Prune & Parsnip Wine 2019 - First Bottle (B3), 1st February 2020

I think this batch of Prune & Parsnip is paler than previous vintages. That does not affect the taste, however, which is very much Business as Usual.

I opened the wine on Saturday evening after an entertaining day which started with the first rehearsal for Don Giovanni - which I will be playing all the coming week - and ended with Midsomer Murders. In between I visited the Kirkgate Market Food Hall, which is excellent - packed with street food vendors (I had a Vietnamese sandwich), people and some terrific buskers - and went to Carla's leaving party. So it has been a day of many pleasures.

The fabulous buskers - Luna & the Moon

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

Crab Apple & Strawberry Wine - Second Bottle (3), 6th February 2016

I wanted a good bottle of wine for Saturday night. It was the evening that I played in Mozart's Quintet for Piano and Winds at Music Club. And however it was destined to go, something cold, delicious and alcoholic was going to be necessary on my return.

In fact, it went pretty well, though I only just managed to avoid destroying the music in its last few bars. I stopped counting my bars' rest and realised, as the music continued around me, that I would have to come in by guess-work. This was successful, but it spooked me and the demi-semiquaver passage looked alien on the page. I busked the penultimate bar, hoping that playing a repeated E-flat would fit. It did, we reached the last bar successfully and I returned to my seat, knowing that it had been a close call. The wine was welcome.

(In the YouTube video above, it is at 18:11 that I got into trouble. The bassoonist in the clip does it effortlessly, of course.)

Orange - Bottle B3, 7th May 2011

Orange wine was particularly suitable tonight for two reasons. Firstly, I spent some of the evening racking the 2011 batch of Orange wine. The second, and more important, reason was that it went excellently with our evening meal: grilled seabass with a puy lentil salsa, new potatoes and spinach. It was a colourful, flavoursome meal and all of my own making. I got a little stressed in the last moments, where everything needed my attention immediately, but it all came together.

This was after a pleasant and active Saturday. I spent much of the evening, when I was not cooking, putting my 2011 batch of Rhubarb wine into its demijohns. The morning was more exciting: I busked in Leeds Market with a wind quintet as part of the 'Friends of Kirkgate Market' promotion week. We wore purple and black, and played the same 20 minute set three times over in different places. The most thrilling was on a balcony, overlooking the market. But playing where the shoppers were drew bigger crowds and lots of goodwill. The only downside is the continual repetition of 'Teddy Bears Picnic' bouncing around in my brain.