Blackberry Wine 2020 - Sixth Bottle (A3), 19th September 2021

Blackberry Wine feels like a proper Sunday night bottle. One that you can relax into like a favourite sofa. It had been a gentle weekend full of entirely pleasurable nothing much. On Sunday that involved walking the suburbs of North Leeds in search of elderberries and making both bread and a ginger & marmalade cake (note to self: the marmalade was a flavour too far). Then in the evening we had a Padian chicken curry, drank this wine and watched The Crown. The curry involved me sucking on a chili by mistake. Emergency yoghurt was required.

Ginger & Marmalade Cake

 

Gooseberry Wine 2020 - Fourth Bottle (2), 17th October 2021

Sunday night was our monthly Zoom Dinner Party with Rachel & Duncan, and that required a bottle of something decent. The menu was Prawn Curry and a dhal (dahl?), meaning the wine needed to be a sharp white. This describes gooseberry perfectly and neither the bottle nor the food disappointed. Again we had a lovely, boozy evening and once the Zoom call had ended Claire and I cut ourselves a slice of Gugelhupf (bless you!) I had made earlier in the day and watched The Crown.

The Gugelhupf

Strawberry Wine 2020 - Second Bottle (2), 29th August 2021

I took this bottle to an impromptu barbecue at David and Liz's on Sunday evening, knowing this to be one of Liz's favourites. It was the last of three bottles drunk, which is perhaps too much between four (particularly as Claire had only a sip of this one), but when it is a bank holiday the next day, who's counting? This strawberry vintage is excellent and Liz and David both thought it akin to a proper rosé. It was a lovely way end a day that had been full of chores (one of which was making a damson cake - the result of which was a triumph despite my misgivings).

Damson Cake

Orange Wine 2020 - Fourth Bottle (B4), 15th August 2021

It was my first full day back home after two glorious weeks on holiday, and it was a restful, relaxing near-ordinary day. Okay, so I did about two and a half hours work, but I also made a cake (gooseberry orange drizzle), had a short walk, bathed with Claire, started my blackcurrant wine and watched an episode of The Crown. We also drank this bottle of orange wine to smoked haddock fishcakes, which was an excellent combination. Both are strong flavours and I could understand not liking either. However, I think both are fab!

Gooseberry & Orange Drizzle Cake

Elderberry Wine 2016 - Final Bottle (B4), 26th September 2021

This wine accompanied a roast dinner, where nut roast was the star. Then we had Golden Raspberry & White Chocolate Cheesecake, which was truly fabulous. The wine was a little disappointing in comparison: okay without being special, despite its age. Many Taylors were here and it was a delightful weekend. Unlike the previous two times that we have seen Bob, there was no requirement for an ambulance!

The Cheesecake - an overview

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

Blackcurrant Wine 2019 - Eleventh Bottle (B5), 27th June 2021

A Sunday bottle of wine. The day had been quiet, though pleasant. We had meant to go to York, but the car being repaired at the garage put a stop to that. Probably it is time to replace it, but that prospect does not fill me with joy. Instead I made a Coffee & Cranberry Loaf.

We drank this blackcurrant wine, which is excellent, to a roast chicken dinner and some of the best gravy that Claire has ever made. It is the redcurrant jelly that makes the difference.

Cranberry & Coffee Loaf

Apple & Strawberry 2018 - Fifth Bottle (4), 19th-20th June 2021

After opening this on Saturday we decided that we wanted something rather better, drank a bottle of Xmas Tutti Fruti, and then returned to this bottle for extra room-spinniness. It isn't a terrible bottle of wine, but there is a hint of the bitter. There was a glass each remaining for Sunday - a day which I mostly spent in the kitchen making Delia's ragu (superb!) and a Rhubarb & Custard cake (rather less so). On the whole a quiet and gentle weekend.

Rhubarb & Custard Cake in the making

Rhubarb Wine 2021 - The Making Of...

Sunday 9th May was a day for domestic tasks. Most Sundays are. Ever since I made a cake for Claire's birthday in January, and thereby discovering that I could, I have used Sunday mornings to make a cake or similar to keep us in treats throughout the week. This Sunday it was my Aunt Jennifer's Traveler's Biscuit Cake - neither cake nor biscuit but somewhere in between and the winning combination of delicious and easy.

Traveler's Biscuit Cake - neither cake nor biscuit

Most of the rest of Sunday was occupied by wine-making. I racked my orange and bottled both the crab apple and the crab apple & strawberry. But the day's main task was starting this year's rhubarb wine.

Rhubarb in the front garden

All rhubarb used this year is home-grown. Last year Claire relocated several rhubarb plants into our front garden, which gets the sun nearly all day. This year they are thriving and these were the plants that produced most the rhubarb for the wine. In comparison, our rhubarb in the back is a sickly cousin; limp and weedy.

Freshly picked rhubarb

With judicious picking of stalks, I got 3 lbs 12 oz. Whilst I could have got another 2 lbs 4 oz for a double batch, I decided to do a single instead. We have plenty of rhubarb wine dotted around the house and I should start decreasing our excess.

