Inca Berry & Raisin Wine - Fourth Bottle (1), 14th-15th May 2020

Whilst it was not an act of responsibility to open a second bottle on Thursday, this is what I did. Claire was low, water is dripping from our ceiling and I had just been told of Renate's death. So not an evening to drink in moderation. 

The wine is an odd one - it is basically alcoholic raisins but not those soaked in brandy that appear at Christmas. Claire summed this bottle up as reminiscent of slightly rank sherry.

I took this on 15 May - and it gives some 

indication of what I do at work.

Inca Berry & Raisin Wine - Third Bottle (2), 13th-15th June 2019

We needed a mid-week bottle for Thursday night and Inca Berry & Raisin had studied that particular job description and submitted its application. Neither Claire nor I could really remember what it tasted like - and the answer is 'raisiny'. Not a bad wine by any means, but not one for Sunday Best.

We drank most of the bottle whilst watching the penultimate episode of Line of Duty, leaving a glass for Claire to have whilst I was off playing Sibelius 2 at Leeds College of Music. I don't think I have been in a concert before where the music comes to a shuddering halt and we have to start again. My lucky musical socks were obviously not working.

My lucky musical socks (plus Wiggy)

Inca Berry & Raisin Wine - Second Bottle (5), 6th July 2018

Memory and expectations combined can play odd tricks. I had remembered this wine as very good and therefore expected it to be so. Claire had remembered it to be poor with matching expectations. We were both confounded. For Claire, this was a pleasant bottle; for me it was on the right side of drinkable. The sherry flavour is too pronounced - more so than Prune & Parsnip. We agreed it should be a mid-week bottle.

It being a delightful evening, we ate and drank outside and stared into our ever-diminishing pond. Claire caught a flash of gold - we have a new fish! The Thieving Bastard Heron did not manage to eat them all.

The Thieving Bastard Heron in our pond

Inca Berry & Raisin Wine - First Bottle (4), 18th-19th January 2018

I had feared the worst for this wine. It was made only tick off a letter and there was no way that it would even be drinkable. Therefore, it is with some astonishment that I can report it is actually really rather good. Inca Berry & Raisin is a dark golden colour and has a solid wine taste (I suspect that will be the raisins). Claire is less enthusiastic, describing the wine as 'Inoffensive' and 'One step below nice'. We raised our glasses to Adam, for the idea, and drank to lamb chops and chips. I cooked - and the food (if I do say so) was excellent. The lamb was marinated in olive oil, a crushed clove of garlic, a teaspoon of sea salt, a good deal of ground pepper and a dollop of chilli paste. Claire insisted that I make a record of what I did. Behold the record!

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

Inca Berry & Raisin Wine - The Making Of...

An Inca Berry (or Physallis) (or Cape Gooseberry)

Back in April last year, at the Extended Family Do, I was complaining that it was difficult to find a fruit that began with the letter 'I' for my wine alphabet. Adam, being a modern-day technologically connected teenager, pulled out his phone, did a quick search and discovered both Inca Berries and a place that sold their seeds. Now, I know this fruit as 'Physallis' and others call it 'Cape Gooseberry'. However, that the seed packet said 'Inca Berry' is good enough for me to tick the letter 'I', leaving only 'J' and 'Z' to go.

Inca Berry seedlings - taken to Cornwall

We planted the seeds in mid-April, sending a pack to St Albans for Lou and Adam to fail to grow, and took the seedlings with us to Cornwall for a week's holiday in May.

Inca Berry Plants in Summer

By July the plants were putting out flowers - an attractive yellow and brown mix, and by September these had turned into green lanterns surrounding the nascent fruit. This is really where it started to go wrong. Our summer was not hot enough and the autumn not dry enough for the lanterns to turn brown, crack open and reveal a small yellow globe. Some did, but on the whole the lanterns and their fruit inside stayed resolutely green.

Over time Claire and I harvested what we could - even bringing three of the plants inside (this helped) and this weekend, 15th January, I harvested everything that had not gone rotten. Overall, this produced only 1 lb 8 oz of fruit in various stages of ripeness. This is not enough for a batch of wine, but I couldn't waste what had grown, so I have made do with 'Inca Berry and Raisin Wine'.

I mashed the Inca Berries in my bucket (and they made a satisfying 'pop' as I crushed them) and added 1 lb 8 oz of minced raisins. Raisins have their own sweetness, so I added 2 lbs 8 oz sugar (which is half a pound less than I usually add to a wine) and poured in six and a half pints of boiling water. The Inca Berries are perfumed, which gives me hope that this won't be the blandest wine ever made (I think Ya Ya Pear may get that particular prize).

I left the mixture over night and added the yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase and tannin on Monday 16th January. I had earmarked Friday to put the wine into its demijohn, but by the time I returned from practising bassoon pieces with David on the piano, Claire had started a fire, downloaded an episode of QI and opened a bottle of wine, so I left it until this morning, 21st January.

The wine is exceptionally brown, and Claire says it suggests a bad attack of cholera. Yum!

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