Chocolate wine
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Biehl Brewery
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I've been looking for a straight recipe too. If anyone has one it'd be appreciated.
Here is a link to an often quoted chocolate mead recipe: Lord Rhys Chocolate Mead Recipe | Washington Winemaker I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to eventually make chocolate mead. You could adapt this recipe to make wine (with sugar) instead of mead (with honey). I do have a batch of chocolate cherry wine in bulk aging, but you are asking for a plain chocolate wine.
You'll want to back sweeten the chocolate wine before bottling. You might also have to add a little glycerin to give it the mouthfeel that we associate with chocolate.
You'll want to back sweeten the chocolate wine before bottling. You might also have to add a little glycerin to give it the mouthfeel that we associate with chocolate.
Biehl Brewery
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Exactly what I needed. Thanks!
Daboyleroy
Senior Member
How much chocolate to use in wine
No matter how I make the wine, I’ll have to decide how much chocolate to use. There’s a lot of reference material on how much oak, tannin, acid, and so on to use in wine, but not so much on just the right amount of chocolate. To start with, I’ll use the phenolic content to put an upper limit on the amount. I don’t want to be trying to remove excess phenolics from my chocolate wine, so I’ll compare the amount in cocoa powder with the typical amount in red wine to get a maximum. Red wines will have up to 0.35% (3.5 g/L) phenolic content. As I mentioned in my post on chocolate, cocoa powder is about 8%, by weight, phenolic compounds. Putting these two figures together, and doing a little algebra, yields a figure of 43.75 g (a little over 1.5 oz and a little under 9 tablespoons) of cocoa powder in a liter. For a gallon of wine, then, we’d want no more than 165.6 g (5.8 oz).
There are some reasons that we might want less. The phenolics in chocolate won’t be the same as the phenolics in grapes, so it makes sense to back off from this maximum amount. The hot chocolate recipes I’ve seen are made with anywhere from 1 – 2 tablespoons of cocoa per cup (about 21-42 g/L). The lower value of 21 g/L, which works out to about 3 oz/gallon, should still yield plenty of flavor (it’s from the recipe in the Joy of Cooking) with less risk that the phenolics will be too harsh.
The subtle approach
This is a good starting point for a just chocolate wine, and maybe for a chocolate flavored wine. If we’re using chocolate like oak, then we should look at a more subtle approach too. After all, the flavor in hot chocolate might be good, but will it be good as a wine? Will it even be recognizable as wine? Maybe, but the rich flavor profile of chocolate might be useful in much smaller amounts to add complexity to wine. I’m imagining tasting such a wine and thinking, “I can’t put my finger on it, but I’ve never tasted Merlot like that before!” rather than, “Wow, chocolate!” When most people cook with chocolate or use it in flavored drinks, subtlety is not the goal. That makes it harder to know how much chocolate would add richness and complexity without overwhelming the wine. I think I’ll start with an arbitrary number, and cut the 21 g/L in half. Call it 10 g/L, which is about 1.3 oz or 7.5 tablespoons per gallon.
From : https://www.washingtonwinemaker.com/blog/2008/02/25/chocolate-wine-how-to-make-it/
No matter how I make the wine, I’ll have to decide how much chocolate to use. There’s a lot of reference material on how much oak, tannin, acid, and so on to use in wine, but not so much on just the right amount of chocolate. To start with, I’ll use the phenolic content to put an upper limit on the amount. I don’t want to be trying to remove excess phenolics from my chocolate wine, so I’ll compare the amount in cocoa powder with the typical amount in red wine to get a maximum. Red wines will have up to 0.35% (3.5 g/L) phenolic content. As I mentioned in my post on chocolate, cocoa powder is about 8%, by weight, phenolic compounds. Putting these two figures together, and doing a little algebra, yields a figure of 43.75 g (a little over 1.5 oz and a little under 9 tablespoons) of cocoa powder in a liter. For a gallon of wine, then, we’d want no more than 165.6 g (5.8 oz).
There are some reasons that we might want less. The phenolics in chocolate won’t be the same as the phenolics in grapes, so it makes sense to back off from this maximum amount. The hot chocolate recipes I’ve seen are made with anywhere from 1 – 2 tablespoons of cocoa per cup (about 21-42 g/L). The lower value of 21 g/L, which works out to about 3 oz/gallon, should still yield plenty of flavor (it’s from the recipe in the Joy of Cooking) with less risk that the phenolics will be too harsh.
The subtle approach
This is a good starting point for a just chocolate wine, and maybe for a chocolate flavored wine. If we’re using chocolate like oak, then we should look at a more subtle approach too. After all, the flavor in hot chocolate might be good, but will it be good as a wine? Will it even be recognizable as wine? Maybe, but the rich flavor profile of chocolate might be useful in much smaller amounts to add complexity to wine. I’m imagining tasting such a wine and thinking, “I can’t put my finger on it, but I’ve never tasted Merlot like that before!” rather than, “Wow, chocolate!” When most people cook with chocolate or use it in flavored drinks, subtlety is not the goal. That makes it harder to know how much chocolate would add richness and complexity without overwhelming the wine. I think I’ll start with an arbitrary number, and cut the 21 g/L in half. Call it 10 g/L, which is about 1.3 oz or 7.5 tablespoons per gallon.
From : https://www.washingtonwinemaker.com/blog/2008/02/25/chocolate-wine-how-to-make-it/
