When in Rome....

I am not originally from Georgia. I grew up in Texas, and moved for graduate school. I've only lived here for 5 years, so I am so not a "Georgia Peach."

But man I love me some peaches.

I also hate the peaches song. You listen to that 10 times in one day while at a job and see if you like it after that. Also, the bicycle song. Both will send me running for the hills. 

I first tasted peach wine my first year here in Georgia. It was Taste of Athens, and a new winery nearby had a booth. If you live in the area, Boutier Winery is an amazing place, and the owners are simply awesome. Anyways, their peach wine was the first wine I'd ever had that I actually liked. This might come as a surprise, but for nearly my whole life before this, I absolutely hated wine. Could not stand it. Much preferred screwdrivers if I were to have any alcohol. I know now this is because my father, when he does drink wine, prefers the dry reds that most men (it seems) like. And my mother, to try and appeal to his taste as well as others, tended to get the dryer whites.

I canot stand dry wine. It just tastes like bad fruit juice, but without the nice fruit flavors.

This is my personal taste, and by no means a judgement. Just want to put that out there. I also like boiled hotdogs, which is apparently is a crime against nature. Also, I hate tuna in all forms. Yes, even a perfectly seared-on-the-outside-rare-on-the-inside tuna steak. So take my likes and dislikes with a grain of salt.

Anyways, I grew up with wine that was not to my liking, and had never had a sweeter wine, until that day. And I was hooked. I even bought Boutier's magnum of peach wine at one point because I loved it so much. Naturally, when I thought about getting in to making wine myself, a peach wine was one of my top ideas.

Originally, I was going to do a fig wine next, as figs are coming in to season and will be far cheaper than they would be normally. But the boyfriend and I were at the grocery store last weekend and peaches were $0.64/lb. That is insanely cheap for peaches. And yes, I know, I'm in Georgia.

Did you know that South Carolina actually produces more peaches than Georgia? It's true.

I quickly looked up some peach wine recipes on Jack Keller's site to see how much I would need. According to all three of his recipes, to do a 3 gallon batch, I would need 9 lbs of peaches. Totally doable at that price! I decided I was very intruiged by that peach banana wine, so that's what I decided to try next.

Also, I'm trying to stay away from anything grape or grape related, just because I want to experiment and see what kinds of wines I can make from other fruits. And his description of a "superb golden wine" hooked me.

So.. 9lbs of peaches and 3lbs of bananas for around $8 later, it's time to start!

If you've ever had to peel a peach, it can be rough, especially if you get the really really really ripe (in other words, mushy) peaches. Luckily, I didn't have to peel them, but I did have to destone and slice. Which can be a hassle if you don't know how to do it.

Firstly, don't get mushy peaches. I know when you get them in a can, they're all mushy and sweet and lovely, but a mushy peach is a bad peach when you get them fresh. Get ones that are firm, but not rock hard. They give a little bit when squeezed but don't, well, mush.

Washed well, they looked delicious enough to eat right then and there.

Note: This is not all of the peaches. I sliced, in total, 27 of them. My hand hurt afterwards.

The next step is to get it open without completely destroying it. To do that, take your knife and cut in a circle all around it. The stone will keep you from going completely through. In essence, you're cutting it in half, with only the stone keeping it together

Take one half in either hand, and twist.

Then just pull apart!

And there you have two peach halves!

To get the stone out of the other half, you can either get a spoon to dig it out, if you want just peach halves, or you can repeat the process with just that half to get a quarter.

From there, you can grasp the stone itself and work it out.

The peaches need to be sliced as thin as you can make them, but peaches aren't as firm as apples or pears, so the slices won't be paper thin. Just as thin as you can get them. I had to stop to work out a cramped hand before I could get all 9lbs done.

They look a bit like apples though.

The recipe also calls for bananas t be used, but not as a whole banana. It wants the juice and sugar of the banana, but not the starchyness of the banana itself. So they were boiled. 1lb of peeled, sliced bananas in 1 pt of water. (So 3lbs in 3 pts).

Did you know that bananas swell up when you boil them? I didn't. Made a bit of a mess in my kitchen.

While everything was getting hot and boiling, I added half the sugar needed (again, according to the recipe.) 2lbs 10oz of sugar. My boyfriend was watching with wide eyes, as he hadn't seen me put the 7 1/2 lbs in the blackberry wine. A repeated comment was "Thats....... a lot of sugar." Well yes, but it's not to make it sweet. It's food for yeast!

Sugar is in. Bananas are draining. Time to get those peaches steeping in boiling water! I poured 12 pints of boiling water over the sugar and peaches, and stirred gently (so as not to tangle my nylon bag) to get the sugar dissolved.

I then left it to cool overnight, as I had to go to work in the morning and couldn't wait up to do the next part.

At approximately 6am this morning, I came downstairs, made sure the peach/sugar/water mixture was cooled, and then poured in my approx 3 pints of banana water, and enough water to make up to 3 gallons. I estimated I didn't really lose that much in the boiling of the bananas and so added 9 pints. (12 over the peaches + 3 with the bananas + 9 more = 24 = 3 gallons). I also added two things I haven't used before.

1) Citric acid:

Citric acid gives a wine a "fresh" flavor due to the acidity. Peaches and bananas aren't all that acidic when compared to grapes or blackberries, so an additive is needed. I added 1 1/2 tsp.

2) Campden tablets

Campden Tablets contain potassium metabisulfide, which then disassociates to form sulfur dioxide.

The sulfur dioxide performs two tasks. Firstly, it kills off any wild yeast that happens to be in the mix. Secondly, it kills bacteria, which would normally thrive with the extra citric acid, and thus contaminate my wine. I put three tablets (1 tablet per gallon), as well as the citric acid into a plastic bag and crushed the tablets with a rolling pin. I love my boyfriend's marble rolling pin. I love it even more since he moved in with me between me buying it for him for Christmas and him moving in. It was like giving myself a new kitchen toy. (I didn't know he'd be moving in when I bought it. It just worked out that way, honest!)

After adding my banana water, more water, citric acid, and campden tablets, I stirred the must, re-covered it, and then went off to work.

12 hours later, I was home, napped, and a bit more relaxed. I then added some pectic enzyme, like I did for the blackberry. Again stirred up and re-covered. You will notice the difference with this wine is that I still haven't removed the solids yet. The peaches are actually going to stay in there for the whole of the primary fermentation, and only removed and strained when the wine goes into the secondary and goes under an airlock.

Tomorrow morning around 7am I will add the yeast nutrient and the yeast itself. Excitement!

And in blackberry news, I was getting concerned as it looked like my overflow container was getting almost brown to black. This is Not Good as that means oxidation has happened and the wine is unstable, or possibly even turning to vinegar. I discussed the issue with my wine co-worker who had never had the problem. I promised to send a picture when I got home.

Well, apparently my eyes are horrible, and my pantry is darker than it looks, because when I got it out on the table and under normal light, it looked just fine. Better than fine, actually, as it was already noticably clearer than before, and the dead yeast were definitely starting to pile up on the bottom.

Less than a week since it's been under the airlock, and you can see a difference. It looks like the darkening isn't because of any oxidation, but because the yeast are floating down to the bottom, and they were the ones making it that bright pink color. You can see them on the bottom. They're the lighter pink.

So joy! The wine is not ruined. As far as I know. When I rack it the first time I'll take a taste. Hopefully I won't taste acetic acid.

Until next time!