Strawberry Wine!

The strawberry wine is ready to bottle and clear as a bell all by itself! Perfect wine! It smells so good, but I know it's green and not ready to drink. (I tasted it.) It needs to age at least until July 2012 when it will be a year old. I will try it again at that time.

This is the strawberry wine bottled. I also bottled what was left of the one gallon of apple I have been drinking and the one gallon of chocolate mint. Both cleared on their own and look marvelous! I got two small bottles of the apple and three large bottles of the chocolate mint. It sure has a lot of chocolate mint flavour! Wow, it's minty! I'm going to like that one! I think those will be gone quite quickly...

I had one gallon of maple and 5 gallons of rhubarb that were also finished and ready to bottle, but a little hazy. I had to add a clearing agent to them. I have been using chitosan to clear wines and used sparkaloid to clear beer but both of those are made from diatoms. (Diatoms are tiny, tiny shelled sea creatures used to make DE, diatomaceous earth, commonly used as a filter.) My closest friend has a grown son allergic to shellfish so I don't want to use those if something else is available that will do the job. I do have an electric wine filter, but it's so much work to use.

I went with bentonite, racked the wine off any lees, sprinkled the bentonite in the top of the jug and shook it up really well. I wanted to de-gas them anyway. A few days have gone by and it's looking quite clear now and ready to bottle when I have the time.

Making my own organic wines from scratch is such fun, especially when they turn out so well! The rhubarb is even drinkable, for those of us who are used to drinking wines a little green...

You can download my free ebook, "Making Organic Wine At Home" on the "Freebies" page.