Monteolivo apple wine

After last year´s exercise of making my own wine, I found enough courage to try another kind. This year´s apple harvest was abundant, but a dubious quality. The apples tasted very good, but didn´t look very attractive, a bit small and strangely shaped.

I decided on apple wine so I had to chop them into small pieces and press them, hoping there would be enough juice to fill the fermentation bottle. The quality was better than I hoped for so I got my desired 5 liters of juice.

Of course, it would not be Monteolivo wine if there had not occurred a problem. The must didn´t start the fermentation. I could have added more chemicals, but that would have been the easy way out. Which, you know, is not my style.

I roamed around the internet and the solution was ever so simple.....my kitchen was too hot. I put the whole lot in the cantina and the process began the way it should. After about one week the fermentation stopped so I could start clearing the wine. The smell was delicious and who minds a sticky kitchen?

The result was great. 4 bottles of Monteolivo apple wine and half a liter to celebrate immediately. It tastes fresh, exactly dry and yet sweet enough.

 I´d say.... cheers!!

Limoncello

Before telling you how I made my limoncello, I want to express special thanks to Alessandra Malozzi´s mother. On a nice fall afternoon in Umbria we enjoyed a glass of limoncello in the tastefully decorated sitting room of her beautiful country house. I told her that I almost got poisened by my homemade limoncello and then this lovely lade told me how to prepare it the right way and showed me how to peel the lemons. I am very grateful.

The first time I tasted limoncello was in the previous age in a small Italian village. My neighbor – later one of my best friends – said I had to try it and respectfully spelled its name as if it was liquid gold....l.i.m.o.n.c.e.l.l.o..

We had a cheerful evening with a lot of Italians but agreed we would only drink limoncello in the weekends or on special occasions. Somehow, there was a special occasion nearly every night.

The best limoncello you get when you use lemons from Sorrento. But I think all biological lemons will do the job. Make sure they´re biological, for the skin may not contain any pesticide what so ever. And even then, scrub them until they´re absolutely clean.

Needed:

8 lemons

1 liter of alcohol 95° (I bring it from Italy)

700 grams of sugar

800 ml. water

Peel the lemons and be careful only to use the yellow parts. Put them in a sterilized yar and add the alcohol. Carefully close the yar and leave it in a dark, dry spot for 15 days.

On day 16, mix the water with the sugar and let it boil for a few minutes, so that the sugar has melted away completely. Let it cool down.

Mix the sugarwater with the lemonmixture, stir well.

Then filter it two times until you have a clear, yellow liquid. 

Poor it into sterilized bottles and put them in a dark, cool dry spot.

Serve it from the freezer.

Bonusrecipe:

Lemon-orange marmalade

And then, I had four peeled lemons that I did not want to throw away. I pressed them, added the skin of an orange (and this time too, don´t use the white parts). I pressed the orange too and let the lemon juice, the orange juice and the skin simmer at low heat for about 15 minutes.

Then filter it, poor it back into the pan. Add the right amount of jelly sugar (indications on the package) make it boil and poor it into sterilized jars.

Syrup peaches and how to become a bartender

A nice way to preserve the last peaches and raspberries of the season and save some for a day you could use a little sunshine.

The peaches can be used for the famous Bellini cocktail¹ as well. I will give you the recipe below and of course it is not mine. The non-alcoholic version, however, is mine (NO not kidding). If you use the raspberries as well, it will take you no trouble to get the demanded pink color.

For the syrup-peaches:

4 peaches

10 raspberries

peppermint leaves

200 gr. of sugar

½ l. cold water

Sterilize a jar (500 ml will do) by putting it in a 200° heated oven for half an hour.

Rinse the peaches in running cold water to have their skin removed easily. Peel the peaches, cut them in half and remove the pit.

Put the peaches in the jar and add a raspberry and a peppermint leaf every now and then.

Put the water and suger to boiling, stir slightly to make the sugar melt completely. Let boil for a few minutes.

Pour the sweet water carefully over the peaches until the jar is filled. Close the jar.

This way, you won´t be able to keep them for a long time. Actually, you should sterilize the jar and it contains in boiling water for about 20 minutes. Wrap it in a towel to prevent it from punching against the pan and break.

For the Bellini cocktail:

2 peach halves

150 ml. cold prosecco

Blend the peaches, mix them with a little prosecco (to prevent the prosecco from bubbling out of the glass) and put the mash in a champaign glass. Then fill the glass with prosecco and serve cold.

For the non-alcoholic Bellini cocktail:

Replace the prosecco by 75 ml. Spa lemon and 75 ml. sparkling mineral water. 

                                                                                                                             

1 © Giuseppe Cipriani, Harry´s Bar (Venice, between 1934-1948)