Rhubarb Wine 2021 - First Bottle (1), 9th January 2022

This could be the best rhubarb wine that I have made. It is light, refreshing and has a pleasant fruity taste. Its colour is the palest of pinks and it is absolutely clear. Unusually, it is rather better than the Rhubarb, elderflower and mint that I bottled today as well.

My day was one of pottering and wine making and was exactly how I wanted to spend Sunday. In the evening Claire served a sausage and bean casserole with roast Jerusalem artichokes and mash, and we continued with The Killing (which holds up well on second viewing). During this I adulterated the last of the rhubarb wine with the last of the ginger wine. The ginger was dominant, but it was a good mix.

The Rhubarb Wine (I think - possibly Ginger!)

Rhubarb Wine 2021 - The Making Of...

Sunday 9th May was a day for domestic tasks. Most Sundays are. Ever since I made a cake for Claire's birthday in January, and thereby discovering that I could, I have used Sunday mornings to make a cake or similar to keep us in treats throughout the week. This Sunday it was my Aunt Jennifer's Traveler's Biscuit Cake - neither cake nor biscuit but somewhere in between and the winning combination of delicious and easy.

Traveler's Biscuit Cake - neither cake nor biscuit

Most of the rest of Sunday was occupied by wine-making. I racked my orange and bottled both the crab apple and the crab apple & strawberry. But the day's main task was starting this year's rhubarb wine.

Rhubarb in the front garden

All rhubarb used this year is home-grown. Last year Claire relocated several rhubarb plants into our front garden, which gets the sun nearly all day. This year they are thriving and these were the plants that produced most the rhubarb for the wine. In comparison, our rhubarb in the back is a sickly cousin; limp and weedy.

Freshly picked rhubarb

With judicious picking of stalks, I got 3 lbs 12 oz. Whilst I could have got another 2 lbs 4 oz for a double batch, I decided to do a single instead. We have plenty of rhubarb wine dotted around the house and I should start decreasing our excess.

Rhubarb sticks being washed

I chopped 3 lbs of rhubarb stalks thinly (after washing them, of course) and put these in the bucket with 3 lbs sugar. I boiled up just over 6 pints of water and poured this in, stirring to dissolve the sugar. On Monday morning I added the yeast, pectolase and nutrient (a teaspoon of each) and I was moderately diligent at stirring once a day throughout the week.

Rhubarb chopped thinly

The wine went into its demijohn on Friday evening, 14th May, after a hugely busy day at work - by early afternoon I was on the honey & lemon to ease my throat. I had spent the day on call after call. Anyway, the wine making tasks were relatively quick and I now have a demijohn of pale pink liquid bubbling away.

The rhubarb in its demijohn

Blackberry Wine 2020 - First Bottle (C3), 13th-15th March 2021

On the strength of this bottle, 2020 was a good year for blackberries. This was everything that blackberry wine should be: rich, smooth, a hint of sweetness and full of bramble flavour. It was also a bottle drunk immediately after it was bottled, and this was because the string snapped a second time and wasting more than two corks seemed excessive.

Half of the bottle accompanied The Blues Brothers which (shockingly) I had never seen. Lots of fun and hyper-cool. It has not aged badly at all - with its best attribute being its sound track, but with the most ridiculous car chase running it a close second.

Taken on 15 March

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

Ginger Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

A new decade and an old favourite for the wine. I started the wine on 4th January: the first Saturday of the year. It was a lazy day and one of the few days of the Christmas holiday period which Claire and I had to ourselves. Naturally, I spent it making wine. Thinking back, we did entertain Liz briefly, who came over to return my corker and watch me bottle my dandelion wine.

The ginger ingredients

 (other than sugar, water and yeast)

For this wine I did exactly what I did the last several times that I have made it, but I will write it all down again in tedious detail just in case you, dear reader, are interested.

First of all I weighed 6 oz of root ginger and then took off all its skin and any knobbly bits that were too small to bother with. I chopped the ginger into very thin slices and put this into my bucket. I minced 1 lb sultanas (as always, using the food processor) and put these in too. Next I took the outer layer of skin off four lemons, being moderately successful in avoiding the pith, put the skin into the bucket and the squeezed lemon juice in as well. I boiled 3-and-a-half pints of water and poured this in too.

