This post is about wine made from roses NOT wine made from grapes. The latter, spelled rosé, is a common, popular light drink especially appreciated in the summer and a top pick to pair with a green salad or grilled shrimp. My paternal grandmother, Helen S. Wright, made no mention of rosé in her book, Old Time Recipes for Home Made Wines (published in 1909), but included one recipe for a rose-plant based wine. The curious thing about the recipe is that it calls for rose leaves rather than rose petals, along with rose-water.
Here is the recipe for Rose Wine, in the words of my Grandmother Wright:
Take a well-glazed earthen vessel and put into it three gallons of rose-water drawn with a cold still. Put into that a sufficient quantity of rose-leaves, cover it close and set for an hour in a kettle or copper of hot water, to take out the whole strength and tincture of the roses; and when cold, press the rose-leaves hard into the liquor, and steep fresh ones in it, repeating it till the liquor has got the full strength of the roses. To every gallon of the liquor put three pounds of loaf sugar, and stir it well, that it may melt and disperse in every part. Then put in a cask or convenient vessel to ferment, and put in a piece of bread toast hard and covered with yeast. Let it stand for thirty days, when it will be ripe and have a fine flavor, having the whole scent and strength of the roses in it, and it may be greatly improved by adding wine and spices to it. By this method of infusion, wine of carnations, clove gilliflowers, violets, primroses, or any other flower having a curious scent, may be made.
To buy Old Time Recipes for Home Made Wines by Helen S. Wright from Amazon.com Click Here.
Karen Meyers