Rhubarb sticks being washed

I chopped 3 lbs of rhubarb stalks thinly (after washing them, of course) and put these in the bucket with 3 lbs sugar. I boiled up just over 6 pints of water and poured this in, stirring to dissolve the sugar. On Monday morning I added the yeast, pectolase and nutrient (a teaspoon of each) and I was moderately diligent at stirring once a day throughout the week.

Rhubarb chopped thinly

The wine went into its demijohn on Friday evening, 14th May, after a hugely busy day at work - by early afternoon I was on the honey & lemon to ease my throat. I had spent the day on call after call. Anyway, the wine making tasks were relatively quick and I now have a demijohn of pale pink liquid bubbling away.

The rhubarb in its demijohn

Blckcurrant Wine 2019 - Ninth Bottle (A3), 28th March 2021

Sunday was a day full of domestic chores. The best of these was making Blondies with Peanut butter-cream icing (calorie content: astronomical) but there was also much sweeping and tidying. Not that there is anyone allowed to visit until 17th May, but sometimes I get fed up of living in grime. 

In the evening I opened this bottle of blackcurrant wine - which was as tasty a bottle as blackcurrant can be - and we had a beef & spring onion stir-fry courtesy of Padian Foods. Blisteringly hot as ever - which is not a bad thing. Then Line of Duty and a sleep interrupted by two mice gifted by Wiggy.

Blondies - they were fabulous!

Rhubarb Wine 2016 - Fifteenth Bottle (A3), 21st March 2021

From recent experiences of ancient wine, I had expected this bottle to end up poured down the sink. It is therefore with unanticipated pleasure that I can report the wine was in the realms of Quite Good. There was a rhubarb taste, subtle but present, and no huge globs of sediment.

Sunday was a lazy day - I had left it empty to recover from my Covid vaccine side-effects, but as these consisted of an uncomfortable arm, I could have been more active. I baked a cake (coffee & coconut), finished my book (Out of the Shelter by David Lodge) and watched two hours of television (The Crown and  Line of Duty - a new series). Often lazy Sundays are just what I need.

Coffee & Coconut Cake

Orange Wine 2021 - The Making Of...

One of the 'First World Problems' caused by Covid 19 is the sheer amount of queuing that it creates. Whilst one might point to the 120,000 deaths in the UK, the mental health crisis, the vast unemployment and the failure to see loved ones, it was the time spent standing in lines that annoyed me most on Saturday, 6th March. The greengrocer, the butcher and the post office all had long, slow-moving queues and by the time that I got home Claire had to calm me down with cake.

A crate of 24 oranges

Making things better, though, the greengrocer had set aside a box of 24 oranges for me - large Spanish oranges looking like they had been plucked from their tree mere hours ago. 

I started making my wine that afternoon by thinly peeling half of the oranges and covering the peel in two pints of boiling water. This is always the most tedious bit of making orange wine and this year I separated it out of the process by making it my first task, leaving the orange peel to percolate in its water for 24 hours. I did a particularly poor job of avoiding the pith and if this wine turns out too bitter, that will be the explanation. 

A particularly poor job of avoiding the pith

On Sunday afternoon, 7th March, I squeezed all 24 oranges - changing hands every three oranges so as to avoid a painful and overused shoulder. This is a sticky job and required frequent handwashing.

Some of the oranges with outer skin removed

With the oranges being larger than most years I got far more juice - 6 pints (including all the bits of flesh). I added 6¾ pints of cold water and the two pints of water that had been covering the peel. Into this I poured 5½ lbs of sugar and gave it a good stir. I then started 2 teaspoons of yeast fermenting in half a pint of water with a teaspoon of sugar and put this into the mix once fermentation had begun. I added a teaspoon of pectolase and 1½ teaspoons of nutrient. Though my usual timetable would have me putting the wine into its demijohn on Friday, it was Book Group that night (Grownups by Marian Keyes - hated by some, loved by others) so I did this all on Saturday 13th March instead. There was little to sieve out so the process was quick. I am left with two demijohns of pure sunshine.

Two demijohns of sunshine

Damson Wine 2020 - First Bottle (2), 7th March 2021

Ordinarily I would wait another five months before opening this bottle. However, I snapped the string when corking it, so we drank it as a young wine. It isn't bad at all - whilst not reaching the heady heights of Damson 2018, it was a light and fruity red that was pleasant drinking. Now that I know where there is a damson source, this could become a regular.

Sunday mostly involved making cake and wine. The cake was a date, apple & walnut Tea Loaf, and was superb. Cake making is pleasingly easy. The wine was orange, and you will be able to read about that elsewhere on this blog. I also finished Grownups by Marian Keyes - a book that I was prepared to sniff at, but which was compulsive and I was sad to have finished.

The Tea Loaf

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

Rhubarb Wine 2017 - Final Bottle (C5), 28th February 2021

Sunday felt like the second day of Spring. There were blue skies all day and it could have been late April. It was a perfect day to walk 13 miles, taking in Newlay Bridge, the Leeds-Liverpool canal and Kirkstall Abbey. The population of Leeds was out, enjoying the release that good weather brings.