The ingredients before processing

On Sunday afternoon, before going over to York to see Rachael, Paul and Myles, who were up from Leicester, I poured in another 3-and-a-half pints of boiling water and 2 lbs 8 oz sugar, stirring it all until the sugar dissolved. We had a lovely afternoon and evening in York. Myles, who is on the cusp of his seventh birthday, has decided to go vegetarian. Not a particularly strict one - chicken nuggets may count as a vegetarian meal - but Rachael and Paul have decided to respect his choice as far as possible. Whilst we all ate lamb, Myles had bean balls coated in bread crumbs. Anyway, back at home I put in a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase.

Giving the wine a stir

On Thursday evening, 9th January, I put the liquid into its demijohn. Yet again, 7 pints of water (using UK measurements) proved exactly right. One would think that I have made this before. The ginger wine is a yellowy-beige colour and bubbling with enthusiasm.

The wine in its demijohn.

I racked this on 16th February. At this stage the wine was still bubbling a little. It had a promising gingery taste and I fit in slightly more than half a pint of water with 2 oz sugar dissolved.

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

Strawberry Wine 2019 - The Making Of

On Tuesday evening, 2nd July, after work, I went to pick strawberries at the Horsforth Pick Your Own fields. At the weighing counter I was directed to a far away field and told that this was where the 'Superb' strawberries could be found. Maybe the adjective used was 'Magnificent'. The man behind the counter must have a different dictionary to me. I would have used the words 'Barely Adequate' myself. Mostly the fruit was unripe or gone over. However, if I was to end up with 4 lbs of strawberries, I could not afford to be fussy. My one requirement was that they were mostly red, but even then it seemed like every strawberry was an effort. I was not helped by feeling dizzy every time I stood up, occasionally seeing brown swirling patches before my vision cleared. It being past six, I was the only person in the field and fainting would have been a poor choice. Despite all this, I ended up with a basketful which, when weighed, came to over 6 lbs - so I have enough for apple and strawberry wine later in the year. I am dubious about the quality, though.

The Pick Your Own Field with 'Superb' Strawberries

Mashing 4 lbs of (hulled) strawberries took longer than it should and I don't think the fruit was ripe enough. If this wine turns out badly, this will be why.

My basket of strawberries

To the 4 lbs of mashed strawberries, I added 4 pints of boiling water. The following evening, 3rd July, I strained the liquid into a demijohn and stored the fruit in a sterilised bowl. I poured 2 pints of cold water over the fruit and let it sit for about an hour. Next I poured the strained liquid back into my (washed and re-sterilised) bucket and then strained the fruit again from the new liquid, pouring the liquid into the bucket and discarding the fruit. At this point I put 3 lbs of sugar into the bucket and a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient, pectolase and tannin. Wednesday was a busy evening!

Giving the strawberries a wash

I left the wine until Saturday, giving it a daily stir. Saturday evening was meant to be spent playing in a concert, but the piece I was meant to play in - Fauré's Requiem - got cancelled at the last minute, so I put my wine into its demijohn instead. The wine is far less red than usual and this year it is brick-red rather than post-box red. I am not hopeful.

Strawberries in my bucket

I racked this on 15th August and by that point was became more hopeful as the small taste I got was fine. I added over half a pint of water with 2 oz sugar dissolved.

A few tiny strawberries from our garden that I put in

On bottling, which happened on 12th March, this wine has turned into something rather good. Maybe a less distinctive strawberry hit than usual - but definitely akin to wine.

Brick-Red Strawberry Wine

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

Ginger Wine 2018 - Fourth Bottle (6), 29th December 2019

We had an impromptu pizza party last night. The occasion was 'Magnolia Petal Wine Bottling', to which I invited Phil and Angie as owners of the magnolia tree. Bottling a wine produces two glasses for immediate consumption so I knew something else would be required, and ginger wine is seasonal. Also it is one of my Good Ones - and Suitable For Guests. Claire made four delicious pizzas, and only three of us ended up with hot cheese and tomatoes down our clothes. It was a lovely evening: unplanned and laughter-filled.

