Wine from tangerines at home – 3 recipes

Mandarin wine is a unique drink that, chilled in the summer, brings drinkers into a light stupor, bringing down on them unexpectedly warm memories of the New Year holidays spent with the family. Cold drink – warm memories. Tangerines in winter – wine all year round. This is the superpower of winemakers and you can and should use it at any time of the year, especially when winter is coming!

We continue to study off-season wines that are made either all year round, such as raisin and rosehip wines, or in the season when most of the traditional berries, fruits and vegetables for winemaking are simply not available, that is, in winter. This time we will try to make wine from the most New Year’s fruit in the world – tangerines. At the same time, we will go exclusively along the traditional winemaking path, leaving aside artisanal technologies that are simply not compatible with this kind of raw materials. Mandarin (Cītrus reticulāta) is a close relative of orange (Cītrus × sinēnsis), so in many cases the recipes for wines made from these citrus fruits are interchangeable, which means that tangerine wines can be prepared according to orange recipes and vice versa. Without further ado, let’s move on to these recipes, where a couple of surprises await you.

Recipe for homemade tangerine wine

Tangerine juice is very rich, so you need very little of it to make 10 liters of wine. The recipe below uses only 1,3 liters of juice per 10 liters of finished drink, but you can make a more expressive version of wine by increasing the amount of juice to 2-2,5 liters. But be sure that the amount of juice from quality tangerines indicated in the recipe will be more than enough to get a tasty and aromatic wine. If you still decide to add more juice, proportionally reduce the amount of water. Of the nuances: tangerine juice oxidizes very quickly, so when mixing it with water, it is important to immediately add sulfur (in the form of Campden tablets), which prevents oxidative processes. So, to prepare 10 liters of tangerine wine you will need:

Get juice from tangerines, filter it well and pour it into a fermenter. Add sugar, water, yeast nutrition and sulfur (Campden tablet). Mix thoroughly until the sugar is completely dissolved. Wait 12 hours for the sulfur to work and then add the pectin enzyme. Wait another 12 hours, add the yeast prepared in advance according to the instructions on the package. Install a water seal and send to a warm place for fermentation. Every day, while the fermentation is vigorous, the wort must be stirred. When the fermentation subsides, the wort should be left alone. When the fermentation completely subsides (the density will be around 2,5%), the young wine must be drained from the sediment and poured into a clean fermenter, which should be sent for secondary fermentation in a cool place for 2-3 months. Once a month, the wine must be drained from the sediment. Then stand under a water seal for another 4-6 months to make sure that the fermentation is completed completely. The wine can be sweetened before bottling. Bottle aging is encouraged.

Mandarin-orange wine

This recipe will produce approximately 3,5 liters of high-quality, delicately flavored citrus dry wine. It is important for him to choose sweet oranges, such as the fruits of the Valencia variety (Valencia Late), which belong to the Jaffa and Palestinian oranges (others represent this group: Shamuti or Jaffa, Khalili, Joppa, Belladi). Also, to obtain a high quality drink, it is recommended to use a mixture of sweet and sour tangerines in equal proportions. The best result in winemaking is shown by the sweet Pakistani tangerines of the Kinnow variety, a hybrid of two varieties of California oranges.

Bring water to a boil and dissolve sugar in it. Remove the zest from 5 oranges and save it, and peel all other citrus fruits and remove the albedo (white veins and subskin) from the slices. Place all citrus slices and orange zest in a nylon bag with a tie. Place the bag in the fermenter and pour boiling water with dissolved sugar on top. Wait until the water in the fermenter cools down to 22-25^оC, add citric acid, tannin, yeast nutrition and pectin enzyme. Wait 12 hours and add the yeast activated according to the instructions. Install a water seal and send for primary fermentation for 7-10 days, the must must be stirred daily. When the density of the wort drops to 2,5%, lift the nylon bag over the fermenter and let it drain, do not wring. Pour the wort into a glass fermenter, top up with water if necessary, up to 3,5 liters of total volume. Install a water seal and send to a cool place for dry fermentation.

When the fermentation stops, remove from the sediment, pour into a clean fermenter, install a water seal and send the wine to a cool place for maturation for 6 months. Every 2 months, drain the wine from the sediment and again under the water seal. After six months of maturation and clarification, the wine must be tasted, sweetened to taste, wait 3 weeks and bottled. Bottle aging for 6-12 months is a must. According to this recipe, it will turn out to make wine with a strength of 12%, but with 10% alcohol it is much more pleasant to drink it, especially chilled on hot summer days.

Chocolate and mandarin wine

A curiosity that is prepared by a married couple in Tennessee and tested by the famous Texas winemaker Jack B. Keller Jr. (Jack B. Keller, Jr.). Wine according to this recipe was also tested by many American winemakers and highly appreciated its taste. The only condition for obtaining a quality product, like most chocolate wines, is long-term aging for 1-2 years, otherwise it’s not worth cooking.

*This refers to organic, non-concentrated, store-bought orange juice without pulp. It can be replaced with freshly squeezed orange juice, but always without pulp.

** The original recipe recommends using Hershey’s Cocoa Powder as one of the most important ingredients in this recipe (meaning that for this wine you need to choose the highest quality cocoa powder from natural raw materials). Hershey’s Cocoa Powder can also be bought in the CIS, but it costs a lot of money, so I advise you to find just a good, high-quality, not sweet cocoa powder for confectionery.

Tangerine wine needs a long aging, so you can drink it and not be disappointed, at best, by the next New Year. But if you want to serve a drink with tangerine flavor for holidays this year, try making tangerine tincture – you won’t regret it!

In a fermenter, mix sugar, tannin, yeast nutrition and potassium metabisulphite, add orange juice and mix vigorously for 2-3 minutes. After that, cocoa powder must be added to the wort. To do this, place a glass of orange juice mixture in a blender and turn it on at the lowest speed, then slowly pour in the cocoa powder. When all the cocoa has been dissolved in the juice, it will need to be returned to the fermenter. It’s time to add canned tangerines, which should preferably be placed in a nylon bag immediately, which will not cause problems with filtration later. You need to load the entire contents of the cans into the fermenter, that is, along with the syrup. After that, you need to wait 8-12 hours until the sulfur works and add the yeast prepared in advance according to the instructions on the package (if you didn’t add sulfur, then you don’t have to wait, respectively).

Then proceed according to the instructions from the previous recipe, with the only difference being that during rapid fermentation, it is advisable to squeeze the bag with the pulp of tangerines every day in order to release juices and carbon dioxide. This wine is recommended to age in bottles for at least 1 year. The chocolate tangerine wine should be quite sweet and around 14% ABV (assuming 1,120 SG). If, after a month or two of quiet fermentation, the wine has not clarified, it is recommended to add pectin enzyme (it can be immediately included in the recipe) or paste over it in any suitable way (pectin enzyme is preferable, since pasting can greatly “peel off” the taste). After 6 months of aging, it is desirable to stabilize the wine with sulfur (before bottling).

Feel free to use your superpower, good luck with your winemaking and warm New Year’s Eve with your family!