Blackberry Wine 2019 - Fifteenth Bottle (B3), 30th August 2021

Blackberry wine was the natural choice of wine after a day spent picking brambles for 2021's batch. The wine was delicious and bursting with bramble flavour. Rather better than the vegetarian moussaka I made to accompany it, which, despite its vegetarian credentials, would have benefitted greatly from a chicken stock cube. The rest of the evening was spent watching The Crown and then reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, which is witty and beautifully written. One of those books that manages to be engaging despite a paper-thin plot.

A grave from which I picked brambles

Elderberry Wine 2017 - Eighth Bottle (B5), 2nd July 2020

Delia Smith's moussaka recipe requires half a glass of red wine, and I (correctly) identified that elderberry would be the right flavour. The resulting moussaka was fabulous - there were no leftovers - as was this wine (also no leftovers). That some of it went into the food meant that we had pretentions of respectability: we did not drink an entire bottle of wine on Thursday night.

Whilst making the moussaka, I was also playing (remote) Scrabble with Mom. I had terrific luck and my favourite words were RELATING, DILATION, SABOT and (best of all) HOMINIDS

Taken on 2nd July on my morning walk

This is the street on which we used to live

Elderberry Wine 2018 - First Bottle (A1), 29th April 2020

It is generally advised to read through all ingredients of a recipe before beginning to cook.

On Wednesday night, I was making a vegetarian moussaka a la Delia and all was going swimmingly until I got to the bit about adding several tablespoons of red wine. Ordinarily I would use real wine for cooking, but I don't think we have any, so I substituted elderberry instead. And once opened, it would be a shame not to finish the bottle.

This wine is an excellent elderberry - as dark and earthy as you would want. Claire thought that there was metal in its taste but I did not. And it worked well in the moussaka too, which turned out to be the best moussaka that I have done.

A photo of some gorse,

taken on 29th April

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

Elderberry Wine - Eighth Bottle (A6), 26th-29th May 2019

Bob and Judith stopped in Leeds on Sunday night as a staging post between Wiltshire and Newcastle. This provided an excuse for several cocktails, a vegetarian moussaka and a couple of bottles of wine, of which this elderberry was one. Elderberry 2016 is a fine vintage: dark and rich and smoother than the previous year's. Due to the large amount of alcohol already consumed, we did not finish the bottle but left that particular task for Tuesday night.

Something else which is dark and rich and smooth

Orange Wine - Fourth Bottle (B5), 8th-9th August 2018

This bottle had all the appearances of one about to explode. Its cork was protruding from the neck and I thought it wise to remove this under controlled conditions. In fact, the wine was flat with no danger of firing its contents out. But drinking a bottle of orange wine is no sacrifice. Claire and I are both working hard and a couple of glasses of Orange on Wednesday night were most welcome. Neither of us had the energy to cook so we took full advantage of the take-out pizza place round the corner. Our lentil moussaka was saved, instead, for tonight and it was fabulous. A red wine would have gone better but the orange was fine.

Elderberry Wine - Bottle B4, 22nd April 2011

This wine has been brought to you by Moussaka and Knitting.

I was on cooking duties today, as I have been for the whole week, and had planned to do something entirely new. However, on looking through the many cook books, nothing jumped out saying "make me". So, I dug out Delia and made Moussaka, which I have not done for a couple of years, and therefore that almost counts. Elderberry wine goes well with it - the sweet, deep red complements the lamb and cinammon.

Elderberry wine goes less well with knitting. Sooz taught me the basics this afternoon and then needed a gin to recover. I am getting the hang of it, but have to concentrate extremely hard. There are meant to be twenty loops in each row, but within three or four rows of me knitting solo, there were twenty seven. I do not foresee this becoming a regular hobby.