Elderflower wine; a taste of summer
The summer solstice passed a week ago, even Glastonbury is over, but this year’s elderflower is only just going over now. Its been a cool spring and early summer and there has been a particularly bountiful crop. Now I have a demi-john of the stuff bubbling away in the kitchen, slightly to the amazement of visitors who mostly guess correctly that it is wine-in-the-making, but hardly ever guess that it is elderflower. 
Elderflower really is the queen of flower wines. The aroma when it is mashing is divine and fills the whole house, and the wine itself is one of the most refreshing and distinctive I know. Of course elderflower don’t have to be used to make wine – the cordial ain’t bad either.
Actually I’ve branched into something new with them this year too – elderflower frittata. Picking the flowerlets before breakfast and then collecting the eggs (such willing hens….) what could be better. So good indeed that it has ended up as a recipe in my forthcoming book The Cowley Road Cookbook, where foraged ingredients play more than just a walk on part.
But back to elderflower wine. After three days mashing, it take at least another month before the contents of the demi-john are fully fermented. Then its time to bottle. And after a few months, drink. My friends Jo and Eric reckon if you can keep some till after the flower burst the next year there is a particularly flowery aftertaste. I’m sure they are right. Its just I never seem to have any last that long!
