Rose Petal & Orange Wine 2019 - Fifth Bottle (4), 11th July 2021

We had another virtual dinner party with Rachel & Duncan on Sunday night and this was our bottle of choice (after a small whisky smash). The food was a Turkish dish: Lemon & Apricot Cinnamon Chicken: so something involving rose petal for the wine was perfect. There was a more pronounced orange flavour than I had remembered, but that wasn't a bad thing. The meal was sumptuous - and easy to make. And then for pudding I produced a white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake.

White Chocolate & Raspberry Cheesecake

Rose Petal and Orange Wine 2019 - Fourth Bottle (1), 22nd May 2021

Lockdown has taken a significant move towards release. We can now visit people indoors and stay over night. Our first visit, therefore, was to York where we spent Saturday night with my parents, the Eurovision Song Contest and this bottle of Rose Petal & Orange which I think everyone enjoyed. It retains its buttery smoothness.

Spending time with Mom & Pop was wonderful and, of course, immediately felt normal. Getting rapidly drunk on a Saturday night at Heworth Green is such a pleasure! As was Eurovision - as ridiculous and camp as ever. And we watched it exchanging WhatsApp messages with Todd & Anne, who were sharing the experience 8,000 miles away. 

A picture I took in York the following day

Rose Petal & Orange 2018 - Fourth Bottle (1), 11th March 2021

We are watching some traumatic things on television at the moment: Unorthodox about a woman escaping a closed and oppressive community, It's A Sin about the 1980s AIDS crisis, Unforgotten about a young man's murder in the 1970s and The Crown about a woman escaping a closed and oppressive community. On Thursday night it was a pleasure to watch Taskmaster and drink a bottle of Rose Petal & Orange wine. Taskmaster is necessary light relief and the wine was far better than I remembered this vintage being. There was certainly a more pronounced rose than orange taste, but it was a refreshing, light drink.

The Red Pepper didn't appreciate being an ingredient

Rose Petal & Orange Wine 2019 - Third Bottle (6), 12th December 2020

I opened this bottle after an abortive attempt at Apple & Strawberry 2018. Saturday night needs a good bottle of wine; not one that is only just on the right side of 'drinkable'. And this wine is excellent - smooth, unusual and delicious.

The Snarkalong Film Club was Dirty Dancing - last seen in 1991 with my awful ex-girlfriend (also called Claire) and I hated it then - probably because ex-Claire loved it. Anyway, without that baggage it was better. Not a masterpiece, certainly, but okay (and so very 80s).

Taken on 12th December

Rose Petal & Orange 2018 - Third Bottle (3), 14th November 2020

I spent Saturday feeling out of sorts. The day was dank and little could lift my mood. Whilst we are being told that there is a vaccine on the horizon, I shall believe it when I see it. A bottle of Rose Petal & Orange helped - it is not as good as 2019's batch, but actually it is not half bad. Perhaps both flavours are too strong, but only slightly - and it goes well with stir-fried Kim Chi. We then watched A Knight's Tale which is gloriously anachronistic and just a huge amount of fun. That helped too.

Playing around with my camera on 14 November

Rose Petal & Orange Wine 2019 - Second Bottle (2), 11th September 2020

We are in Newcastle! This is the first time that we have stayed away from home since late March, but we thought spending time with Claire's family before an inevitable second Lockdown occurs was important. I brought one of my best wines with me and we drank it to a take-out curry. This flavour was possibly overpowered by the spices and heat of the food, but still excellent with its buttery smoothness. It was just lovely sitting round the table with Bob & Judith - and tomorrow Sooz and Andrew will be with us too.

The entrance to Gipton Woods, taken on 11th September

Rose Petal & Orange Wine 2019 - First Bottle (5), 12th July 2020

When I bottled this wine earlier this week, Claire suggested that there were some wines for which I did not need to wait a year before drinking. This one, being delicious on bottling, was a prime example. I took it round to David & Liz's for a (garden) dinner party, and the wine was properly good: it was smooth, delicate (not something often said of my wines) and delightful. Everyone genuinely liked it - and none of Phil, Angie, David, Liz or Claire are shy of telling me when my wine is horrid.

It was a lovely evening, and only not-normal in that we all brought our own plates, glasses and eating implements, and we spent the entire time outdoors, which meant that the party was only broken up by the falling temperature.

Angie and Phil at the dinner party

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

Rose Petal & Orange Wine 2018 - Second Bottle (5), 12th-13th March 2020

I think that this wine has improved a little through keeping: there is a hint of butter to its taste. The rose petal is dominant but the orange is there and helps.

I was home along on Friday night and drank half the bottle to the series finale of Doctor Who, which was actually quite good. The country is currently in the grip of Pandemic Panic - supermarket shelves are empty of pasta and toilet paper. The only thing that I am stockpiling is wine.

One of our cats, unbothered by Pandemic Panic

Rose Petal & Orange Wine 2019 - The Making Of...

