Making Tomato Wine 🍅 🍷

Yeah this sounds weird, but it tastes like.. white wine (apparently)! This is mostly an experiment, so we shall see.

During the Covid lockdown summer in the UK (2020), like many others, towards the end of March we planted a LOT of tomatoes.

Ending up with over 20 kilograms! Many were used up in bruschetta, chutney, pasta sauces.. and a lot taken by blight in the late August rain. But one thing new to try.. wine! 🍷

Mixed tomatoes, Gardeners delight, Marmante, Alicante, and.. random seeds from supermarket tomatoes, so those could be anything.

Diced tomatoes

Ingredients

For my first attempt, a small scale test

Tomato: 1.5 Kg
Sugar: 600g
Water: 2.5 Litres
Lemon: 1
Tea: Black tea (or colloquially English breakfast)

Method

Step 1

• Chop tomatoes
• Chuck in a bucket with 500ml of tea, the sugar, pectolaze, lemon juice and water. Leave covered for 2 days.

Step 2

• Strain the tomatoes and put into a demijohn
• Leave for 4 weeks

Fermentation in a clear bottle

Racking

It is certainly needed here. I have racked every 3 weeks to remove sediment for around 2 months.

Sediment levels in a brown glass bottle

Bottling

This.. still tastes a little like tomatoes. So, I’ve put it in bottles and will see what a few months of aging will make it taste like. I shall update here once it is opened and tasted.

Just before bottling, a clearer, lighter coloured wine

Cheers 🍷

Tomato sprouts