Rhubarb & Elderflower Wine - Final Bottle (4), 30th March 2016

After last night's Apple Wine Debacle I was instructed to open something drinkable. Examining what we had in the cupboard under the stairs, I came up with this. Much nicer. I don't think that I could detect either rhubarb or elderflower, but what we got was a rather decent white wine. Admittedly the final glass had less clarity than is absolutely desirable in a wine, but we were not in polite society.

Claire is on holiday and that is my excuse for finishing a bottle of wine on a Wednesday night. In fact we finished it before we started eating, and that is borderline disgraceful.

Rhubarb & Elderflower Wine - Fifth Bottle (3), 13th September 2015

We wanted something specifically associated with this house to drink in celebration, for today someone has put in an offer to buy it. This means that we no longer have to keep it spotless at all times, make sure the washing up is done and put away, and we can move the cat food back to where it needs to be. So today has been a Good Day. Exhausting too, what with the gardening, wine-making, bread-making and our final tidying session.

The wine was really good, with hints of spice (which is unexplained). We both drank too much, though, because we still had a bottle of rose petal to finish.

Rhubarb & Elderflower Wine - Fourth Bottle (6), 11th May 2015

This bottle came at the end of an excellent 10 mile walk round Snape through forest, field and marsh. We saw lizards and deer and had glorious, properly hot weather. It was a perfect 'holiday' day: relaxing, friendly, outdoors.

We visited Snape Maltings during the walk and other than the gallery I mostly did not enjoy this. Its music shop's best seller seemed to be crime novels. But the day as a whole was fabulous and everyone enjoyed the rhubarb & elderflower wine. Dry and summery.

Rhubarb and Elderflower Wine - Third Bottle (1), 7th March 2015

This was a post-Music Club bottle, and one that I needed. Madeleine's quintet performed the first and second movement of the Taffanel (though not necessarily in that order) and we were okay. Claire says that we were more than that, but I am a perfectionist, and right now I can only remember the wrong notes, the mis-taken breaths and the places where I did not feel in control. The wine has helped and things are not currently in quite so much focus.

                                                  and his wind quintet

Rhubarb & Elderflower Wine - Second Bottle (5), 29th November 2014

I continue to be very pleased with this flavour. The clarity and colour are excellent, and its taste is pleasant and unusual. Elderflower is there but does not dominate and the rhubarb gives it a depth.

We drank most of the bottle while watching Food pornography - Nigel Slater's exploration of cake. There were slow motion shots of egg yolks falling from their shells, flour being invaded by lumps of butter, and batter dripping from its whisk. My saliva glands were working overtime. It was also an entertaining and informative programme, but really I was there for loving shots of cake.

Rhubarb & Elderflower - First Bottle (2), 7th June 2014

Well, I am very pleased with this. My last batch of rhubarb & elderflower was good. This is better. This pink is more pronounced, the taste is sweeter. The only aspect which does not measure up is the clarity, which is slightly cloudy. I can live with that. This wine, properly chilled, slips down very nicely indeed. I brought it to York with me where tomorrow Mom is giving a sermon at the Unitarian Chapel, and that will involve some of my wine. Not as any sort of sacrament, I trust. Tonight, though, involved Scrabble. Best word? Darling

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

Rhubarb & Elderflower - Final Bottle (3), 20th April 2014

We spent a lovely evening at 3 The Alders in the company of this bottle. Judith cooked a chicken as our Easter roast and then fed us a ginger & rhubarb fool. There is still a portion of this in the fridge, and my eye is very firmly on it.

Sooz brought Ticket to Ride around, which is a fabulous board game involving strategy, some luck, swearing and steam trains. Judith scuppered my final route and only Bob did worse than I. The wine had been finished by this point in the evening and unusually I did not have much of the real stuff.

Having had six bottles of this flavour now, I would say its worst crime is being a little bland. It is a terrific colour and worth making in the future.

Rhubarb & Elderflower - Fifth Bottle (6), 1st-2nd March 2014

This bottle was waiting in the fridge for me after the Elmet Sinfonietta concert. I was definitely in need of it. On the whole the concert went well. However, the middle movement of the Stravinsky clung on by its fingertips. The bit I had been practising furiously, the bit I have worked on more than any other piece in recent memory, went wrong. I got lost and then just made it up. Happily, with atonal early twentieth-century music, you can do that and no-one in the audience noticed. The outer movements were much better and I think we pulled it off.

I opened the bottle as soon as I got home, before feeding the cats even, and drank not quite half. The special thing about this wine is its colour - a coppery pink. Tastewise it is good; dry and open. Suitable for a not-quite celebration.

Rhubarb & Elderflower Wine - Fourth Bottle (5), 24th-25th December 2013

Most of this bottle was had on a glorious, drunken Christmas Eve. We are in York and on Tuesday night so was Chris. This made for an entertaining, noisy evening full of debate, food, wine and whisky. Perhaps too much of the last. I woke on Christmas morning with a throbbing head. A couple of paracetamol, lots of water and an aborted attempt at walking round York City Walls settled that.

Pop and I finished the bottle late on Christmas afternoon as a tidying up exercise before the meal. The wine was less good that I remember, but entirely passable. It is one of those that gets better the more you drink. Funny that.

The Walls were closed on Christmas Day

Rhubarb & Elderflower Wine - Third Bottle (2), 26th October 2013

"No no no no no". One out of five.

I had expected Rhubarb & Elderflower to do rather better at the wine party. Lindsay did not like it one bit. She was the only one, though. Angela gave it a five. It came seventh out of ten with an average score of 3.36. Before the party I would have predicted a top three placement. Maybe I had not chilled it enough. There was no room in the fridge and the weather was unseasonably warm, so leaving it outside all day was ineffective. It was one of the many finished bottles, though. Of the twelve people at the party we had three drivers, and between us we finished the equivalent of at least eight bottles. It was all rather jolly.

