Blackberry Wine - Thirteenth Bottle (C1), 8th February 2019

It being a Thursday, and therefore not a 'Full Bottle of Wine' night, I opened one of my poorer blackberries to go with haggis, mashed potato and cabbage. I think this flavour/vintage suffers from dryness and I wonder if, like grapes, blackberries have better years than others. We only just didn't finish the bottle whilst playing Blokus - an intriguing game of skill and Tetris-like shapes.

Claire had the remainder on Friday night whilst I was playing Octets in Wetherby and hearing about Sheila's horrendous hospital experiences.

Blokus - Red won this game.

Elderberry Wine - Seventh Bottle (A3), 20th January 2019

This was a post-concert bottle. Airedale Symphony Orchestra played Roman Carnival by Berlioz, Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony in Saltaire. The concert went well, but for me it will be remembered as 'The one where I had a coughing fit'. I was trying my best to supress a cough during the violinist's cadenza and ended up turning purple, nearly choking with tears streaming down my face. It was awful. Anyway, back at home I restored myself with a bottle of elderberry wine - which is particularly fine, and a venison sausage and red cabbage casserole.

A view from the stand, during the rehearsal

Crab Apple & Strawberry Wine - Fifth Bottle (1), 23rd July 2016

This was our third bottle of the evening, and between the four of us that is one too many. In our defence, the first was a German white, which had a lower-than-average alcohol content and was too sweet. Also, we retained a veneer of respectability by waiting until we ate before opening this wine. As penance, I have not opened a bottle tonight (Sunday), so moderation rules supreme.

The wine was as good as ever - Rachel picked up a floral taste - and we had a hearty Czech cabbage stew to go with it (and that is nicer than it sounds).

Orange Wine - Eighth Bottle (B5), 31st October 2014

It is not yet ten o'clock and I am massively sleepy. This bottle was pretty much empty by eight. We drank most of it to a particularly colourful and tasty 'the Sick and the Weak' Friday night meal: brown lentils and sea bass that had been in the freezer for quite some time, fried polenta cakes, cabbage and a tomato sauce with searingly hot chillies. After this we watched the first episode of Life Story - a David Attenborough documentary. Claire thought it manipulative and false, and could not forgive tis anthropomorphising. I understand her arguments, but can can you possibly not love something with baby meercats, barnacle geese and lion cubs playing?

Christmas Tutti Fruti - Sixth Bottle (B4), 17th May 2013

Friday night began with gins and tonics at ten past the yard arm and continued from there. It was a wine making night, so I spent most of it surrounded by glass containers and sterilising solution. I racked the orange and transferred both my dandelion and the rhubarb into their demijohns - a sticky process aided by Claire chatting amiably in the kitchen. We were late eating cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and courgettes, covered in a tomato sauce (we both decided that they would have benefitted from some minced lamb) meaning most of a bottle of Christmas Tutti Fruti sent each of us squiffy. So, all in all both a pleasant bottle of wine and pleasant evening in an unremarkable sort of way.

Rhubarb - Bottle B2, 2nd May 2011

I suggested to Claire this morning that we should not have a bottle tonight. She raised an eyebrow and I capitulated. It is, after all, a Bank Holiday Monday, and I will not open another one until Thursday. But we are drinking too much.

I chose Rhubarb before I knew that I would be making this year's batch of rhubarb wine today, so perhaps it was fated. Anyway, the wine was excellent - it is a beautiful colour, with its metallic hint of pink and virtually no other hue. The taste is unusual but in an entirely good way: acidic and semi-sweet, with a hidden fruitiness. We drank it to delicious salt and pepper chicken wings with a Chinese mushroom, cabbage and kim chee (sp?) stew over noodles.