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So after setting my dandelion wine aside to ferment for a few months I decided it was time for a go at Lilac wine. I found the recipe here at Jack Keller’s wine making recipe site.
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* 3-1/2 quarts lilac flowers
* 2-1/2 lb granulated sugar
* 2 lemons or 12 grams 80% lactic acid
* 7-1/2 pts water
* 1 tsp yeast nutrient
* Champagne yeast

Put water on to boil while culling through and rinsing flowers. Put flowers in primary and when water boils pour over flowers. Cover primary tightly and set aside for 48 hours. Strain flowers through nylon straining bag and squeeze to extract all flavor, then discard pulp. Stir sugar, yeast nutrient, juice of lemon or lactic acid into primary and stir until completely dissolved. Sprinkle dry yeast on top without stirring or add activated yeast culture to primary. Recover primary and ferment 7 days. Transfer liquid to secondary and fit airlock. Ferment 30 days and rack, top up and refit airlock. Rack again every 30 days until wine is clear and no longer dropping sediment. Rack into bottles and allow to age 3-6 months. [Adapted from George Leonard Herter's How to Make the Finest Wines at Home]”
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So I gathered the prescribed amount of Lilac flowers. Initially I started by picking small bunches of them but quickly realized that it would go much quicker if I simply stripped them off the branch in one pass.

Then I added the hot water and let it sit for 48 hours. After sitting for two days the water had turned a lovely shade of lavender from the blossoms. So as per the recipe I strained and squeezed all water and juice from the flowers into my primary fermentation container and added the sugar, lemon juice, yeast nutrient shook well and added the yeast to the top.

Finally I covered it with some saran wrap and poked a very small hole in the top with a tooth pick as I didn’t have another air lock. This allows the carbn dioxide to escape during the fermentation so that it doesn’t blow the top off. I then set it aside upstairs in my office next to the dandelion wine.

So today I racked the wine for the second time and bottled it as it is now quite clear. Racking is really nothing more than pouring or siphoning the wine from the yeast and other sediment at the bottom of the fermentation vessel.

I had enough to fill 4 bottles and a small sample glass after racking.

I corked and capped the bottles then placed them all in our second fridge for further aging. I’ve had past wine making experiences where the yeast hadn’t fully died or fermented all of the sugars in the wine so that it continued fermenting after corking and blew the corks. Just in tasting the small sample glass I find the “new” wine sweet yet strong. Initially it tastes that it has a fair amount of alcohol in it which is followed by a very pleasant sweetness. In hopes of this turning out I picked and froze enough lilac blossoms to make more at a later date. Most likely before the end of summer. I figure that it will only get better with age. The verdict is still out according to the little Mrs.