Xmas Tutti Fruti 2020 - The Making Of...

Christmas this year, in The Year of The Pestilence, has been different around the country. Those in southern England must celebrate alone. In the north, we were allowed to mix with one other household, but only for the day. Claire and I stayed put - our first Christmas in only each other's company since around 2006. And we had a lovely time. Being married to one's best friend is such a gift, and in this year of enforced isolation has been vital.

We spent much of the day on a 12 mile walk, which I had said would be nine, and watching The Crown (now that I have finally relented and subscribed to Netflix). The first thing I did, though, on Christmas Day, was to empty the freezer of fruit, weigh it and put it into the bucket to defrost.

Much of the fruit

In the order in which this came from the freezer, this wine has:

• 1 lb 10 oz blackberries
• 6 oz yellow raspberries
• 2 lbs 9 oz gooseberries
• 2 oz blackcurrants
• 1½ oz rosepetals
• 1 lb 2½ oz elderberries
• 4 oz red raspberries
• 1 lb 9½ oz damsons
• 3 oz red gooseberries
• 1 lb ½ oz sloes
• One clementine (2 oz) (which should have been a satsuma or a tangerine, but never mind)

That all comes to 9 lbs 2 oz of fruit - more than plenty for a double batch.

After attacking the fruit with a potato masher

It defrosted until Boxing Day morn, at which point I attacked the fruit with a potato masher and poured over 12 pints of boiling water. The wine received 5 lbs 11 oz sugar in time, but I only had 3 lbs of sugar at that point in the house, which went in and was stirred until it dissolved.

The discarded fruit

I added two teaspoons of yeast (a new variety - and I checked it was working before adding it), two of nutrient and one of pectolase together with the additional sugar on 27th December. By New Year's Eve, where in normal years we would be in Cambridge, this was ready to go into its demijohn. This was a slow process enlivened by a You're Dead to Me podcast about vampires in Romantic Victorian Literature, and it was clear that I could have used two pints less water in the recipe. The wine is an alarming and wonderful burgundy-with-a-splash-of-purple colour, but it looks like the sediment will be huge.

Two demijohns of alarmingly coloured wine

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2018 - Seventh Bottle (A3), 25th July 2020

We drank this bottle on the start of a week's holiday. It should have been the Rydal Hall week, but Covid 19 has put a stop to that. Instead I will be holidaying in Yorkshire and today that involved a walk in the environs of Hovingham with Bridget and family. It was a delight to see them, and Gemma is getting towards the age that Bridget and I were when we first met at Youth Theatre Yorkshire.

In the evening we had a Zoom chat with Rachel & Duncan in which this bottle was opened and finished. Fruity and zingy, but not zingy enough to keep me awake through Mary Poppins.

Hovingham Hall plus cricket match

Elderberry Wine 2018 - Second Bottle (A3), 19th July 2020

This elderberry wine is still too young. It retains a vaguely metallic taste and has yet to attain a proper depth. It is drinkable, nonetheless, and we did not struggle to finish the bottle.

The day's most notable feature was a long conversation with Paul. I don't think that I have spoken to him for about six years, but we carried on as if it was only yesterday. The circumstances - Ian's death - were tragic, but Paul was philosophical and surprisingly good humoured. He can't get to the funeral, of course, but will come to a future memorial service.

The years fell away as we spoke - as if we were still teenagers, still sitting next to each other in Maths. He (along with Bridget) is the best friend that I have ever had.

Taken on 19 July

Blackcurrant Wine 2018 - Eleventh Bottle (A2), 12th July 2020

Not drunk, but given away. We went round to Lindsay and Anthony's on Sunday afternoon to pick blackcurrants for this year's wine and in payment I took this bottle along. The weather was delightful and we had a lovely hour or so chatting in the garden and plucking fruit from its bush. For a short while, everything felt normal.

Taken on 12 July - this is, in fact, Liz and David

Blackcurrant & Raspberry Wine - The Making Of...

We very much need a larger freezer. And we need to defrost the current one. At this time of year, when soft fruit is abundant, a deep and empty freezer is what one requires. Ours is standard-sized and full. This wine is a direct result.

On Saturday 12th July, Claire and I went round to Lindsay and Antony's house to pick blackcurrants. It was an afternoon well spent in their garden, enjoying the sunshine and seeing friends somewhere other than on a computer screen. We mostly attained social distancing, but we were still in their company, and that was lovely. Their blackcurrants were not as plentiful as in previous years - I suspect that the pruning shears have been out - but we came away with 2 lbs 6 oz.

Our blackcurrants are later, and my original intention was to keep Lindsay and Antony's fruit in the freezer until ours were ready. However, this gave no room for freezing bread and therefore Something Needed To Be Done. I decided that instead of pure blackcurrant, I would bulk up what we had with 10 oz of raspberries. Our raspberry canes have been prolific this year, requiring a daily pick, and the fruit that we cannot have on our porridge, we freeze.

