Prune & Parsnip Wine 2017 - Final Bottle (B5), 4th April 2021

This bottle was retrieved from our crypt on Easter Sunday. I had spent most the day in the kitchen, making peanut-butter cookies, followed by a lemon meringue pie (a Triumph, he said, modestly) and then the beginnings of Spiced Beetroot Wine, all while listening to Classic FM's Top 300 Countdown. 

This wine was a sherry-like as ever and was certainly effective. It would be dishonest to blame the subsequent poor night's sleep on anything else.

Peanut-butter Cookies

Lemon Meringue Pie

Dandelion Wine 2019 - First Bottle (4), 1st April 2021

"Odd" was Claire's description of choice. Followed by "Not unpleasant" but that was as positive as she got. I like this wine: it is very much 'home brew' but not in a bad way. The taste is sweet and had a hint of vegetable to it. I would happily serve this in polite company.

We drank the bottle on Maundy Thursday during which I was culinarily adventurous - Roquefort and mushroom stuffed pancakes a la Nigel Slater. Pancakes have been my downfall in the past, but last night they were circular and unholy, which I count as a success.

Taken on 2nd April - Cherry Trees and Sloe Bushes in bloom

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

Magnolia Petal Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

After last year's Magnolia Petal Wine was a surprising success, I decided to repeat it this year. 

St John the Baptist's Petals

Since the Great Covid 19 Lockdown of 2020 began, I have been going on hour-long walks early every weekday morning, and many of these have taken me past Angie and Phil's house. I noticed that their magnolia tree was not as prolific with its petals as last year, so on these long walks I have been trying to spot magnolia trees elsewhere. One of these was outside St Edmund's in Roundhay, where I surreptitiously gathered fallen petals (which remain in our freezer). Another was at St John the Baptist's Church in Adel, which was the halfway point of my 7-mile walk on Good Friday. This magnolia tree was of the 'small, delicate' petal variety which meant an age gathering enough to make it worthwhile. But I can think of worse ways to spend a sunny Bank Holiday.

Magnolia Petals outside Phil & Angie's

That evening, Angie came past our house on her run and stopped to tell me (at a safe distance!) that her tree was now discarding its petals and I was welcome to collect these at any point. This I did on Saturday morning, 11th April. I meant to make the wine that afternoon and evening, but instead Claire and I cut each other's hair (I am now completely bald!) and then she seduced me into drinking a bottle of champagne rather than make wine. Therefore, I have made wine this Easter morning whilst listening to Classic FM's Hall of Fame.

I measured 6 pints of petals and put these in my pan with the thinly peeled peel of two lemons and one orange. I poured in 7 pints of water and put this onto boil. When the water was getting close, I added 2lb 8 oz of sugar and once it reached the boil I let it do so for 20 minutes.

Petals that I used

I squeezed the orange and lemons and put the juice into my bucket along with 500g of minced sultanas (yes, I am mixing Imperial and Metric, for which I make no apologies). I then poured the contents of my pan (petals now brown and sludgy) over this and stirred it all around.

The mixture in its bucket

Later that night I put in the yeast and a teaspoon each of tannin, pectolase and nutrient. On Friday night, 17th April, whilst Claire was out processing Covid 19 samples, I put the wine into its demijohn. It is a murky beige.

 

An arty shot of the demijohn.

Having racked this on 7th June, I cannot tell whether it is going to be good or not. It has yet to clear properly. I fit 2 oz sugar and three-quarters a pint of water into the demijohn.

If you want to see how this wine turned out (and for a comedy photo!), click here.

Xmas Tutti Fruti - Fourth Bottle (B2), 22nd April 2019

This was the last of many bottles we have drunk over the Easter break. This time, though, it was just Claire and me after a long walk through the Yorkshire countryside. We walked about 7 miles round Leathley Woods and Lindley Reservoir, following instructions printed in 1989. It was hardly surprising that there were a couple of wrong turns and one period of being properly lost in a forest. However, we survived and celebrated at home with a bottle of Christmas Tutti Fruti, some of which was drunk in the garden and all of which was drunk before we ate. It fizzed nicely and is a fruity, excellent batch.

