Walnut leaf wine body

I am planning on makeing a walnut leaf wine using the recipie from Jack Keller's site. The question I have is will this wine have a thin body? I am concerned because the recipie looks basically like a sugar wash with leaves for flavor.

What would you think gives the wine body? The main sugar source is demerara (raw cane) sugar, which is not availibe here. I was goig to substitute "sugar in the raw", or if I can find it turbinado sugar, for this. In addition there is a lb of honey per gallon. Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

Reply to
Droopy
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Stephen Sg

Reply to
Stephen SG

Droopy, I made this wine a few years back, and it did at first seem thin & harsh. I used about 40 _leaflets_ per gallon, as a reference point. My early notes suggest that that was too many, but it later mellowed out considerably. About 1/3 of the sugar content was from honey. But here's the real secret: I found that a half-filled bottle left in the fridge for 2 mos. turned a light brown and developed the most remarkable walnut finish on tasting. Not just an oxidized taste, but a real Black Walnut taste. The pale yellow version was nothing to rave about, but the brown version was quite interesting.

Reply to
MikeMTM

I made a 5 gallon batch of oak leaf wine. I included 1 can of Welchs grape concentrate and it still lacked body. Next time I'll add more concentrate,

Reply to
james

Droopy, I had not made this wine when I posted the recipe four years ago, but have since then. It is indeed a thinner wine than most, but also a sweet wine and sugar adds a little body to it. You can add a little glycerin to it to help thicken it a bit, but I would not over-do it. One tablespoon per gallon should be plenty. I would not add grape concentrate to this (or oak leaf wine) unless you really want to make a different wine.

My walnut leaf wine was not very good until it had aged about 16 months -- 10 months longer than the recipe suggests. It was quite nice at that point, and no thinner than most Japanese Sake. It is not a wine for everyone (but neither is sand burr nor bramble tips nor acorn wines), but worth making for the variety. Make it and cellar it for 16-18 months. I don't think you will enjoy it all that much before then.

As for the sugar, demerara is getting hard to find. I only know two stores in San Antonio, a city of over a million folks, that still carry it. Turbinado and "Sugar in the Raw" are much easier to find and could substitute, but neither has quite the same taste as demerara. Indeed, I think demerara is unmatched in flavor. I just wish it wasn't so expensive and was more available. But, if you have to substitute, I'd go for one of the others (NOT brown sugar, or white sugar with molasses).

Good luck....

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page

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Reply to
Jack Keller

So, how did the Walnut Leaf wine turn out? I'm thinking of trying it! Thanks

Reply to
Rick Bowman

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