Elderberry Wine - Seventh Bottle (B3), 15th July 2016

Bob and Judith have just returned from France, and wanted an overnight break on their journey from Portsmouth to Newcastle. Claire cooked an amazing array of vegetable curries and I opened a bottle of elderberry wine. It fizzed enthusiastically and was a good accompaniment to the food.

I have lent Bob my French bassoon and in return he has fixed our grandfather clock. This is not quite the blessing it sounds. At 3 a.m. I was still awake listening to the relentless tick of time passing.

NB - This is my 999th blog post. I'm not sure whether my 1000th should just be an ordinary one (rose petal, in case you are interested) or some sort of celebration.

Prune & Parsnip Wine - Fifth Bottle (B5), 9th July 2016

Even though it was a Saturday night, I was not certain that we should open a bottle. We have had plenty to drink every night this week, but Claire pointed out that we were still technically on holiday. And Prune & Parsnip is always a winner. Sweet and rich with a fortified taste.

Much of the day was spent driving back from Scotland. The remainder was spent on the chaise-longue, devouring The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. It has been an age since I have been so thoroughly engrossed by a book. There is little to beat that feeling of being entirely enveloped by a story, and caring desperately about what will happen to the characters.

Strawberry Wine 2016 - The Making Of...

Strawberries have gone up again. £6 a kilo or, for those of us who think in Imperial, £2.73 a pound. I am certain that I could buy them cheaper in the market. But picking strawberries during Wimbledon fortnight is a tradition and it almost feels like foraging - appealing to my inner hunter-gatherer. You can't put a price on that. Well, you can. It is £2.73 a pound.

On Sunday morning, 10th July, Claire and I went to Wharfedale Grange Pick Your Own Farm to gather enough strawberries for this wine (4 lbs needed) and my autumn 'Strawberry and Apple' (another pound). We came away with 7 lbs 5 oz, and much of the extra has been turned into jam.

The fields were full of families with earnest parents trying to convince small children that this was Fun. Close to us, close enough for me to feel proprietorial about the strawberry plants in reach, William and Mia we having Fun at the top of their voices. I knew their names because their parents kept telling them to pick more quietly.

4 lbs of strawberries before mashing

Back at home I weighed, hulled and washed the strawberries and then put the 4 lbs needed in the bucket and mashed them. I poured in 3 lbs of sugar and 4 pints of boiling water, and left it for about 28 hours. On Monday night, after having met Kate - Chris's girlfriend - for the first time (she seems lovely and I approve) I took the pulp out using a collander initially, and then a jug, sieve, funnel and demijohn. I then covered the pulp in two pints of water, stirred it around a bit and left it while I washed and resterilised my bucket.

What is left of 4 lbs of strawberries at the pulp stage

Next I drained the liquid from the pulp into the bucket, now discarding the pulp, and I poured the nascent wine stored in the demijohn back into the bucket. (Strawberry wine is more labour intensive than most.) I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of pectolase, nutrient and tannin.

On Friday night I put this wine into its demijohn, which was a very quick job. It is house-brick red in hue.

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

Crab Apple & Strawberry Wine - Fourth Bottle (6), 7th July 2016

I took this bottle as one of my best up to North Berwick, where we were staying with Aunt Jennifer. It was a fabulous wine - semi-sweet, taking the best tastes from both strawberries and apples. Sarah & John came round and helped finish the bottle. We had a wonderful few days in North Berwick, spending time with the extended family. Claire collected shells on the beach while I poured over photographs of my ancestors. We came home with my great-grandparents' commode.

North Berwick

Crab Apple Wine - Second Bottle (E2), 6th July 2016

We are on a week's holiday, and that means a whole bottle of wine on a Wednesday night. I chose crab apple wine for no particular reason other than it is a while since we last had one, and very nice it was too. Not as good, however, as the wine drunk on Tuesday. We stayed at the Yorke Arms in Ramsgill, which has a Michelin Star, and had a five course tasting menu. With each course came a glass of recommended wine, chosen for the food in front of us. The whole experience was amazing and an extremely rare treat. My favourite course was langoustine in cucumber froth, but that's like saying I prefer rubies to opals.

Rose Petal Wine - First Bottle (B4), 2nd-3rd July 2016

The most surprising thing about this wine is its colour. I had expected a dusky pink and got yellow instead. The taste, though, was fabulous. It is distinctly rose, with a wonderful bouquet and has a half sweetness that makes it extemely drinkable. It was one of seven bottles that I opened for our house-warming party. I had imagined this would be a 'garden wine', sipped by the pond in glorious sunlight. On Saturday it mostly rained and that day's party was resolutely indoors.

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

Strawberry Wine - First Bottle (1), 2nd-3rd July 2016

Whilst I definitely had at least a glass of this wine, I am struggling to remember how it tasted. This suggests that it was far from awful and I suspect it was rather good. It was one of the first bottles finished at our house-warming party. The event was a success, with more people coming on Saturday than Sunday. Keith and Ellis showed up on Saturday and it was lovely to see them. Keith was a little subdued but Ellis was, of course, centre of attention - filling every room he was in and charming all our guests. He claims he was being chased by Gina's two girls, but I saw little evidence of that.