Blackcurrant & Gooseberry Wine - Final Bottle (1), 26th March 2019

Tuesdays tend not to be a full bottle of wine night, but (unless one counts Friday) (or, indeed, Saturday and Sunday) it was the only night that we had in together this week. Both Claire and I had stressful Mondays and it seemed right to mark the better Tuesday with a bottle of blackcurrant and gooseberry, which was a very slurpable bottle of wine. We drank it to a venison sausage casserole - which was meaty, dark and delicious - and then watched an episode of Celebrity Bake Off. Maybe not the most memorable or interesting of evenings, but it was what we both needed.

Blackcurrant & Gooseberry Wine - Fifth Bottle (3), 13th-14th November 2018

This bottle was shared between Tuesday and Wednesday nights where very little happened. I chose Blackcurrant & Gooseberry as one that will not appear at the Wine Party and it was a tasty choice.

On Tuesday evening we watched an old and ridiculous (is there any other sort?) Midsomer Murders and on Wednesday we had an entirely satisfactory WYSO rehearsal. The concert is not far off and we are beginning to sound like we mean it when we play Beethoven's Sixth.

Blackcurrant & Gooseberry Wine - Fourth Bottle (5), 17th August 2018

Something has happened to this wine. It has become delicious. Before, Blackcurrant & Gooseberry was fine, but this bottle was excellent. Far smoother than before, which meant it slipped down rather too quickly. I was disappointed to discover at eight o'clock that there was only one glass each left.

The main news of the day is that my Smart Phone has arrived, and I find it entirely baffling. I can see that one day I won't, but for the moment I don't know how to do anything on it, or once I have turned something on how to turn it off again. The weekend will be one of screaming frustration.

Blackcurrant & Gooseberry - Third Bottle (6), 3rd May 2018

We are on holiday! Only just - the long drive to Dorset happens tomorrow - but On Holiday nonetheless. To celebrate, I voted in local elections and mowed the lawn. More traditional forms of celebration included getting takeaway curry and opening this bottle of Blackcurrant & Gooseberry. Both wine and curry were excellent - this sharp wine has more than one note to it, and is easy to drink. I haven't been on holiday properly since Corfu in October last year. Dorset may not be as exotic but I am looking forward to it tremendously.

Blackcurrant & Gooseberry Wine - Second Bottle (4), 15th December 2017

There was a definite first hit of gooseberry flavour in this wine, before blackcurrant became dominant. It is a sharp taste, and a light red - good for a Friday night after a monumentally busy week at work. It was a quiet night in, gathering energy for the weekend - which was to involve two Christmas parties and a titanic Christmas Card session. The parties were fun, the cards not so much.

Blackcurrant & Gooseberry Wine - First Bottle (2), 3rd August 2017

This bottle was a well deserved celebration for performing the solo bassoon part in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante. I have been practising for weeks, and it went better than I could have hoped. There is nothing more thrilling than playing well to an audience. Consequently I drank most of this wine myself, though shared some of it around. It has a sharp, tart taste where both blackcurrant and gooseberry are pronounced. Janet thought it was wonderful, but I am struggling to remember who else at Rydal I pressed it upon.

(I would like to share the video of the cadenza, which is on Facebook, but I am struggling to post it. You may be able to see it here.)

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

If you want to read a fuller account of how it felt to perform, keep on reading:

The orchestra started up and this was it; we were really going to do it. There are about eighty bars before the soloists come in and I spent them trying not to shake. And then, all of a sudden, we were playing. The notes were there, doing what they should, piecing themselves together and I was partly responsible. I certainly wasn't relaxed, not at the beginning, but the sheer exhilarating terror started to lessen. The entries were made and bars rest were counted correctly. This was going well. This was getting towards fun. The first movement is both the best and the easiest and when it was over, the audience and orchestra applauded. The second movement was slower than any of us would have liked - it requires sustained, stable notes and these are not comfortable on the lip. I felt my first passage of semiquavers slipping away from my fingers but I wrestled them back into control and the remainder of the movement played itself. Then it was the Variations. We started at quite a lick and those bars of semiquavers at the beginning, which I have been practising so hard, were perfect. Not a dropped note or a fluff among them. Variation two was less good (and my personal low of the piece) but once the music is running past you, all you can do is run at its speed and hope to regain your footing. The variations were all slower than I would have liked - we were following the conductor's beat, which was an error but difficult to break out of. However, the tempo was not so slow as to kill the music and at the end we got a huge round of applause. Then we did the first movement again. This time I was entirely relaxed. I had already done this and knew I could do it again - and it was fabulous (if I do say so myself). I could not have been more pleased with the result.

Blackcurrant Wine and Blackcurrant & Gooseberry Wine - The Making Of...

Blackcurrants & honeysuckle & rocket

This year has been less prolific in terms of blackcurrants than last. The fruit has also been later and I wonder if the two are connected. My (undoubtedly false) memories of last year reveal handfuls of blackcurrants being plucked from our bushes daily from July to August. This summer has required more work, with half a pound being collected once every four or five days. In total our bushes have produced 5 lbs and 7 oz and that is not enough for a double batch.

Our blackcurrant bushes

Blackcurrants & Hydrangea

Claire suggested bulking out the fruit with our gooseberries, so that is what I have done. The gooseberries have also been a little disappointing. I got excited in April, seeing how many flowers we had and how unaffected by sawfly our goosberries were. But I think in total I harvested fewer than 2 lbs. Nevermind - next year should be better.

So, what I have done is make one demijohn of pure blackcurrant wine, for which I needed 3 lbs of blackcurrants, and one demijohn of blackcurrant & gooseberry wine, which has 2 lbs blackcurrants and 1 lb gooseberries (a mix of green and red). The method has been the same in each case.

The mix of blackcurrants and gooseberries

On Sunday, 14th August, I defrosted the fruit and put each batch in a different bucket. I mashed these with a potato masher, until the fruit had become a pulpy paste. For each, I dissolved 3 lbs of sugar in 5½ pints of water. I brought this to the boil and poured it over the fruit. For the pure blackcurrant, this water was exactly right. The other could have had about a quarter of a pint more.

The fruit in each bucket before mashing

Next morning I added the yeast and a teaspoon of nutrient and pectolase to each bucket.

I should have put both wines into their demijohns on Friday night, but it was Book Group (Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - excellent). Instead, I did this on Saturday morning in between last night's washing-up and having breakfast. Making wine in one's pyjamas suggests a dissolute lifestyle.

If you want to see how the blackcurrant and gooseberry came out, click here.