Making Lilac Wine

by Jill and Mark Misterka

You’d think someone would have thought of this sooner—making lilac wine in Rochester! Lilacs are an important part of our city’s history and economy since the annual Lilac Festival in Highland Park is known worldwide. So when we discovered two recipes for lilac wine at winemaking.jackkeller.net, we decided that a batch of each would be the perfect Rochester souvenir.

We shared the results at the last club meeting and received several requests for how to make this wine. See the above website for the original recipes. Here is our experience making it:

Getting started

The Penfield couple that volunteered to supply the blossoms had three bushes, each a different color and fragrance. We picked some from each, but the most from the one with the strongest fragrance because that one would contribute the most to the wine’s taste.

At home we removed the individual blossoms from the stems because leaving any green or woody parts would affect the taste. Six gallons of sprays and two man-hours of labor yielded two gallons of blossoms, enough to make two gallons of wine (since we included some lilacs for color that did not have a strong fragrance, we used a little more blossoms than the recipes called for).

We rinsed the blossoms in cold water, placed them in a pail, and poured in two gallons of boiling water to extract the essence from the petals. After stirring, we covered the pail tightly and left it for 48 hours.

We strained the blossoms out, then divided the resulting purplish-gray “tea” between two pails so we could follow a different recipe for each (see below).

Lilac Wine Batch One (based on Recipe #1)

1 gallon lilac tea (see “Getting Started” above)
5 ½ cups sugar
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
1 Campden tablet
1 packet Red Star Champagne yeast

Stirred together all ingredients except yeast; continued stirring until sugar dissolved. Read specific gravity (1.116). Sprinkled dry yeast on top.

After one week, active fermentation had subsided and s.g. was 1.030. Added sulfite and transferred to a gallon jug with an airlock.

Racked another four times across eight months; added sulfite the second racking; added sulfite and stabilizer the fourth racking and stirred to degas. At that point the s.g was 1.020 (about 12.8 % ABV), no more lees were being produced, the color was pale peach, and the taste was sweet but balanced, with a light floral aroma.

Lilac Wine Batch Two (based on Recipe #2)

7 ½ pints of lilac tea (see “Getting Started” above)
3 1/3 cups sugar
10.5-oz. can Welch’s White Grape 100% Juice frozen concentrate
1 ½ tsp. citric acid
1/8 tsp. tannin
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
1 Campden tablet
1 packet Red Star Champagne yeast

Heated two cups of lilac tea to a boil, then stirred sugar into it until dissolved. Stirred grape juice concentrate into this mixture. Stirred this together with all other ingredients except yeast. Waited for temperature of must to lower to 80°; sprinkled dry yeast on top. (Forgot to read specific gravity.)

After one week, active fermentation had subsided and s.g. was .990. Added sulfite and transferred to a gallon jug with an airlock, topping off with one cup water.

Racked another four times across eight months; added sulfite the second racking; added sulfite and stabilizer the fourth racking. At that point the s.g was still .990, no more lees were being produced, the color was orange, and the taste was very dry with a strong floral aroma.

The final step

At bottling we chose to blend the two batches together in equal amounts. Recommended aging is 3 to 6 months.

For a discussion of the safety of ingesting lilacs: See winemaking.jackkeller.net, click on Wine Blog, click on July-December 2005 Archive on the left side of the page, then scroll down to the August 1 entry.