On our walk

Dandelion Wine 2019 - The Making Of...

I was very much in two minds about making dandelion wine this year: the Magnolia Petal wine was to be its substitute. But as I have been driving home the last three weeks, the road verges have been golden with dandelions. Each journey has been a temptation, and my resolve to give dandelion wine a miss has weakened with each one. Therefore, on Good Friday, I struck out with my jug and a plastic bag to pick flowers. I had intended to walk all the way to the fields by Potternewton Lane, but thought I should have a quick look at Allerton Grange before making that half-hour trip. I am glad I did: there were dandelions in abundance and, whilst it did my step-count no good, foraging for flowers round the corner meant that I spent an hour less of my day with wine-making activities.

It was a glorious afternoon, picking dandelions in the sunlight, listening to a competitive father beat his under-tens at football. An Indian osteopath was interested in what I was doing and I had a long conversation with him about wine-making. At no point did he look as if he wanted to back away slowly.

I measured 6 pints of dandelion heads in my jug and took them home to boil up in 7 pints of water, 2 lbs 12 oz sugar and the thinly peeled rind of two lemons and one orange. This was brought to the boil and boiled for 20 minutes. I squeezed the citrus fruits and put the juice and half a kilo of minced sultanas into my bucket, pouring the contents of the cauldron over this once the twenty minutes was up.

Next day I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase and tannin. I pretty much left the wine to its own devices until Thursday evening, 12th April, giving it only the occasional stir.

On Thursday, after returning from a solicitors' event involving beer and pies, I put the liquid into its demijohn, straining out the solids. The amount of water I had used was exactly right - nothing spare was left.

Dandelion wine at this stage does not suggest its eventual golden colour - though it isn't quite as brown as the magnolia.

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

Blackberry Wine 2016 - Fourteenth Bottle (A6), 19th-20th April 2019

Another bottle of disappointing blackberry bites the dust. This really has been a dud vintage. There is little that is actively wrong about it, but it is far from interesting and has no depth or bite.

Apart from the glass that I had on Good Friday (which really was a glass too far), this bottle was shared with Andrew, Sooz and Claire for Saturday lunchtime (shocking!) sat in the shady part of the garden enjoying the spectacular weather we are having. This is how Easter Saturday's should be spent.

Our Garden

Dandelion Wine - Second Bottle (1), 19th April 2019

On a day that I started my next batch of dandelion wine, which was Good Friday where Andrew, Sooz and Jayne were all here, it seemed right and proper that we should drink this year's bottle of dandelion wine. This was after having an early (and floppy) gin and tonic, followed by Cosmopolitans in the garden. The weather has been idyllic over the last few days (though we do need some rain quite badly, just not this Easter weekend).

This wine was good without being outstanding: a medium-dry sherry with a definite hint of lemons. I wonder how next year's bottle will be.

Cosmopolitans in the garden

Xmas Tutti Fruti - Third Bottle (B6), 21st-23rd March 2019

This is the best Xmas Tutti Fruti that I have made for several years. It is without the insipidness this flavour sometimes has and there are complex elements to its taste.

I drank half the bottle on Thursday night whilst Claire was out playing Dvorak piano quartets. This coincided with me failing to get flights to Dublin over Easter. I had left it too late and it was all now too expensive. Instead, Sooz will visit us, but I was cross with myself and drinking half a bottle of wine helped.

Claire had the rest of the wine over Friday and Saturday when I was out playing wind octets and in the Leeds Music Club Less-Dreadful-than-Expected Orchestra respectively.

Dublin Airport - which I will not be visiting

Crab Apple Wine - Twenty-fourth Bottle (A1), 2nd-3rd April 2018

I bottled my Blackcurrant on Easter Monday, but that did not produce sufficient wine. Hence opening this bottle of crab apple, which continues to be a decent, highly drinkable wine. I spent the evening watching the first episode of And Then There Were None: a book I remember from when I was 11 - it is a nasty little tale of cruelty and retribution, but has an all-star cast so is (at least) glorious to look at.

