After the bountiful harvests from July to October for various wines and infusions, the hungry months of December to February can be a fallow time for fruit wine makers. I tend to alternate each year making a quince or a parsnip wine which provides some surprising good tastes despite their rarity in drinks. Quince has a nice delicate fruitiness and the quince is a dryer more sherry like wine.

Last year the Seville orange wine was an afterthought when I had some space in demijohns. Initially I was not impressed when it was fermenting as the smell is almost non-existent and the colour was pale but upon opening a bottle after a year it has really improved. The colour is richer and a deeper orange than when it was bottled – the exact opposite of what I was expecting. The taste has developed into something really unexpected and delicious. It is orangey but towards the savoury if that is possible with the profile more like Aperol minus the botanicals as a lot of zest was added to create a more complex base. This is certainly not like an alcoholic Fanta or a glass of sweet orange juice. Serving the wine as cold as possible really adds to it.

SEVILLE ORANGE WINE RECIPE

As the oranges are juiced and the skins are large zested strips there is very little sediment to fall out so the wine clarifies quickly. When opened the wine had a little fizz as it was bottled young. Usually I would be disappointed by this as there has not been enough time for a natural degas but the slight sparkling effervescence really suited the character and Ms Gazette is interested in a fully sparkling version like a prefab Buck Fizz! This may be a good wine to add some rhubarb to build a little more depth.

There are several sniffy reports that citrus wines taste like vomit, which may be true, but certainly not for this. Using Seville oranges has given a richer depth of flavour than fermenting some Sunny D and it has come out a genuine triumph. I am hoping I can keep these until the summer months for a nice cold spritzer in the evenings.