Liam Murray explains the basics of making wine at home with a range of ingredients.
Liam Murray has been making his own wine at home ever since he came into possession of a commercial wine making kit. The process is a straightforward one. All that is required is a bottle, a can of grape concentrate, water, sugar and a simple set of instructions.
It's a natural process, you just put the ingredients together and they do the work.
Almost anything can be used to make wine, Liam Murray believes. Berries and grapes are a popular choice, but he has also experimented with sugar beet. Fermentation takes six weeks, after which time the wine can be siphoned off and bottled. The sugar beet wine needs a little while longer to mature, but wine made from fresh elderberries foraged from a hedgerow can be consumed immediately. If the wine is bottled and stored properly, it will keep for up to six years.
Homebrew wine is, of course, a cost effective way of creating one's own supply of alcoholic beverages. Liam Murray estimates that £2 yielded fifteen bottles of wine for Christmas, and is particularly pleased with his batch of sugar beet wine.
That's a great wine for a winter night.
This report for 'Ireland's Eye’ was broadcast on 23 January 1981. The reporter is Frank Hall.
