Mixed Flower & Nettle Wine - The Making Of...

Corona Virus may be a disaster in many ways, but it is doing wonders for my step-count. Ever since I started working from home, I have gone on a long walk before work, anywhere between seven and ten kilometres, as part of the government-sanctioned exercise. There are three standard walks I do involving Roundhay Park, Gledhow Valley Woods and Meanwood Park, but even within these I try to vary the route every time. From late March I used these walks to look out for magnolia trees, and then from mid-April my eyes were caught by different shades of lilac.

Magnolia Tree outside St Edmund's

After I had made last month's Magnolia Petal wine, I still had a bag of petals in the freezer, mostly foraged from St Edmund's Church in Roundhay and this gave me the idea to do a mixed flower wine. Dandelions are abundant in our garden and there are two nettle patches in the back, so I had a couple of sessions picking from these and freezing the results. (For the nettles, I only used the tips.)

Lilac Petals

As April reached its end, I would pluck a head of lilac flowers from trees that I passed, hanging over pavements. I found a couple of gorse bushes off Tongue Lane and plucked some petals from these. I even managed to get a couple of wallflowers.

Gorse flowers on Tongue Lane

Quantity-wise, I must remain vague. Probably two pints of magnolia petals, about the same of dandelion heads, a pint each of nettles and lilac, and only lip-service to gorse and wallflowers.

Flowers & Nettles defrosting in my pan

I started making the wine on Saturday 2nd May. I boiled the flowers and nettles, together with the thinly peeled rind of two lemons and half a grapefruit, and 2 lbs 10 oz sugar in 7 pints of water for 20 minutes. Whilst this was going on I squeezed both lemons and the whole grapefruit and put the juice (plus pips and excess flesh) into my bucket with 8 oz minced sultanas. After the 20 minutes was up I poured everything into the bucket.

The mix in the bucket

On Sunday I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient, pectolase and tannin and stirred it once a day. Then on Friday 8th May, after a week's walking holiday spent in north Leeds, I put the wine into its demijohn. It is a pleasing orange colour, but I have my doubts as to how it will taste!

The end result in a bed of nettles

If you want to see how this wine turned out (surprisingly good!), click here.

Magnolia Petal Wine - The Making Of...

On Friday evening, 29th March, I posted a photo on Instagram of a magnolia tree in Horsforth Hall Park. [If you want to follow me on Instagram - my 'name' is @benswinemaking.] At this time of year (and I think particularly this year) magnolias are stunning. They are an attractively shaped tree anyway, with sparse branches at angles designed by architects, and their flowers are individual vases in delicate pink and cream. After posting my photo I received a comment from Lucy [@lajmmm] "Flowers are edible!". This, of course, made me wonder about turning them into wine.

I did a Google search, just to make sure that Lucy was not trying to poison me - she wasn't - and e-mailed Angie and Phil, who have a splendid magnolia tree in their front garden, to ask if I could collect their fallen petals.

Magnolia Petals on Angie and Phil's lawn

On Saturday morning I collected my first small bag of petals after biting into one - it had an odd but not unpleasant taste - took them home, put most of them into the freezer and made magnolia tea out of a couple. The tea had a subtle flavour, but again was not unpleasant. Therefore, I returned on Saturday afternoon, caught up with Angie and Phil's news and collected a larger bag - concentrating on the freshest, most recently dropped petals.

Back at home I followed my dandelion wine recipe entirely. I measured six pints of petals (those in the freezer turned brown on defrosting) and put them in our large pan with the thinly peeled peel of two lemons and an orange. I put in 2 lbs 12 oz of sugar and 7 pints or water, brought this to the boil (a long process) and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Meantime, I squeezed the lemons and orange and put the juice into my bucket with half a kilo of minced sultanas.

Me, looking pleased with my creation

When the magnolia mix had finished its 20 minutes simmer I poured all of it into the bucket. At this stage all the petals had gone brown and the wine looked unappetising (for which, read 'like vile dishwater'). I'm not certain about the smell either (though as the week has gone on, this became more floral with an element of spice, which makes me hopeful about the end result).

Vile dishwater, or something rather exotic?

I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient, pectolase and tannin on Sunday morning, 31st March. On Thursday evening I put the liquid into its demijohn, sieving out all the solids. One might expect Magnolia Petal Wine to be white with a hint of pink. I can report that it is a rather nasty brown. This, however, will be a temporary state of affairs and it will (honestly) clear to a golden yellow.

