WHITE WINE & PURPLE BASIL ICE CREAM TOPPING

This one's for my mom.  About seven years ago, my dad and little sister had the harebrained idea to start making wine.  With those two, I know the conversation went something like: "Hey, Dad! Let's start making wine!" "Sounds good, I'll go plant some grape vines!".  And so, (although I may have taken liberties with the facts here) 99 Bottles Winery was born. 

Although not as initially entertaining as most of their crazy ideas, starting a winery is by far my favorite (and their most successful).  They now bottle around a thousand bottles each year and have weddings and events at the winery, too.  And, let me tell you, my dad's wine making abilities have come a long way since he blew up a bunch of fermenting bottles in his high school closet.  I may be partial, but I think it knocks the socks off of the competition, especially if you like very flavorful, dry or semi-dry wines.  As a former chemistry teacher, he's sort of the Walter White of the wine world- he's good at what he does (minus the medical bills, this endeavor is just for fun).

Now, you're probably wondering how in the world this all relates to my mom.  I may have gotten a little off-topic here and I understand if I lost you back there and you just said "screw it" and scrolled to the recipe section.

My mom likes to have a special treat for guests when they visit the winery for a tasting and a wine sauce drizzled over ice cream is one of them.  I took her idea and tweaked it a bit with the purple basil and honey.  I always use cheap white wine for this, since I think theirs is too good to be used for anything but drinking, but my mom uses their wine for this sometimes and it's amazingly delicious.  I use this recipe for that bottle that you opened and forgot about in the fridge a week ago that's not really pleasant to drink anymore, but you can't bear to waste.

WHITE WINE & PURPLE BASIL ICE CREAM TOPPING
makes: about 1 cup sauce
takes: about 30 minutes
YOU WILL NEED:
1 bottle white wine
2 T. honey
2 T. sugar
3 leaves purple basil, chopped small

In a heavy saucepan, simmer wine on medium high heat until reduced by half.  Add the honey and sugar and simmer until reduced to about one cup.  Add the basil and simmer for one minute.  Remove from heat, pour into a heatproof container and either serve warm or chil for one hour.  Garnish with more basil leaves if desired.

*Note: If you use a very dry wine or a very sweet wine, you may need to add to or reduce the sugar to taste.