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“A day without wine is a day without sunshine…“
(Boudelaire via Harold in Steptoe and Son).
I started making home-made, country, or fruit wine in Wales in the Eighties. I had an arrangement with a local greengrocer to turn whatever fruit and veg he had left on Sunday afternoon into wine, and I would give him 50% of the produce.
At one point, I was making six to eight gallons a month, and any of my friends who liked wine, were kept supplied. Despite that, when I moved house after a couple of years, I gave away 180 bottles of ‘seasoned’ country wine to a local working men’s club to use as raffle prizes for the next twelve months!
That was fifty years ago, and now I am living in a different country, 12,000 km away on a different continent. Thailand, to be specific. It is well-known as the Land of Smiles, but is also called the Land of 100 Fruits!
Perfect for a fruit-wine producer like me!
Not only that, but I live in a farming village, so the raw materials are not a problem, although demijohns, wine bottles and corks are. Therefore, my home-made wine will be coming in pint beer bottles, if I can get a tool for recapping them.
Making Fruit Wine
I have been in Thailand for 17 years, but never attempted to make wine before. I’m up for it now though 🙂
The next big crop due is mangoes. I have never made mango wine, but it sounds delicious, as is the fruit of the tree. In fact, it’s one of my favourite Thai fruits, and I like nearly all of them!
There will be a recipe for mango wine on the Internet, and the rest I can improvise 🙂
I’m looking forward to making wine, and surprising my Thai family with what they have been missing for millennia. Making fruit wine is not a rural Thai tradition 🙂
** Update ** I have been told that there are no mangoes, and that the next fruit ‘on-line’ is pineapple! So, that will be the project 🙂