Once home I made a chocolate cake and we spent the evening eating fish pie and watching The Crown. A bottle of rhubarb wine figured, and during this Claire floated the idea of maybe drinking real wine more often than we do might be nice.

Kirkstall Abbey behind a carpet of crocuses.

Gooseberry Wine 2020 - First Bottle (6), 21st February 2021

Claire requested a wine that was white and sharp and nice. Though I ran through a few options that fulfilled two of the three, the end result as always going to be Gooseberry. I am also being trained by Claire to break my rule of waiting a year before having the first bottle of anything. Her argument is that if the wine is nice at the point of bottling, why wait any longer? As always, she has a point.

This gooseberry wine was fabulous - white and sharp and nice.

The day had been a typical Sunday - make a cake in the morning (Cranberry Bread - a total success) and go for a local walk in the afternoon. Happily the gang of threatening looking teenagers I encountered down an alleyway merely said "Hello" rather than mug me.

Cranberry Bread

The recipe.

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

Prune & Parsnip Wine 2021 - The Making Of...

Saturday 6th February was a dismal day. I woke to heavy rain and it did not let up throughout the lighted hours. When Claire suggested that I drive to collect the week's groceries rather than walk to Chapel Allerton, I took little persuading. Whilst I prefer to buy my parsnips from the independent Fruit Stall, carrying home 4 lbs of them together with my other shopping in a downpour would have been entirely miserable, so I drove to Sainsbury's instead.

Prunes and Parsnips

I left the wine-making until Sunday, 7th February, which was a much more productive and happy day. I managed to have a 5 mile walk, do a modicum of bassoon practice, make a 'Fly Leg' cake (no flies were harmed in the process) and make my Prune & Parsnip wine. The wine making was done whilst listening to the whole of Hansel and Gretel on Radio 3 - such a fabulous opera, and I know nothing else by Humperdinck.

Parsnips, sliced and in the pan of water

Anyway, to make the wine I sliced 4 lbs of parsnips into small bits and put them into 16 pints of cold water, bringing this up to the boil and then simmering for 20 minutes. (This was done in two lots.) Meanwhile, I snipped up 1 lb of prunes, each prune into 4 or so pieces, and put these in my bucket along with 5 lbs 8 oz sugar. When the parsnips had boiled their 20 minutes, I poured the water into the bucket through a colander and threw out the vegetables.

An enthusiastic fermentation

On Monday morning I added a teaspoon of pectolase, a teaspoon and a half of nutrient and two teaspoons of yeast (though I started the yeast first in a jug with a bit of sweetened water, because I am suspicious of this yeast brand). The wine fermented enthusiastically in its bucket until Saturday morning, 13th February, at which point I put it into its two demijohns, this time listening to Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite. The wine is far lighter, far more golden, than it has ever been before.

The wine in its demijohns

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2016 - Eleventh Bottle (B5), 28th-29th January 2021

Claire's verdict on this bottle was 'Better than a midweek bottle, not quite good enough for the weekend'. That is quite niche in its categorisation. My verdict is that it has the dryness of real red wine but (despite all its fruit) neither its complexity or depth. I had planned a booze-free night on Thursday but Claire returned from work irritated by bureaucracy so I was easily persuaded. Also I had a rare day of feeling low about the virus. Thursday's continuous drizzle didn't help.

Photo taken on Sunday,
Cake finished on Thursday

Elderberry Wine 2018 - Fifth Bottle (A4), 24th January 2021

Claire still thinks that this elderberry is a little young. I'm not certain that I agree. There is a hint of fizz, which is never that positive an attribute in red wine. 

A panorama from my walk

Sunday was a fabulous day, despite an under-par bottle of elderberry. I had a frosty 8 mile walk (bumping into Zoe), made a Victoria Sponge (I have decided that I now make cakes), played Scrabble with my mother, ate sausages, finished the bread & butter pudding, watched The Crown and had an hour's call with Paul.

Bumping into Zoe

Blackberry Wine 2019 - Eighth Bottle (B5), 23rd January 2021

I dug out a bottle of Orange 2016 for Saturday night, but on one sip that was rejected and Claire requested something nice. Blackberry wine satisfied that job description and helped round off a gentle yet enjoyable Saturday. I turned the remaining bit of the Sicilian Lemon & Orange Cake into a fabulous bread & butter pudding and our Snarkalong Film Club was Galaxy Quest. This was charming and funny and sweet natured, and it appealed to the barely-hidden science-fiction geek within.

Wiggy, looking as if 
butter wouldn't melt

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2019 - Third Bottle (B4), 17th January 2021

Little Miss Muffet 

On Sunday evening we had a Zoom High Tea with Mary. Our theme was 'nursery rhymes'. Claire made Little Miss Muffet and the terrifying spider from meringue. Alas, Mary is a vegetarian, so she was unable to have a little lamb, but instead took on the Queen of Hearts' persona and made some tarts. I made a Sicilian Orange and Lemon cake - which only has a tenuous connection - but it was excellent. As light as any panettone. We didn't mean to finish this bottle of wine, but somehow it slipped down just a little too well.

My Sicilian Orange & Lemon cake