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Sage Wine, Red

A fermented wine made with sage leaves, raisins, lemons, sugar candy, bitter almonds, brandy, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sage Wine, Red

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Remove the stalks from the sage leaves and shred them roughly.

  2. Pour 4 gallons of boiling soft water over the sage leaves, cover the vessel, and let it stand for 1 day.

  3. Pick and halve the raisins, pour 6 gallons of lukewarm boiled water over them, stir well, and cover.

  4. Mix the contents of both vessels, add the rinds and juice of the lemons, and let it infuse for 5 days, stirring twice daily.

Ferment and clear

  1. In a clean 10-gallon cask, place 6 ounces of sugar candy, 1 ounce of bitter almonds paste, and 1 spoonful of brandy.

  2. Strain the liquor into the cask, filling it to the bunghole, and cover tightly. Let it ferment, keeping the cask full.

  3. When fermentation ceases, add 1 quart of brandy and seal the bunghole for 2 months.

  4. After 2 months, rack the liquor into a clean vessel, filter the lees, and return the clear liquid to the cask.

  5. Add 6 ounces of sugar candy, 1 pint of brandy, and 1.5 ounces of dissolved isinglass in 2 quarts of the wine.

  6. Seal the cask and store for 12 months.

  7. After a year, bottle the wine, and it will be ready for use after 18 months.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sage + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Red sage leaves
Provides the main herbal aroma and flavour of the wine.
Malaga raisins
Supply the sugars that ferment into alcohol and add body and sweetness.
Lemons
Add acidity and aromatic oils from the rind to brighten the wine.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a nutty, almond-like aroma to the wine.
Isinglass
Fining agent that clarifies the wine by drawing out suspended particles.

The step that matters

Keep the cask full during fermentation. Filling the cask to the bunghole limits contact with air, which would let the wine oxidise or spoil by acetic souring. Fermentation releases gas, so the cask must stay topped up while it works.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, lemon, sugar, almond, brandy, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, sugar, almond, brandy, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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