Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine 2020 - Fourth Bottle (1), 14th November 2021

The Internet is a marvelous thing. It allows one to order Dim Sum to arrive through the post, complete with cardboard double-decker steamer and dipping sauces. This was Rachel's idea and we had a Zoom Dinner Party with her and Duncan, during which I opened this Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine. Whilst a white wine might have been preferable, I had nothing chilled. The Dim Sum was fantastic - and my favourite was the pork bun. It all made for an entertaining evening.

An upside-down Mango cake made on 14th November

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine 2020 - Third Bottle (4), 6th May 2021

As we should have been in Shropshire this week, we had a Zoom get-together with our holiday compatriots and everybody, for obvious reasons, brought their own bottle. Claire chose Blackcurrant & Raspberry because it is her favourite of mine, and either we had to drink something excellent or one that fell into the 'Comedy Wine' category. The raspberries soften the blackcurrant and I think it a better wine as a result. The Zoom meeting was fun and maybe next year we will meet in person.

Wiggy sitting on my work (on 5th May rather than 6th)

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine 2020 - Second Bottle, 11th-13th April 2021

Sunday was a day of many pleasures. The best of these was spending time in the garden of 60 Heworth Green, huddled around an outdoor stove chatting with Chris, Kate and my parents. It has been months since I have seen any of them and though we were there for only 90 minutes, it was glorious. We were snowed upon but that just made it all the more memorable.

In the evening we had another virtual dinner party with Rachel & Duncan, where this was our second bottle opened, after a bottle of Prosecco to celebrate Cornelia Gruntfuttock's birthday. The wine is excellent and I will save a bottle for Rachel & Duncan to taste when we eventually see them in person.

The snow came later

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine 2020 - First Bottle (6), 20th March 2021

Claire and I had our first Covid 19 jabs on Saturday, and that makes me happy. It was a remarkably speedy and efficient process. I had expected long and slow-moving queues, and in fact it was the opposite. 24 hours later, my arm feels bruised but otherwise there are no other side effects.

In the evening we celebrated with a rather nice (if floppy) gin & tonic and then this bottle of wine. The wine is excellent, tasting of both blackcurrant and raspberry (odd, that). It is fruity and light and delicious. We also watched Return to Oz at the Snarkalong Film Club. This is a deeply disturbing and surreal children's movie, which has more scenes of electro-convulsive therapy than one might expect for a film aimed at the under-12s.

Immediately before the Jab

If you want to see how I made this wine, click here.

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - The Making Of...

We very much need a larger freezer. And we need to defrost the current one. At this time of year, when soft fruit is abundant, a deep and empty freezer is what one requires. Ours is standard-sized and full. This wine is a direct result.

On Saturday 12th July, Claire and I went round to Lindsay and Antony's house to pick blackcurrants. It was an afternoon well spent in their garden, enjoying the sunshine and seeing friends somewhere other than on a computer screen. We mostly attained social distancing, but we were still in their company, and that was lovely. Their blackcurrants were not as plentiful as in previous years - I suspect that the pruning shears have been out - but we came away with 2 lbs 6 oz.

Our blackcurrants are later, and my original intention was to keep Lindsay and Antony's fruit in the freezer until ours were ready. However, this gave no room for freezing bread and therefore Something Needed To Be Done. I decided that instead of pure blackcurrant, I would bulk up what we had with 10 oz of raspberries. Our raspberry canes have been prolific this year, requiring a daily pick, and the fruit that we cannot have on our porridge, we freeze.

On Friday 17th July I took the blackcurrants and raspberries out of the freezer and left them to defrost in a bowl. I mashed them that evening, poured over 6¼ pints of boiling water and added 2 lbs 12 oz sugar (I think - I am writing this a week later). On Saturday morning I put in a teaspoon each of yeast, pectolase and nutrient.

Over the week I was particularly dilatory in stirring the wine - maybe it got three stirs - and really I should have put it in the demijohn on Wednesday. But it has been a busy week at work, so I left this until Thursday evening. This process was unremarkable - neither pleasantly speedy nor stultifyingly, arse-achingly slow. I have ended up with a demijohn full of purple-bordering-on-the-black wine. I suspect that our blackcurrant bushes will not supply enough fruit this year for a pure blackcurrant wine.

If you want to see how this wine turned out, click here

Blackcurrant and Raspberry Wine - Eighth Bottle (A4), 10th November 2018

I thought that a bottle of wine closely associated with Julia would be a suitable one for a Rydal committee meeting at our house. It is strange that she died four and a half years ago - it seems like both so much more recently and so much longer at once. We raised our glasses to her and got on with the business of the evening - which was idle gossip and laughter. In theory, Matt, Jane, Jayne, Nick and I were meeting to plan Rydal 2019 and discuss issues arising from that. In practice we did little of the sort (though not none). It was a fabulous evening and this bottle emptied quickly.

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - Seventh Bottle (B3), 17th-18th August 2017

I took this bottle to Rydal with me, but there it remained undrunk (unlike me). Instead, Claire opened it while I was out playing trios with Pat & Peter. I had a good-night glass on my return, leaving half the bottle for Friday night, where it was shared with Bob & Judith as our first drink of the evening. This was known as 'tidying up' and therefore a helpful thing to do. The wine is still very good: the fruit taste is abundant and whilst lighter than a true red wine it manages to avoid thinness.

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - Sixth Bottle (B1), 7th April 2017

This wine is better than I had remembered. It has matured nicely and has developed a sherry taste, while still being distinctly fruity. We took it to Ros's for an evening of wine, nibbles and conversation. It was meant to be Book Group, but so many people could not make it that we have postponed. This allowed us to catch up with Ros properly - it has been too long.

