The same lovely lady that opened my eyes to Nocino, also showed me the way of Vin de Noix, walnut wine. This concoction is warm, nutty, delicious and insanely easy to create. A spot of vin de noix with a friend, I headed home to see if I could use the remaining few green walnuts I had to start my own batch. During my search for a recipe, I happened upon an extremely well written food blog by Lucy Vanel, Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook. One write up about her style said she has “an eye for the elements that elevate the ordinary.” Her photographs are crazy beautiful (hers is to the right). After taking a funky photo of a sweating jar of steeping wine, I reminded myself Ms. Vanel is a photographer by trade, at the very least she has lights for the staging…but I digress. I am writing about vin de noix. I did the following:

Vin de Noix

Per 1.5 liter jar:

About 8 nuts each jar
500ml vodka
1/2 cup grade B maple syrup
1/3 vanilla bean
2 cloves
1 t. szchuan peppercorns
2 slices of an orange

The recipe said to top off with a full bodied white burgundy (Bourgogne) wine. Frankly, I don’t even know what that is so I grabbed a bottle of the chardonnay I had remaining from my wedding a thousand years ago. I hope it works out. It smells great.

Vin de noix, in order to turn it’s beautiful deep dark color, needs contact with some air. So use a jar that is not air tight. Once two months have gone by, filter and bottle your vin de noix. Seal the bottles tightly then, and allow it to mature for another month or two before enjoying.

Its been one week and the jar is emitting a fruity boozy aroma much like fruitcake. Its funny to me how these projects never fail to stir up memories of my grandparents. The fragrance of the green walnuts brought back vivid visuals of play in their backyard. Each year my grandfather, Francisco, lamented that it is never the right temperature for his walnuts to ripen before they fell to the ground. Ah Gramps, if you only know what could be done with green walnuts. The boozy fruitcake reminds me of my grandmother (oh, how I’d love to stop writing there). She used to hide tiny “adult” fruitcakes that had been soaked in brandy. Much to my delight, I usually found them.