Ben's Adventures in Wine Making: Clementine Wine

Saturday, 17 January 2015

Clementine Wine - The Making Of ...

Oh my darling.

Contemplating a new flavour

I had not planned this flavour for January, or at all. It was really ugli fruit that I was after, but my efforts to locate these last week drew a blank. Nowhere in the market sold them, and there were none in the Carribean supermarket that used to be the Fforde Green Pub. I knew that I wanted to start my wine today, 10th January, so was prepared to buy whatever Noshis was selling cheap. My default was either Prune & Parsnip or Orange, but I had hoped that they would have boxes of over-ripe tomatoes for a couple of pounds. When I got there this morning the tomatoes were regular price and the parsnips looked manky. However, Noshis was selling clementines at 15 for £1. Not having made Clementine Wine before, and January being a month for experimentation, I bought thirty, five of which have made it into the fruit bowl. The wine may be vastly similar to Orange but I may be surprised.

Clementines

Recipes on the internet say that I should use the zest of five clementines, so I made a half-arsed attempt at this. They also say that I should use 10 valencia oranges, and I ignored this entirely.

I peeled 25 clementines and split these into segments (of which there were 223, or was it 228?). I removed the worst of the pith, but mostly didn't bother, and cut each segment in half with scissors. These went into my bucket and I gave them a good mash. I added 2½ lbs sugar and 6½ pints of boiling water.

Next morning, 11 January, I added the yeast (a sauterne variety) and a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase and tannin.

I have put this into its demijohn a day earlier than normal, on 14th January, but the fermentation seemed to be slowing down. The first demijohn chosen for the job cracked and broke during the sterilisation process. When I put in the not-quite-boiling water there was a distant whip-like noise and I knew immediately what had happened. It was a very neat break, though. Oh well. I have plenty of spares in the attic.

The liquid went into the replacement demijohn after a WYSO rehearsal (we have started on Mendelssohn's violin concerto) and is dull yellow in colour. The small taste I got was not promising and I fear that this experiment will be unsuccessful.