Chicory
That blue-flowered weed you’ve been driving past all summer? It’s Cichorium intybus — chicory — and its dried taproot has been standing in for coffee since the Civil War. Roasted, it delivers a bold, earthy bitterness with a faintly woody sweetness underneath. In wine, those same compounds build structure and depth in a way that’s hard to get from fruit alone. The white grape concentrate softens the edges and keeps fermentation honest. The result is dry, complex, and genuinely strange in the best possible way.
The beginner trap: Skipping the full 10-hour rest after adding the Campden tablet — that wait is what lets the sulfite do its job before you pitch the yeast.
Ingredients
- 4 oz. dried chicory root, finely chopped or coarsely ground
- 1 can (11 oz.) Welch’s 100% White Grape Juice frozen concentrate
- 2½ lb. granulated white sugar
- 1½ tsp. acid blend (available at homebrew shops; citric acid from the grocery store works in a pinch)
- 1 tsp. yeast nutrient
- 1 Campden tablet, crushed
- Water to bring total volume to 1 gallon
- Wine yeast (Lalvin EC-1118 or any dry white wine yeast)
Method
- Put the chopped chicory root in a small saucepan with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered for 15 minutes.
- Strain the liquid through a fine-mesh strainer or a piece of cheesecloth into your primary fermentation vessel. Discard the spent root.
- Add the grape juice concentrate, sugar, acid blend, yeast nutrient, and crushed Campden tablet. Stir thoroughly until the sugar is fully dissolved.
- Cover the primary and let it sit undisturbed for 10 hours.
- Activate your yeast according to the packet instructions, then add it to the must. Re-cover the primary.
- Stir the must once daily until vigorous bubbling slows down — usually 5 to 7 days.
- Transfer the wine to a 1-gallon glass jug (secondary fermenter) and fit an airlock. Let it ferment to dryness.
- Rack the wine off the sediment every 30 days until it runs clear and no new sediment forms between rackings — usually 2 to 3 rounds.
- Stabilize the wine with potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite. Sweeten to taste if you’d like, then wait 14 days before bottling.
Why this works
Chicory root is loaded with inulin — a complex carbohydrate that wine yeast can’t ferment — plus bitter compounds called sesquiterpene lactones. Simmering the root in water pulls out soluble flavor compounds while leaving behind most of the woody fiber. The short boil also sanitizes the root without driving off volatile aromatics the way a longer cook would. The white grape concentrate does double duty: it adds fermentable sugar and provides natural grape acids and nutrients that give the yeast a healthy environment to work in. Acid blend corrects the final pH so the wine stays stable and tastes bright rather than flat. Together, these ingredients give the yeast everything it needs and give you a finished wine with real backbone.
Notes
Dried chicory root is sold at natural food stores and online — look for roasted chicory root for a deeper, more coffee-like character, or unroasted for something earthier and more vegetal. If you can’t find acid blend, a mix of one part citric acid to one part tartaric acid (both widely available) gets you close. This wine benefits from at least 6 months of bottle aging before drinking.
