White Raisin Wine

[eagleheadbrewer]

So I was at my Uncle's farm and we had been discussing my home brew hobby and several different kinds of beer when he told me his father in law used to make wine. He took me down to his cellar and showed me this back room full of home made wine. A rainbow of flavors ranging from flowers to wild berries to some homemade brandy, but one in particular stood out. In the cellar was a White Raisin Wine, absolutely superb in taste, body and appearance. The bottle only had "White Raisin Wine 1969" written on it and no recipes were left. So I am trying to make up the recipe myself but so far white raisins or golden raisins seem pretty uncommon ingredient, Any suggestions how I could go about cloning this wine?

Recipe i was thinking for a 5 gallon recipe was:
15lb white Raisin
3lb Cane Sugar
3lb Honey
5 gallons water
and wine yeast

First try at wine making and i don't have much to go on, suggestions?

 

[pulpfiction32]

I made a dark raisin wine. It was a 3 gallon batch and I used 9# of raisins and 3# of

cane sugar. I used EC-1118 and it still crapped out with alot of residual sugar. I would

take the raisins and put them in a blender with some water( do small batches) then

take a gravity reading, add small amounts of sugar until you get the specific gravity you

want.

 

[verakay]

Back in '73 or '74, a friend (who taught biology at middle school) gave me a recipe he claimed was foolproof for white wine made from white raisins. I decided to give it a try. It had store-bought white raisins (sultanas?), tap water, white granulated sugar (table sugar) and -- sorry everyone! -- regular bread yeast.

This called for a one gallon glass jub (we had plenty back then) and a tube sock filled with sand. I'm thinking I used clean (but old) tube socks, so put one inside the other, filled it partially with sand and then tied a knot.

Raisins went into the bottom of the clean glass jug followed by sugar and dry yeast, then water poured into the jug and the sand-sock placed on top.

Jug went into a dark place (corner between my dresser and the wall) for 6 weeks. After that you were supposed to strain the mixture and keep the wine. He claimed this made an excellent wine. I was, shall we say, skeptical.

After 6 weeks, I decided I wasn't brave enough to try it, so took it outside, removed the sock from the top and started pouring the stuff out onto the ground. Then a light breeze blew the frangrance directly into my nose and I stopped pouring immediately. There was only a small amount left, maybe 4 glasses, tops. I took it back inside and poured some in a glass and gave it a try. EXCELLENT!!!!

Problem is I can't remember the recipe to save my life and have been looking for years for a similar recipe. There was NO grinding or chopping of raisins, there was no wine yeast. It was so bloody simple to make it's embarrasing. But the stuff was great. Anyone ever heard of a similar recipe -- especially the sand-sock? (My dad had something similar in the late '60s using a balloon sealed over teh top with a rubber band, but this was far superior.)