“A sweet wine jelly infused with mint and rosemary”.

This is a sweet wine jelly that has an amazing depth with the infusion of both mint and rosemary to the wine.

For our first try at mint flavoured wine jelly, we used a Voignier wine that was a bit passed it’s prime — and it worked wonderfully. I’ve made wine based jelly before having made our own Garlic Jelly so the process was not new. A note about infusing the wine: Most recipes say to let the herbs infused the wine for about 45 minutes then strain through a cheesecloth to remove herbs. I must have ground mine a little too finely as I ended up with a very cloudy green liquid. Since I wanted a true clear wine jelly, I added a little extra wine then poured the entire contents into a mason jar to sit overnight. The result was that the very fine herb particles settled to the bottom and I was able to use a baster to extract 1 3/4 cups of pure clear juice to use for my jelly. I think this made a better jelly with a slightly stronger mint flavour which we liked.

Wine jelly can be served with a soft cheese on a cracker or baguette. It’s also good as a glaze or accompaniment for meats.

Rosemary Mint Wine Jelly served with goats cheese on crackers

Ingredients

• 2-1/2 cups firmly packed fresh mint leaves
• 1/4 cup fresh rosemary leaves
• 2 1/2 cups dry white wine
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 3-1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• One pouch (85 ml) CERTO ® Liquid Pectin

Instructions

1. Wash jars. Sterilize jars in stove at 250F for 20 minutes. Put lids in water and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. In a food processor or blender blend together mint, rosemary, and 1 1/2 cups of the wine until the herbs are chopped fine.
3. In a small saucepan bring the remaining 1 cup wine to a boil, add it to the herb mixture and remove from heat. Cool.
4. Strain liquid through several layers of cheesecloth or a fine mesh to remove most of the herbs (please see note above about infusing wine). Pour into 1 liter mason jar and let sit overnight in the fridge.
5. The next day, use baster to extract 1 3/4 cups clear juice from the top of the mason jar being careful not to disturb the fine ground herbs that have settled to the bottom. Add lemon juice. You should now have 2 cups* of ‘juice’, if you do not add a little extra lemon juice to make up the difference.
6. Add 2 cups of the herb infused juice into a large, deep stainless steel saucepan. Stir in sugar and butter. Over high heat, bring mixture to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Add liquid pectin, squeezing entire contents from pouch. Return to a boil, boiling hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and quickly skim off foam, if necessary (butter helps prevent foam from forming).
7. Pour into sterilized jars about 1/4 inch from rim, being careful not to get jelly on edges. Clean edges are needed to ensure jelly jars will seal.
8. Cover with lids and screw rings on tightly.

(*If you have any more than 2 cups of juice the jelly will not set well. Increase boil time a bit if you want a thicker jelly).