We drank a toast to Julia, finished the bottle quickly, opened another (real wine this time) and finished that too. The walk home did not feel as long as the walk there. Funny that.

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - Fifth Bottle (A2), 5th August 2016

It seemed fitting that Julia's Memorial Wine* made an appearance on the last night of Rydal. I poured several people a taste and we raised our glasses to her. The wine was thinner than I remember but still entirely quaffable. We then had a riotous and noisy evening of quizzes, games and far too much to drink. This involved having to sing a limerick** composed by Sooz about Albert Ketelbey to the tune of Ding Dong Merrily on High. And that doesn't sound surreal at all.

* I call this wine 'Memorial Wine' because it was made from the contents of Julia's freezer, which I took after she died in 2014. I try to drink this wine with people who remember her. She always came to Rydal and was an excellent stage manager for our last night shenanigans.

**There once was a man called Ketelbey
Who went for a walk of a Fell. Be-
-fore he set out
He was crippled with doubt
About something but he wouldn't tell me.

Our friend, a nice double bassist
Was very soon on the case, est-
-ablished his doubt
Was because he'd found out
That his music was casually racist

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - Fourth Bottle (A5), 12th March 2016

Eastern Europe was the theme of Saturday's Feast. Ros, Alex, Vicky and Emma came to ours - partly to eat lots of wonderful food and partly to examine the new house. Christian & Kate were invited but have split up (about which I am very sad) and neither came.

The food was, indeed, wonderful. We started with blinis and all sorts of exciting accompaniments mostly bought from a Polish shop (pink, salty fish-eggs are nasty). Next was a clear beetroot soup, followed by Bigos - apparently the national Polish dish with more meat than is sensible, including a spicy Polish sausage. We finished with Dobos Torte. Against all this, the wine was unremarkable, and in fact that was delicious too.

Half a Dobos Torte

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - Third Bottle (B5), 7th November 2015

Claire had the idea that we should drink this wine with people who knew Julia. Bob and Judith were here this weekend, and whilst Judith never met her, Bob spend a number of Rydals in Julia's company.

The Aged Ps were here to help with the House, so Claire set the septuagenarians to work, stripping paint off skirting boards and painting undercoats onto walls. Judith brought the evening meal with her - casseroled pork - and the wine went well with it. It is a fabulous bottle, full of rich fruit flavours.

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - Second Bottle (A6), 15th August 2015

I took this bottle to a Feast at Ros's. Bob, Julia's brother, had come up from Kent and we spent much of the evening drinking far too much and talking about Julia. Her house has finally sold which means Emma will need somewhere to live. It was lovely to see Bob - there is a large amount of Piggott in him (which is unsurprising).

The wine was fruity and light and sweet and delicious, and I think most people agreed.

I disgraced myself at the end of the night by falling asleep in an armchair, waking only to apologise when the taxi arrived.

Derek Piggott - Julia and Bob's father

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - First Bottle (A3), 8th May 2015

Julia died a year ago today, and we marked her passing with a bottle of the wine made from the fruit I found in her freezer when clearing the house. She would have been very happy that I put her frozen fruit to such good use. This wine is excellent: rich and rounded and fruity, at the right sweetness level and extremely drinkable.

We drank it in Suffolk on our first night of a holiday with Rachel, Duncan, Nick and Ann. The drive from Leeds to Aldeburgh took somewhat over five hours and, thankfully, was uneventful. Today's most notable event was a text from Ocado at 8 a.m. saying "We have cancelled your order. Operational Difficulties. Sorry." I was fuming, and sent them several e-mails telling them so.


If you want to see how I made this wine, click here.

Blackcurrant and Raspberry Wine (mostly) - The Making Of ...

The cats woke me up irritatingly early this morning, Sunday 6th July. Stanley wanted food, and on his second time of asking, forty minutes before the alarm was due to go off, I carried him downstairs and shut him in the front room. Then Aggie started making a fuss. I swore heartily at her but Claire woke and pointed out there was something wrong. Aggie was dragging her leg, but with no noticeable injury. We wonder if she has had a stroke - she is at least 17 - and we will monitor her over the next few days. Now it comes down to it, I realise I am quite fond of Aggie, despite her being the worse of cats.

Aggie

Anyway, one of my tasks this morning was to clear Julia's freezer of fruit. She had helpfully organised it so that fruit was at the top, vegetables in the middle and meat on the bottom shelf. Except beetroot seemed to be classified as 'fruit'. I checked with Claire to make sure they weren't plums. In total I came away with 4 lbs 2 oz of blackcurrants, 1 lb 2oz raspberries, 12 ½ oz of a blackberry and apple mix and a bag of redcurrants, which Claire is turning into jelly but allowing me ½ oz for the wine.

We then went to Julia's allotment to return her key - another significant moment in saying 'farewell' - and I took a small handfull of whitecurrants (¼ oz) to add to the mix. I calculate that this comes to 6 lbs 1¼ oz fruit - which is enough for a double batch.

The fruit had defrosted by Sunday evening, so I crushed it in its bucket, added 6lbs of sugar and 12 pints of boiling water. The next morning I added the yeast, two teaspoons of nutrient and one of pectolase.

On Saturday morning, 12th July, the wine went into its two demijohns. Ordinarily I would have done this a day or two earlier, but my evenings have been taken up with a less-dreadful-than-expected concert and Book Group. The wine is still bubbling away, though, and is very dark pink in colour, with what looks like a massive sediment forming. Aggie appears to have recovered, so my thoughts of a final visit to the vets were premature.

If you want to see how this wine turned out (and it was very good!), click here.