Dandelion Wine 2013 - Final Bottle (5), 25th-30th September 2021

NB For the next several entries, I am going to dispense with Date Order, and post them in the order in which they appear in my written diary. This means such narrative that there is (which is very little!) will be somewhat disrupted.

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I saved this final bottle of Dandelion Wine for a special occasion where I could share it with guests, on the basis that with 8 years aging it was likely to be spectacular. Bob, Judith and Susanna were here - only the second time that we have had guests to stay since Covid 19 hit. The wine, however, only served to disappoint. Yes, it was drinkable and had an element of sherry to it. But it was not the rich delicious nectar-like substance that I had anticipated. If anything, it was slightly rank.

No-one had a second glass, even though they stayed another two days. I drank it over the course of the week. The final glass was brown and murky.

Wiggy on 25 September, claiming her space

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

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine 2020 - Second Bottle, 11th-13th April 2021

Sunday was a day of many pleasures. The best of these was spending time in the garden of 60 Heworth Green, huddled around an outdoor stove chatting with Chris, Kate and my parents. It has been months since I have seen any of them and though we were there for only 90 minutes, it was glorious. We were snowed upon but that just made it all the more memorable.

In the evening we had another virtual dinner party with Rachel & Duncan, where this was our second bottle opened, after a bottle of Prosecco to celebrate Cornelia Gruntfuttock's birthday. The wine is excellent and I will save a bottle for Rachel & Duncan to taste when we eventually see them in person.

The snow came later

Spiced Beetroot Wine 2021 - The Making Of...

I last made Spiced Beetroot Wine ten years ago. 2011 seems like a foreign country: they did things differently there. It is worth revisiting this flavour from time to time, not least because of its alarming colour. Also, on the whole my reds are better than my whites - and whilst this is not a traditional red (what with it being made from beetroot) it has the appeal of the unusual.

Not quite enough beetroot

I came home from Chapel Allerton on Saturday noon with not quite enough beetroot. Claire wanted two for her 'Beetroot, Goat's Cheese and Caraway' Bread, leaving me with 2½ lbs rather than the 3 lbs set out in my recipe. However, the bread was superb and I was deviating from my recipe in other ways, so this was no sacrifice at all.

Beetroot, Goats' Cheese and Caraway Bread

I began my wine-making on Easter Sunday, 4th April. Often at Easter we are in Newcastle or hosting Claire's siblings here but those options were impossible for obvious reasons. Instead I spent most the day in the kitchen baking (peanut butter cookies and lemon meringue pie, thank you for asking) and making wine to Classic FM's Top 300 Countdown. I chopped the beetroot into small-ish chunks and put these in my biggest pan with 6 pints of water. This was brought up to the boil and left simmering for 35 minutes.

Chopped Beetroot

Meanwhile, I sliced 2 oz of ginger thinly and put this, the juice of one lemon, 2 lbs 12 oz sugar, 8 oz minced sultanas and 2 pints of cold water into my bucket. Adding sultanas is new - and has been done to give the wine additional body. I put in six or seven shards of clove - some bits looked like really tny cloves - and this is certainly less clove than I have used on past occasions. I also added less than half a teaspooon each of ground cinnamon and mixed allspice. When the beetroot had finished boiling I poured in the water and discarded the vegetable.

Monday morning I added a teaspoon of nutrient and pectolase. I started a teaspoon of yeast in half a pint of sugary lukewarm water and once that was going put that in too.

Fermenting Beetroot Wine

After stirring once a day, I put the wine into its demijohn on Friday, 9th April whilst listening to the extensive coverage of Prince Philip's death. It was a quick job (the wine, not the death) (though that might have been too) and the wine is a pleasing colour. I have wrapped the demijohn in newspaper, however, so that the colour does not deteriorate (which apparently happens with beetroot wine).

A pleasing colour
(NB - I haven't altered the wine colour, just 
removed the green grass from the photo)

Damson Wine - Final Bottle (6), 14th June 2020

This was the bottle that I chose for my 50th birthday. It is such a good wine - rich plum tastes combined with a vanilla smoothness. We drank it to steak in a blue cheese sauce, and then a second birthday cake for pudding.

