Mango Wine - Final Bottle (4), 17th November 2018

Our final bottle of Mango Wine (phew!) was opened for my Alphabet Wine Party. It was in the bottom four (of sixteen) bottles and there was a huge jump between this bottle and the top twelve. It scored an average of 1.48 out of 5. The most positive comment was "Unexpectedly bland" and my favourite (from Sooz) was "There are many flavours. None of them are nice. Or mango." It is a shame, because Mango Wine should be nice. And it really isn't. It was a fabulous party, though. As ever I tried to spend time with everyone and I think I nearly managed.

M is for Musty

Mango Wine - Fifth Bottle (3), 26th-27th January 2018

I see that it is exactly a year since I last opened a bottle of Mango Wine. It will be some time before I open the final bottle. This was truly horrible. I only once got a hint of a taste resembling fruit. Otherwise the wine was dry and bitter and did not even have the grace to be interesting. Of course we finished the bottle - though it took a Friday and Saturday to do so.

On Saturday Chris and Kate were here. After a bottle of champagne, to celebrate their engagement (my brother, getting married!) I poured them each a glass of Mango. Kate was distinctly unimpressed and declined to finish her glass. How rude!

Mango Wine - Fourth Bottle (1), 22nd-26th January 2017

Having returned from our Airedale Concert on Sunday night and finished up the Prune & Parsnip, we wanted something else to drink. I fished out this bottle of Mango from under the stairs as something that would not be so nice that we would want to finish it. In fact, it suffered greatly as a direct comparison to the Prune & Parsnip: far drier, thinner, less interesting. Not finishing the bottle proved not to be a problem. This task was completed on Thursday night after discussing money with our financial advisor - never the most interesting of subjects. At least this bottle has removed 'Mango' from my list of possible flavours for this April.

Mango Wine - Third Bottle (5), 4th September 2016

After a long day's drive from Newcastle to York to Leeds, and an aborted attempt to pick blackberries from York Victorian Cemetery, I was feeling somewhat less than lovely. Claire hinted that we may not have a bottle, but I scotched that attempt at sobriety. The wine itself was inconsequential - fine, slightly sparkling, dry, no taste whatsoever of mangos - but it did its Sunday evening job. By the time I went to bed, life was looking better, if more blurry.

Mango Wine - Second Bottle (2), 29th-30th June 2016

It is not often that we have two mid-week bottles, of which this was the second, but Claire says that we need additional insulation from current events. I chose Mango on the basis that I remember it as rather ordinary, and to my mind it is. There is the vaguest tropical taste but otherwise is a dull, semi-fizzy white wine. Claire disagrees and (for once) has a higher opinion of my wine than I do. She thinks it a rather decent quality white and on that basis I may make it again one day.

Mango Wine - First Bottle (6), 4th April 2016

After a raucous weekend in Derbyshire I had not planned to round it off with a bottle of wine on Monday evening. However, Anne and David came round to inspect the house. I offered them a drink of anywhere between 0 and 40% proof, and they settled on wine. Feeling brave, they chose the Mango - and I warned them that I had yet to try a bottle of this.

In fact, it was okay. I didn't catch a taste of mango - it was more 'generic white wine' than that. Dry, but not overly so and entirely drinkable, which in my book is a 'Hit'. Anne said it slipped down nicely but also too quickly.

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

Mango Wine - The Making Of ...

When walking home from work a few weeks ago, Avishek metioned that mangos were really cheap at Kirkgate Market. My ears pricked up immediately. This is a flavour that I have been keen to try because I love the taste of mangos, but have always been discouraged by the price. Just as importantly, this adds the letter M to my alphabet. Everyone's a winner.

I had meant to make this wine last week, but the house was in chaos. Claire was decorating the kitchen, with paint brushes and ovens all over the shop. This week the house is still in chaos, but it is the back bedroom she is decorating. So on Saturday, 18th April, I got the bus into town and found a stall selling mangos at four for a pound (I will gloss over the £4 bus fare). I bought eight, along with a ton of other fruit and came home. Eight mangos weigh 88 oz with stones and 75 oz without, so I have 4 lbs, 11 oz fruit in my bucket.

On Sunday I sliced the flesh from the mangos, ignoring the fact that the greenest of the fruit had the brownest flesh. I ate little bits of brown fruit, and they all tasted fine, so into the bucket they went. The mangos were sliced into small pieces (though in retrospect not small enough), but my attempts at mashing them were woeful. I poured over 6½ pints of boiling water in the hope that this will extract their flavour and added 2 lbs 12  oz sugar. The same evening I added a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase, citric acid and tannin together with the yeast (champagne variety).

Mango Wine just before I put it into the demijohn

On Thursday evening, after a socially inept attempt at going to a solicitors' function (I walked into the bar, recognised one person, who didn't see me, saw everyone was already in groups, and left), I poured this into its demijohn. The sediment looks massive and I fear the wine will be bland in the extreme. Watch this space ...

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