Apple & Strawberry Wine - Second Bottle (5), 10th-11th January 2018

Last time we drank a bottle of this flavour, I thought it better than anyone else did. This time Claire enjoyed it more than I. It is a light wine with an unusual taste - almost herby. I could not detect strawberry and only a hint of apple.

We drank half the bottle after WYSO. This term we are doing a semi-staged performance of La traviata and whilst we are without the chorus or soloist, it is currently a Karaoke version, with the conductor singing all parts surprisingly tunelessly.

Ugli Fruit Wine - Fourth Bottle (4), 6th January 2017

Today I stared Death in the face. Leeds City Museum has had an exhibition of 12 skeletons laid out in glass cases, with notes about what the bones can reveal. The oldest two were Iron Age, the most recent, Victorian. Whilst there was the initial gruesome shock, this exhibition was respectful and moving, never letting the visitor forget that these had been people with their own thoughts, joys and woes. (I was really in town to buy Claire birthday presents - six pencils and a book - and me shoes.)

In the evening we drank Ugli Fruit Wine - which is really very palatable. I think it is the smoothest of citrus wines, but due to the fruit's accessibility, one I am unlikely to repeat.

Note the green teeth: this skeleton had been buried under the Royal Mint,

and it was the copper from that process that discoloured her teeth.

Strawberry Wine 2015 - Fifth Bottle (4), 31st December 2017

Another New Year's Eve, another fail at staying awake until midnight. This year I did particularly badly: I don't think it was even ten o'clock. I blame the exercise and fresh air (an extraordinarily muddy 5 mile walk around Wimpole). That, and the food and drink.

This bottle of strawberry has not improved on keeping. It retains its colour and strawberry scent, but has lost clarity and taste. I thought I had brought something rather special for Rachel & Duncan, but this wine was got through, rather than enjoyed.

Ginger Wine - Final Bottle (4), 30th December 2017

What a marvellous bottle of wine - though my judgment may have been clouded by the large Margherita that I had immediately before it. The ginger wine was dry, gingery (though not too much) and delicious.

We are in Cambridge staying at Duncan and Rachel's for New Year, and that always involves excessive alcohol and good food. Between us we got through a large slab of baked salmon, a jug of hollandaise sauce with grapefruit shavings and two further bottles of wine. Feasting is my favourite part of this time of year.

Rhubarb Wine - Eleventh Bottle (C5), 27th December 2017

We have been entertaining this Christmas. Naturally I am always Entertaining (and will fight anyone who disputes this) but our house has been full of people for four days. With Sooz, Bob & Judith having been shipped off, Rachael, Paul, Myles and my parents have come to experience our hospitality. Claire cooked a chicken and mushroom pie and I opened a bottle of rhubarb, though I think I drank most of it myself. My liver needs time to recover.

It was a lovely evening full of food, booze and present opening (mostly for Myles, who is delightful).

What the last week has felt like

Blackberry Wine - Fifth Bottle (C3), 26th-27th December 2017

This vintage of blackberry is growing on me and maybe that is down to it aging beyond 'Very Young'. It is gaining in complexity. I wasn't, however, in the best position to judge when it was opened. In terms of Christmas Excess, this bottle fit right in at the end of Boxing Day after I was already three sheets to the wind. The 27th was even more alcohol fueled, if anything, but I started with this.

Xmas Tutti Fruti - Ninth Bottle (A3), 25th-26th December 2017

It was unanimously decided that 2015's batch of Christmas Tutti Fruti was not as good as 2016's, despite having a whole year's extra maturation time. It is less fruity, less rounded, less interesting - just Less. This isn't to say it is poor, but it is many stops away from Special. Christmas was excellent, though, and Boxing Day spent as it should be - much sitting around followed by a walk with Sooz and Judith to Roundhay Park, circumference -ing the Lake and back again, where more booze awaited.