Strawberry Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

Kemps Farm - the Pick Your Own

Six weeks ago it was not clear whether I would be able to make strawberry wine this year. With all but essential shops closed and everyone self-isolating to conquer Covid 19, it seemed unlikely that a Pick Your Own farm in Horsforth would be open. However, there has been a relaxing of rules since June, and from 4th July pubs, restaurants and hairdressers were allowed to trade again. Compared to these, squatting in a field, picking strawberries, strikes me as a low risk activity. Safety measures have been put in place, however. Entrance was by ticket only (at a cost of £2, which I do think is a cheek - but I am supporting a local business) and I had to book my slot so that the Farm could stagger its customers.

I chose 10 a.m. on Sunday morning, 5th July, and was the first to arrive (at about ten to). The farmer looked at my baskets, said "You look like a serious picker" and directed me to what he said was the best field. I had it to myself for about the first half hour and this year the fruit was far better than last. It was more plentiful and riper, and I did not feel like I had to fight for each strawberry. 

Picking strawberries for nearly an hour, watching clouds scudding across the blue sky, was a pleasant way to spend Sunday morning - though crouching for that length of time is never comfortable. Of course I picked far more than the 4 lbs I needed for this recipe and 1 lb for a wine later in the year.

Back at home I washed the strawberries twice, hulling them in the process. I put 4 lbs in my bucket, mashed them and poured over 4 pints of boiling water. On Monday I sieved the fruit out, putting this into a separate bowl (the liquid stored temporarily in a demijohn) and covered the fruit in 2 pints of cold water. About an hour later I drained the fruit again - keeping this liquid for the wine - and I put the fruit pulp on the compost.

All liquid went into the bucket with 3 lbs sugar and a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient, pectolase and tannin. On Friday 10th July it all went into the demijohn and is a pleasing light red.

Apple & Strawberry Wine 2016 - Final Bottle (4), 3rd-4th May 2020

Claire was at work the two nights that I drank this wine and that was partly why I chose it. I had remembered it being thin and uninteresting: my memory had not let me down. My days were excellent, though. On Sunday I walked most of the Meanwood Valley Trail and watched Jesus Christ Superstar. On Monday I walked a circle that took in Kirkstall Abbey. This 'being on holiday' lark is quite good.

Kirkstall Abbey

Rhubarb, Elderflower & Mint Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

It is with this wine that I say Adieu to my forties. They have mostly been very kind to me. At their start I was just finishing off my MA in Medieval Studies and now at their close I am in a job that I enjoy and I feel settled in my life. The decade has seen two redundancies, a published book, moving house, a dear friend dead, two new cats, a strange and frightening world order, two nephews and the current pandemic. Put like that, my forties sound far more traumatic than they, in fact, were. They have certainly not been uneventful. What better way to mark their close than (or, alternatively, as I had a free Saturday, how else should I spend it except by) making Rhubarb, Elderflower and Mint wine?

Our rhubarb is very much past its best, so I sent a message to Liz to find out if she had any spare. Happily she had plenty and brought round 2 lbs. I managed to get a further pound from our plants to obtain the 3 lbs required for the recipe.

About half the elderflowers came from the elder tree growing in the Synagogue hanging over our back fence; the rest came from trees on Bentcliffe Drive and the elder in Allerton Grange Field. Stripping these to get a pint of flowers was always going to be the dullest part of making this wine, but was enlivened by listening to Mark Steel's in Town on BBC Sounds.

Over the past few years my 'handful of mint' used in this wine has been getting larger and Claire thinks that this is to the wine's detriment. Therefore this year I have only picked a small handful - and mostly spearmint (rejecting those leaves with cuckoo spit on them).

I chopped the rhubarb into thin pieces and put this, the elderflowers and the chopped mint into my bucket with 3 lbs of sugar. I poured over 6½ pints of boiling water and left this overnight. On Sunday morning, 14th June (my 50th birthday), I put in a teaspoon of yeast, nutrient and pectolase.

I meant to put all this into its demijohn on Friday night, but instead had a Zoom meeting with Rachel and Duncan, where we drank a gin and tonic and then a bottle of (real) red wine. Doing anything productive after that was not going to happen. Instead, the wine went into its demijohn on Saturday morning, 20th June. It is a light pink and fermenting as it should.

The wine and Kato

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

Strawberry Wine - Third Bottle (2), 8th May 2019

Wednesday was our only wet day for the holiday in Kelso. Before we went I had been checking the weather forecast daily and it looked like the weather was going to be atrocious. The forecast lied. Even though Wednesday was wet, we still got a five mile walk in, beginning and ending in Dryburgh Abbey - a 12th Century ruin where Walter Scott is buried. Well worth visiting.

