Seasonal Mountain Wine
There are two things that grow in abundance here in the mountains, Dandelions and Rhubarb, so what better way to use the excess than to make a seasonal mountain wine? Here's this years recipe:
Dandelion and Rhubarb Wine (2 gallon yield)
3 cups Dandelion petals (tip: pick during the mid day and try to avoid any green bits).
1 cup diced Rhubarb stalk.
2 Oranges, both peel and juice, care not to include any white bits.
1 Lemon, peel and juice, again not white bits.
4lb Sugar.
1 pack or wine yeast.
The Process
Pour about 5 cups of boiling water over the Dandelion petals and let stand 2 days max. to extract flavor. Boil the petals for 20 min and strain through mesh bag and return solution to boiling pot, discard petals. Add water to bring wine to 2 gallons and add Rhubarb, Lemon, Orange and Sugar. Leave small amount of orange juice to the side to make yeast starter. Gently boil mixture for a further 45 min while you make the yeast starter.
To make the starter, add luke warm water to the remaining orange juice and a teaspoon of sugar, add yeast and let stand for 15min then stir, in 45 min the starter will be ready to add to cooled wine mixture, lid it and add bubble air lock. I usually leave the wine in the primary fermentor for 3-4 weeks then siphon to secondary fermentor for another 3months. Bottle and store.