Seven Swans a Swimming 

(and yes, I know that 29th December 

is not the seventh day of Christmas)

Elderflower, Mint & Rhubarb Wine 2019 - The Making Of...

Weather-wise, June has been a terrible month. The last June that I remember being this wet and cold was the year we got married - 1998. It has been continuous grey skies and hardly a dry day. Whilst some rain is good for the garden, sun would be helpful too. This is all a long winded way of explaining why, for this wine, I was not able to use only rhubarb that we had grown.


 For this recipe I needed 3 lbs of rhubarb and only 1 lb was available. (This year, mostly our rhubarb has been stewed and in porridge.) Happily, Liz and David have a monster rhubarb in their garden and did not object to me stealing many butch stalks on Sunday morning, 16th June.

Liz and David's Monster Rhubarb

The elderflowers mostly came from the elder tree in the Synagogue, overhanging our back fence. This is the first year that I have noticed this, and it is a tree to be encouraged (unlike the enormous sycamore which keeps our garden in shade). However, I needed more so walked up and down Bentcliffe Drive, taking at least one head of elderflowers from each elder that I passed (all four of them). I stripped the flowers from their stalks outside during a rare break from the rain and ended up with about a pint (and a black thumbnail).

The mint came from our garden and was a handful of pepper- and spearmint combined.

In the kitchen I sliced the rhubarb into thin pieces and put it  into the bucket with the elderflowers and the mint, roughly chopped. I poured over 3 lbs sugar and 6.5 pints of boiling water. It is always a good perfume when the boiling water hits these ingredients.

The ingredients before the water hit them

The mix had cooled enough by the evening to add the yeast, pectolase and nutrient (a teaspoon of each). I made intermittent attempts to remember to stir this through the week, until Thursday evening, 20th June, when it all went into its demijohn. This was the usual method: colander first to fish out most the solids, followed by funnel, sieve and jug into the demijohn. My backing track throughout was Cardiff Singer of the Year on Radio 3. The resulting wine is just as pink as the pure rhubarb.

The ingredients after the water had hit them

By racking on 20th July, the wine was still just as pink and had mostly cleared. The taste was promising and it did not need much additional sugar. I added 1 oz, dissolved in half a pint of water.


I bottled this on 7th March and I am just a little disappointed with the end result of this wine. It has not cleared entirely and isn't as splendid as previous years. Claire thinks I have overdone it on the mint.

If you want to see how this flavour came out, click here.

The wine in its demijohn

Ginger Wine - First Bottle (5), 21st September 2019

I have a rule that, unless the flavour is Apple, I do not drink my first bottle from a batch of wine until it is a year old. I have broken this rule for Ginger by three and a half months. It is all because I am a Yorkshire miser. When bottling this wine on Friday, I snapped the string during the corking process. Leaving string in a bottle's neck will ruin the wine. Corks cost about 8 pence each. Therefore, by drinking this wine the next day I saved myself nearly one-tenth of one pound. Result!

The wine itself is everything ginger wine should be: dry, light, gingery.

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

Blackberry Wine - First Bottle (A4), 1st September 2019

When I bottled this vintage I was disappointed. It was not the lush blackberry flavour that I had wanted. In the three months since bottling it has improved. Maybe not an all time classic vintage, but this blackberry wine certainly holds its own: it is fruity and exceedingly drinkable. Sunday seemed like the right day to drink it: I had been out picking blackberries in the nearby park for Tutti-Fruti and the day felt like the first day of autumn.

We have a plum glut and Claire had spent the day dealing with part of that. A plum and blackberry crumble was the natural pudding.

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

Ginger Wine - Fifth Bottle (2), 19th May 2019

It was Actively Delicious Tofu in a sweet & sour sauce on Sunday, so Ginger Wine seemed like the right bottle to have. Both food and wine were excellent. The ginger is dominant in this wine, but not overpowering. It is not what one would call a subtle wine.

