I missed picking oak leaves at the beginning of summer when they are bright perfect green and still slightly soft to touch. I thought I would have to wait another year to try making oak leaf wine but by the end of the summer I was armed with the information that meant 2011 would be the first year in which I made oak leaf wine.
From April until July I had been travelling around Britain meeting people who made beer and wine at home and interviewing them. While I was at home in-between interviews I never had enough days in a row to get out to pick oak leaves, infuse the oak leaves, start the fermentation and then put the fermenting wine in a demijohn. Several of the people I met who made oak leaf told me that not only could you make oak leaf wine in autumn but the flavour of autumn oak leaf wine was pleasantly nutty and different to summer oak leaf wine.
I went to collect oak leaves in September with a friend. As we walked our dog we plucked handfuls of leaves from trees that we passed so that by the end of the walk we had a plastic bag full of leaves. A couple who saw us rummaging in the tree branches wondered if we were collecting acorns to fatten up pigs at home and were surprised to hear that we were collecting the leaves to make wine.
At home I used the recipe from Roger Phillips (Wild Food); although he stipulates picking the leaves in summer. I didn’t have any plain oranges to hand but I substituted with Seville oranges I had put in the freezer in January when it became apparent that no one would have time to make marmalade with them. In theory Seville oranges are particularly high in pectin and this could have caused problems with the wine. However pectin is degraded by freezing and the wine is beautifully clear. I think that people who want to avoid using additives in wine making might find that freezing high pectin fruit could be a way to cut out pectinase from recipes.
Unless you take weighing scales with you when you go to collect ingredients it can be hard to judge whether you have enough. Recipes that give amounts in volumes are easier for foraged ingredients as a plastic bag or measuring jug is not inconvenient to take on a walk. The problem with measuring ingredients by volume is that you may wonder if the recipe writer packed the ingredients in more or less lightly than you. In the interests of resolving these issues I have been weighing ingredients that are measured by volume and also noting the volume of container used to collect ingredients measured by weight. I am gradually adding these numbers into recipes when I have had the opportunity to check them a few times.
Making the recipe used only half a bag of leaves. I had thought the oak leaf infusion would go straight down the sink as the stench of oak leaves immersed in hot water was disgusting. Once the liquid was tepid the smell had vanished so I thought I would give making oak leaf wine a try and added in the other ingredients. As I put the liquid in the demijohn we tasted a spoonful. The flavour was powerful slightly nutty and lingering. It was so delicious we decided that one gallon would not be enough; so we quickly made another batch.
Clearly this recipe is for making in the summer or autumn but I am writing about it now because we have started drinking one of the demijohns. Only 4 months after making it the wine has a bright golden colour and is delicious whether it is room temperature or chilled. It is possible that we might manage to wait to drink the second demijohn of wine. If not at least I know now that the right time for picking oak leaves for oak leaf wine is any time through summer to autumn.
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