Fig Wine - Final Bottle (2), 17th November 2018

I saved my last bottle of Fig for the Alphabet Wine Party, and the party was a great success. The Fig Wine was less so, coming ninth of sixteen with an average score of 2.87 out of 5 (which I see is 0.01 of a better score than 2017's party!). Again there was a difference of opinion, with one score of 5 ("Lovely colour, pleasingly dry and the all the best flavour of fig") and another of 1 ("Yuck").

F is for Fair to Middling.

Fig Wine - Fifth Bottle (6), 11th August 2018

A meal of Lebanese food require a bottle of fig wine. There is something about fig that suggests the Middle East - in look, in colour, in taste. Despite its colour, this is not a red wine: fig does not have the depth for that, but this is not a criticism.

I spent some of the bottle listening to the Proms performance of West Side Story on Radio 3. This is such a good piece of music - I first encountered it in Miss Chancellor's music lessons in 1982 and I still know most the words. I think it is up there with Rite of Spring and Rock Around the Clock as the most important music of the twentieth century. (Discuss.)

The Jets (or maybe The Sharks)

Blackcurrant Wine - Second Bottle (A3), 21st July 2018

Brigitta was over for a meal of 'Biochemist's Lamb' and I was about to open my penultimate bottle of Fig. I had got as far as piercing the cork with a corkscrew when I asked Brigitta if she liked figs.
"They're not my favourite."
"How about blackcurrants?"
"Oh, I love those."
So, a bottle of blackcurrant it was and Brigitta (quite correctly) thought it was marvellous. Certainly blackcurrant wine is very more-ish. It is essentially alcoholic pop. Fig would have been better with lamb, but I'm happy to save that for another day.

This was one of the first images for 'Biochemist's Lamb'

Fig Wine - Fourth Bottle (1), 18th March 2018

When will it be warm? The weekend has seen yet more snow and I long for a proper Spring. We were in St Albans over Saturday night for Lou's 50th birthday and hot footed it back to Leeds on Sunday morning for a two o'clock rehearsal in Ilkley. Sunday night was spent curled up on the sofa in front of the stove watching Lewis and apologising to the cats. I opened the fig wine for our meal of defrosted leftovers (which was better than that sounds). The wine is lovely - really figgy.

Fig Wine - Third Bottle (5), 10th February 2018

We were over in York for this bottle of wine. Our last visit had been September and that is too long. It is lovely spending a relaxed, drunken evening with my parents. Pop cooked fish, Mom did the vegetables and pudding, and I opened the bottle.

This wine has a fizz to it and there is less body than previous vintages of Fig. However, it is one of those wines that is a 'grower': the first sip is uninteresting, but it curiously improves down the glass. Or is that just my faculties dimming?

Fig Wine - Second Bottle (4), 21st October 2017

Blimey, this wine split the room. David scored it a 5, Lindsay scored it a zero, and it got every number in between. This meant it came eighth out of twelve at the Wine Party, with an average score of 2.86. It shows how subjective taste can be. Those who liked it tended not to comment (though Kate wrote 'Tingly'). Those who did not were more eloquent, saying 'A bit musty', 'Grassy aroma' and 'Smell is not inviting. Taste is worse'. I awarded Fig Wine a solid 4. It is not as good as 2015's vintage, but I would still choose it above many of my wines. I think some of my guests were just wrong!

Fig Wine - First Bottle (3), 16th September 2017

Perhaps not quite as good as my previous batches of Fig Wine. But it is still a great bottle. The aroma and taste are distinctly figgy and my one complaint is that a certain depth is absent.

We drank it with Rachel and Duncan in Cambridge, having travelled down for Emily and Marco's wedding the following day. The evening started with rhubarb gin, before moving through a Prosecco and a Riesling before ending up with Fig Wine. As the wine flowed, so did the conversation and good humour and it was just a pleasant evening spent with close friends. Hard to be beaten.

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

Fig Wine - Final Bottle (4), 17th June 2017

Disaster! There will be no Fig Wine this year. More accurately, there will be no fig wine made this year, which means the dearth will hit in the 2018-19 season. Mom and Pop came over bearing these bad tidings, but we opened this bottle anyway - reinforcing the idea that any spare figs should come my way. Their tree has not produced the goods for a September crop.

We savoured this wine with a Middle Eastern feast involving chick peas, tomatoes, lots of garlic and a spinach and feta pie. It was a perfect Saturday - much of it spend outside basking in the June warmth, everyone enjoying each other's company. An excellent day, despite the news about the figs.

I think the fig disaster is second from the left, third row down.

