Ben's Adventures in Wine Making

It has been a lazy, sunny Sunday rounded off by a bottle of Prune & Parsnip wine. Mostly I have spent my time in the garden doing things...

Back in the early summer, I freecycled a stack of roof tiles that had been in our garden, gathering spiders and snails, since we bought the ...

Pineapple wine is definitely on the 'dessert' spectrum. It has a sweet, full taste that would not go well with a delicate fish. On S...

The courgettes have finally started doing their thing. Usually courgette week is the beginning of August. It is only now that we need to kee...

Between starting and finishing this wine, I read the final few chapters of this month's Book Group book - Bellman & Black by Diane ...

I have spent much of today in a bad mood. This is because I have learnt that the bassoonist against whom I hold a grudge the size of South D...

Claire and I drank this bottle on Friday night to a fabulous courgette curry that she invented, served with home-made rhoti. Though I had no...

Ros came over for a meal on Friday and Claire suggested a red. I gave Ros the choice of blackcurrant or elderberry and she chose this. This ...

Claire writes: This bottle was threatening to open itself on the day that we returned from Rydal. To my "joy", Ben declared it j...

We are very nearly on holiday, but perhaps not so close to justify a gin, the remnants of a bottle of Tutti Fruti and the whole of a bottle ...

The day has been spent making blackberry wine, baking bread and trying to calm Claire down about all the air travel we will be doing shortly...

I had expected marvellous things of this bottle, remembering that the last two had been superb. Instead, I got something that was on the goo...

Well, I do make a grand bottle of elderberry wine if I say so myself. This wine was rich, dark and heavy and has made me rather sleepy. To t...

Eight days ago I opened my first bottle of blackcurrant and red gooseberry wine. It was really rather lovely - full of sharp, fruity flavou...

We are just back from Rydal but still officially on holiday until 8:30 on Monday morning. Claire, having drunk only beer while we were in th...

I have been looking forward to this bottle of wine for some time. Almost since I started making it a year ago, and certainly since I bottl...

Friday night began with gins and tonics at ten past the yard arm and continued from there. It was a wine making night, so I spent most of it...

We spent the whole of Saturday rehearsing Acts 2 & 3 of Der Rosenkavalier . This requires an enormous amount of concentration and a bott...

Courgette Week has arrived - about a fortnight off schedule. I blame the terrible summer, though the last week has reminded me why we live i...

It was the final night of Patriotic Fervour on Tuesday and this was the second bottle opened to mark the occasion. Having to go to work the ...