Lilac Wine

We have two varieties of lilacs. One has lovely blooms and a nice fragrance but a bitter flavor. The other variety is "Miss Kim" and is a pale purple with a delicate spicy scent and pleasant floral flavor. Just about anything edible gets made into wine at least once around here. This is the second year for lilac wine. The first was excellent.

We just finished making a one gallon batch of lilac wine. We didn't get a lot of flowers on the Miss Kim lilac this year but we look forward to sipping the results next May. I'm not sure that I mind that there weren't many lilacs to pick. Pulling off the petals is a little tedious. This picture may make it look like we had a lot, but it is only about one cup of petals.

I'm sipping a little of last year's batch while I write. It has a lovely delicate flavor and is perfect for enjoying on a warm spring evening. This year's lilac wine is a lilac apple blend. It may sound a little unusual but hopefully it will equal the lilac, dried pear and elderberry blossom wine that I'm enjoying now. We have had some wines that have been a bit disappointing so it is fun when we are pleased with the results.

Hanging out at the vineyards

We think it is cool that we are finally getting grapes on the vines. I guess that the term vineyard might be overstating it a little since we have about 10 bunches of grapes. They will probably be for fresh eating this year.

Our big success is the red currants. We enjoy the tart slightly sweet flavor and think they are very pretty as well. We have started harvesting them and are looking forward to making them into wine. Last year we had a smaller yield and they were mixed in with other fruits. The currant and strawberry wine was a real treat. It looks like our raspberry plants will produce well and they should be good mixed with the currants. We hope to have more red currant bushes next year so we can also make sauces, relishes and other treats with them. They are perfect for a slightly shaded area we need to fill in. The hard part is harvesting them when they look so nice on the plants.

A work in progress

The good news is that we have a lot of room to work with in our yard. The bad news is that the weeds can easily fill in the spaces before we do. Our lawn wasn't in great shape when we moved in and hasn't been worth the effort for us. We prefer our flower gardens, fruiting shrubs and raised bed vegetable gardens. Three of our favorite projects are pictured above. The hollyhocks bring back special memories because they are from seed collected by my mother-in-law years ago. The bee balm pictured in the center is a favorite of ours because the hummingbirds love it. The red currants are special because every year near our wedding anniversary, we pick them and make a one gallon batch of "Ruby Lady" wine to be enjoyed the next year for our anniversary. The yard is definitely a work in progress with much left to do. However, we are enjoying ourselves along the way.

Wines from the garden

Some of our cool and rainy days this week weren't good for doing much in the garden but were perfect for wine making. We are getting ready to bottle our elderberry wine and have enjoyed a bit of it already. Its rich flavor went very nicely with grilled buffalo steaks. I'm hoping to be able to get some more elderberries this year for an elderberry grape wine.

I just started a gallon batch of the wine that only I seem to be excited about. It is made with lilac flowers, elderberry flowers and dried pears. It is just starting to ferment and has a very delicate flavor that shows promise. Now if you just can't wait until next year to try your own batch of lilac wine, you might even be able to order it on-line. My husband and I have found a few fun North Dakota wineries in our travels. Maple River Winery has some good sounding wines including Lilac, Aronia, Pumpkin and Honeycomb Plum (I've only tried one of their wines so far but look forward to getting more on our next ND trip). They also have Dandelion Wine which is something I was sure I wouldn't like. My brother-in-law made a batch once that had a lovely delicate flavor which has left me wanting another sip of dandelion wine but not wanting to spend hours picking off the petals to make it.

All of our wines have been fun to try although I do have a tendency to prefer making the quirky ones. My husband prefers the plain fruit wines which is why I planted 25 raspberry bushes this year. I on the other hand am eyeing a recipe for Pea Pod Wine.

A little bit of everything...

Winter weather started with a roar this past year. We were hit with both cold and snow early on. However, lately the weather has been mild and the landscape was getting to be a bit grey. This morning's snow was perfect for perking things up. It would have been great for building a snowman or a snowball fight but I settled for getting out and taking pictures.


I have checked over my seed starting supplies and inventory of perennials that will arrive in a couple months. I can't think of a variety I need but that probably won't keep me from ordering something else. I am especially eager to try growing strawberries and to grow another variety of raspberries this year. The black currants should be producing well for the first time. I would love to see some elderberries but that might be too much to ask for. Hopefully we will soon be growing enough fruit for wine and fresh eating. Speaking of wine, what do you do when you are given over 10 pounds of ripe bananas? Yes, banana wine of course. We started it yesterday and the aroma is wonderful. I just added the yeast. It is always fun to see the fermentation start which should happen in a day or so. So what does one serve banana wine with?

Homemade Wine

I started this blog to write about my garden. However, since garden news is scarce this time of year, I’ll tell about our main winter garden related activity which is winemaking. We can’t yet supply enough winemaking ingredients from our garden so we have also benefited from fruit shared by friends. Plums, raspberries, elderberries, apples, ground cherries and pears are some of the freebies that have become wine. We haven’t made a lot and often only do 1-2 gallon batches. Just enough to sip a little and give the rest to friends and family.

Denim clad wine? The wine (called must at that point) starts its life in a primary fermenter (plastic bucket) and later goes into the secondary (we use one gallon glass jugs) and is fitted with airlocks. We cover these bottles to protect the color of the wine. My Mom made these “denim jackets”. They protect the color and look kinda cute too.

Warm thoughts on a cold night

It is -19 degrees and getting colder out. I'm going to take a break from homework and look over my garden catalogs. My main criteria when shopping for seeds and plants are: will hummingbirds be attracted to it, can we eat it or will it make good wine?

Speaking of good wine. We took a sample of the Red Currant Strawberry from the primary fermenter tonight and it has very nice flavor. Now it will go through the usual stage where it doesn't taste very good. Then it starts to get better and better until we finish with a pretty good wine. Even though we know this, we always get discouraged as it gets a "rough flavor" before it ages a bit. Maybe winemaking will help me to learn to be patient!

Better with age

We started two new batches of wine tonight. I am especially looking forward to the red currant strawberry wine in about a year or so. We grew the currants and like to use things from our gardens for wine whenever possible. Over Christmas we enjoyed sampling three of our wines that have been aging for two years or more. The coffee wine tasted like sherry although I liked it better than my husband did. The "Christmas Wine" is a mix of whatever we had around the house when we made it on Christmas day and didn't want to run to the store when we didn't have enough fruit, juices or white sugar. Although I don't recommend that method, it was good. It is made with cherry juice and a mix of other fruit. The third wine was habanero which was better than you might think. Aging has given it a mellow, smooth flavor that finishes with a little heat. Not all of our wines are unusual but we have made some quirky ones and they have often been my favorites.