Jam Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

Many years ago I spotted that CJJ Berry had a recipe for Jam Wine. I filed this information away under the heading "Odd and Not Useful". Over the last few months I have watched our 'Home Made Condiments' cupboard fill to capacity and started to wonder whether I should dust down that recipe. Also, stored in the attic, were a collection of jars that we brought with us when moving house in 2015 and which have lurked there ever since.

Jars found in the attic

Claire was fully on board with this wine - it solved the problem of all those jars, but first of all we needed to play "Jam or Chutney". This involved opening each jar (more difficult than it sounds) and taking a taste - because of course only about half were labelled. This appeared to produce no chutney, lots of marmalade (which I did not use) and some sort of jelly with large pieces of garlic floating in it - also rejected.

A different view of the same jars
Notice the dust!

In the end I used nine jars in a variety of sizes and these were: Plum 2013, Strawberry 2013, Gooseberry 2011, Bramble Jelly 2013, Rowan Jelly 2005, Damson 2014, Crabapple & Chili Jelly, Fig, and Quince Jelly. The Crabapple & Chili was the nicest, the Rowan the worst.

Emptied jars

On Sunday 8th November, I tipped all contents into my bucket (together it looked like an enormous, disgusting blood clot) and poured over 6½ pints of boiling water. I gave it a good stir and left it overnight for the jam to dissolve. On Monday morning I added two teaspoons of citric acid and one of pectolase. Then in the evening (rather than 24 hours later as instructed by the recipe) I added 8 oz of minced raisins, 1 lb of sugar and a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and tannin.

Bleurggh

The yeast (which was a new tub and a different variety) did not take and I feared that this wine would have to be thrown out. On Wednesday I made a yeast starter, with the half teaspoon left of my old yeast, half a pint of warm water and half a pint of the jam wine. This started fermenting and continued to do so after adding a further pint of the wine, so I poured it into the bucket. Success!

I put the liquid into its demijohn on 15th November - which took quite a while. During this process I noticed large bits of onion in the solids that I was sieving out. "This appeared to produce no chutney" was a rash and inaccurate statement. "Jam or Chutney" is a surprisingly difficult game.

Jam wine in its demijohn

Crab Apple Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

The thing that I have missed most from living at Carr Manor Mount, and possibly the only thing, is the crabapple tree. We planted it in 1999 and every year it produced tens of pounds of crab apples. My previous volumes of this diary show how much wine I was able to produce from it, and we still have a couple of bottles remaining from its final batch in 2015.

Large clumps of tiny apples

To recompense, we planted a new crabapple in 2017. The last two years have produced a disappointing haul. 2020, though, has been amazing. For such a small tree the crop is huge: tightly bunched tiny red apples in large clusters. It is as if the tree is covered in scarlet jewels, and it was almost a shame to harvest them.

I did this on Friday 9th October - my first day of Holiday, where we are going neither to the Netherlands nor to Norfolk because of Covid 19. Picking 4 lbs 3 oz of the reddest apples has still left a decent crop on the tree and I could probably have picked the same again. But it is a new variety of crab apple (I forget which) so safest to stick with a single batch this year.

Harvested crab apples

I washed the apples (drowning a spider in the process, which I regret) and whizzed them through the food processor. These went into my bucket, along with 1 lb of minced sultanas (again using the food processor) and 3 lbs sugar. I boiled 7 pints of water and poured this in, giving everything a good stir. On Saturday morning I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase.

Sliced apples

I had meant to put the wine into its demijohn on both Wednesday and Thursday, but both days I came back late from a long walk, so I did this Friday morning, 16th October instead. It being later than usual I thought that the ferment would be less vigorous, so filled the demijohn and was a little alarmed at how much sediment it looked like there would be. About half an hour later I was mopping that sediment off the kitchen surfaces and floor. The fermentation had been no less vigorous and the wine had exploded through the air trap.

Bubbling over

I poured some wine out of the demijohn and into a sterilised wine bottle, topping the demijohn up when it was safe to do so (about 24 hours later). Still, it means that I have more wine and less sediment than I might otherwise have had.

Safely in the demijohn

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

Gooseberry Wine 2019 - The Making Of...

When we moved house four years ago, we brought three gooseberry bushes with us. From these, we cut twigs and plonked them into the clay-based soil in our new garden, expecting them to remain twigs (only browner). Instead, they flourished and where we had three gooseberry plants, we now have many. Some are doing better than other, and their fruit ripens at different times - but for the first time, we had sufficient gooseberries for me to make gooseberry wine.

Picking the fruit is not without its hazards - gooseberry bushes have vicious thorns and after each harvesting session my arms looked as if they had gone several rounds with a pissed-off cat. There would be frequent cries of "Ow" as I spiked my hand again.

The berries were of various quality. One bush - the one that produces the earliest, smoothest gooseberries - had abundant, clean fruit requiring little washing. Another had the odd scab and a third produced fruit that was entirely covered in brown patches. I made sure that I washed the fruit as best I could before freezing it.

