While the common dandelion isn't an entirely useless plant, most people recognize their appearance as an early spring scourge on their lawn and take steps to get rid of them.  I can claim membership in this club at my primary residence. My family maintains a home in Vermont where we don't treat the lawn with any kind of chemicals leaving the dandelions free for consumption.

A few years ago after looking out over the dandelion covered lawn in VT, dandelions are pretty when in bloom, it occurred to me that dandelions are food and I should find a way to use this free food to my benefit. From this was born my first batch of wine using dandelions.

I didn't find a comprehensive history of Dandelion Wine anywhere I looked, but anecdotally it would seem that people have been making it for centuries both because the flowers are abundant and because it is cheap to make. I know members of my family from a couple of generations back had made it at least once. I only know this because a great uncle recalled seeing crocks of it in the basement of a family home, but didn't know anything more about who made it nor whether it was any good. The Jun/Jul 2002 issue of WineMaker Magazine contained an article about Dandelion Wine that contains some historical information and a recipe.

Recipes for Dandelion Wine abound and the most basic ones all bear considerable similarities, dandelion flowers, sugar, water and yeast. To anyone who has made traditional wines before this should be a reasonable approximation of what you have come to learn is required to make wine. Dandelions are absent of several key components to make drinkable wine though, namely sugar and acid. The flowers are very light on flavor and as such many recipes contain other ingredients that correct one of more of these deficiencies. Most recipes warn against using the whole flower because of the vegetal characteristics and bitterness that can be imparted when you do. This complicates the process by requiring you to pluck all of the little flower petals off of each flower before you can make wine. Now I am no stranger to hard work, but this seemed excessive to me when I first came across it so I opted to look for alternatives.  

Luckily I came across several recipes at Jack Keller's winemaking web site that instruct you prepare a tea from the flowers a couple days ahead of time. The tea is used to make the wine and flowers are discarded. This method limits the contact time of the components of the flower than can send things astray and worked better for my desired level of effort. I have successfully used that process three times now.

When I use the word successfully I have to temper my exuberance a bit to point out that as surprised as I was to win a gold medal for my Dandelion Wine this year, I do believe that the win means I was indeed successful making a wine from dandelions that has high clarity, solid aromas, good flavors and a pleasing finish.

The recipe and process I used to make the 2010 batch of Dandelion Wine can be found below. It was adapted from the Keller recipes (linked above) and experience I have gained making fruit wines in the last 5 years. It makes an off to medium dry wine with a beautiful combination of herb and citrus flavors. I would make this wine again anytime I had the 20 quarts of flowers required to make the 6 gallon finished volume.


(My finished Dandelion Wine from 2010.)

2010 Ancient Fire Dandelion Wine
(6 gallons)
• (5) 1-gallon zip top bags of dandelion flowers
• 6 canisters of frozen 100% white grape juice
• 3+ gallons water (more to top up to 6 gallons)
• 12 lbs granulated sugar
• 10 lemons
• 5 oranges
• 1.5 tsp liquid tannin
• EC-1118 yeast and Go-Ferm
• Fermaid-K (added when must is strained on day 3-4)

Step by step

Pick the flowers after they have fully opened, ideally under full sun. You can freeze them if you can't use them right away. For this recipe you do not need to pick the petals off the flower heads, but the heads should be trimmed of any stalk and rinsed well with cool water.
Bring 1 gallon of water to a boil in a large stock pot. Remove from the heat. Add the dandelion flowers and stir. Cover with plastic wrap. Mix twice per day for two days. Don't allow the flowers to steep longer than this.

Bring the steeped flowers to a low boil. Add the peels of the lemons & oranges. Boil gently for 1 hour.
Remove the stock pot from the heat. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a primary fermenter. Add the sugar, white grape juice, tannin and the juice of the lemons & oranges. Use water to top up to 6 gallons. Mix well.

Allow the mixture to cool to 70 degrees. Rehydrate the yeast and pitch when it has cooled to within 10 degrees of the must. Gently place the cover (with an airlock affixed) on the fermenter. Don't close the top for 24 hours to allow the yeast to have some access to oxygen. After 24 hours close the top firmly and allow fermentation to occur.

The starting gravity will be somewhere around 1.100 which if fermented completely dry will be quite potent. Fermentation can be suspended early to retain sweetness or the dry wine can be diluted and sweetened to taste.

My timing was off this year (the weather pushed the dandelion harvest later and I was in California when they peeked) so I ended up with a very small amount to work with. I still wanted to make a three gallon batch but was sure I needed to add something to boost the aroma and flavor, but what? I settled on additional citrus in the form of grapefruit and dried chamomile flowers. The new recipe and process that I just began this week can be found below.


(Making the tea for Dandelion Wine.)

2011 Ancient Fire Dandelion Wine
(3 gallons)
• 3 quarts dandelion flowers
• 3 canisters of frozen white grape juice
• 1+ gallons water (more to top up to 3 gallons)
• 6 lbs granulated sugar
• 2 lemons
• 2 oranges
• 2 grapefruits
• 2 pounds golden raisins, chopped
• 6 chamomile tea bags (I used dried flowers and made my own tea bags)
• 3 inches ginger, grated
• 1/2 tsp liquid tannin
• EC-1118 yeast and Go-Ferm
• Fermaid-K (added when must is strained on day 3-4)

Step by step

The process to make this wine is only slightly different than the one above. The grapefruits are used in the same ways the oranges and lemons, and at the same times. The grated ginger is added to the boil in the second step for ONLY the final 15 minutes of the boil. The chamomile tea bags are steeped in the hot strained liquid for 1 hour before proceeding with the rest of the process as it is. The chopped raisins in a tied closed mesh bag are added to the prepared must before the yeast is pitched. The starting gravity will again be about 1.100 and you can choose the final gravity and method of balancing the finished wine. I expect to use a small amount of lemon juice (for acid) and sugar syrup to create my final wine.


(The newest batch of Dandelion Wine with a great community of yeast working away.)

The yeast in the new batch got right down to business with a noticeable bloom only a few hours after I pitched the yeast. I would expect the fermentation to be done within a week and I'll be able to get a better read on where the aromas and flavors will be then. I am looking forward to interesting creation from this experiment, and something that will be a bit different than the prior year and anything else I have ever made. It might even be competition worthy!

Cheers!

Jason

Jason Phelps is an avid home winemaker and homebrewer. In addition to his blog for WineMaker, Jason blogs at www.ancientfirewines.com, where you can read about his food, travel and of course winemaking and wine tasting adventures.