Xmas Tutti Fruti 2020 - First Bottle (A4), 25th December 2021

This is a light red wine with a warmth to the back of the throat as it slips down. There is no dominant fruit, although the wine is distinctly fruity. It is not as good as 2019's vintage but it is close (and close in taste too). Maybe maturation time is required.

Our Christmas meal was venison and was superb. Andrew did most the cooking, and at one point to dramatic effect. He opened the oven door and a sheet of yellow flame erupted out. Sooz, who was in a different room, said that she knew something had happened from a noise of general commotion and my cry of "Do we need the Fire Brigade?". Happily, we did not.

A picture for Christmas 

 

Nectarine Wine - Final Bottle (3), December 2020 - 21st May 2021

I can't remember when exactly I opened this bottle (it was before Christmas), but it was a wine that both Claire and I rejected for being Too Nasty. Rather than do the sensible thing and pour it down the sink, I put a cork in the bottle and stored it in the porch. There it stayed until this week, and I have had a glass most nights. It is just drinkable and that is good enough for me. 

On Friday night I was very much out of sorts (see Orange 2020 for an explanation) and finished the bottle, knowing that I would wake on Saturday with a headache. I woke on Saturday with a headache.

A photo from earlier in the week. Orchestra is Back!!!

Blackberry Wine 2019 - Seventh Bottle (B1), 28th December 2020

The period between Christmas and New year has an individual feel. It is one of enforced idleness - and that is far from being the same as 'boredom'. The days stretch out and are filled with gentle activities. As with the two previous days, I spent my time on jigsaws (two), a gingerbread house and a moderate walk (one of each). Also, this bottle of wine, which was earthy in its brambleness, drunk to a fabulous duck cassoulet and and episode of The Queen's Gambit, which is a very 'Now' thing to watch. Who'd have thought that a drama about chess would be quite so engrossing?

The Gingerbread House (plus scaffolding)

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2020 - The Making Of...

Christmas this year, in The Year of The Pestilence, has been different around the country. Those in southern England must celebrate alone. In the north, we were allowed to mix with one other household, but only for the day. Claire and I stayed put - our first Christmas in only each other's company since around 2006. And we had a lovely time. Being married to one's best friend is such a gift, and in this year of enforced isolation has been vital.

We spent much of the day on a 12 mile walk, which I had said would be nine, and watching The Crown (now that I have finally relented and subscribed to Netflix). The first thing I did, though, on Christmas Day, was to empty the freezer of fruit, weigh it and put it into the bucket to defrost.

Much of the fruit

In the order in which this came from the freezer, this wine has:

• 1 lb 10 oz blackberries
• 6 oz yellow raspberries
• 2 lbs 9 oz gooseberries
• 2 oz blackcurrants
• 1½ oz rosepetals
• 1 lb 2½ oz elderberries
• 4 oz red raspberries
• 1 lb 9½ oz damsons
• 3 oz red gooseberries
• 1 lb ½ oz sloes
• One clementine (2 oz) (which should have been a satsuma or a tangerine, but never mind)

That all comes to 9 lbs 2 oz of fruit - more than plenty for a double batch.

After attacking the fruit with a potato masher

It defrosted until Boxing Day morn, at which point I attacked the fruit with a potato masher and poured over 12 pints of boiling water. The wine received 5 lbs 11 oz sugar in time, but I only had 3 lbs of sugar at that point in the house, which went in and was stirred until it dissolved.

The discarded fruit

I added two teaspoons of yeast (a new variety - and I checked it was working before adding it), two of nutrient and one of pectolase together with the additional sugar on 27th December. By New Year's Eve, where in normal years we would be in Cambridge, this was ready to go into its demijohn. This was a slow process enlivened by a You're Dead to Me podcast about vampires in Romantic Victorian Literature, and it was clear that I could have used two pints less water in the recipe. The wine is an alarming and wonderful burgundy-with-a-splash-of-purple colour, but it looks like the sediment will be huge.

Two demijohns of alarmingly coloured wine

Rhubarb Wine 2019 - Sixth Bottle (A3), 26th December 2020

Claire expressed mild surprise that this was a good bottle of wine. I had no doubts that it would be. Rhubarb is a reliable white (with a blush of pink): dry, light and refreshing.