Earlier in the evening we had shared a bottle of Cava with David & Liz (the excuse being that Liz needed my corker to cork her rhubarb & raspberry wine) and later we watched the final episode of Line of Duty series one. It has been entirely gripping.

This entry is a little out of order. Apologies.

Apple Wine - First Bottle (1), 11th-12th July 2018

On bottling my apple wine, two annoying things occurred. Most spectacularly, I knocked an empty bottle from the counter onto the floor. Green glass everywhere and a terrified cat. Then on my last bottle, I snapped the string as I pulled it from the cork. Generally when I do this, I take the cork out, use a new one and try again. This time I thought "bugger it", put the wine in the fridge and opened it two days later. Apple wine is best drunk young anyway.

This is a rather fabulous bottle of wine: crisp and sweet and apple-y. There is a youth and freshness to it, which was appropriate to my circumstances on Thursday. I had just returned from playing with North Yorkshire Schools' Symphony Orchestra - and orchestra in which I played 31 years ago when I was still a flute. The drive back from Giggleswick had happy memories of two glorious weeks in 1987 - possible the best two weeks of my adolescent years.

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

Rhubarb, Mint & Elderflower Wine - The Making Of ...

Quiet weekends are a marvellous thing. Whereas last weekend was a whistle-stop tour of Newcastle and family, this weekend has had nothing specific planned. A perfect opportunity to indulge in some wine-making. And, in fact, Rhubarb, Mint & Elderflower is one of those wines which requires much of the day to be set aside. I didn't help myself by also deciding to bottle 3 demijohns of blackberry wine. Rinsing and sterilising 18 bottles is perhaps not the speediest or most interesting aspect of the wine-making process.

And elder tree in bloom

On Saturday, 9th June, early afternoon, I set out to Allerton Grange fields with plastic bag in hand. The elderflowers are a week earlier than usual and gave off more pollen than I remember seeing before as I picked them. I concentrated on the blooms with a hint of citrus yellow and only took a few per tree. This bit of the elderflower process takes no time at all and I came away with less than half a bag full.

Not quite a pint of elderflowers and rhubarb sticks

It was the next bit that was tedious in the extreme; stripping the flowers from their stalks. I did this outside so that the tiny flies could roam free (and not end up covering our windows) and it took me over an hour. Even at the start I was not particularly careful about avoiding the thinnest bit of the stalks, and by the end I cared not a jot. This produced a little less than a pint of flowers, which is Good Enough.

Spear mint from our garden

I plucked just over 3 lbs of rhubarb stalks from our garden, sliced these up - they are starting to get woody - and put these in the bucket. I added the elderflowers and a medium sized handful of mint - both pepper and spear (but not water-mint which is unpleasantly bitter) - which I shredded.

The main ingredients in the bucket

I poured in 3 lbs of sugar and 6½ pints of boiling water, gave it all a stir and left it over night. On Sunday morning I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of pectolase & nutrient.

I put this into the demijohn on my birthday (Thursday) whilst drinking pink champagne. The wine will not be suitable for vegans. It has a number of black specks, which I assume are tiny drowned flies. Still, it is a pretty pink colour.

The end result

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.

Strawberry Wine - Third Bottle (6), 4th February 2018

I opened this bottle as a direct comparison for Strawberry 2017, which I bottled this afternoon. We had a difference of opinion: Claire preferred the more recent vintage whereas I liked this one better. We drank it to home-made pizza with molten mozzarella - the lining to the roof of my mouth has disintegrated - and watched an episode of QI. It being a Sunday night, I am drunker than I should be and am trying to sober up with bush tea. So far this is less successful than I would like. Still, tomorrow is another day.

Orange Wine - Sixth Bottle (B5), 10th-12th September 2017

Sunday night was sponsored by Orange Wine. Not only did we drink most of this bottle, I also bottled 2017's vintage, and thus had three glasses of that between us. This older version is both darker and better, but there is little in it.

Claire had rather too much on an empty stomach and marched up to bed before the baked fish came out of the oven, leaving me to eat alone.