This year I have scaled back my rose petal wine production. I think that I have more bottles of rose petal in the house than any other flavour and 2018's vintage was poor. Going cold-turkey, though, was never the plan so I have made a single batch of rose petal & orange.

The Rose Petals

Obviously November is not the time of year to be gathering rose petals. In anticipation of this flavour, I started freezing roses past their first flush of youth from June. Mostly they were white roses, as that is our most prolific bush, but I did manage to get a few reds in there as well.

Oranges are available all year round so I left this wine until November and I decided to buy my oranges from the Fruit Stall in Chapel Allerton, albeit that this meant the wine is about 80p more expensive than it might otherwise be. They were large and juicy oranges, though, and I only needed five of them.

On Saturday evening, 2nd November, I thinly peeled one orange and covered its peel with a pint of boiling water, leaving this to one side. I then juiced all five oranges, which gave me a pint of juice, and put this in my bucket. Next I measured two pints of frozen rose petals, which is half what I used last year, and put these into the bucket with 3 lbs of sugar. I boiled 5-and-a-half pints of water and poured this in, releasing a heady aroma. On Sunday morning I added the water that had been covering the peel (but not the peel) and a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase.

The wine in its bucket

Ordinarily I would have put this in its demijohn on Thursday or Friday, but I was out both nights, so it waited until Saturday morning, 9th November. It was a quick job and I am left with a peach-coloured liquid.

The colour on racking was beautiful - a light dusky orange - and the wine has cleared entirely. I couldn't tell from my tiny sip, however, whether this was going to be any good or not. It didn't need much sugar, but I dissolved 2 oz in half a pint of water and poured that in.

The wine when first in its demijohn

If you want to see how this wine turned out (hint: very well indeed), click here

Rose Petal & Orange 2017 - Final Bottle (2), 9th-10th November 2019

This was one of those bottles that improves on having been opened for a day. I served it up at the Wine Party, where it came a disappointing 8th out of 12 with an average score of 2.8. Cornelia wrote that it was inoffensive, and I was inclined to agree. However, on Sunday David and Liz came over to help us polish off what remained and this wine was transformed. It had become fuller, more buttery and far better as a result. And there I was thinking that oxygen ruined wine.

Rose Petal & Orange Wine - First Bottle (2), 25th-26th July 2019

Thursday was the hottest July day this country has ever had. It broke 38 degrees in Cambridge, though was five degrees cooler in Leeds. Claire had a piano quartet around and they had been due to play in the attic, but the heat would have been unbearable. Instead they played in the dining room and when I returned home from Pat & Peter's, they were in the garden enjoying the balmy night and drinking rose petal & orange wine.

This vintage is not as good as last year's: there is a touch of the bitter and it feels too heavy. Not a bad wine, just not a special one. However, the colour is glorious.

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

Rose Petal & Orange Wine - Fifth Bottle (3), 5th May 2019

Our week's holiday in May this year is Kelso in the Scottish Borders. We are staying in a splendid Georgian merchant's house that makes me feel like I am a member of the landed gentry. I have brought some of my best wine with me, and this was the first of my bottles opened. We had just returned from a 14-mile walk in the Cheviots and College Valley. Both walk and wine were excellent.

The house in which we stayed

Rose Petal and Orange Wine - Fourth Bottle (6), 3rd February 2019

I very much enjoyed this wine - there is something smooth and buttery about its taste - not something one would expect in a wine involving orange. It was so good that I have decided this year to forego rose petal wine and only make rose petal & orange instead.

Some of Sunday was spent at Bradford Industrial Museum, which I had not heard of before. It is a fantastic place full of steam driven engines and percussive clanking filling the building.

Engines at Bradford Industrial Museum

Rose Petal & Orange Wine - Third Bottle (4), 26th December 2018

Boxing Day should be spent walking vigorously over bleak hills in the cold air. Mostly I spent it sat on a sofa reading And Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris (an excellent book - my second time through). Claire, Sooz and I managed a sojourn to Seaton Sluice where Claire spent her time looking for shells and I slithered around on the rocks, but where very little energy was expended.

Seaton Sluice

Back at 3 The Alders, Claire opened this bottle and everyone enjoyed it. Bob detected licorice, but no-one else got that. Sooz identified the citrus but failed to pick up on the rose, whereas I think the rose is dominant.

Rose Petal & Orange Wine - Second Bottle (5), 24th-25th October 2018

Wednesday evening was dominated by Beethoven. We are playing his Sixth Symphony at WYSO, and it is a long, high blow for first bassoon. By the end of the evening my lip had collapsed and a restorative glass of wine was welcome. Rose petal & orange is a great mix: complex and interesting. Towards the end of my glass I added a dash of whisky and I thought that worked too (though Claire tried it and disagreed).

On Thursday we finished the bottle to The Great British Bake Off's semi-final - which had been ruined for me earlier in the day by a colleague who revealed the result. I told him "Actually, I'm very cross about that". He is only new to the firm, and young - so maybe I overreacted.

