Oak Leaf wine.

I have some very lively fermentation going on with this which is a new one to me but has a good reputation for producing a good, dry white. Anyone else tried making it?

I'm also experimenting with hawthorn blossom and some oregon grape. The hawthorn is lovely and pale and the ferment is really good (I guess that's largely from the pollen in the flowers), the oregon grape has the most fantastic deep burgundy colour so I have high hopes although they are really sharp so the recipe called for an awful lot of sugar.

We were going to try Oak leaf beer...but haven't. Would be interested in the result Co'woods.
We have mountains, well trees of morello cherries. Have you ever make wine from these? Not sure how much suger to try as I think they are considered sour but we think they are sweet!

Oooh. Cherries. To be honest I usually steep my local wilding cherries (which are mostly black ones) in brandy, partly because I've never had quite enough to try experimenting with wine, and partly because I love eating cherries and putting them into brandy does double duty - it preserves them for later use in pies, ice cream etc., & gives me a nice deep coloured cherry brandy to sip at too. I don't add sugar either, many recipes seems to add too much of it for my tastes anyway. I leave everything to blend and only add sweetening if it's needed when I'm ready to use the contents of the preserving jar - & it usually doesn't!

You've intrigued me with oak leaf beer, never heard of that before do you have a recipe for it? One thing I am about to have a try at is making an oak leaf version of beech leaf noyau. The reasoning is simply that while making the wine I noticed that the aroma of the leaf liquor was very similar to that of beech leaf noyau so it's all rather based on a hunch & purely experimental. I'll let you know if it works out (fingers crossed it won't be god-awful).

I'll see if I can rustle up a decent cherry wine recipe for you from my book-mountain.

I have not made anything with oak leaves but I have bottled a litre of beech leaf noyau (leaves steeped in gin then sweetened and a dash of brandy added)

Don't oak leaves have quite a lot of tannin, in them?

You need the tannin for a full flavoured wine. I think you have to pick the leaves when they first appear.

Well I can not find the Beer recipe so now I'm wondering.... Ben Law's Woodland Way has oak leaf wine so Wood Troll thinks I've imagined the beer recipe. I'll wake him up a 2am when I remember where I saw it!!

Zoe wrote: Ben Law's Woodland Way has oak leaf wine so Wood Troll thinks I've imagined the beer recipe. I'll wake him up a 2am when I remember where I saw it!!

Please don't tell him it was my fault!

Yep, young fresh leaves that are still soft are in this one - I think the snowy start to the year threw everything seriously out of wack around here as a lot of the younger trees are still chucking out new growth when I would have usually expected it to be hardening off and stopping by this time of year. That said, the Jack Keller webby has another recipe that calls for old, end of year leaves (apparently from good old CJJ Berry!). There's a cherry wine recipe on that site too, and while I think of it the Grape Stomper website also has a good selection of cherry variations that you might find interesting. http://www.grapestomper.com/reccherry.html

Green Rosie, I've done the beech leaf noyau thing for a few years now and really like it. Have you ever tried it with young copper beech leaves though? The two brews taste remarkably different, it's worth giving a go if you get the chance. It even picks up a little of the colour as you can see.



Anyway, the oak leaf noyau experiment begins today so I'll let you know what it's like in about 3 months time!

I did wonder about copper beech but there is none around here - next year I'll have to look further afield and see which I prefer.