One of my two birthday cakes

The day was perfect and I should have a significant birthday more often. In the morning Claire and I went for an 8 mile walk, centering on Lead Church. Then we went to York for a socially distant birthday lunch with Mom and Pop in the garden. Back home for a snooze and we finished by Zooming with Chris & Kate, Mom & Pop, and Todd & Anne.

My Birthday Lunch

Lead Church

On the Walk

 

On the Walk

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2016 - Ninth Bottle (A4), 29th May 2020

There has been a fifteen month gap between this bottle and the last of this vintage - mostly because I have been keeping it in the crypt. It is really a very good Tutti Fruti indeed: lots of berry flavour and both sharp and rich. We drank it whilst making Ravioli from the Family Cookbook (and keeping the first cousins updated on WhatsApp). I made the pasta and Claire did the rest. Whilst fiddly and time-consuming, it was an excellent meal. Not one for a dinner-party, however.

A photo I took on 29 May.

Gooseberry 2019 - Second Bottle (6), 24th May 2020

Chris posted on Facebook that he had dusted off the Family Recipe Cookbook and made pineapple chicken. Claire suggested that I do the same whilst she was at work on Sunday, and that we would need a sharp white to go with it. The recipe was remarkably easy, and very 1970s. I spiced it up with an orange pepper, garlic and a couple of chillies, and the result was delicious. It may become a regular dish rather than something remembered vaguely from childhood. Gooseberry wine was exactly the right choice: bone dry, distinctly gooseberry and, as wanted, sharp.

Taken on 24 May: Shadows of 

Leaves on a Birch Tree

Pineapple Chicken

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sherry

1 tblsp sugar

1 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp cold water

1 tblsp corn flour

4 tblsp pineapple juice

1 or 2 celery stalks

1 onion

1 pepper

Clove or two of garlic

A chilli or two

4 tblsp olive oil

4 slices canned pineapple

1 lb chicken pieces (cubes)

Marinate chicken in cornflour, water, salt, sharry, soy sauce for half an hour. Slice celery diagonally, onion and peppers lengthwise, chop chillies (leaving in such seeds as you dare), crush garlic and saute them in the oil until they look about right. My recipe says 2 mins, but that sounds like a ridiculously short time. Add in the chicken until brown. Slice the pineapple in wedges and add with sugar and juice. Simmer until thoroughly heated. Serve hot with rice.

Ginger Wine 2019 - Second Bottle (2), 11th January 2020

Claire has blue hair. It is really very blue indeed. Pretty much the colour of the Tardis. She has been planning this for over a year as a way to mark her 50th birthday. I shrieked when I saw it and then laughed and then decided that it looks fabulous.

Once she had come back from the hairdressers we went up to Newcastle where this ginger wine was the first bottle of the evening and enjoyed by all. Claire's family reacted to her blue hair as one would expect. Andrew asked if she was having a mid-life crisis and Claire replied that now was the time to have it.

Claire's blue hair - yes, really that blue

Rose Petal 2015 - Sixteenth Bottle (C1), 17th May 2019

I took this bottle over to York with me on Friday night, where my parents are entertaining Troy, my second cousin once removed. Apparently I have met him once before; when I was 11; but all I remember is his younger brother's drum kit. He had a Myers' look to him and the same rambling eloquence, and it was a genuine pleasure to meet him. I'm not sure what Troy thought of the wine, though. He had a glass (and also the final, somewhat murky last half glass) but mostly stuck to the beer.

This wine has not aged badly at all - the rose flavour is more subtle than other vintages and it has a slightly sweet but still refreshing taste.

Apple Wine 2016 - Fifth Bottle (4), 9th May 2019

I had meant to bring a bottle of Apple 2017 with me to Kelso, which is a better vintage than this one. Of the five proper bottles I took, this was (for me) the most disappointing. Wendy, though, preferred it to the strawberry.

The day had been spent in North Berwick,  where I met up with cousin Sarah, Rachel and Claire collected shells on the beach, a café took an inordinate length of time to bring a plate of cheese and olives, and we walked up North Berwick Law in the late afternoon sunlight.

At the top of North Berwick Law

Elderflower, Rhubarb and Mint - Sixth Bottle (2), 28th April 2019

We have not had a Parents' Evening for an age - many years - and for this one I wanted to treat the ancestors with some of my best wine. Therefore, we started with a bottle of Elderflower, Rhubarb and Mint (if one does not count the Cosmopolitans). It continues to be an excellent bottle: there is a freshness to it, with I think must be the mint. By the time we reached the dinner table, the wine was mostly gone, so I fished out a blackberry from under the stairs.

