Beetroot wine recipe

I hope our beetroots in the garden can grow up to become beetroot wine!! This sounds like a great winter warmer recipe quite similar to port. Mmmmm! There are lots of recipes about and most seem to involve cooking the beetroots but this one seemed most specific. Beware the advice of how long to age it for though!! Can we wait that long...?

Thanks to Nick Truman for the following beetroot wine recipe:

Ingredients

• 5 Ib. beetroot
• 6 oz. raisins
• 10 cloves
• 1/2 oz. crushed ginger
• 3 1/4 Ib. sugar
• I gallon water
• 1/2 oz. citric acid 
  
• Campden tablet
• Pectozyme
• Nutrient
• Madeira yeast

Instructions
Scrub the beetroot thoroughly to get rid of every trace of earth and as much of the earthy flavour as possible. Mince, grate or dice the beetroot, add the cloves and ginger and boil in the water until the beetroot is just tender. Strain on to 2 Ib. of the sugar and the chopped raisins. When cool add the acid, the nutrient, the yeast and a teaspoonful of pectozyme. Ferment for five days, then strain out the raisins, add another 1/2 Ib. sugar and continue the fermentation adding the remaining sugar in 4 oz. doses as the S.G. falls below 1.010.

This wine also takes a long time to mature and should be kept for at least two years, and preferably three, before serving.

I'll leave you with some sage advice from Nick himself:

"There is absolutely no doubt: that: the most common fault in wine is its youth. Almost all wine is drunk before it is really ready for the decanter. The most difficult ingredient in winemaking is patience. Frequently the author has been asked to pass his opinion on a 'wine' barely six weeks old. It is like killing baby chicks! Nothing surpasses the value of time."