Gooseberry Wine - Fourth Bottle (2), 23rd-24th January 2019

I think that this Gooseberry Wine has improved with keeping (even thought it is less than a month since our last bottle). There was not the one-note sharpness to it. Gooseberry (of course) dominates the flavour but there was something more besides. If we can up our gooseberry production I will continue to make this.

On Wednesday, when it was opened, I had taken the day off work due to a heavy cold and spent much of the day asleep. It is a rare event that I am off ill, but Claire sent me back to bed in the morning, despite my protestations. By Thursday I was starting to feel like me again.

The Gooseberry Wine in question

Elderberry Wine - Seventh Bottle (A3), 20th January 2019

This was a post-concert bottle. Airedale Symphony Orchestra played Roman Carnival by Berlioz, Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony in Saltaire. The concert went well, but for me it will be remembered as 'The one where I had a coughing fit'. I was trying my best to supress a cough during the violinist's cadenza and ended up turning purple, nearly choking with tears streaming down my face. It was awful. Anyway, back at home I restored myself with a bottle of elderberry wine - which is particularly fine, and a venison sausage and red cabbage casserole.

A view from the stand, during the rehearsal

Rhubarb Wine - Seventh Bottle (B2), 18th January 2019

Claire cooked a spicy mackerel sauce over pasta and wanted a white wine to go with it. Of all the wines I have, I think rhubarb is the natural choice. It is dry and subtle enough to be a cool, refreshing drink.

We had a pleasant and relaxed Friday evening, though I started it grumpy. Probably I was just hungry and my blood-sugar levels were low. A plateful of spicy mackerel over pasta followed by large amounts of chocolate and an episode of Midsomer Murders fettled that.

Prune & Parsnip Wine - Eighth Bottle (A6), 16th-17th January 2019

On Wednesday and Thursday I really should have done some bassoon practice. There is a concert on Sunday and my lip has yet to recover from the Christmas lull. Instead, I drank prune and parsnip wine. It is a tasty bottle, but not a true substitute for getting those tricky semi-quavers under my fingers. Still, there is always Friday - so plenty of time to prepare. Nothing remarkable happened either day; the most exciting thing was seeing two cars collide in slow-motion outside work.

Blackcurrant Wine - Fourth Bottle (B6), 13th January 2019

This bottle of blackcurrant wine rounded off a splendid weekend. Saturday was a many-pleasure day, involving viola master-classes, art galleries, dim-sum, the twenty-first floor of a hotel and cocktails in Harvey Nics. Dom (the bar manager there, and also Ros's son) extended our range from Margaritas to Cosmopolitans and Negronis, and I will visit those again.

Sunday we were back in Leeds and had an afternoon rehearsal with the Airedale - shortly after which I opened this bottle and sank gently into the evening.

A Negroni and Cosmopolitan at Harvey Nics

Muscat of Alexandria - The Making Of...

When I was in America last year, I received a Facebook message from Nick's brother-in-law, who I had met in May. Would I be interested in sharing his bumper harvest of grapes? I replied that I would be more than interested. Could I collect them in 48 hours? Being in San Francisco, about to travel to Nebraska, presented a problem. I suggested that he give a bag or two to Nick, who could store them in his freezer until my return. This was somewhat presumptuous, but no-one raised any complaints, so that is what was done. And there the grapes remained. Every now and again I would say "I must collect those grapes" but nothing was organised until last week.

On Tuesday, 8th January, Nick took the grapes into work and I collected Claire and them that evening. I had not realised quite how many there would be. It was an entirely full freezer-box. Claire and I spent that evening stripping frozen grapes from their stalks. It was finger-numbing work and in total there were 20 lbs and 10 oz. These went into my large bucket and I left them 24 hours to defrost.

The uncrushed grapes

On Wednesday I took a potato masher to the grapes and spent about 20 minutes crushing them. The bucket was too narrow and my feet are too disgusting to do it in the traditional manner. It is clear why wine is made from grapes - they produce so much liquid and do not require any water.

The more disgusting of my disgusting feet

For the first time in many years I regretted not having a hydrometer as I did not know if any sugar would be required. All I could do was take a sip and guess. I added a pound. Having consulted my wine making books, I though it wise to add 2 crushed Camden tablets to stop any natural yeast fermenting,

The crushed grapes

The next evening - so 10th January - I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase. I left the wine until 16th January before removing the grape skins and putting the wine into its demijohns. That huge number of grapes resulted in only a demijohn and a quarter, which is less than I would have guessed. I will give away 4 bottles of this: one to Nick and three to Rick. I will not, however, make any promises about its taste.

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

Apple Wine - Fourth Bottle (4), 6th January 2019

I do like this apple wine and it is one of the three reasons why our apple tree is allowed to stay, despite its ridiculous height and unreachable apples.

We drank this bottle on Sunday, which was exactly how a Sunday should be. I spent some of my time collecting horse poo from the local stables and some more of my time digging it into the front garden. Otherwise, I made bread, started my ginger wine and ate many vegetarian curries. How else should a Sunday be spent?