Lambic JOAM?

I currently live in the middle of a small vineyard and village that has been producing wine over 100 years. Just found the the landlord, has always used wild yeast here for his wine, which is normal for every vineyardin the village. So its got me thinking about a 1 gallon batch with fresh oranges that have just starting to ripen up in the back yard.

I am thinking about 3 lbs of local honey, slicing up a few oranges out of the back yard, and throwing in a 1 gal carboy and seeing what happens. Any thoughts on this?

Well established vineyards practiced superstitions in the past that actually allowed for cultivation of proper yeast to thrive in the wild. For instance when a good batch of wine was made the Lees and grape skins would be distributed among the growing grapes. The good yeast would have some that survive and grow on the fruit skins. Repeated uses of this method over years and decades help weed out yeasts that are not good for brewing.

With all that long winded speech does that mean you have some good yeast growing on your oranges? I have no clue! But I will say changing the JOAM recipe may result in the same failures people world wide have suffered when they change from using bread yeast to a commercial wine yeast. You may be in the same boat or may not depending on the wild yeasts around your oranges. Just follow the recipe as best you can and do the whole 3.5 lb honey with the spices. That should give you the best chance at a decent JOAM.