We finished the bottle on Tuesday (and then finished another) because Claire was still on her Easter holidays and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Elderberry Wine - Third Bottle (A2), 1st April 2018

Judith cooked an enormous slab of beef for our Easter lunch, and I opened a bottle of elderberry wine to go with it. The food was superb and the wine was passable. This is not my best vintage of elderberry. Andrew's adjective of choice was 'frunty' and I have no idea whether that is a compliment or not.

The weekend was excellent, starting with a lovely visit with Keith and family (we taught Ellis how to play 'Cheat'), going round Craster to buy kippers, watch the waves crash against the pier and get thoroughly cold walking much of the way to Dunstanburgh Castle, and finishing the Guardian cryptic double crossword.

Kiwi Fruit Wine 2018 - The Making Of...

Easter Monday should be spent in the garden, followed by a trip to the Garden Centre. This is simply what middle-class, middle-aged British people do. It is our cultural duty. On 2nd April 2018, I failed my nation. In my defence, for much of the day it was snowing and when not snowing there was a torrent of rain. Instead, I spent the morning tidying our bedroom (unearthing paraphernalia from Amsterdam - I was last there in 2016) and the afternoon making kiwi-fruit wine.

I have only made this flavour once before - five years ago - though if you google 'Kiwi Fruit wine' it is the second web page out of the box. I made up the recipe that time and pretty much followed it this. To start, I counted out 20 kiwi fruit, weighed them and added another two to bring the weight up to 3 lbs 8 oz. I cut each of them in half, held the half over the bucket and scooped the insides out with a spoon, discarding the skin. This had the advantage that the flesh and all spare juice landed squarely in the bucket. On the downside I discovered a combination of fine kiwi fruit hairs and acidic kiwi fruit juice has blistered my finger and caused an irritating rash. How I suffer for my hobby!

I mashed the fruit with a potato masher, added 3 lbs of sugar and poured over 6½ pints of boiling water. On Tuesday morning I put in a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase and tannin (I can't imagine that it needs any additional acid) and added the yeast. I then left the wine in its bucket until Saturday morning, 7th April, mostly forgetting to stir it twice a day.

On Saturday I got up early - Claire has just got a new phone and her alarm turns out to be a rooster call, which refuses to be turned off - and did my wine-making jobs before ten. Transferring the wine to its demijohn was straightforward and I could have reduced the water in the initial mix by a quarter of a pint - but at that level it won't make a difference. I am pleased that the wine has a distinctly green tinge, albeit on the greyish side. Claire thinks it looks like summer pond water - full of algae but (hopefully) no fish.

Rose Petal Wine - Eighth Bottle (C3), 30th March 2018

Bob & Judith's boiler has packed up - so this was an ideal time to visit them for a weekend. We took plenty of clothes and decided that washing would be an unnecessary luxury. In the evening, after visiting Keith, Jaki and Ellis (who I hadn't seen since June, which is far, far too long) I opened a bottle of rose petal wine. It was the only bottle we drank between the four of us, which is unusual, but it was a good one. Chilled, of course.

Rose Petal Wine - Tenth Bottle (B6), 18th-19th April 2017

This bottle marked Easter's last hurrah. Most of Easter Monday was spent in York seeing Mom, Rachael, Myles & Paul. We didn't do very much, but in an entirely satisfactory way. Mom beat both Claire and me at Scrabble which Rachael watched and Myles slept, but it was close. We opened the Rose Petal Wine on our return to Leeds and I spent a frustrating ten minutes willing our internet to work sufficiently so that I could watch Broadchurch's final episode live. This, of course, failed - so I stayed up late seeking solace in rose petal wine until the internet decided to work and I could watch the episode. Both the programme and the wine were entirely satisfactory. The taxi driver was not the villain.

I spent the afternoon entertaining my wife and nephew

Prune & Parsnip Wine - Third Bottle (B6), 16th April 2017

We had two bottles to tidy up, but it was Easter Sunday and a glass and a half of wine each was definitely not going to be enough. So I opened, and we finished, this bottle of prune & parsnip. It was the right wine for a spicy egg biryani. The sweet depth of prune & parsnip complemented the caramalised onions and cut through the curry's heat.

