Blackcurrant & Red Gooseberry Wine - First Bottle (1), 2nd August 2013

Really very tasty indeed. But also fizzy. I opened this bottle for our last night at Rydal, and had to be quick with the pour as I saw bubbles travelling up the bottle neck. Very few drops escaped and I was helped by Sally's waiting glass. The taste is sharp and fruity. It is just as light as blackcurrant proper but there is possibly more depth to it. I would have to taste them together to decide.

The evening I drank this was Very Silly Indeed. It involved having to create a two minute opera on the theme of Beyoncé. I was assigned the role of 'Flying Horse' and was required to sing the bass part to Ride of the Valkyries, while a vicar sang the soprano part falsetto. A bottle of wine could only help.

*

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

Elderflower Wine - Third Bottle (A4), 1st August 2013

The Barn in which the Rydal Orchestra plays.

This was a Rydal bottle of wine. The holiday is approaching its end and possibly that is a Good Thing. I am having a marvellous time but it is exhausting playing five hours of classical music a day, eating three hearty meals, going for a walk (sometimes, though not today, involving a strenuous up) and being sociable all the time. Great for a week, but I couldn't keep it going much longer.

I shared this bottle of elderflower around, but was not quite so pushy with it as previous Rydal bottles. Everyone who tried it liked it, I think, though Matt suggested there was some bitterness to it, and Bob mentioned something about 'high harmonics' which I did not fully understand. But it is now past midnight and I must go to sleep.

Blackberry Wine - Seventeenth Bottle (B1), 30th July 2013

Today has officially been an Excellent Day. We are in Rydal, nearly half way through the week, and I have completed my cycle of Beethoven symphonies. I played my first (which was also his first) in either 1984 or 1985, and I have played my ninth (which is his second) today, at least 28 years later. Not only that, I have also played Brahms' second and climbed Loughrigg in the sunshine.

A view from Loughrigg

A bottle of blackberry wine is the right one to mark the occasion - it is my favourite home made wine, and this bottle reinforced my opinion. Light and fizzy and fruity.

I shared it with several of those around me and all were sufficiently impressed (I think). Kirsty earned her glass for buying me a blackcurrant icecream earlier in the day. We both felt we had done well out of the deal.

Prune & Parsnip - Seventh Bottle (A6), 28th July 2013

We are staying at Rydal Hall in the Lake District for our annual orchestra holiday and I have brought five bottles of wine with me. Prune & Parsnip was the first and I encouraged many musicians to have a taste. The overall feedback I got was "Far better than we had feared" and most people were postively enthusiastic. Matt and Sally independently compared it to the taste of Christmas. It definitely has a sherry taste, and I drank much of the bottle myself (which is too much sherry for one person).

Rydal Hall - My room was middle row, 7th from the left

The musical highlight of the day was Dvorak's Eighth Symphony which I have decided is my favourite of his. Each movement is galoptious, though I now wonder if I have invented that word.

Whitecurrant Wine - The Making Of ...

Whitecurrants are misnamed. Beigecurrants would be the more accurate description. But I am pleased that this misnomer exists, because it means I get to tick the letter 'W' off my alphabet of wine. When Julia mentioned her whitecurrant bushes looked promising this year, my ears pricked up for this reason. On hearing that they needed netting to defeat the birds, I drove to her allotment as quickly as residential speed limits would allow. Then I made space in a busy Saturday, 20th July, to go and pick them.

Whitecurrants are more difficult to pick that their red siblings. The bushes are lower, which involved crouching and sitting and getting badly stung by nettles. Several hours later my hands were still throbbing. The fruit grows in strings, hanging below the branches and, as with redcurrants, I picked the fruit on their stems, and made no effort to remove the greenery.

I came away from the allotment with 2 lbs 15¼ oz of whitecurrants. The recipe calls for 3 lbs, and I looked on my harvesting as 'Efficient' rather than 'Three Quarters of an Ounce Short'.

I washed the currants on Sunday 21st July, put them in their bucket and crushed them. I dissolved 2 lbs 12oz sugar in six pints of water, brought this to the boil and poured it over the fruit. On Monday morning I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient and pectolase.

I sieved out the currants on Friday 26th July and put the liquid into its demijohn. The amount of water was spot on. This, I think, is the palest wine I have made. I hope this does not translate into a dull flavour.

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

Orange Wine - Fifth Bottle (A3), 21st July 2013

Orange was our lazy Sunday night bottle of wine. The day was spent firstly in York, mostly playing with Myles and eating Big Breakfast, and secondly in Leeds, mostly making excitingly flavoured wine. We were meant to book our flights to America, but by the time we had eaten and drunk, we decided that could wait till Wednesday. Claire and I are great procrastinators, but we really need to pull our fingers out on this one.

The orange wine is one of the best batches I have made of this flavour and went well with 'Spicy, Garlicky, Tomatoey Prawns' - which is one of those dishes which is both a staple and a treat.

Rose Petal Wine 2013 - The Making Of ...

Ordinarily I get to December and worry that I have made too much wine. This year that thought has struck in July. I did not intend to make a double batch of Rose Petal Wine. It just sort of happened.

My father had strict instructions to collect withering petals and freeze them while Mom was in Nebraska. Meanwhile, I harvested roses from our garden - mostly white, but two blooms from the red. We both overperformed and each collected enough for a single batch. It would have been a tragedy to see all these petals go onto the compost heap, so I have made a double.

I collected the York rose petals today, 21st July, having spent some of the weekend there before Rachael, Paul and Myles move to Leicester. Have I mentioned how adorable Myles is? He is now 6 months old, and gurgles away happily.

Anyway, back home I measured eight pints of petals and put them in my bucket. I covered these with 2 litres of grape juice, 5 pounds of sugar and eleven pints of boiling water. Thanks to Joanne, who left me a comment on an earlier post, I have found proper white grape juice at Aldi. Rejoice.

The recipe calls for two lemons, but I didn't have any, so I squeezed the juice of two oranges instead and added that.

On Monday morning I added the yeast, two teaspoons of nutrient and a teaspoon each of pectolase and tannin. This all sat around smelling lovely for five days, until I put it into its demijohns on Friday 26th July. I'm sure it smells no less fragrant, but the airlock means I cannot tell. The recipe could have used another pint of water. However, I did spill a bit, as the wine bounced off the rose petals collecting in my sieve. I love the colour, which is a dark, dusky pink.

If you want to see how the first bottle of this wine tasted, click here