Fower/blossom/herb wine enthusiast

[Tessa999]

Hi everybody, I'm a newbie winemaker with an interest in flower/blossom/herb wine making. I've always loved foraging for wild food and making preserves. For the past 5 years my interest in fermented foods has been growing. After (lacto) fermenting vegetables making vinegar and wine was the next logical step So far I've been making elder blossom wine (+ accidental elder blossom wine vinegar -> truly wonderful), magnolia flower wine and elderberry wine. I'm in love Big shout out to Luc Volders (ancient) wine blog which has taught me pretty much everything I needed to know to get started.
Would love to chat with people with a similar interest in flower wines. I've read what I've been able to find but I get the impression flower wine is fairly unchartered territory for most wine makers? Future projects, more elder blossom wine (one can never have enough), lilac wine(s), hibiscus flower wine, rose petal wine, peony flower wine, wild flower/herb wine, mead, fruit wine(s) and wine blending to see if I can come up with some interesting combinations. I always use fresh ingredients either foraged or grown. (for me that's part of the fun).

 

[winemaker81]

Welcome to WMT!

Check the fruit wine forum -- you'll find threads there regarding flower wines. Flower winemaking appears to be less common, but you'll find folks who have fermented pretty much anything.

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome aboard!

 

[Vinobeau]

I've made quite a few batches of flower wines thru the years - Wild Rose Petal, Day Lily, Elderflower, Heather & Hibiscus. I've added Dill to the Hibiscus and the Rose Petal. Here is a fun site for Herbal wine varieties! Recipes for home brew wine making from Wine World FDW

 

[hounddawg]

welcome to WMT,
Dawg

 

[David Violante]

I've made quite a few batches of flower wines thru the years - Wild Rose Petal, Day Lily, Elderflower, Heather & Hibiscus. I've added Dill to the Hibiscus and the Rose Petal. Here is a fun site for Herbal wine varieties! Recipes for home brew wine making from Wine World FDW

Thank you for these! I love that the ingredients are in actual weights and not somewhat subjectively loose volumes…

 

[Rice_Guy]

Welcome to wine making talk,

I have experimented with flowers. My look at flowers is that there is little nutrition for yeast therefore if one can do a flower wine well they are a good winemaker. My starting question is what backbone will I use? ,,,, ex. dandelion with citrus or with pear juice or with white grape or only straight chemicals out of the bottle.
I can’t claim to be an expert since a lot of the trials I didn’t like.

 

[Kuntrygirl]

Hi everybody, I'm a newbie winemaker with an interest in flower/blossom/herb wine making. I've always loved foraging for wild food and making preserves. For the past 5 years my interest in fermented foods has been growing. After (lacto) fermenting vegetables making vinegar and wine was the next logical step So far I've been making elder blossom wine (+ accidental elder blossom wine vinegar -> truly wonderful), magnolia flower wine and elderberry wine. I'm in love Big shout out to Luc Volders (ancient) wine blog which has taught me pretty much everything I needed to know to get started.
Would love to chat with people with a similar interest in flower wines. I've read what I've been able to find but I get the impression flower wine is fairly unchartered territory for most wine makers? Future projects, more elder blossom wine (one can never have enough), lilac wine(s), hibiscus flower wine, rose petal wine, peony flower wine, wild flower/herb wine, mead, fruit wine(s) and wine blending to see if I can come up with some interesting combinations. I always use fresh ingredients either foraged or grown. (for me that's part of the fun).

Thank you for this post. I posted a few days ago about Hibiscus flowers because I am not sure if the flower petals have to be dehydrated for winemaking or not. I have my Hibiscus flowers harvested and ready but I don't know how to proceed from there. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Vinobeau]

Thank you for this post. I posted a few days ago about Hibiscus flowers because I am not sure if the flower petals have to be dehydrated for winemaking or not. I have my Hibiscus flowers harvested and ready but I don't know how to proceed from there. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

I have always used dried Hibiscus flowers, about 2 1/2 ounces per gallon. I can only guess what that equated to in fresh flowers, but I would probably shoot for 2 quarts of fresh petals.

 

[Tessa999]

Thank you for this post. I posted a few days ago about Hibiscus flowers because I am not sure if the flower petals have to be dehydrated for winemaking or not. I have my Hibiscus flowers harvested and ready but I don't know how to proceed from there. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Hi Kuntrygirl, I always use my flowers fresh or frozen (directly after harvest). I would never dehydrate them as you will loose a lot of the aromas The amount is tricky to guess as I haven't made wine with hibiscus before. I have my own experiment going with (frozen) magnolia petals. Recipes for rose petal wine are pretty common so I based my guesstimate on those. As a starting point I fill a liter jug with loosely compacted petals and weigh those. I then freeze flowers in baggies of the same weight. For my magnolia wine I used 100 grams of petals (1 liter loosely compacted) per liter wine. So 1 to 1. If it's too strong I know next year I'll want to adjust my liters of petals to liters of wine. I'm fairly certain I've used too much and will dilute my wine with more sugar and water before it has finished fermenting. It's good to note that variations of the same flower can have differences in aroma and in potency so you will always have to adjust if you harvest from an untried tree.

 

[Tessa999]

Welcome to wine making talk,

I have experimented with flowers. My look at flowers is that there is little nutrition for yeast therefore if one can do a flower wine well they are a good winemaker. My starting question is what backbone will I use? ,,,, ex. dandelion with citrus or with pear juice or with white grape or only straight chemicals out of the bottle.
I can’t claim to be an expert since a lot of the trials I didn’t like.

Hi all I use are (fresh) flower petals, water, sugar, mixed acids, yeast and a generic yeast feed. I use apple juice to make a starter the day before so I have an active fermentation straight away. That way I don't have to use any sulfite to protect my must. I really like my results

 

[Tessa999]

I have always used dried Hibiscus flowers, about 2 1/2 ounces per gallon. I can only guess what that equated to in fresh flowers, but I would probably shoot for 2 quarts of fresh petals.

I remember reading dried flowers are way stronger than fresh and the advice was to use one third of the weight of fresh flowers in case of dried flowers. But I haven't tested the theory as I don't buy dried flowers.