To thank everyone for putting up with my medieval buildings obsession, I opened a bottle of strawberry wine, which went down nicely. Ann voluntarily had a second glass!

Dryburgh Abbey

Rose Petal & Orange Wine - First Bottle (1), 2nd July 2018

This is a fabulous bottle of wine and definitely one to make again. The rose flavour is detectable without being overpowering and the orange gives it a zing. There is something refreshing and light about this wine.

Though it is a Monday night, we are technically on holiday, so having a bottle of wine is Fine. Yesterday was our 20th wedding anniversary, so we spent it in a posh hotel near Yarm. Today we stopped at Leake Church on the A19, something I have been meaning to do for a decade, and for which we had time today. It is a charming church with a twelfth-century tower, surrounded by eighteenth and nineteenth century gravestones, and well worth a stop.

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

Blackberry Wine - Thirteenth Bottle (C6), 22nd May 2015

The Archers, when it makes an effort, can be splendid. I drank this bottle listening to Ed and Emma Grundy get married and the two Grundy brothers reach some sort of peace. Really well written, possibly made better by drinking blackberry wine (delicious) on an empty stomach.

My other activity while drinking was to sort through two boxes of papers which had everything from O Level essays about Romantic Poetry to some of my Medieval Studies MA work. I am keeping much of it, but have thrown out my Latin revision cards. I spent hours on those.

Elderberry Wine - First Bottle (B2), 12th October 2014

Claire and I stayed with Matt & Anne in Harpenden this weekend and some of Sunday was spent wandering round St Alban's Abbey. What I loved most about this cathedral were the decorated Norman arches and the thirteenth-century wall paintings. However, the highlight of the visit was Sunday evening when all the Hertfordshire cousins, Brian and Janet descended for a meal. It was a raucous, laughter-filled evening and among the bottles emptied was this elderberry. I am very pleased with it; there is no metal to its taste and it is not too sweet. It has a fruity, dark flavour and is a promising vintage.



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

Prune & Parsnip Wine - Second Bottle (B5), 22nd March 2014

Prune & Parsnip is probably my most medieval of wines. This fits with tonight's meal, which according to the recipe book - Londoners' Larder - was authentically Chaucerian. Richard & Linda were here and Claire took the opportunity to experiment. We started with a pea and mint soup, and this was the most normal course by far. Next was a spinach and currant dish with pinenuts, accompanied by a fish, rice & almond blancmange - which was odd. The main course was an onion and dried fruit tart - and this verged on the 'pudding' scale. The pudding itself was an apple omlette, and this was close to savoury. It was an interesting meal. Prune & Parsnip went well as it is neither savoury nor sweet and I can imagine peasants trying to make do without grapes to create a suitably tasty wine.

Elderberry Wine - 12th Bottle (B3), 3rd June 2012

NB 1 - I'm getting a little behind in keeping up with this diary - apologies. NB 2 to follow shortly.


Today is the highlight of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations - a huge flotilla of barges sailing down the Thames. If there is a God, He is a republican. It has pissed it down all day, and the temperature is more March than June.

Our own Jubilee celebrations today have been going to Isabella's party, which was originally to be a barbecue. The weather has scuppered that, so all guests crowded into her flat and mostly ate cake (including an impressive Union Jack Battenburg creation). It has been an age since I saw any of the Medieval crowd, and Claire has never met them, but we both had a splendid time. Despite being more than one-and-a-half times the age of the next oldest guest.

I took a bottle of elderberry and encouraged people to try it. The general reaction was favourable, and I think that was genuine.

NB 2 - I use the word 'republican' in its French Revolution meaning, rather than 'voting for Mitt Romney' meaning.

Crab Apple Wine - Bottle A4, 8th-9th March 2012

I had my first glass from this bottle whilst reacquainting myself with the middle ages. Since finishing my MA in Medieval Studies nearly two years ago I have hardly touched the era - unless one counts visiting Gothic churches and cathedrals. However, this week I began reading a promising book about Thomas Becket (imaginatively titled Thomas by Shelley Mydans) though it is fiction, and last night I watched a documentary about Empress Matilda and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Though simplified, with some jarring images (lots of Victoriana and many shots of York when Oxford was being discussed) it was well done with a consistent argument. Maybe one day I shall return properly to the subject.

We finished the bottle tonight to a meal of 'The Sick and the Weak' which was rather more splendid than usual: left-over chicken with chickpeas and Moroccan spices, and a side helping of cabbage and cashews bathed in pomegranate molasses.