Spice in the Pumpkin Wine

Two gallons of the batch of pumpkin wine from last January is in bottles. The remainder has been shuffled off into a carboy of its own along with some spices to see how the flavors interact. We took some cinnamon sticks, whole cloves and ground nutmeg, boiled them together in a small saucepan to kill off anything that might live in them, and then strained the spicy smelling result through a coffee filter to cut back on sediment. The wine and spices in their three gallon carboy are a noticeable darker color than the stuff that didn’t get spiced. I’m gonna give it a couple of weeks for the nutmeg to settle out of the solution and then it’ll get bottled too.

The actual bottling procedure is going a thousand times better since I started using this incredible little device that the in-laws got us for Christmas. It’s a combination siphon hose and valve device that automatically shuts off the flow of wine when the bottle is full. No more overflow, no more pinching hoses, no more wine all over the basement floor… It’s really remarkable and I highly recommend it. I haven’t found it at E. C. Kraus, my usual on-line winery shop, but it’s made by Buon Vino Manufacturing if you’re looking to find one of your own.