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Popping My Wine Cherry
Oct. 2nd, 2013 09:42 pmSooo... since kousa dogwood was ready and I knew a very large patch of it, and since I found many mentions of a kousa wine online but no actual recipes, I seem to be diving into winemaking feet-first without a detailed roadmap.
Kousa Wine
Because there was no kousa wine recipe I am going off the strong/dessert version of http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-strawberry because I like sweet things and because most accounts of people making the wine say they wish they had added more fruit etc.
So far I've picked... an amount of kousa that I think is just shy of 25 lbs. Rinsed, mashed with a potato masher, put in the sterilized bucket with 1/4 tsp sodium bisulfite and pectic enzymes as described, covered with a little water to the 15L mark. It's sitting now. I got 100% distracted in the wine supply store (they are getting in sweet mead yeast on Friday! I am getting some!) so forgot to get something to test the acid level, so that will have to wait for tomorrow.
Took just less than 3 hours to pick the kousa, mostly from the BC Hydro complex by Edmonds Station but some from by my home.
My shoulders are totally destroyed. The kousa branches had to be bent down, held with the hand holding the heavy bag full of fruit while I picked with the other hand. There's a bit of a twist/flick I needed to get the stems off, so the picking hand couldn't hold anything else.
Lots of people came by as I was picking once it stopped raining, all universally pleasant and curious about what I was doing. A couple people tasted the fruit, everyone was approving, many were happy to learn, even the security guard was excited rather than disapproving. One dude who was walking by on his cell didn't approach me, but stared awhile then looked at the berries on a tree nearby, but everyone else said hi, and it was awesome. I used the term 'kousa dogwood' whenever anyone asked me what I was picking, since it seemed easiest for someone to look up later.
It seems like either kousa is, like most trees, a little bit of an alternate-bearer (heavy one year, light the next) or else the dry summer took a bit of a toll on the berries. Both might be the case. I remember last year the trees at BC Hydro were just loaded with fruit. The picking was scarcer this year, but luckily the landscape architect had done 3 blocks of the same repeating pattern of dogwoods, so there were lots to visit.
Next time I should bring a ladder.
I remember how much I love picking undomesticated fruit. It's just more fun, with so much less uniformity from tree to tree and even branch to branch or fruit to fruit. You really have to pay attention. The fruit tastes so different from tree to tree too; so neat. So sad that diversity's been bred out; variety really is a pretty awesome spice.
Kousa Wine
Because there was no kousa wine recipe I am going off the strong/dessert version of http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-strawberry because I like sweet things and because most accounts of people making the wine say they wish they had added more fruit etc.
So far I've picked... an amount of kousa that I think is just shy of 25 lbs. Rinsed, mashed with a potato masher, put in the sterilized bucket with 1/4 tsp sodium bisulfite and pectic enzymes as described, covered with a little water to the 15L mark. It's sitting now. I got 100% distracted in the wine supply store (they are getting in sweet mead yeast on Friday! I am getting some!) so forgot to get something to test the acid level, so that will have to wait for tomorrow.
Took just less than 3 hours to pick the kousa, mostly from the BC Hydro complex by Edmonds Station but some from by my home.
My shoulders are totally destroyed. The kousa branches had to be bent down, held with the hand holding the heavy bag full of fruit while I picked with the other hand. There's a bit of a twist/flick I needed to get the stems off, so the picking hand couldn't hold anything else.
Lots of people came by as I was picking once it stopped raining, all universally pleasant and curious about what I was doing. A couple people tasted the fruit, everyone was approving, many were happy to learn, even the security guard was excited rather than disapproving. One dude who was walking by on his cell didn't approach me, but stared awhile then looked at the berries on a tree nearby, but everyone else said hi, and it was awesome. I used the term 'kousa dogwood' whenever anyone asked me what I was picking, since it seemed easiest for someone to look up later.
It seems like either kousa is, like most trees, a little bit of an alternate-bearer (heavy one year, light the next) or else the dry summer took a bit of a toll on the berries. Both might be the case. I remember last year the trees at BC Hydro were just loaded with fruit. The picking was scarcer this year, but luckily the landscape architect had done 3 blocks of the same repeating pattern of dogwoods, so there were lots to visit.
Next time I should bring a ladder.
I remember how much I love picking undomesticated fruit. It's just more fun, with so much less uniformity from tree to tree and even branch to branch or fruit to fruit. You really have to pay attention. The fruit tastes so different from tree to tree too; so neat. So sad that diversity's been bred out; variety really is a pretty awesome spice.
