Lilac Wine

Ess-Sea vineyard · May 28, 2024

Gonna try a one gallon recipe from Jack Keller. Has anyone tried their hand at making Lilac wine? What can I expect for flavor? I’m thinking it’s gonna have more fragrance than flavor, but maybe I’m wrong. It just sounded easy enough to make and hope it turns out. One last question, what ABV should I look to achieve? I don’t want it to be hot if the flavor doesn’t support it. Thinking in the 9-10% range?

BarrelMonkey · May 28, 2024

No experience with lilac, but I do make elderflower wine. The flavor can be tricky - even if you love the perfume of the flower it can be overbearing if you use too much. I've taken to making a syrup first, that way you can get a sense of how much flavor will be in the final wine. Plus if you make a little more than you need, it might make a nice soft drink diluted with club soda.

My elderflower starts around 1.070 SG/ 17.0 brix which puts it around 9.5 ABV...

Ess-Sea vineyard · May 31, 2024

This is turning out to be more like chemistry class. After pouring boiling water over, and steeping the flowers for 48 hours, the color on the flowers disappeared. The must turned an orange/tan, tea color. After adding the acid, sugar, nutrient, and yeast, not knowing what to expect, a very nice pinkish/purple color, (what I was hoping for), appeared. The must had a slight licorice aroma, and a decent floral taste. I think this has potential to be something really good and appealing to the eye. Can’t wait for bottling.

Rice_Guy · Jun 1, 2024

We have someone in the vinters club who has made it. Yes can be a nice color & floral.

As with other flower wines there is essentially no sugar and YAN that the flowers contribute. ,,, This is a synthetic system. & If you understand how to build a must from scratch you can ferment anything.

BarrelMonkey · Jun 1, 2024

Rice_Guy said:
This is a synthetic system. & If you understand how to build a must from scratch you can ferment anything.

For sure... I note that Jack Keller has 2 recipes, one with just 'yeast nutrient' and the other supplemented with white grape juice concentrate. Not sure which one you're using, @Ess-Sea vineyard ?

I am in the middle of fermenting my Elderflower sham-pagne. This year I'm using a hefty proportion of (muscat) grape juice concentrate, 2 quarts of 68 brix juice in ~3 gallons. (68 brix is ~4x concentrate, so 2 quarts is theoretically enough for 2 gallons; I made up the difference with table sugar and water which were used to extract flavor from the flowers before adding to the must).

Despite overacidifying at the outset (starting pH 2.9!) it's going gangbusters. 20g/hL Fermaid-O at 3 brix drop, but it then went from 14 to 9 brix overnight so I missed my traditional second fermaid addition. Smells and tastes great, I think it will make a great sparkling base wine.

Ess-Sea vineyard · Jun 2, 2024

BarrelMonkey said:
For sure... I note that Jack Keller has 2 recipes, one with just 'yeast nutrient' and the other supplemented with white grape juice concentrate. Not sure which one you're using, @Ess-Sea vineyard ?

I am in the middle of fermenting my Elderflower sham-pagne. This year I'm using a hefty proportion of (muscat) grape juice concentrate, 2 quarts of 68 brix juice in ~3 gallons. (68 brix is ~4x concentrate, so 2 quarts is theoretically enough for 2 gallons; I made up the difference with table sugar and water which were used to extract flavor from the flowers before adding to the must).

Despite overacidifying at the outset (starting pH 2.9!) it's going gangbusters. 20g/hL Fermaid-O at 3 brix drop, but it then went from 14 to 9 brix overnight so I missed my traditional second fermaid addition. Smells and tastes great, I think it will make a great sparkling base wine.

I’m using the one with yeast nutrient. I didn’t want to rely on the grape juice to cover up the lilac flavor. Was skeptical about using the juice of the lemons, but I couldn’t taste any of that coming through. I used 2 pretty good sized lemons and like an idiot, just dumped it in the fermenter without measuring an exact amount. Guessing it was about a half cup or maybe a little more.