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

Damson Wine - Third Bottle (5), 2nd January 2020

Rachel requested a bottle of damson wine specifically for New Year, and who am I to refuse? It is excellent and has vanilla overtones. We drank it after a day spent in Cambridge where we went to a zoological museum full of bones and animals preserved in jars, followed by dim sum at a Chinese restaurant which possibly got some of their ingredients from this museum.

We finished the damson wine before sitting down to eat salmon, where Richard & Wendy joined us. The May holiday has been organised - we are off to Shropshire this year, though it is possible that Richard & Wendy won't be able to make it. Richard is off to Alaska to climb USA's highest peak.*

My 2nd January photos have disappeared from

my phone - here is a 1st January one instead

* Oh, if only we had known. Obviously the holidays didn't happen.

Rhubarb, Mint & Elderflower Wine 2018 - Third Bottle (6), 31st December 2019

As has been our practice for the last several years, we spent New Year's Eve in Cambridge with Rachel and Duncan. And continuing the tradition we had all gone to bed before midnight. This year I'm not sure that we made it up much past 10:30. It was a lovely evening, though, and this bottle of Rhubarb, Mint & Elderflower was one of the three drunk. Claire thinks that I need to dial back a little on the mint, to avoid any more of a mouth wash feel. I think that I have it about right.

Duncan, Claire and Rachel cooking on New Year's Eve

Ginger Wine 2019 - The Making Of...

We are only six days into the New Year and already I feel like an old man. My back is aching and I know that I shall be stiff tomorrow. This is the result of barely two hours gardening. All I was doing was shovelling horse manure into bags and then digging it into our front garden, plus some low-level weeding. Gardening is meant to be a healthy activity, so why do I feel like I have been given a thorough pummelling?

A selection of dried fruit ingredients

The other thing I have done this weekend is to begin my ginger wine. I had already decided that Ginger will be my regular January wine, but the bottle we drank on New Year's Day confirmed this choice - it was excellent. I bought all my 'fruit' ingredients: 5 oz root ginger, 4 lemons and 1 lb sultanas: from the Continental Supermarket in Harehills. Though they sell every type of pulse and flour that you can think of and many more besides, the only sultanas they had were 'Golden Sultanas' which had a best-before date of April 2018. I bought them anyway. It makes this wine the yellowest of all wines that I make.

On Saturday (yesterday), I shaved the ginger of its skin and sliced it as thinly as possible before putting it into the bucket. Next I minced the sultanas in the food processor and put those in. Then I peeled the lemon-skin as finely as I could, doing my best to avoid the pith, and put this in, followed shortly by the juice from all lemons.

The ingredients in the bucket

I poured over 3½ pints of boiling water, making our kitchen smell citrussy and left the wine until this afternoon. During a break from gardening I poured in 2½ lbs sugar and another 3½ pints of boiling water. Several hours later I put in a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase.

I waited until Friday evening, 11th January, before putting the wine into its demijohn. This was done before Book Group (Treasure Island - our 'winter classic') so I had to be quick. Happily this was not a drawn out process, and I now have a demijohn full of pale yellow, ginger-flavoured liquid.

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

Strawberry Wine 2016 - Final Bottle (3), 31st December 2018

New Year's Eve is traditionally a time to drink in excess, and I am happy to report that we kept that tradition.

We have spent the New Year in Cambridge with Rachel & Duncan, which is always a pleasure. A cup of tea was presented on our arrival but soon this was followed by gin & tonics, a gin fizz cocktail and too many bottles of wine (of which this was one and delicious). At nine o'clock I was convinced that, like most years these days, I would fail to see midnight and 2019 arrive. Claire went to bed at 10:30, but by then I had got a second wind and stayed up to hear the chimes of Big Ben and watch fireworks explode over the Thames.

Prune & Parsnip Wine 2015 - Final Bottle (A4), 27th December 2018

That time between Christmas and New Year is always strange. I lose track of the days and the drinking hour creeps forward. By the time I opened this bottle it was around 7 and Claire, Sooz and I had already polished off a whisky mac each and a bottle of mulled wine.

This Prune & Parsnip was approaching four years old and has lost the over-riding sherry taste. It was still recognisable, but just a tad drier and maybe not as good. Therefore, Prune & Parsnip, unlike Elderberry or Dandelion, is not one to save into its old age.

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.