Rhubarb & Elderflower Wine - Second Bottle (1), 12th August 2013

"Rather better than I had anticipated" is a common reaction to my wine.

I took this bottle to the Wands as Paul and family are over from Canada and Helen promised chocolate cake. Because I was driving I only had a small glass, but I made sure I had the first glass so I could manage expectations. Happily, this is a good bottle, and it looks delightful  - pink and bubbly. I think the Wands were genuinely impressed.

It was a lovely evening, and very noisy. Paul and Allie have four rambunctious children. Alexander and Ellie wanted to be around the adults. Adam and Alice did not. Alex is two years older than I was when I met Paul, which is hard to believe. I see a fair amount of Paul in him - not so much in looks, but in humour and interests. Just slightly geeky but with social grace too.

Rhubarb & Elderflower 2013 - The Making Of ...

Like everything else this year, elderflowers are late to bloom. It is 24th June and they are only just coming out now. Our rhubarb is starting to look a little old, so a couple of weeks ago I pulled several stalks from our two main patches - though mostly from Shirley's plant. These were weighed (3lbs 2oz), cut into pieces and shoved in the freezer. I removed them this morning and picked elderflowers on my way home from work.

Elderly Rhubarb

My not-quite-four-mile walk has a section through woodland, and I cross Meanwood Beck then walk along a path adjoining a field. It is a delightful journey and partly (though only partly) the reason I don't catch the bus. And there are elder trees dotted all over.

On my walk to work

This evening I picked a few in the woodland and some along the patch, but I planned mostly to get them from the field. I knew the field had horses, in much the same way I knew it had buttercups. After climbing over the wall I noted the horses were all under one elder tree so I made my way to the other some distance away and started picking. There was a definite sound of trotting behind me and it was getting closer. I turned to find three surprisingly large horses running at me enthusiastically. I think they were hungry. Making 'Good Horse' noises and patting one particularly insistent one on the nose, I continued collecting elderflowers. Until I felt my backpack being nibbled. I made my apologies and withdrew.

A field with buttercups, elderflowers and horses

 At home, half an hour's stripping of flowers left me with half a pint, and I put these in the bucket with all the rhubarb, 3lbs sugar and 6½ pints of boiling water. I left it all over night and put in the yeast and a teaspoon each of pectolase and nutrient the following morning.

A mix of rhubarb and elderflower in its bucket

 I sieved out the fruit and flowers, putting the liquid into its demijohn on Friday night, 28th June, after having spent an evening drinking beer with Matthew. The wine is in a brown glass demijohn, in an effort to preserve its candy-floss pinkness.

A brown demijohn preserves the colour

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

Rhubarb & Elderflower - First Bottle (4), 1st June 2013

I have been looking forward to this bottle of wine for some time. Almost since I started making it a year ago, and certainly since I bottled it at Christmas. It has not disappointed. Rhubarb & Elderflower is a glorious pink-bronze colour and (until the last couple of glasses) absolutely clear. There is a slight fizz and the taste is excellent. It does not have the single (albeit pleasant) note of pure elderflower and is more complex than rhubarb. On the basis of this bottle I will definitely make it again.

The day has been a pleasant, undemanding one. Much of it was spent writing a guest blog post for Lovely Greens and some involved drinking tea and eating scones with Julia and Ros. It being the first of June, we had a summer meal of various salads, griddled courgettes and an asparagus & horseradish quiche.

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

Rhubarb & Elderflower Wine - The Making Of ...

This flavour is another one suggested by Claire. However, I think her motive was to reduce our holding stock of rhubarb in the freezer rather than necessarily inventing an unmissable combination of ingredients. Our various rhubarb patches in the back garden have been prolific this year and do not show any signs of abating. I am hopeful that this means we will be eating pie into July. It won't result in any more wine, though. 'Rhubarb and Elderflower' is likely to be 2012's last wine involving rhubarb (unless it makes it into the Christmas Tutti Fruti).

Today, 2nd June, is on the early side for elderflowers. I have been noticing the odd 'head' on my way to work this week, but little more. Therefore, when I went out foraging this afternoon, I was expecting to be out quite some time. Including the walk to and from the Stonegate playing fields, I was gone about fifteen minutes. This was hardly foraging at its most difficult. All the elderflowers came from one tree, and I collected about one quarter of a small plastic bag full - which on stripping proved to be half a pint's worth of blossom. I used my new 'birthday jug' to measure this. Though I have yet to turn 42, I spotted Claire coming back to the car this morning with a measuring jug. I did not realise she was trying to be surreptitious, so when she announced she had bought me a birthday present I asked if it was the jug. Apparently this has spoiled the surprise, so she has given it to me - unwrapped - twelve days early.

My Birthday Jug (with elderflowers)

As well as half a pint of elderflowers, this wine also has 3 lbs of rhubarb, 3 lbs of sugar and 7-and-a-quarter pints of boiling water poured over the rest of the ingredients. The rhubarb, being frozen, came to be painfully cold to the touch.

Rhubarb & Elderflower - in a bucket

I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient and pectolase on the rather rainy morning of 3rd June. It was inevitable that the weather for the grandest day of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebration would be mostly drizzle. I left everything in the bucket, stirring twice a day, until Thursday evening, 7th June, which has been another incredibly wet day. I poured the liquid, sieving out the solids, into its demijohn and I have wrapped this in silver foil, to preserve the pink. The wine is not bubbling as frantically as I would like it to, but there is definitely some fermentation going on.