Rosehip Wine

Getting confident

In season October to November · makes 4.5 L · target OG 1.090

Teaches a technique that is really about safety and care — fine-straining to remove an irritant — on a lovely winter wine.

Before you start. Strain out every one of the fine seed hairs through a fine cloth — they are a known skin/throat irritant.

You will need

Rosehip
Ready when fully red-orange and just soft to a squeeze — after a frost, or freeze them. Rock-hard hips are underripe.

1
Sanitise. Pick the hips after a frost has softened them (or freeze them overnight). Rinse well.
2
The lesson is the hairs. Inside every hip, around the seeds, is a mass of fine hairs that are a genuine irritant — the playground 'itching powder'. Your whole job is to get the flavour and the vitamin C WITHOUT the hairs, so you must strain everything through a FINE cloth, not just a coarse sieve.
3
Mince or roughly crush the hips, pour on 2.5 L of hot (not boiling) water with the lemon juice, and steep two days.
4
Strain through a fine muslin — twice if you need to — leaving every hair behind. Then add the sugar dissolved warm and top to 4.5 L.
5
Cool, pitch yeast and nutrient (reading ~1.090), ferment out, rack and clear.
6
A delicate, faintly rose-scented amber wine, high in vitamin C. Keep a year.

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An original MakeWine recipe.