Ya-Ya Pear Wine - Third Bottle (4), 21st October 2017

Ladies & Gentlemen, may I present this year's loser of the Wine Party. Ya-ya Pear was the lowest scorer of my 12 bottles, with an average score of 2.19 out of 5. It was the lowest scored wine by Rachel, Helen, Claire, Phil, Anthony and me. Only David ("4 - Length") and Matthew ("3 - Crisp and delicate") had anything nice to say about it. We still managed to finish the bottle between us, however and I am not aware of any hangovers the following morning. Four guests stayed over: Rachel, Duncan, Kate and Jayne; and all were bright, chirpy and ready for bacon sandwiches on Sunday.

Ya Ya Pear Wine - Second Bottle (3), 7th-8th June 2017

I read today on the BBC website that being under the influence of alcohol does not preclude one from voting. I resolved to have at least a glass of Ya Ya Pear wine before attending my polling station, on the basis that the result will be depressing. Thus fortified, I did my civic duty and put a cross next to the Labour candidate. For the first time even when voting, there was a queue - and I find this encouraging.

Claire and I finished the wine on my return. It really isn't very good, though has improved from yesterday. Keeping it in the fridge must have helped. Claire says it tastes of Organic Chemistry lessons. I never had those. There is a hint of pear drops and something manufactured in its flavour.

NB - Mostly I write my diary entries a day or two after I have had the bottle of wine (and translate them into blog posts several days after that). This one, I didn't want to be prejudiced by the General Election result, so made sure I wrote it on the day. My next blog post will reveal how I felt about how things turned out.

Ya Ya Pear Wine - The Making Of ...

Claire, if you asked her, would say that she is Long Suffering. She has to put up with wine bottles in every room, fruit in the freezer and demijohns in the bath. All because one year she bought me a wine-making kit for Christmas. On Saturday, 19th March, Claire proved that, despite all this, she does actually love me. She asked whether I had yet ticked 'Y' off my wine alphabet (I haven't) and told me that she had seen something called 'Ya Ya Pears' for sale at Noshis. Now, I have made pear wine before, and that was disgusting, but I was really struggling for the letter Y. Apparently there is an edible plant called Yarrow, but I don't know where to find that, and Yam Wine sounds fraught with peril. So Ya-Ya Pears fit the bill nicely (though when I have looked them up on Wikipedia it calls them 'Ya Pears').

I hot-footed it to Noshis and found the pears selling at five for a pound. Fifteen came to about 5 lbs in weight, so that is what I bought. They are pale - a yellowy-greeny-white skin that is speckled with faded brown dots, and rounder than European pears.

On Sunday morning I cut each pear into small pieces and put these in the bucket. I tried a piece and the overall taste was bland with a hint of pear, so I don't hold out too much hope for the resulting wine. I added 2 lbs 12 oz sugar and seven pints of boiling water.

The afternoon and evening were spent in Ilkley practising and then performing Brahms' Tragic Overture, Elgar's Cello Concerto and Dvorak's Seventh Symphony. On my return the liquid had cooled sufficiently to add the yeast and a teaspoon each of pectolase and nutrient.

I left this until Friday evening, 25th March, though stirred it once or twice a day. Putting the liquid into its demijohn was a quick job, and mostly done during a traumatic episode of The Archers, where the domestic abuse storyline with Helen and Rob must surely be coming to a denoument. The wine has an undead look to it, as if made by ghosts.

I racked this on 4 June, which is a bit later than I would ordinarily rack it, and I tried to video myself doing this, to show how the racking works. Unfortunately, for some unfathomable reason, the video decided to stop after a minute and sixteen seconds. I have no idea why, and it remains a tale half told. Anyway, here is the video.

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

Blackcurrant - Bottle 3, 28th August 2011

Christian is leaving for Saffron Waldren this week to become 'Artist in Residence' at a Quaker Boarding School, so Julia cooked a 'Goodbye and Good Luck' Feast for eight. This bottle of Blackcurrant was the first of far too many drunk, and it really is one of my best.

The food was grand and the company convivial. Towards the end of the night Julia and I disappeared into her cellar and came back up clutching bottles labelled 'Pear 93', 'Raspberry 92' and 'Gooseberry 76'. I have never drunk a bottle of wine comfortably into its mid-thirties. It had matured into a dry sherry and there was no hint of its original fruit. The Raspberry was non-descript, and I am pleased to report that the Pear was nasty.