Fig Wine - Fifth Bottle (6), 29th May 2017

The day before we drank this wine Brigitta came for an evening meal and Claire made dish after dish of Morrocan food, following Claudia Roden's recipes. It was splendid food, and enough for a second round on Monday night. It being a bank holiday, we hadn't been at work and didn't have an orchestra rehearsal, so a perfect excuse to open a bottle of wine. Fig was chosen as it seemed fitting for North African food, and it really is a fabulous flavour. Exotic with a nutty aroma. We finished the bottle curled up on the sofa watching Doctor Who - a perfect end to our long weekend.

Fig Wine - Fourth Bottle (2), 12th April 2017

Sooz has come to stay over Easter so I have welcomed her with one of my best wines. Actually, we began with a gin & tonic. This may not have been the best idea - I do have work tomorrow. Anyway, we all agreed that the wine is a good one - very figgy with a nutty aroma - and the bottle is now empty.

My father has just rung - he is off to America for five weeks and rang to say 'goodbye'. I get the impression that each time he goes, he is never absolutely certain he will survive until he is due back. Generally he won't ring otherwise.

Fig Wine - Third Bottle (1), 14th January 2017

This bottle was certainly a hit. Rodney was in raptures about how good it was and wondered if he could order a case. (He can't.) Fig wine is fabulous - it has a deep figgy taste and is a delightful colour. It went splendidly with the lamb cous-cous and honeyed onions that Claire served as our main course.

I had been a little worried about the evening. I didn't really know Helen and Claire did not know her at all. I wasn't sure how well Rodney & Claire would get on and was anxious about awkward silences. Needless worry, of course. The evening was lots of fun, the conversation never stopped and we drank far too much.

Fig Wine - Second Bottle (5), 29th October 2016

Mom, Rachael and Myles came to stay on Saturday night and I wanted to pour them the best of my wines. Well, not Myles, obviously. He is not yet four. Fig wine is an excellent bottle, and we needed something red to go with the lamb that Claire had just cooked.

It was a lovely evening, full of talk and laughter. Mom has recently returned from Japan and China, so kept us entertained with tales of the exotic.

We finished the evening with steamed ginger pudding, sat in front of the stove. As I say, a lovely evening.

Fig Wine 2016 - The Making Of...

I do have selfish parents. They are spending mid-August to mid-October travelling around America, Japan and China. Don't they realise it is Fig season? I have had to make a special trip to York on two occasions to pick figs from their tree. Couldn't they have gone in November when nothing in their garden is useful for wine? As I say, selfish.

A fig on my parents' tree

My parents' tree

My first trip was on 4th September, where I picked 3 lbs of figs. Some of this involved climbing the fig tree, feeling the branches bend beneath my weight. I also trespassed into next door's garden to pluck a juicy fig hanging beyond the party wall. Our second visit was the following week, 11 September, where only another 2 lbs were ripe - but 5 lbs is enough for a single batch of wine. There were several more fruit growing on the tree and I imagine that the birds will take full advantage.

Back home I kept the ripest figs in the freezer and let those that were still mostly green ripen on our kitchen counter. On Friday 16th September I cut each of the figs into bits and put them in my bucket. I think the figs are riper, darker than last year, but that is probably a false memory.

Though ripe defrosted figs do not require much crushing, I still attacked them with a potato masher and then covered them with 3 lbs sugar. I boiled six pints of water and poured this over, giving it all a thorough stir. At this stage the mixture was soupy, but it all separated out over the next few days. Next time I will increase the water by half a pint: on putting the wine into its demijohns on Thursday night, 22nd September, I was filtering the thickest of sludge at the end of the process and I would ordinarily have discarded this.

The soupy fig mixture

But I have got ahead of myself. I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of pectolase, tannin, nutrient and citric acid on Saturday morning, 17th September. Really I should have transferred the wine into the demijohns a day earlier than I did, but Wednesday was busy with WYSO and the Bake Off. The method of transferring was the same as ever - fish out most the solids with a collander at the beginning, then start putting the liquid into the demijohn using a jug, sieve and funnel. I now have Fig wine in its demijohn, fermenting happily and dark plum in colour.

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

Fig Wine - First Bottle (3), 3rd September 2016

What a superb bottle of wine, in every respect. It has the colour and clarity of rubies. The taste is divine - rich, rounded, fruity and substantial. 2014's vintage was good. This one is even better.

We are up in Newcastle, celebrating Nick Byrne's 40th birthday. All six of his siblings were there and it was a pleasure to see them all. The fig wine, though, was saved for the evening when I only had to share it out amongst four Taylors, which meant we all got a generous helping. Of course, I was most generous to me.

