Folly Wine

[ameno]

Anyone ever make folly wine before? It's what they call wine made of vine shoots and leaves.
I just started making a batch a few days ago, using the recommended 2.5kg of vine prunings, chopped small and steeped in boiling water for 48 hours. I've now strained them off and added the sugar and acid, and will add the yeast when it cools.
I'm surprised by how red the liquid is. I was expecting a sort of pale browny-yellow, but it's more like halfway between a rose wine and tea amber. It smells surprisingly grape-y, too.

[burnie]

I know of someone who did and they liked it, never tried myself as I don't have any vines.

[Nicos]

Ooo…nice one!
never heard of that before - do let us know what it tastes like.
I have a small vine so I could have a bash at this.

[ameno]

Ooo…nice one!
never heard of that before - do let us know what it tastes like.
I have a small vine so I could have a bash at this.

You'll probably need more than that. I have three medium-sized vines, and I still didn't have enough between all three of them. I had to ask a neighbour for some prunings from his vine, too.

[Nicos]

^^^ ah…ok then …still interested in hearing your outcome as I may find someone with a vine I could beg clippings from…

[ameno]

I was surprised I needed to get some extras from someone else. I had thought I would have enough, but when I weighed all of my own prunings I still only had 1.8kg. The prunings are surprisingly light, even though they seem quite bulky.
If I had the freezer space I supposed I could have frozen what I had, then when I need to do further pruning in 6 weeks time or so I would probably have had enough between the two lots.

I've also discovered that most of the flavour is actually in the stems, not the leaves. I had a chew on one of the stems I removed from the liquid, and it tasted quite pleasantly grapey (although obviously not sweet). I think if I make it again i might cut the stems into shorter lengths to extract more flavour from them.

[ameno]

Transferred to a demijohn today. It's lost a lot of its pinkness, sadly, and is now more yellow.
It already tastes quite nice, actually, although admittedly there is still some sugar left in it because it hasn't finished fermenting yet.

[ameno]

I think it's pretty much finished fermenting now, and is clearing nicely. I'll probably be able to rack it at the start of September.
It's regained its pink colour nicely now, too. I guess it only went yellow because of all the sediment suspended in it.

[ameno]

Bottled this just before Christmas, and have already gotten through two bottles. It's delicious. Fragrant and fruity, and with an unusual but very pleasant nutty aftertaste. It is quite sweet, mind (maybe I added too much sugar?). More of a dessert wine. The finished colour is sort of a light pinky amber.
I want to save the rest of the bottles for summer.

[ameno]

Started making a new batch a day and a half ago. I chopped up around 1.6kg of vine prunings, stuff them tightly into my brewing tub, and covered with 4 litres of boiling water.
I'll be straining them off tomorrow, then re-boiling the grape vine "tea", and pouring it back into a further 1.5kg or so of fresh vine pruning from my other vine, to make a stronger "tea".

This year, I had more than enough prunings just from my own vines (they've really grown a lot).

[Nicos]

Gosh - it’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since you started this thread!

How many bottles did you eventually make?

[ameno]

Just one gallon, so 6 bottles.
I'm doing the same this year.

[Nicos]

Nice one !

[ameno]

Today I squeezed out the first batch of shoots and leaves, re-boiled the "tea" in a big saucepan, stuffed another 1.5kg of fresh vine leaves and shoots into the brewing tub, and poured the boiling "tea" back over them.
It's only at half-strength yet, but it already has a surprisingly strong smell. It's very fruity smelling for something made from leaves and stems.

[Nicos]

It’ll be interesting to see if this year’s weather has affected the flavour.