With the bottle having been finished, I made a couple of bush teas and we settled down to Doctor Who. The new companion is excellent so far and I am so pleased it is back.

Kiwi Fruit Wine - Final Bottle (4), 14th-16th April 2017

Sooz claimed that she could taste Kiwi Fruit in this wine. Neither Claire nor I could. Having left the wine four years since making, it has developed the flavour of generic home-made wine that has stood around too long. I get the same taste from Julia's wines. It was still drinkable, but 'drinkable' does not translate as 'pleasant'.

We drank most the bottle on Good Friday, which was a lazy day interspersed with a trip out to Saltaire and plenty more booze. The wine was then untouched on Saturday, and finished after we had drunk the good stuff on Sunday. Easter Day was another relaxed day - it is a less frantic holiday than Christmas - in which Jayne came over, Claire finished crocheting a hare's head, and I decided not to make Kiwi Wine again.

Orange Wine - Second Bottle (B2), 13th-14th April 2017

Opened on Maundy Thursday (when a bottle of rhubarb wine between three was insufficient) and finished on Good Friday. On her first glass, Claire thought that this orange wine was particularly poor. Whilst I agree that 2015's vintage was better, I considered her opinion to be unduly harsh. She then remembered that she had spent the last two minutes swilling with unpleasant mouthwash. Following on from that, there were no complaints. Sooz did not pick up the orange flavour until instructed to think 'peel' rather than 'juice'.

Because Sooz is staying we spent Friday afternoon wandering around Saltaire and came to the conclusion that the mill is rather more interesting than the village. The shop selling kitchen equipment and furniture is ridiculous, though: £600 for two champagne glasses; £4,000 for an armchair. I was careful not to touch.

The sort of furniture sold at Saltaire for ridiculous prices

Fig Wine - Fourth Bottle (2), 12th April 2017

Sooz has come to stay over Easter so I have welcomed her with one of my best wines. Actually, we began with a gin & tonic. This may not have been the best idea - I do have work tomorrow. Anyway, we all agreed that the wine is a good one - very figgy with a nutty aroma - and the bottle is now empty.

My father has just rung - he is off to America for five weeks and rang to say 'goodbye'. I get the impression that each time he goes, he is never absolutely certain he will survive until he is due back. Generally he won't ring otherwise.

Elderflower Wine - Tenth Bottle (B5), 27th March 2016

This was an Easter Sunday bottle of wine, drunk to a slab or roast pork with crackling done to perfection. We are in Newcastle and Andrew was the cook. Sooz quoted passages of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at me (something to do with 'filthy elderflower concoctions') but mostly the wine was enjoyed.

Earlier in the day we had a sunny yet bracing walk along the Northumberland coast, taking in Howden, Craster and Dunstanburgh Castle. The distant storm clouds painted the scenery with dramatic light.

Blackberry Wine - Eighth Bottle (B5), 26th March 2016

This wine was drier than most, and I'm not sure why that would be. It is a flaw easily remedied by a teaspoon of sugar syrup per glass - and that also brings out the fruity blackberry flavour, turning a drab wine into something rather good.

We are up in Newcastle for the first time since December 2014, and that is too long ago. It was a lovely evening. Judith cooked lamb meatballs, Bob opened a bottle of Prosecco and Sooz and I struggled with the Guardian's Prize Crossword. How an Easter Saturday should be spent.

Crab Apple & Strawberry Wine - Final Bottle (6), 6th April 2015

This bottle was Easter's final hurrah. Easter Monday was a lovely day, full of sunshine and Spring. It was the first day of the year where I spent most of it wearing just one layer. It is a simple pleasure, and becomes mundane as the season progresses. But the first time it happens each year provides a sense of freedom and promise.

I opened the wine with a little persuasion from Claire - she has the week off, but Tuesday marked my return to work. Once opened, though, I was glad I had. It was a refreshing, fruity, thoroughly good bottle of wine with a slight fizz and a glorious colour.