We had the sort of Boxing Day that the 26th of December is made for. I did not leave the house and spent my day in the company of a jigsaw puzzle, a make-your-own gingerbread house, a book of lists and the television. A day of idleness and relaxation, and getting gently sozzled in the evening. How else should Boxing Day be spent?

The Gingerbread House before Construction

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2019 - Second Bottle (C5), 25th December 2020

This is an excellent bottle of wine. It has so much fruit packed into the taste that it is difficult to extract any one individual flavour. There is a real depth to the wine and I am delighted that there are still 16 bottles to go.

It was a quiet Christmas this year, for obvious reasons. Claire and I had a 12 mile walk to Shadwell, Thorner and back. Despite having done this walk twice this year already, I still managed to deviate from the route (a euphemism for 'get lost') on two occasions. Claire was good-naturedly scathing and it made the walk memorable.

A long, muddy, Christmas Day walk

Gooseberry Wine 2019 - Fourth Bottle (4), 24th December 2020

In contravention of current law, Mom and Pop came over and we treated them to a cup of tea indoors. Had this been tomorrow, that would have been legal. It is a Looking Glass World in which we live. Mom was keen to see the advent windows, so we walked the street with Mom taking great care over getting a perfect photograph of each. I have rarely been so cold. It was wonderful to see them, though. The very worst thing about this Covid situation is not being able to spend time with those that you love.

As they left I opened this gooseberry wine, which is a decent bottle, and drank it, wanting to blur reality's edges for a short time.

One of our Advent Windows (but from the
inside during daylight hours)

Elderberry 2017 - Eleventh Bottle (A4), 13th December 2020

Sunday was Christmas Card Day - a day that I always dread. The principle of Christmas Cards is one that I wholeheartedly support, and I do enjoy getting them. Therefore, why is writing them such a pain in the arse? Rather than write simply "To X, from Ben & Claire', I put a different snippet of news in each (difficult in 2020). So it takes an absolute age. Still, I managed to do them all, and we drank a rather lovely bottle of elderberry wine (lovely despite the bits) as a reward.

Lovely, despite the bits.

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Sixth Bottle (A2), 11th December 2020

In ordinary years, it would have been my Work Christmas Party. For obvious reasons, that is not happening and I suspect that we are not having any virtual event either. Certainly nothing has been said. Mind you, I always think that I am going to enjoy the Work Christmas Do far more than the presented reality. Every year I leave early, having drunk too much, feeling deafened by the Disco. This year, though, I was at home drinking a fine bottle of Blackcurrant Wine watching an episode of ER with my wife. Not a bad alternative.

Wiggy - taken on 11th December

Prune & Parsnip Wine 2019 - Eighth Bottle (B1), 9th-10th December 2020

This will be another of those diary entries where I complain that every day feels like the last. There is little that stands out from Wednesday or Thursday and they certainly will not be days that I remember for evermore. Or even by the start of next week. We did have a bottle of Prune & Parsnip Wine, so that was something, and saw a further two Advent Windows from the neighbours. It was another two days of feeling barely in control at work and I do look forward to a fortnight's time when the country shuts up shop for a week.

An out of focus picture of our Advent Window

Rhubarb Wine 2018 - Tenth Bottle (C6), 29th November 2020

Oh, I'm an old man. Most of my waking hours - nine of them - were spent kneeling on the floor, creating a Tardis panel for the Street Advent Calendar. That is nine hours of crouching and kneeling whilst designing, measuring, cutting, gluing and placing carefully. After about three hours of this, each time I got up I made an old-man groaning noise. Two days later and I am still stiff. The end result, though, is fantastic. A bottle of rhubarb wine as muscle-relaxant was definitely the thing to have. And, in fact, I thoroughly enjoyed feeling like I was at Primary School again, with rounded scissors, lots of coloured paper and glue. It was a good day.

My Tadis Advent Panel. Nine hours work!

