I know your thinking pumpkins are only used for carving and pies. But it makes a wonderful wine! You know I had to try it since my brother-in law had left over pumpkins. I hate to see things go to waste. I of course pureed some for pies, but we still had a lot left over. I searched the internet until I found a recipe that was interesting enough to try. I did as I always do, I changed it up some. All I can say is if you love pumpkin pie, then you will love the wine it makes. We started with 15 gallons and eventually into 2- 7 gallon carboys. We were supposed to add sugar every 6 weeks to make a sweet wine. That was way to much, so we did it as often as we remembered. The first time we added brown sugar mixed in the wine as we racked it. the next few times we used white sugar. It of course refermented everytime and we did not add potassium sorbate because we wanted it to keep working. This recipe took a year. It was a little work and we even missed some times but it still worked out great. The 2 carboys were treated the same but somehow one was sweet and the other was dry. We had no idea what the alcohol content was when the wine was finished so we checked the dry with a vinometer. It came out to be 24%. This was not intentional but that is what happened. The sweet is somewhere around 20%. Both are unique and was well worth the time. It makes a great fall drink, but sip it slow cause it is powerful! The sweet is like drinking a pumpkin pie. You can taste all the spices and even smell them. The dry is quite different without all the spice, but it is a unlike anything I have ever tried. It compares to any dry wine out there, for the flavor can't be beat. It would also be great mixed with some apple cider and served warm, with a cinnamon stick added. You can't get that anywhere that I know of. This year I tried a different pumkin and cooked them down with the spices. I will see the difference soon. So don't think there isn't wine to make in the fall. I can't wait to try persimmon wine. It looks like a good year for them. Don't forget sweet potato wine and so many other opportunities to make something truley unique. Well I rambled enough so here's the recipe I promised.

1 gallon of pumpkin wine

8 cups grated pumpkin flesh

5 cups of sugar

3 t. acid blend

1 t. yeast nutrient

1 campdon tablet

1 pd of raisons

1 gallon of boiling water

options to add:

cinnamon sticks

ginger

raisons-white preferred

whole allspice

whloe cloves

(I added all of them in layers of the pulp. I did several layers and also cook your raisons to get maximum flavor)

Lalvin yeast EC 1118

Bring water to a boil and stir in sugar until dissolved. Place grated pumpkin and any spices you choose to add in mesh bag and place in fermenter. Pour hot sugar water over pulp in bag. Let sit over night. Next day add all other ingredients except yeast. Specific gravity should be around 1.090 to 1.095.Sprinkle yeast on top and stir. I usually make a starter then add. Stir daily until Specific gravity is 1.040.

Squeeze bag and get as much juice as you can. Siphon into secondary and add airlock.

For dry wine, rack in three weeks and every month for one year.Bottle.

For sweet wine, rack at three weeks. Add 1/2 cup of sugar dissolved in wine. Stir gently and place back in carboy.Repeat process every 6 weeks until fermentation does not restart with addition of sugar. Rack every three months for one year. Bottle.

I did not make the every 6 week mark but we added sugar 4 times total. We added 1/2t. per gallon of potassium sorbate upon bottling to stop fermentation. Have some fun with this one. It's good wine. There are other recipes out there to use, I just like to spice it up a bit.Enjoy!