Post date: Jan 19, 2013 6:59:46 PM
When my friend Mark had his 50th birthday, I offered to make him the wine of his choice. Since, like me, he does seek out strange things, he decided he wanted basil wine (which thrilled me, since I was looking for an excuse to make one). I'm ready to make it now, after mulling over the idea for a while.
Jack Keller has a recipe for a Basil wine here, which looks good, but I can never find white grape juice concentrate (anybody know where to get it in the Boston area?), so I thought "where can I get some grapelike body without making the wine purple?", which for some reason seems wrong to me (don't know why, since there is purple basil). But I'm also a little tired of Concord grape flavors, and I'm not sure how that would go with basil anyway. So I thought "golden raisins!". I've liked every wine I've added raisins to (both of them!), and it really does add depth the the wine. So I've decided to try to invent a recipe by interpolating between that and a basic raisin wine recipe (in for a penny, in for a pound). TJoHWM has a recipe that calls for two pounds of raisins for a sherrylike wine - other raisin wines like this one call for 4. So three ought to get me a fair good bit of raisiny goodness without being too strong. EDIT: I bought 1.5 pounds of golden raisins at Russo's, so 1.5 pounds it is. This is not a raisin wine, after all. That would come out to about 7.5 ounces of sugar, according to a post on Jack Keller's blog. An SG of 1.085 (what JK shows for the basil wine) would require 30oz of sugar total, so I need to add 22.5 oz white sugar.
The basil wine calls for 2-1/2 tsp acid blend, the 4 lb raisin wine calls for none, so, half? A tad more? 1-1/2 tsp seems like a good initial guess.
I discussed this wine with the guys at Modern Brewer. They said it sounded interesting, and that they'd like to try it. Chris suggested using a Lalvin D47 yeast, which looks like a good choice.
So without further ado:
1 cup basil leaves, loosely packed
1.5 lbs golden raisins
22.5 oz. sugar
Water to make one gallon
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1-1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
1-1/2 tsp acid blend
1/4 tsp tannin
1 Campden tablet, finely crushed and dissolved in 1/4 cup water
1 pkt Lalvin D47 yeast.
1/19/13 2PM
Wash fresh basil leaves and place in nylon straining bag and tie closed. Pulse raisins in a food processor with a little boiling water in batches to chop. Place in a different nylon straining bag and tie closed. Put all ingredients except yeast, pectic enzyme and basil in primary and stir well to dissolve sugar. Top up with cool, aerated water. Add bag with basil, cover primary. pH is 3.6.
1/20/13 10:20AM
Added pectic enzyme, measured OG, 1.085. What were the chances of that? Aerated.
1/20/13 11:45AM
Pitched 1 pkt Lalvin D47.
1/25/13 8AM
Fermentation has slowed down. Removed fruit and basil bags (I gave the wine a stir every other day or so while fermenting). SG is 1.024 at the moment, and the wine is very cloudy from floating yeast. Tastes fairly alcoholic, not sweet, so the gravity may be inflated by yeast. Wine is a little more sour than I might want, but it's young. The basil flavor is pretty balanced. Definitely there, not overpowering. I'll probably rack tomorrow or Sunday.
2/2/13 10AM
Racked. SG is 0.998 at 63 degrees. 11.7% ABV. Flavor is nice but VERY sour. May have to age for a while. Very cloudy.
2/12/13 8PM
Racked. Clearer, but not clear. Still sour. Still has a nice basil aroma and flavor.
3/11/13 8PM
Racked. I think the exact same comment as before.
7/20/13 2PM
I've been thinking about this wine, and I think I may try cold stabilizing it. That might drop the acidity some.
10/5/13 5PM
Racked. Still sour, clearing slowly.
12/7/13 1PM
Racked. Still sour.
8/31/14 noon
Racked again - there was a lot of strange flock at the bottom, and a little on the top. It had gotten darker, and is now somewhat less sour. I think the airlock dried out a bit and it may have gotten oxidized, which in this case seems to have helped it. Topped off with water and put back in the basement.