The Product of a Late Summer Project: Wine

Shortly after I moved to the mountains I discovered the abundance of the local farmer's market.  I stocked up on peaches for canning, tomatoes, peppers and garlic for salsa and ate my fill of fresh fruits and veggies.  Another thing I stocked up on was fresh plums.  I bought several pounds of a variety of locally grown plums and took them home to begin the process of making them into wine.  The recipe that I follow can be found on Jack Keller's Wine making page: (winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques12.asp)  I use the second recipe on the page to make a sweet wine.

I make wine in small batches only using a one gallon glass jug for the main fermentation.  One gallon will generally give me five bottles of wine, though I used two gallons for this recipe since I had a little extra juice when all was said and done.  I believe I started the wine some time in early September and let it ferment for a month before I added the final round of sugar and racked it.  There it sat for another full month to allow it to finish fermenting completely and to become clear.

Today was the day I bottled the final product.  I love the color of this wine!  The plums I used had both red and yellow flesh, but the final color was a beautiful mixture of both.  

Seven bottles were the final total with only a tiny bit left over for tasting.  It was very light and sweet and will only get better with age.  I can't wait to open one of these bottles in a few months!