We are so lucky to have four parents between us, who we like enormously and who get on fabulously well with each other. It is the very opposite of a soap opera.

Rhubarb Wine - Ninth Bottle (A6), 21st April 2019

On Friday, Claire made a rhubarb and ginger cheesecake, keeping back the liquid as a sauce. Whilst the cheesecake was polished off over Friday and Saturday, we made less impression on the liquid. This proved not to be a problem. Diluted with rhubarb wine, this turned into something rather magical. Sweeter than neat rhubarb wine, with the subtlest of ginger hints, it really was a glorious drink. A perfect way to round off an Easter Sunday. Our house, which had been full of Taylor siblings, now only had us. I love having guests, but not having guests is also good.

The Taylor Siblings

Blackberry Wine - Sixth Bottle (C5), 29th December 2018

We have done the Taylors and now it is the turn of the Hardys. Christmas really is an opportunity to see as many people in as short a time as possible. Our visit to York has coincided with Chris, Rachael, Paul and Myles being here - and I saw Keith and family on the 27th. It has been fabulous to catch up with everyone and I had not seen Chris since early June.

Myles is squarely into his dinosaur phase and three quarters of his presents - socks, books, toys, Bingo - were dinosaur related.

There was plenty of booze in the evening and I contributed this bottle of blackberry. It was rather better than the Parma-Violet flavoured gin on offer.

Rhubarb, Mint & Elderflower Wine - The Making Of ...

Quiet weekends are a marvellous thing. Whereas last weekend was a whistle-stop tour of Newcastle and family, this weekend has had nothing specific planned. A perfect opportunity to indulge in some wine-making. And, in fact, Rhubarb, Mint & Elderflower is one of those wines which requires much of the day to be set aside. I didn't help myself by also deciding to bottle 3 demijohns of blackberry wine. Rinsing and sterilising 18 bottles is perhaps not the speediest or most interesting aspect of the wine-making process.

And elder tree in bloom

On Saturday, 9th June, early afternoon, I set out to Allerton Grange fields with plastic bag in hand. The elderflowers are a week earlier than usual and gave off more pollen than I remember seeing before as I picked them. I concentrated on the blooms with a hint of citrus yellow and only took a few per tree. This bit of the elderflower process takes no time at all and I came away with less than half a bag full.

Not quite a pint of elderflowers and rhubarb sticks

It was the next bit that was tedious in the extreme; stripping the flowers from their stalks. I did this outside so that the tiny flies could roam free (and not end up covering our windows) and it took me over an hour. Even at the start I was not particularly careful about avoiding the thinnest bit of the stalks, and by the end I cared not a jot. This produced a little less than a pint of flowers, which is Good Enough.

Spear mint from our garden

I plucked just over 3 lbs of rhubarb stalks from our garden, sliced these up - they are starting to get woody - and put these in the bucket. I added the elderflowers and a medium sized handful of mint - both pepper and spear (but not water-mint which is unpleasantly bitter) - which I shredded.

The main ingredients in the bucket

I poured in 3 lbs of sugar and 6½ pints of boiling water, gave it all a stir and left it over night. On Sunday morning I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of pectolase & nutrient.

I put this into the demijohn on my birthday (Thursday) whilst drinking pink champagne. The wine will not be suitable for vegans. It has a number of black specks, which I assume are tiny drowned flies. Still, it is a pretty pink colour.

The end result

Fig Wine - Fourth Bottle (1), 18th March 2018

When will it be warm? The weekend has seen yet more snow and I long for a proper Spring. We were in St Albans over Saturday night for Lou's 50th birthday and hot footed it back to Leeds on Sunday morning for a two o'clock rehearsal in Ilkley. Sunday night was spent curled up on the sofa in front of the stove watching Lewis and apologising to the cats. I opened the fig wine for our meal of defrosted leftovers (which was better than that sounds). The wine is lovely - really figgy.

