I have been making wine for nearly two years and have drank some awesome spiced wines from large wineries. Any suggestions on how to spice the wine before bottling?
I only have had mulled wine myself. One can buy little packages of spice to add to wine to make it (some even available in little "tea bags"), but there are also home made recipes. It is usually made on demand rather than bottled. So perhaps you have another type of spiced wine in mind if you are interested in bottling.
I would like to make a holiday flavor warm apple pie flavored wine, maybe cloves and cinnamon, allspice and star anise, or ginger? My thought was cinnamon stick some whole cloves put into a bottle with screw top, Leave sit on counter for a week or so and test sample. Anybody ?
Go easy with the cloves. They like to overpower wines. Like you said, use the cinnamon sticks, the powder stuff likes to stay in the wine and fall out long after it is bottled. I have not tried the other spices so can't help you with them. Arne.
if you can find clear color vanilla blend with a apple wine, brings memory of apple pie to mind. I ordered mine on Amazon.
I have a metheglin in production now -- mead with spices. I took 6 cinnamon sticks, 12 cloves, and 12 whole allspice -- put them in a hops bag (cheesecloth). I wrapped it in plastic and gently beat it with a hammer to crush the spice. Unwrapped and added the bag to the primary during fermentation. You can do the same in secondary storage. However ... if adding spices during secondary storage, check the wine weekly. You can always add more spice ... but taking it out of the wine doesn't work quite as well ....
We just had a 2011 Spiced Apple tonight. It was a Apple Wine made from Stayman Waysap apples. I spiced it with one clove per 5 gals, 2 cinnamon sticks & like a 1/4 tsp Ginger. Left it in a month or so, tasted periodically, Not over spiced, which is what we wanted. Absolutely Awesome even after 7 years!! Roy
