Mango Wine - The Making Of ...

When walking home from work a few weeks ago, Avishek metioned that mangos were really cheap at Kirkgate Market. My ears pricked up immediately. This is a flavour that I have been keen to try because I love the taste of mangos, but have always been discouraged by the price. Just as importantly, this adds the letter M to my alphabet. Everyone's a winner.

I had meant to make this wine last week, but the house was in chaos. Claire was decorating the kitchen, with paint brushes and ovens all over the shop. This week the house is still in chaos, but it is the back bedroom she is decorating. So on Saturday, 18th April, I got the bus into town and found a stall selling mangos at four for a pound (I will gloss over the £4 bus fare). I bought eight, along with a ton of other fruit and came home. Eight mangos weigh 88 oz with stones and 75 oz without, so I have 4 lbs, 11 oz fruit in my bucket.

On Sunday I sliced the flesh from the mangos, ignoring the fact that the greenest of the fruit had the brownest flesh. I ate little bits of brown fruit, and they all tasted fine, so into the bucket they went. The mangos were sliced into small pieces (though in retrospect not small enough), but my attempts at mashing them were woeful. I poured over 6½ pints of boiling water in the hope that this will extract their flavour and added 2 lbs 12  oz sugar. The same evening I added a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase, citric acid and tannin together with the yeast (champagne variety).

Mango Wine just before I put it into the demijohn

On Thursday evening, after a socially inept attempt at going to a solicitors' function (I walked into the bar, recognised one person, who didn't see me, saw everyone was already in groups, and left), I poured this into its demijohn. The sediment looks massive and I fear the wine will be bland in the extreme. Watch this space ...

If you want to see how this wine turned out, click here