Crab Apple Wine - Fourth Bottle (B1), 20th July 2013

I may be distracted whilst writing this entry. I am playing Scrabble against my mother and Claire, and have just had my hopes of playing the word 'Hoodwink' dashed. Instead, I had to be satisfied with 'Who', allowing Claire 'Comb' on the triple word score and 48 points. Bah!

We are in York, visiting for the last time before Rachael moves back to Leicester, this time accompanied by Paul and Myles. I brought a bottle of crab apple wine to mark the occasion and everyone claimed to enjoy it.

Quick aside - I am currently losing, and there are no letters left in the bag. I am stuck with the K and the Z, and suspect this is all about to go horribly wrong. Still, it has been a lovely evening, some of which I spent feeding Myles liquidised carrot and rice. Most of it went into his mouth. I am not sure how much he swallowed.

Blackcurrant Wine - First Bottle (1), 17th July 2013

This blackcurrant wine has a sharp, acidic, fruity taste. It is dry and light and tastes strongly of its base fruit. Claire thinks it is wonderful - an alcoholic Ribena - whereas I think it is merely very good.

Unusually we have drunk the whole bottle on a Wednesday night, but since the WYSO concert was on Saturday (a glorious experience, where we had an enthusiastic audience of 1,190 waving flags, dancing the can-can and drinking lots of bubbly) there has not been an orchestra to attend. Instead I have spent the evening cooking sausages and delighting in the fact that we get instant hot water now that we have had our ancient boiler replaced.

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If you want to see how I made this wine, click here. I have recently been getting lots of people searching for 'black currant wine' and finding my blog. Welcome to you all!

Elderflower Wine - Final Bottle (A4), 15th July 2013

Our last bottle of Elderflower 2011 was drunk at Richard & Linda's. Claire drove, so I drank a goodly portion. Linda doesn't drink and Richard is really only one rung off teetotal. But I had spent a busy day wine-making and feeling hot, so half a bottle of elderflower wine was Just the Thing.

It was a lovely evening. I had not seen Richard and Linda since they came back from Minnesota, and that was a month ago. They had a wonderful time and I got the impression that Linda found her parents in better health than she was expecting. Her father was eighty while they were there, and it meant a lot to Linda to join him for that.

Richard cooked a wonderful meal for us. The absolute highlight was a savoury cake made with pistachios, goats' cheese and prunes. It sounds like it shouldn't have worked, but I had two slices and brought another two home with me.

Strawberry Wine 2013 - The Making Of ...

 

It is 14th July and this is the latest I have made strawberry wine. All fruit is late this year, but I was concerned that I may have missed out on the Pick Your Own Strawberries. My worries were not entirely unjustified. I arrived at Wharfedale Grange and was told there were 'Plenty' in the furthest field. 'Some' would have been a more accurate description.

Wharfedale Grange Pick Your Own

In past years I have been relatively fussy with my fruit, picking those at ideal ripeness and trying for the larger berries. This year I took anything I could get. Not quite fully red? A dark maroon? Tiny strawberries akin to wild alpine versions? All went into my basket. I didn't even draw the line at 'nibbled by insects', though I did reject 'crushed underfoot'.

I came away with five and a half pounds of fruit, and this took ages. Claire had given me up for dead. At home I weighed out four pounds of strawberries and washed them. For the first time ever I decided not to hull them. I am sure the greenery won't kill me. I crushed the strawberries in the bucket and covered them with four pints of boiling water and three pounds of sugar. 

On Monday night, 15th July, after a meal of cold salads, I strained the liquid into a demijohn, keeping the pulp in our largest pan. I poured two pints of cold water over the pulp and let it stand while I racked my Dandelion and washed and resterilised the bucket. I then strained the liquid from the pulp into the bucket, throwing the pulp away, and poured the liquid in the demijohn back into the bucket. I added a sachet of yeast (Burgundy) and a teaspoon each of tannin, pectolase and nutrient. This all took far longer than it should.

However, putting the wine into the demijohn on Thursday 18th July was rapid work. It is much paler than usual - a light terracotta orange rather than a deep pink. At least it is bubbling away with vigour.

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

Redcurrant Wine 2013 - The Making Of ...

Several weeks ago I helped Julia net her redcurrants. She thought they looked promising but knew that without a net they would serve only as bird food. This was a wise thing to do. The redcurrants are abundant.

Ruby clusters

I made arrangements to meet Julia on the allotment this morning, Sunday 14th July. It being fabulous weather - we are getting a proper summer, the first we have had for years - I forsook my beloved Broadcasting House and turned up with Claire at 9:30. Despite the early hour it was already hot and we needed suncream.

The picking was easy. Redcurrants hung off the bush in ruby clusters. I stood in one place and filled a container and then a bag. There was no effort involved. If I thought I was coming to the end of a spot, I only needed to look at a slightly different angle, and a whole new redcurrant seam would be revealed.

I had only intended to make a single batch of wine, but we came away with enough for a double, enough for recurrant jelly and a few more besides. Claire weighed out six pounds while I was out picking strawberries. On my return I washed them and put them in the bucket, without stripping the fruit from their stalks. Crushing the redcurrants took very little time. I boiled twelve pints of water with five-and-a-half pounds of sugar dissolved in it (but in two stages) and poured this over the mix.

Six pounds of redcurrants (and some camomile)

On Monday morning I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of pectolase and nutrient. Ordinarily wine takes 24 hours or more to show signs of fermentation. Not in this weather. It is bubbling away happily 12 hours later.

I sieved out the fruit, putting the wine into its demijohns on Thursday 18th July. This was a quicker process than I had feared, and it needed to be. Tonight has been a busy evening - what with rescuing Claire from a house that would not lock and doing a spot of emergency tidying. The wine's colour is a fabulous magenta.

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

Peapod Wine - Fifth Bottle (4), 10th-11th July 2013

I had hoped that Peapod Wine might "Do a Dandelion" - starting off indifferent and bland when young, but maturing into something rather special two years after making. My hopes have been dashed against the rocks of experience. Peapod wine remains indifferent and bland with a faint trace of vegetable.

We drank some of the bottle after WYSO, where I am beginning to feel encouraged about Saturday's concert, and had the rest on Thursday night mostly while watching Absolutely Fabulous. I suspect it will be some time before we drink the final bottle.

Crab Apple & Strawberry - Final Bottle (6), 6th July 2013

As is traditional for the hottest day of the year, I spent much of it driving along a motorway. We were on our way to see Catherine in Leamington Spa and by Sheffield I cracked in a moment of weakness. I turned the air conditioning on. This only improved things marginally and I spent the journey worrying that the heat and the constant vibration would cause my final bottle of Crab Apple & Stawberry to explode.

It survived the trip, but when I opened it later in the evening I covered Catherine's kitchen in pink wine. About a third of the bottle was lost. Still, as we had been drinking mojitos since five, this was possibly not a Bad Thing.

We had a lovely evening, sitting outside eating barbequed food, catching up with Catherine, who I have not seen for three years. When Britain does 'Summer', which happens rarely, it does it marvellously. Sitting outside on a warm evening is just a joy.