On Friday 17th July I took the blackcurrants and raspberries out of the freezer and left them to defrost in a bowl. I mashed them that evening, poured over 6¼ pints of boiling water and added 2 lbs 12 oz sugar (I think - I am writing this a week later). On Saturday morning I put in a teaspoon each of yeast, pectolase and nutrient.

Over the week I was particularly dilatory in stirring the wine - maybe it got three stirs - and really I should have put it in the demijohn on Wednesday. But it has been a busy week at work, so I left this until Thursday evening. This process was unremarkable - neither pleasantly speedy nor stultifyingly, arse-achingly slow. I have ended up with a demijohn full of purple-bordering-on-the-black wine. I suspect that our blackcurrant bushes will not supply enough fruit this year for a pure blackcurrant wine.

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

Orange Wine 2018 - Fifth Bottle (B6), 5th May 2020

Whilst I am on holiday this week, Tuesday was a day to be idle. On Monday I had walked nearly thirty thousand steps, so a day of doing little was excusable.

We drank this orange wine after a lovely Zoom conversation with Mary. Social isolation is all well and good, but I do miss my friends. We chatted for nearly an hour and a half, covering everything from Jane Austen to haircuts, and then Claire and I shared this orange wine.

Taken on 5th May - 

Socially distancing outside a shop

Blackberry Wine 2015 - Final Bottle (A2), 20th-22nd January 2020

Having had a Negroni and a bottle of low-ish alcohol mulled wine, part of another bottle was in order. I had been instructed not to open anything too nice and entirely failed in that. This wine was one of the best blackberries I have ever tasted: smooth, fruity, delicious. There was a small amount left to finish on Tuesday night when David Wood, who I have probably not seen for 15 years, came round. We had a wonderful evening reminiscing about our trainee-solicitor days in Hull. That was a magical two years.

Taken on 20 January (though I think 2019). 

Can you guess the symphony?

Blackcurrant Wine 2018 - Seventh Bottle (A4), 28th March 2020

This social distancing and lockdown regime does mean that one has to be more inventive with both communication and entertainment. I opened a bottle of blackcurrant wine during a virtual drinks party, where three of my colleagues and I appeared on my phone screen using WhatsApp. Whilst not a perfect success, it was entertaining. Lots of laughter. Then Claire and I finished the bottle whilst watching a concert put together by suggestions from our Newcastle friends, using YouTube. There was a collective enjoyment (though I fell asleep during Shostakovich 5). Despite the circumstances, a good day.

A photo I took on 28th March - it is a good book.

Clementine Wine - Fifth Bottle (4), 25th-29th August 2018

Claire spent the weekend in Oxford playing Ravel's String Quartet. Obviously I was going to have a bottle of wine whilst she was away, but as a loving husband I decided to open something nasty. In fact, Clementine Wine has improved from nearly undrinkable to nearly drinkable. I did not see this as a punishment (though I will still never make it again).

Bank Holiday Monday was a grand day. I took the opportunity to meet up with Vicky Butler, who kept me sane in my second year at Warwick and who I have not seen since 1994. We walked six and a half miles round Curbar Edge and it felt like only a week had gone by.

Curbar Edge, in Derbyshire

Ginger Wine - Second Bottle (6), 4th May 2018

After driving for 7 hours, covering 270 miles, I deserved a drink and, in fact, had many. At least one of those was a glass of ginger wine. We are on holiday on the Jurassic Coast and staying in a fabulous holiday home - Mulberry Cottage in Uplyme, Devon. The weather forecast for the week is promising and sitting with friends drinking too much wine is an excellent way to start a holiday. Though the drive was tedious, it is good to have arrived and this wine was enjoyed by all.

Fig Wine - First Bottle (3), 16th September 2017

Perhaps not quite as good as my previous batches of Fig Wine. But it is still a great bottle. The aroma and taste are distinctly figgy and my one complaint is that a certain depth is absent.

We drank it with Rachel and Duncan in Cambridge, having travelled down for Emily and Marco's wedding the following day. The evening started with rhubarb gin, before moving through a Prosecco and a Riesling before ending up with Fig Wine. As the wine flowed, so did the conversation and good humour and it was just a pleasant evening spent with close friends. Hard to be beaten.

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

Elderflower Wine - Bottle B1, 11th-13th August 2011

I tried to convince Claire that we should drink beer on Thursday - I still have my birthday bottle of Lavender Beer - but she was having none of it. Most of the bottle, though, was drunk on Saturday following an afternoon with Paul and his parents.

I had not seen Paul for two years - the longest I have gone without seeing him since I sat next to him in a Maths lesson when I was twelve. It is reassuring and comforting that I can immediately click back into the solid friendship that has been there for twenty nine years, yet it seems impossible that it could be that long. Whilst not quite yesterday, surely it was only a few weeks ago that we were teenagers interrailing around Europe?

It was a lovely afternoon, only marred by an irritating trip to Sainsbury's on our way home. Why do I get stuck behind people who quibble about cereal? This was made better by a tube of salt & vinegar Pringles and the remainder of the elderflower wine.