Nectarine Wine - Second Bottle (2), 17th November 2018

Nectarine is where the Wine Party and I disagree. I think this is a rather decent bottle of white wine: fruity, light, pleasant. My guests, on the whole, disagreed. It came twelfth out of sixteen with an average score of 2.58 out of 5. This just shows how flawed market research can be. Someone complained of its slightly bitter note, another thought there was an unpleasant aftertaste and someone else wrote "For emergency use only".

N is for Not As Good As I Thought.

Blackcurrant Wine - Final Bottle (5), 29th-30th June 2014

Claire wanted something reddish to drink on Sunday night with her mushy peas and haggis. I was out playing a concert in Ilkley and fished a bottle of blackcurrant before I went. On my return I gulped down a glass with some fervour, still high from the concert, but recognised it would be sensible to leave the rest.

We have finished the bottle tonight, Monday, while eating obligatory salad from the garden and 'Surprising Rice' (inspired by Cabin Pressure). The surprise was its searing heat and the crunch of cinnamon sticks.

Claire suggested we go for a stroll afterwards in the evening sunlight. Twenty minutes later we found ourselves in a bar drinking beer. It was lovely. Claire and I spend surprisingly little time with just each other doing something that is not domestic. And tomorrow we will have been married 16 years.

Rhubarb & Elderflower - Final Bottle (3), 20th April 2014

We spent a lovely evening at 3 The Alders in the company of this bottle. Judith cooked a chicken as our Easter roast and then fed us a ginger & rhubarb fool. There is still a portion of this in the fridge, and my eye is very firmly on it.

Sooz brought Ticket to Ride around, which is a fabulous board game involving strategy, some luck, swearing and steam trains. Judith scuppered my final route and only Bob did worse than I. The wine had been finished by this point in the evening and unusually I did not have much of the real stuff.

Having had six bottles of this flavour now, I would say its worst crime is being a little bland. It is a terrific colour and worth making in the future.

Gooseberry - Bottle B4, 5th to 9th May 2011

I had my first glass from this bottle on Thursday night, celebrating getting two jobs that will dovetail nicely: the Government want me for three days a week and Brooke North for two. I could barely believe my luck. Then I had another glass on Friday, sat in the garden reading Home Farmer Magazine, enjoying the early evening sun. My last glass was tonight, in rather more morose circumstances. Jarndyce & Co have finally pulled their finger out and have confirmed their job offer too. I now have a difficult decision to make, and am miserable about it. Still, the nasty aftertaste in the wine seems to have diminished over the days this bottle has been kept in the fridge.