Rose hips

[Paul]

Hi all, I am ready to bottle 15 bottles of rose hip wine. Filtered today, very fine sediment and did not want to take any chances, and added Potassium Sorbate. My question is this - is dry preferred for a wine such as this? I was thinking of 5 dry, 5 semi-sweet, and 5 sweet. The recipe is from Terry Garey's book where she recommends sweeten it for a social wine. What SG would you generally consider a social wine? I am thinking not as much as a Riesling.

Paul

[Hippie]

I think the traditional wine would be off dry/semisweet, but not too sweet. Actually, I really believe the acid, alcohol, and tannin content will dictate the sweetness you should seek.

[StockeyDAW]

Some old recipes that I have (1976 and 1993) indicate 5-8.5 pounds of rose hips -de-seeded, per 4 liters of must. "That is a lot of rose hips!. Did you pick from the wild or did you use dried rose hips?
Sweetening in my opinion is undertaken to the individual(s) tastes. One recipie that I have suggests that it should be dry with citrus fruit - ORANGES- added the other suggests 1/4 pound of sugar per 4 liters of wine. With your approximately 12 gallons you would use approx 3/4 pound of sugar.

You did not mention that you also undertook a sulphite treatment just before the sorbate addition. I am not a rose hip wine maker; is this something that you are just trying out or that you really like? I guess that they are very high in vitamin "C" Cheers DAW

[Paul]

More info

Well it measures almost no acid at all, I use the vin-o-meter testing kit. It inidcates around a 2 - 3 maybe, hard to get a reading. But it tastes horrid, which it did the first time I made it a year ago. The three recipes at Jack Keller's site indicate that young rose hip wine is simply undrinkable. A taste test is near impossible and I am extremely leery about going only by measures. My first batch tastes delicious but has about six months more to go based on recommendations.

Daw, yes I had already done sulphite but added the sorbate as a precaution. My instincts are to sweeten maybe 5 bottles. I have 3 US gallons, not 12 - sorry was using numbers of bottles to avoid the metric / English conversions.

I enjoy the rose hip challenge mostly because we (my wife and I) enjoy growing roses, and in the fall there are all those rose hips just screaming to be used. Unfortunately we moved to a new home and the new plantings won't be providing my previous crops for a few years.

Perhaps splitting the batch up, taking good notes and a bit of experimentation is in order here.

Paul

[StockeyDAW]

Well it measures almost no acid at all, I use the vin-o-meter testing kit. It inidcates around a 2 - 3 maybe, hard to get a reading. But it tastes horrid, which it did the first time I made it a year ago. The three recipes at Jack Keller's site indicate that young rose hip wine is simply undrinkable. A taste test is near impossible and I am extremely leery about going only by measures. My first batch tastes delicious but has about six months more to go based on recommendations.

Daw, yes I had already done sulphite but added the sorbate as a precaution. My instincts are to sweeten maybe 5 bottles. I have 3 US gallons, not 12 - sorry was using numbers of bottles to avoid the metric / English conversions.

I enjoy the rose hip challenge mostly because we (my wife and I) enjoy growing roses, and in the fall there are all those rose hips just screaming to be used. Unfortunately we moved to a new home and the new plantings won't be providing my previous crops for a few years.

Perhaps splitting the batch up, taking good notes and a bit of experimentation is in order here.

Paul

No Cheers Paul - I made a typo error I meant to say 3 gallons. Ya I guess that your location is an excellent place for growing roses. I am dead heading all the roses after bloom to direct as many blossoms as possible to bloom. Hope the wine turns out great1 DAW

[medpretzel]

So how did it turn out? I've got rose-hips to ferment!

[Paul]

bottled

This is how I made final adjustments after stabilizing. I was working with 3 gallons as mentioned to had to do a bit of tweak on amounts.

7/14/07 Acid at .5%, added 2 tsp. of acid blend
7/23/07 Acid at .85%, SG at .985, added six oz. of sugar syrup and mixed
7/26/07 Acid at .55%, SG at .990, added six oz. of sugar syrup
7/30/07 SG at .999, acid at .5%, added 2 tsp. of acid blend
8/1/07 Tested SG at .999, acid at .625%

One bottle from 2 years ago tasted "earthy" so I added it to an elderberry blend I had made and it tasted very good together. So even if one bottle is a bit odd you can patch together something that is drinkable and will not upset the stomach.

Hope this helps Danina, rose hips are a lot of fun for the challenge.

[Paul]

Rose Hips finally

My first batch of Rose Hip wine only produced 5 bottles, when I was first starting out in the hobby. I decided to stick a bottle in the fridge yesterday and opened tonight. The initial taste was still a bit acidic but I decided to leave the bottle open for about 15 minutes and WOW! It is great, what a treat. This is a batch I started November 2005 so patience must be given to Rose Hip wines. I have a batch from 2006 and 2007 but now that we've moved I have to wait for my rose bushes to really start producing all over again.
All in all a great experience to learn what the aging process can do, if you have have enough bottles to spare pulling one out every six months helps to determine drinkability but once it is ready, it is just marvelous. I did go with a dry wine on this, avoided sweetener even though some suggest to make this a dessert wine. Not sure how that would affect the aging dilemma.

Paul

[Paulwales]

Hi,
I've found a few wild bushes and would like to know how ripe must they be before they are picked ?

[ms67]

they say the time to pick them is after the first frost. Dunno if this is myth or what, but i've always done it at that time. Its nice having a reason to look forward to the first frost and i'll be picking again this year.

[Paulwales]

OK so they do stay on the bushes...thanks as I was about to start picking them soon

[Paulwales]

I've pick 2Lbs of wild rosehips today can anyone suggest a recipie I could try?

[lockwood1956]

From the "Recipe" section

http://www.winesathome.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=1433

[Paulwales]

So far I've only picked hard bright Red Rose hips now the new bushes I come across are starting to look quite dark and some drying out and some dark with some black patches.... can anyone tell me at what what point is a rosehip past it "use by" date

[ms67]

i've always avoided the blackened ones and the mushy ones, but pick the rest. i often wonder if the bright red firm ones or the darker red softer ones are best. hopefully someone will drop in who knows!

Also, i often wonder which ones are best, variety wise i mean, cos i see so much variation in the hedgerows .... size, shape, colour, hairs etc etc