Texas May Wine
Bring out your grandmother’s crystal punch bowl set, or pour the May wine into a tall glass pitcher or wide-mouthed jar and garnish with whole strawberries, rose petals, purple pansies and fragrant herb sprigs. Add a generous dose of chilled dry rosé bubbly right before serving and raise a glass to the season!
Ingredients
- 3 bottles of chilled German Riesling, young Mosel or a favorite fruity Texas white wine
- 1 small fist-sized bouquet of sweet woodruff or frangrant sweet herbs - 2 or 3 long sprigs of intense herbs such as lavender and Mexican mint marigold, filled in with plenty of sweet-flavored lemon thyme, lemon balm, salad burnet, and pineapple sage (option
- 3/4 pounds organic strawberries, crushed with several tablespoons of sugar, to taste (reserve 6 whole)
- 2 cups (or more) Treaty Oak Antique Barrel Reserve gin
- 1 bottle chilled rose cava (such as Jaume Serra Cristalino) or other bubbly
- 1 pounds (or more) whole organic strawberries with hulls for floating in punch and as garnish
Instructions
- Pour the wine into a large glass container.
- If using aromatic herbs, tie them with twine, crush lightly to release flavor and steep in the wine for several hours or overnight. (Remove them if the flavor gets too strong.)
- Poke the 6 reserved strawberries with a fork to release flavor and add them to the wine.
- A few hours before serving, remove the herbs and discard.
- Remove and crush the 6 reserved strawberries, adding them to the sweetened and crushed strawberries, and then add the whole mixture to the wine. Chill well.
- To serve, make a small slit in the whole strawberries (with hulls) and “hook” them onto the edges of long-stemmed wine glasses before filling. Or pour the May wine into a pitcher or punch bowl and float whole strawberries, rose petals, Johnny jump-ups, pansies and/or wild violets and pretty blue star-shaped borage flowers.
- (Note: Do not add ice to the punch bowl or pitcher, but add a few cubes to each glass.) Liberally splash each serving of May wine with sparkling rosé and enjoy!