Orange Wine 2019 - Fourth Bottle (1), 28th November 2020

This bottle was better than I had remembered. It was not cloyingly sweet and there was a pleasant depth to it. We drank the wine at the end of one of those dank days which just makes you want to hibernate. Instead, though, I made a Christmas pudding (now to be stored until Boxing Day) and created my first panel of our Advent Window (lots of stars - relatively easy and a bit dull). In the evening we ate 'Hot & Sour Guinea Fowl' and watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Gently amusing, but no more.

The Christmas Pudding before 8 hours of steaming

Ginger Wine 2019 - Final Bottle (4), 21st November 2020

Bentcliffe Drive is having a Life Sized Advent Calendar this year, where households light up a window with a stained glass design. We have decided to do all nine panes in our porch and have been given the number 8, so much of the day has been spent designing ours. In the evening we drank a bottle of ginger wine and watched My Fair Lady, which is a surprisingly long film. I did wonder if it was possible for my arse to get Deep Vein Thrombosis.

One of our panels

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2019 - First Bottle (B3), 12th September 2020

I have broken tradition with this bottle but at Claire's suggestion. Covid 19 makes it near certain that we will not be able to celebrate Christmas with others. Therefore, we decided to mark the event three months early in Newcastle instead - as well as celebrating all the birthdays missed (which includes Bob's 80th and my 50th). We had just the best evening at 3 The Alders with all the Taylors in attendance. The food was excellent and the wine rather too plentiful. For an evening we forgot about pestilence and enjoyed each other's company.

As an aside, this wine is rather good. I think blackcurrant is the dominant flavour, which is remarkably odd, given that in the ingredients there is not a single blackcurrant!

The Taylor siblings

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

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2014 - Final Bottle (A2), 25th December 2019

Merry Christmas to one and all. I had left this bottle for several years because I think it is absolutely the best wine that I have ever made. But I didn't want it developing that sherry taste that fruit wines can get if left too long. Therefore Christmas Day, five years after it was made, seemed a suitable occasion. 

We are hosting festivities in Leeds this year, with all Taylors down to stay, and it has been a lovely day. Claire and I started it at the Park Run in Roundhay Park: she was running and I most definitely was not. There were hundreds of runners there - many in costume. The Taylors arrived at about one (I was still sweeping) and from then on the day was full of laughter, food and rather too much to drink.

Waiting for the Park Run to begin

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2018 - First Bottle (A2), 25th December 2019

My only criticism of this wine is that it is not as good as Xmas Tutti Fruti 2014 - but then again, very little is. We had a direct comparison and also with 2017's vintage. This bottle was the middle of the three in both taste and order drunk. It needs time to mature, but is definitely one of my better mixed-fruit wines. The blackcurrant is dominant (not a surprise when looking at the ingredients), but it is rounder and more interesting than pure blackcurrant.

Our meal this year was a rib of beef (rather than turkey) with other traditional Christmas food also appearing - even sprouts (albeit they were not boiled to buggery). It was a lovely, joyful Christmas Day.

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

Ginger Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

A new decade and an old favourite for the wine. I started the wine on 4th January: the first Saturday of the year. It was a lazy day and one of the few days of the Christmas holiday period which Claire and I had to ourselves. Naturally, I spent it making wine. Thinking back, we did entertain Liz briefly, who came over to return my corker and watch me bottle my dandelion wine.

The ginger ingredients

 (other than sugar, water and yeast)

For this wine I did exactly what I did the last several times that I have made it, but I will write it all down again in tedious detail just in case you, dear reader, are interested.

First of all I weighed 6 oz of root ginger and then took off all its skin and any knobbly bits that were too small to bother with. I chopped the ginger into very thin slices and put this into my bucket. I minced 1 lb sultanas (as always, using the food processor) and put these in too. Next I took the outer layer of skin off four lemons, being moderately successful in avoiding the pith, put the skin into the bucket and the squeezed lemon juice in as well. I boiled 3-and-a-half pints of water and poured this in too.

The ingredients before processing

On Sunday afternoon, before going over to York to see Rachael, Paul and Myles, who were up from Leicester, I poured in another 3-and-a-half pints of boiling water and 2 lbs 8 oz sugar, stirring it all until the sugar dissolved. We had a lovely afternoon and evening in York. Myles, who is on the cusp of his seventh birthday, has decided to go vegetarian. Not a particularly strict one - chicken nuggets may count as a vegetarian meal - but Rachael and Paul have decided to respect his choice as far as possible. Whilst we all ate lamb, Myles had bean balls coated in bread crumbs. Anyway, back at home I put in a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase.

