected the York rose petals today, 21st July, having spent some of the weekend there before Rachael, Paul and Myles move to Leicester. Have I mentioned how adorable Myles is? He is now 6 months old, and gurgles away happily.
Anyway, back home I measured eight pints of petals and put them in my bucket. I covered these with 2 litres of grape juice, 5 pounds of sugar and eleven pints of boiling water. Thanks to Joanne, who left me a comment on an earlier post, I have found proper white grape juice at Aldi. Rejoice.
The recipe calls for two lemons, but I didn't have any, so I squeezed the juice of two oranges instead and added that.
On Monday morning I added the yeast, two teaspoons of nutrient and a teaspoon each of pectolase and tannin. This all sat around smelling lovely for five days, until I put it into its demijohns on Friday 26th July. I'm sure it smells no less fragrant, but the airlock means I cannot tell. The recipe could have used another pint of water. However, I did spill a bit, as the wine bounced off the rose petals collecting in my sieve. I love the colour, which is a dark, dusky pink.
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