Rhubarb Wine 2014 - Final Bottle (B1), 17th March 2017

Having bottled a triple batch of rose petal (which produces a goodly quantity of spare wine for immediate consumption), opening and finishing a bottle of rhubarb wine was perhaps not wise. Claire said that anything delicious would be wasted and therefore this bottle was an adequate choice. Rhubarb wine does not age brilliantly. There was a hint of cheese to its taste, but this was subtle enough to be nearly ignored. We drank it in front of the stove bemoaning the state of the world in general and Claire's job prospects in particular.

Crab Apple Wine - Fifth Bottle (B6), 16th September 2016

Our oven clock showed 17:59 when I asked Claire whether I should open a bottle. She gave the oven a hard stare and the time flipped to 18:00, answering that particular question.

The wine was a good bottle of crab apple - sharp, not too dry and definitely made from apples. We drank it in the kitchen as I was elbow-deep (nearly literally) in my blackberry wine must, and we only just stretched the bottle to our evening meal. Still, there were the remnants from bottling orange wine to go.

Elderberry Wine - Sixth Bottle (B5), 12th June 2016

I was able to make a direct taste comparison with 2015's elderberry while drinking this wine. 2015's batch was being bottled which meant a spare glass or two for quality control. The younger version is better, which is not what I expected at all. A little sweeter, missing a faint bitterness. This wine, though, is still good. It was a lovely evening, spending time in the kitchen with Claire, just chatting about nothing in particular.

Earlier in the day we watched cyclists whizz past as part of Leeds Triathlon, including Mary - wearing green and waving.

Ugli Fruit Wine - The Making Of ...

We have a new greengrocers within walking distance. This makes my middle-aged, middle-class heart sing with joy. It is considerably more expensive than the fruit & veg shops in Harehills, but it is much better quality and we do not have to drive. On Saturday, though, my unwavering loyalty to the new place became assured.

7 Ugli Fruit - I think Homeli rather than Ugli

Claire told me to inspect the fruit on display outside the shop carefully. I had a look and wondered why Dutch strawberries were quite so worthy of comment. Then I looked at the back row and saw a box of Ugli Fruit. Claire was watching through the window all this time and said that my face literally lit up. I have been looking for Ugli Fruit since I decided I wanted to do a wine alphabet (probably five years) and have never found a vendor. Not really knowing how many I needed (I still don't), but because they are far larger that oranges, I took seven. They were meant to be £1.25 each, but seeing as I was buying in bulk, the owner said I could have them for £7. As I say, undying loyalty.

I don't have a recipe, but had a quick look at the Thirsty Gardeners' instructions for grapefruit wine (Ugli Fruit are a grapefruit-orange-tangerine chimera) and pretty much ignored them. On Sunday, 15th May I thinly peeled two of the fruit, putting the shavings into the bucket. I squeezed six using the usual orange juicer but one with my hands, having peeled it first. Claire and I shared a segment and it was an undistinctive citrus fruit.

The juice went into the bucket along with 2lbs 8oz sugar and six and a half pints of boiling water. On Monday morning I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of pectolase and nutrient.

Putting this into its demijohn on Friday night, 20th May, was a quick job. I was relieved about that as I had already bottled 30 bottles of crab apple wine, didn't start on the Ugli Fruit wine until 9 o'clock, and still had 3 gallons of rhubarb wine to put into its demijohn. My adjective for the evening would be "sticky". The Ugli Fruit wine is beautiful in colour - a bright, sunshine yellow.

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

Prune & Parsnip Wine - First Bottle (A6), 7th-9th February 2016

This Prune & Parsnip is far paler than previous vintages. It is a golden yellow rather than burnt orange. Perhaps it is drier, but only subtly so. There is the usual sherry taste, and I am pleased with how this has come out.

I opened the bottle on Sunday, the day I started 2016's batch of this flavour. We had finished the remnants of Rose Petal left over from bottling three demijohns but scandalously wanted more wine. Only a glass each, mind. The rest was drunk tonight, Pancake Tuesday - which I celebrated by making Toad in the Hole. (The basic batter recipe is the same.)

If you want to see how I made this wine, you can look at the post before (which is 2016's version) or click here (which is how I actually made the bottle that you have just read about)