This will clear to a golden yellow

If you want to see how this wine turned out (and if I was lying about it clearing to a golden yellow), click here.

Inca Berry & Raisin Wine - The Making Of...

An Inca Berry (or Physallis) (or Cape Gooseberry)

Back in April last year, at the Extended Family Do, I was complaining that it was difficult to find a fruit that began with the letter 'I' for my wine alphabet. Adam, being a modern-day technologically connected teenager, pulled out his phone, did a quick search and discovered both Inca Berries and a place that sold their seeds. Now, I know this fruit as 'Physallis' and others call it 'Cape Gooseberry'. However, that the seed packet said 'Inca Berry' is good enough for me to tick the letter 'I', leaving only 'J' and 'Z' to go.

Inca Berry seedlings - taken to Cornwall

We planted the seeds in mid-April, sending a pack to St Albans for Lou and Adam to fail to grow, and took the seedlings with us to Cornwall for a week's holiday in May.

Inca Berry Plants in Summer

By July the plants were putting out flowers - an attractive yellow and brown mix, and by September these had turned into green lanterns surrounding the nascent fruit. This is really where it started to go wrong. Our summer was not hot enough and the autumn not dry enough for the lanterns to turn brown, crack open and reveal a small yellow globe. Some did, but on the whole the lanterns and their fruit inside stayed resolutely green.

Over time Claire and I harvested what we could - even bringing three of the plants inside (this helped) and this weekend, 15th January, I harvested everything that had not gone rotten. Overall, this produced only 1 lb 8 oz of fruit in various stages of ripeness. This is not enough for a batch of wine, but I couldn't waste what had grown, so I have made do with 'Inca Berry and Raisin Wine'.

I mashed the Inca Berries in my bucket (and they made a satisfying 'pop' as I crushed them) and added 1 lb 8 oz of minced raisins. Raisins have their own sweetness, so I added 2 lbs 8 oz sugar (which is half a pound less than I usually add to a wine) and poured in six and a half pints of boiling water. The Inca Berries are perfumed, which gives me hope that this won't be the blandest wine ever made (I think Ya Ya Pear may get that particular prize).

I left the mixture over night and added the yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase and tannin on Monday 16th January. I had earmarked Friday to put the wine into its demijohn, but by the time I returned from practising bassoon pieces with David on the piano, Claire had started a fire, downloaded an episode of QI and opened a bottle of wine, so I left it until this morning, 21st January.

The wine is exceptionally brown, and Claire says it suggests a bad attack of cholera. Yum!

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

Rose Petal Wine 2013 - Final Bottle (B3), 3rd May 2016

We drank this bottle in the evening sunlight, looking out towards the sea. It was a near-perfect end to a near-perfect day, much of which had been spent at the Lost Gardens of Heligan. This proved to be the highlight of our Cornish holiday - the gardens were vast with many distinct sections including 'The Jungle' and an avenue of intensely coloured rhodedendrons. My favourite area was the kitchen gardens, all walled and all containing exciting fruit trees and bushes that made my wine-making thumbs twitch. Worcesterberry. Medlar. Japanese Wineberry. Those names, that exoticism.

Rhodedendrons at Heligan

Gooseberry Wine - Fifth Bottle (2), 30th June-1st July 2015

Glorious summer has arrived. After another depressing WYSO rehearsal, Claire and I sat in the garden drinking gooseberry wine. The sun had already set but the day's warmth remained. We sat and we drank and we talked and the seventeen years ago that we married both shrunk to a moment and expanded to a lifetime. At eleven o'clock we were still outside but drinking whisky. When we decided it was late enough and approached the house I noticed our honeysuckle. It was in full bloom and its scent was Paradise.

Redcurrant - Bottle B6, 12th & 13th May 2011

This wine really is not very good. Though the initial taste is pleasant, it degrades quickly into mustiness. Still, it is a pretty colour. In fact, a glass of this acted as a 'stunt double' for strawberry wine. I needed to send photographs to Home Farmer Magazine for my July article, which is all about wine from strawberries. This bottle was conveniently open, so Claire poured a glass, put it into our wild strawberry patch and took a photo. The readers will never know.

Thursday night's glass (and a half) was after playing trios with Pat and Peter, which were mostly okay, and tonight's has been after a rehearsal with the Harrogate Quintet, which was good. We are practising for a concert to be put on by the Killinghall Flower Society to be held in the parish church. I suggested we play arrangements of 'In an English Country Garden', 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' and 'Lily the Pink' but this was given short shrift.