Rhubarb Wine - Eleventh Bottle (C5), 27th December 2017

We have been entertaining this Christmas. Naturally I am always Entertaining (and will fight anyone who disputes this) but our house has been full of people for four days. With Sooz, Bob & Judith having been shipped off, Rachael, Paul, Myles and my parents have come to experience our hospitality. Claire cooked a chicken and mushroom pie and I opened a bottle of rhubarb, though I think I drank most of it myself. My liver needs time to recover.

It was a lovely evening full of food, booze and present opening (mostly for Myles, who is delightful).

What the last week has felt like

Rhubarb Wine - Ninth Bottle (C4), 9th-12th November 2017

On Thursday night, while on a train from London to Leeds, my phone buzzed. A text from Claire read "I have opened a bottle of wine". I sent one back suggesting that she may have chosen Peach & Banana, but was informed that it was 'nice', thus ruling out that flavour. When I returned, several glasses of wine ahead (travelling First Class is marvellous), I found this bottle of rhubarb in the fridge - so poured Claire and I another half glass each. Claire was right; it is a good bottle of wine.

We left the remainder in the fridge whilst we spent the weekend in Newcastle, celebrating Bob & Judith and Richard & Dianne's 50th Wedding Anniversaries. This involved a Barn Dance and lots of beer. I dosy-doed, swung and stripped the willow like a good 'in, driving back to Leeds on Sunday morning with a headache. Half a bottle of wine between us on Sunday was plenty.

Apple Wine and Apple & Strawberry Wine - The Making Of...

Apple Wine

At WYSO in early September, Katie asked me if I had any use for apples. I did a quick mental calculation of how much wine I have made so far this year (result: 'Too Much') and replied that I would be delighted to receive 4 lbs. Her apple tree has been prolific this year, whereas ours is far less fruitful than last.

Blurred apples

On Wednesday 13th September, Katie brought me a carrier bag full of red sweet-smelling apples. I do not know the variety, but they are eaters rather than cookers and have snow-white flesh. On Monday, 18th September, on returning from St Neots and Emily & Marco's wedding - a wonderful family affair enlivened by Mexican food and tequila shots - I had a spare afternoon so started the wine.

I washed the apples, cut them into eight pieces each and whizzed them through the food processor on the 'slice' attachment. Next I minced 1 lb of sultanas, again using the food processor, and put all this into the bucket along with 3 lbs sugar. I boiled 6½ pints of water and poured this over, filling the kitchen with an apple scent. The same evening I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient and pectolase.

On Thursday night, 21st September (after 'Caramel Week' on Bake Off) I put the liquid into its demijohn in the usual manner. There was only just enough and I had to squeeze the discarded pulp for its last drops. The wine is brown and has a large head of foam. I'm wondering if I have made a real ale.

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

Apple & Strawberry

Our apple tree has not been fecund this year, so I am leaving most of the fruit to the blackbirds. However, by early November, enough apples had fallen off intact for me to collect 4 lbs and make Apple & Strawberry Wine.

I sliced up the apples on 2nd November using the same method as set out above and added these to my bucket containing 1 lb of crushed strawberries. I poured over 6½ pints of boiling water, again releasing a fabulous scent, and then stirred in 3 lbs of sugar.

I transferred the liquid to its demijohn on Tuesday evening, 7 November. The wine is pinker than last year and the taste I got promises great things.

The Apple is on the left, after 6 weeks in its demijohn

Blackberry Wine - Tenth Bottle (B4), 8th-9th October 2017

A bitter-sweet bottle of wine, and that does not describe the flavour, which was full and fruity. This was our first bottle after a fabulous week in Corfu, where we had blue skies, golden beaches (only one of which contained nudists), mountain walks and wonderful food. I came back, though, to the news that Aunt Jennifer had died. She was a woman I liked enormously and there is an empty space where she should be. Everyone has their time - but it should always last just that little bit longer.

The distant sandy beach had more bare flesh than you can shake a stick at

Prune & Parsnip Wine - Eighth Bottle (A3), 29th September 2017

I hadn't meant to open this bottle, but it was clear that once the elderberry was empty something further was required. And we are officially on holiday (Corfu on Sunday!) so there is excuse enough.

Rachael, Paul and Myles were here to help us share the wine (well, not Myles - he's four) and of the three bottles, this was Rachael's least favourite - too sherry-like. We discussed the Hardy method of washing up and how Rachael and I are both excellent at balancing clean dishes to dry. I wonder if Chris and Keith at both similarly good.