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Pinh Champagne

A sweet wine made from currants, sugar, yeast, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and white currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Pinh Champagne

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Boil the sugar in water for 30 minutes, skimming well.

  2. Pour the hot liquid over the picked currants.

  3. When nearly cool, add the yeast and let it work for 2 days.

Cask and bottle

  1. Strain through a fine sieve into a small cask, adding isinglass.

  2. Leave extra liquid to fill the cask as it works over.

  3. Bung the cask after about 2 weeks.

  4. Let it stand until April, adding a lump of sugar to each bottle.

  5. Uncork the bottles for 1 day, then cork and wire them.

  6. Store bottles upright in the cellar, laying some on their sides for a week before serving.

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. Red currant + white curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + white curranttop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Lump sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol and carbonation.
Red currants
Supply the main fruit flavour, acidity and colour to the wine.
White currants
Add acidity and fruit flavour, lightening the overall colour and taste.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, starting the wine working.
Isinglass
Fining agent that helps clarify the liquid by collecting suspended particles.

The step that matters

Leaving the extra liquid to top up the cask. During active fermentation the must foams and can overflow, and the cask must stay full so air contact is minimised. Keeping it topped up prevents spoilage and oxidation, which would dull flavour and encourage unwanted microbes.

Swap the white currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, red currant):

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, red currant. 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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