Rose Petal Wine and Rose Petal & Orange Wine 2018 - The Making Of...

Roses in our garden

This summer has been good for roses. Our white rose has produced blooms in abundance and the red rose doubled its output from last year's two flowers. Meanwhile in my parents' garden Pop has been under strict orders to collect as many roses as are available. Claire and I went over on Saturday 14th July to visit, though in truth the primary reason was to collect rose petals rather than filial duty. Mom has been away in Nebraska and I do try to see my father at least once when she is absent. Collecting wine ingredients is as good an excuse as any. It was a lovely evening - Pop cooked us smoked mackerel, a food I disliked as a child but now love, and we chatted about friends and family.

Rose in my parents' garden

Back home, on Sunday morning, I started the wine and again have made a double batch of rose petal and a single batch of rose petal & orange. For the 'pure' rose petal I measured 8 pints of rose petals and put them in the bucket. I minced 1 lb of sultanas, juiced two oranges and measured 5½ lbs of sugar. All these went in the bucket, were covered with 15 pints of boiling water and stirred round until the sugar dissolved (Liz had come round and helped with this bit).

The rose petal & orange was more fiddly. I began by peeling three oranges very thinly, doing an excellent job of avoiding the pith (for once). I put the peel in a bowl and covered it with a pint of boiling water. I then juiced six oranges (including those three) giving me a pint of orange juice. This and 4 pints of petals went into a bucket with 3 lbs sugar and 5½ pints of boiling water.

Most of the ingredients for both wines

That evening I put yeast, nutrient, pectolase and tannin into each wine (1 teaspoon of each of the last three into the orange, about a teaspoon and a half into the pure). On Monday morning I poured the water that had previously covered the peel into the rose petal & orange, throwing out the peel.

The wine went into its demijohns on Friday evening, 20th July, with all solids having been strained out. All demijohns are brick orange in colour, with rose petal & orange being ever so slightly darker.

The Rose Petal & Orange is on the left

If you want to see how the Rose Petal & Orange turned out, click here.

Rose Petal & Orange Wine - First Bottle (1), 2nd July 2018

This is a fabulous bottle of wine and definitely one to make again. The rose flavour is detectable without being overpowering and the orange gives it a zing. There is something refreshing and light about this wine.

Though it is a Monday night, we are technically on holiday, so having a bottle of wine is Fine. Yesterday was our 20th wedding anniversary, so we spent it in a posh hotel near Yarm. Today we stopped at Leake Church on the A19, something I have been meaning to do for a decade, and for which we had time today. It is a charming church with a twelfth-century tower, surrounded by eighteenth and nineteenth century gravestones, and well worth a stop.

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

Rose Petal Wine and Rose Petal & Orange Wine - The Making Of...

When Claire and I were married, 19 years ago, Betty Rumsby gave us rose vouchers as a wedding present. We bought two, both white. One was a rambler which produced a fine array of blousy roses and it was with sadness that we had to leave this when we moved house. The other was a bush. We planted this in the front garden that had no sunlight and dreadful soil. It put out the occasional rose but mostly sat and sulked. We took this with us and finally it is happy. This year it produced several white roses with a scent of sherbet and as they faded I collected the petals for my wine.

Our Rose

This and the photo on the top

left are two of my mother's roses

Meanwhile, Mom was also busy snipping roses from her garden - a mix of pink and red - freezing them and handing them over when our lives coincided. By Wednesday 5th July I had enough for my wine making plans.

That day I measured out 8 pints of rose petals, the amount required for a double batch, and put them in my bucket with 1 lb of minced sultanas, the juice from two oranges and 5½ lbs of sugar. I poured over 15 pints of boiling water (releasing a fabulous perfume), left it over night and added the yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase and tannin.

This year, at Claire's suggestion (and she is Always Right), I have also experimented by making a Rose Petal & Orange wine single batch. On Saturday 8th July - a day on which I have done little but enjoy the summer weather - I thinly peeled three oranges, avoiding the pith, and covered their peel with a pint of boiling water. I measured out 4 pints of rose petals and put these in the bucket with the juice from six oranges (nearly a pint of liquid) and 3 lbs sugar (so no sultanas this time, hence the increased sugar ratio). I poured over 5½ pints of boiling water and left it over night. Next morning I added the water covering the peel (though not the peel itself, which was discarded), the yeast and a teaspoon of each of the chemicals.

I put the Rose Petal Wine into its demijohns on Monday 10th July and the Rose Petal and Orange into its demijohn on Thursday 13th July, fishing out a dead beetle before I did so. The overall colour of both wines is a pinky-orange, but the Rose Petal & Orange has a lighter house-brick colour and is the more attractive.

The Rose Petal & Orange is on the left - but

it is difficult to discern the colour difference.

If you want to see how the Rose Petal & Orange turned out, click here.