Why it works: Sugar and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,581 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Home Wine-making
Ingredients
Directions
Ferment
Cover the tub with a blanket and a board, maintaining a temperature of 50 to 60°F (10 to 15°C).
After 1-2 days, draw off the liquor into a 10-gallon cask to ferment, keeping it filled near the bung-hole.
When fermentation slows, drive in the bung and bore a hole for a wooden peg.
Loosen the peg after a few days to allow air to escape, then drive it in tightly when no more air escapes.
Clear and bottle
Store the wine in a cool cellar until the end of December, then rack it into a fresh cask to clear it from the first lees.
If the wine is too sweet, stir up the lees or roll the cask to renew fermentation.
Check the wine in February or March; if clear, it can be bottled without further trouble.
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.
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Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and the fuel that yeast turns into alcohol during fermentation.
- Fruit
- Adds flavour and brightness to the wine and supplies the sugars and yeast that start fermentation.
The step that matters
Keeping the cask filled near the bung-hole. Liquid kept full leaves little air contact, so the wine is less likely to spoil or oxidise while it ferments.
“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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