Giving the wine a stir

On Thursday evening, 9th January, I put the liquid into its demijohn. Yet again, 7 pints of water (using UK measurements) proved exactly right. One would think that I have made this before. The ginger wine is a yellowy-beige colour and bubbling with enthusiasm.

The wine in its demijohn.

I racked this on 16th February. At this stage the wine was still bubbling a little. It had a promising gingery taste and I fit in slightly more than half a pint of water with 2 oz sugar dissolved.

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

Halloween Wine - Second Bottle (5), 23rd-26th December 2019

My office closed for Christmas on Friday and for most everyone else the atmosphere was all rather jolly. I went in on both Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, therefore (which is not a usual bottle of wine night) we shared most of this wine. I was feeling exceptionally glum and anxious about getting the last contract exchanged on Christmas Eve, and Halloween Wine helped my mood.

We finished it, sharing small glasses with Sooz and Andrew, on Boxing Day. Once I told them that the difference between this and Xmas Tutti Fruti was the chilli they claimed that they could taste this too. I think it quite obvious.

Oh - I did get the exchange on the 24th!

A photo I took on Boxing Day

Blackcurrant Wine 2018 - Fifth Bottle (A1), 12th-14th December 2019

This last week has been busy with evening engagements, not to mention how much there is to do at work. Next year I must remember to keep the last three weeks of December free of anything that requires thought process and energy after about 6 p.m.. Anyway, on Thursday I was at Pat & Peter's, and on Saturday I was depping for Leeds College of Music's Christmas Concert. Claire took the opportunities to neck a bottle of blackcurrant wine. Actually, that is unfair. I had a much-needed glass after Pat & Peter's. Peter has started talking about performing again at Leeds Music Club.

At the College of Music concert

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2019 - The Making Of...

This year I did not think that I had gathered very much extra fruit with which to make Xmas Tutti Fruti. I cheated on both blackberries and elderberries, picking extra after I had made those flavours of wine. The blackberries came from the new park, just north of here, rather than York Victorian Cemetery, and the elderberries were exclusively from trees on Bentcliffe Drive (I think). My quince was found one morning when I was walking to work; a windfall on the pavement. Otherwise (apart from the satsuma) all ingredients came from our garden.

The fruit, frozen in its bucket

In total I had 10 lbs 2½ oz fruit - which is rather more than I have had before to the extent that I have made a triple batch for the first time. My worries about not having enough fruit were entirely groundless. That fruit was made up of 2 lbs 3 oz blackberries, 8 oz quince, 13½ oz elderberries, 1 lb plums, 2 lbs 5 oz gooseberries, 1 oz damsons, 1 oz red gooseberries, 1 oz rose petals, 3 oz redcurrants, 1 lb 2 oz strawberries, 1 lb raspberries, 8½ oz blueberries and a satsuma weighing in at 4 oz.

The fruit once it had defrosted

I took the fruit from the freezer on Sunday morning, 22nd December, put it in my bucket, stirred it around so that it looked pretty (for this blog) and left it to defrost. On Monday evening - after a full day of work (the firm was officially closed for Christmas), I gave the fruit a good mash, poured in 8 lbs of sugar and covered it with 16 pints of boiling water, again giving it a good stir. I could have added at least another pint of water - but that didn't become obvious until I put the wine into its demijohns.

Giving the wine a good stir

This I did on Sunday 29th December - I am in that stage of Christmas where I have to concentrate really hard to remember what day it is. Towards the bottom of the bucket, the mixture became gloopy, meaning that it took quite some time to extract all liquid. I currently have 20 demijohns full of wine and am using all my air-traps. This wine has the scuzziest of them all, but that shouldn't make a difference to the end product.

By racking (on 10th February), all demijohns had cleared and none had a huge deposit. I fit in just over a pint and a half of water with (I think) 5 oz sugar dissolved. I have yet to bottle this flavour.

The three demijohns on 29 December.

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