Nick Byne is the one with a cello

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

Fig Wine - Final Bottle (1), 24th August 2016

Pop came over to stay as a prelude to his and Mom's adventure in the Far East. He flies to Nebraska tomorrow, meeting up with Mom. In a few weeks they go to Japan and then China. Mom says that this will be their last big trip and Pop hopes this to be true.

It was a wonderful evening, part of which was spent drinking Fig wine in the garden and all of which was spent in good natured conversation about nothing very much. I am exceedingly lucky in my parents and I like them tremendously. My father is a Good Man and the person I strive to be.

The man I strive to be

Fig Wine - Fifth Bottle (2), 2nd-3rd July 2016

I have just counted up. We had 44 people through our doors this weekend. Having owned the house for exactly a year, we though it high time that we throw a party. This meant getting every room tidy (it took a week), buying more cheese than was strictly necessary, baking three types of cake and 2 types of biscuit, and opening seven bottles of wine. Fig was one of these, and as good as always. Many peopled were intrigued by this flavour and I heard someone compare it to port.

Fig Wine - Fourth Bottle (4), 16th April 2016

Fig wine is delightful. We drank it on Saturday evening in front of (possibly) our last fire of the season. April continues to be cold and there was snow in some parts of West Yorkshire. The wine was our reward for a day of solid playing. St Matthews in Chapel Allerton had a 'Come and Sing Messiah' this weekend and Claire and I were in the (small yet perfectly formed) orchestra. Rehearsals started at 10:30. By 11:20 my lip was starting to die, and there was still another 6 hours to go. At lunch I ate vast quantities of cake in the hope this would resurrect it. It did. Hallelujah.

Fig Wine 2015 - The Making Of ...

It is a Tuesday evening, 8th September, and I am discombobulated. We put our house on the market yesterday.* Someone has put in an offer today. That wasn't meant to happen. I needed to get used to the idea first. We were meant to be closer to having a house to move into. I'm adept at being disconcerted by what should be good news. At least I have wine-making to distract me.

An aerial view of some figs (and my feet)

The fig wine that I made last year is a surprising 'Hit', so I am trying to repeat that success. Claire and I were in York this weekend where my parents have been collecting and freezing figs from their tree. Mom has built a tool - a long stick with a hook on the end - with which to pick figs. She uses it to grab a branch, pulling it in towards her 5 foot 2 stature, and then plucks the fig from the tree. I wouldn't have had her down as an inventor.

By Sunday I was able to take away 6 lbs or so of figs. Those that were fresh from the tree needed a couple of days to ripen, hence starting the wine tonight. I weighed 5½ lbs of figs and cut these into four pieces per fruit. Those that had been frozen were extremely soft. They went into the bucket and I mashed them into a pulp. I added 3 lbs sugar and 6 pints of boiling water and gave it all a stir. It was a thick, soupy mixture at this stage.

Chopped figs in the bucket

On Wednesday morning I put in the yeast and a teaspoon of everything (nutrient, pectolase, tannin and citric acid). By the evening our buyer had withdrawn, but this turned to be a Good Thing. On Sunday we had another offer. And I thought that our house, with all its stuff and colours, would be a difficult sell.

Figs during fermentation

That evening, 13th September, I transferred the liquid into its demijohn, which I overfilled. The wine made its bid for freedom over night, but I think it is now safely contained. It is a pleasing light purple colour.

*This link will take you to details of our house for sale, until contracts have been exchanged - at which point I imagine the link will no longer work. (Actually, I think it still does.)

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

Fig Wine - Second Bottle (3), 5th September 2015

My parents have been instructed to collect figs on the strength of the last bottle. Therefore, I thought taking a bottle to York with me would only be fair. Both Mom & Pop loved it - with Pop saying he thinks this is the best wine I have made. I wouldn't go that far, but it is good and worth doing in fig-heavy years (of which this is one).

Earlier in the evening I won convincingly in Scrabble against Mom - my first win for many games. I got all letters out twice (LOOSEST  and  REDOING). Only part of this game was played in the presence of a random bleeding teenager who had come off his bike outside the house.

Fig Wine - First Bottle (5), 9th August 2015

It was purely for research purposes that I opened this bottle. Apparently this year is good for figs and I wanted to know whether it was worth asking my parents to put some aside for me. It is. Despite the nutty aroma, which generally indicates something undrinkable, this was really nice. It is unmistakeably fig - a dense, fruity taste. Possibly a little too sweet. The colour is lovely - a dark pink. I think this akin to a red wine, whereas Claire thinks it is a rosé.

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