When it came to making the wine on Monday evening, 15th July, I measured out 6 lbs of gooseberries - most of which had been frozen - and mashed them in my bucket. That that had come from the freezer mashed easily and those that had not mashed not at all. I cut as many of those that I could catch into half and mashed them again.

My last gooseberry wine was a little dry, so I added an extra 2 oz sugar this time: 2 lbs 14 oz: and I poured over five-and-a-half pints of boiling water. Next time I should use only 5 pints.

On Tuesday morning I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient, pectolase and tannin. On Saturday evening, 20th July, after an afternoon chamber-music party in Wetherby, I put the wine into its demijohn. This was a relatively quick process and the resulting wine is an opaque greyish-green. It will clear (he said, confidently) to a sparkling yellow.

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

Rose Petal Wine and Rose Petal & Orange Wine - The Making Of...

When Claire and I were married, 19 years ago, Betty Rumsby gave us rose vouchers as a wedding present. We bought two, both white. One was a rambler which produced a fine array of blousy roses and it was with sadness that we had to leave this when we moved house. The other was a bush. We planted this in the front garden that had no sunlight and dreadful soil. It put out the occasional rose but mostly sat and sulked. We took this with us and finally it is happy. This year it produced several white roses with a scent of sherbet and as they faded I collected the petals for my wine.

Our Rose

This and the photo on the top

left are two of my mother's roses

Meanwhile, Mom was also busy snipping roses from her garden - a mix of pink and red - freezing them and handing them over when our lives coincided. By Wednesday 5th July I had enough for my wine making plans.

That day I measured out 8 pints of rose petals, the amount required for a double batch, and put them in my bucket with 1 lb of minced sultanas, the juice from two oranges and 5½ lbs of sugar. I poured over 15 pints of boiling water (releasing a fabulous perfume), left it over night and added the yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient, pectolase and tannin.

This year, at Claire's suggestion (and she is Always Right), I have also experimented by making a Rose Petal & Orange wine single batch. On Saturday 8th July - a day on which I have done little but enjoy the summer weather - I thinly peeled three oranges, avoiding the pith, and covered their peel with a pint of boiling water. I measured out 4 pints of rose petals and put these in the bucket with the juice from six oranges (nearly a pint of liquid) and 3 lbs sugar (so no sultanas this time, hence the increased sugar ratio). I poured over 5½ pints of boiling water and left it over night. Next morning I added the water covering the peel (though not the peel itself, which was discarded), the yeast and a teaspoon of each of the chemicals.

I put the Rose Petal Wine into its demijohns on Monday 10th July and the Rose Petal and Orange into its demijohn on Thursday 13th July, fishing out a dead beetle before I did so. The overall colour of both wines is a pinky-orange, but the Rose Petal & Orange has a lighter house-brick colour and is the more attractive.

The Rose Petal & Orange is on the left - but

it is difficult to discern the colour difference.

If you want to see how the Rose Petal & Orange turned out, click here.

Rose Petal Wine 2016 - The Making Of... (Blog Post 1,000)

When moving house we had to leave our favourite rose behind. It was a white rose, climbing around the car port and prolific in its blooms. That it was a wedding present made abandoning it more poignant. We did, however, take a red rose with us that had been at 14 Carr Manor Mount when we arrived there in 1998 and which had only put out the occasional flower. This rose is far happier where we are now and I have been out with scissors and a plastic bag every time its petals start to droop.

Mom has also been busy collecting roses from her garden - three varieties, all old and all on the pink/red spectrum. This wine will betray its Yorkshire roots by not having a single white rose to its name.

I was in York on Sunday, 17th July, and collected the last of the saved roses from the freezer. Back home in Leeds, after making bread, having an afternoon nap and tackling the washing up mountain, I measured the rose-petals. I stopped measuring at 12 pints - enough for a triple batch. The remainder are saved for Christmas Tutti Fruti. I poured the petals into my bucket - and at this stage this is the prettiest of wines.

Having failed to find any white grape juice this year, I put in 1-and-a-half lbs of minced sultanas and the juice of three oranges (which is very nearly an opera by Prokofiev). I added 7 lbs 12 oz of sugar (the same as last year - which has produced a wonderful wine). I covered this with 23 pints of boiling water, making the entire house smell of roses.

Next morning, Monday 18th July, I added the yeast, a teaspoon of pectolase and two teaspoons each of nutrient and tannin. I stirred this twice daily until Friday, 22nd July, when I put the wine into its three demijohns. As ever, I used a collander to scoop out most the rose petals, though after the first two collander loads, the 'jug and sieve' method was better. It was a quick job, probably taking about half an hour, and the wine is now bubbling away in all its dark orangy-pinkness.

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

Forgive me for a bit of self-indulgence, but this blog is now 1,000 posts old. The very first post is about making dandelion wine, and can be found here. That was back on 21 April 2011. Since then, I have done a 'wine making' post 94 times, and either made or drunk 50 flavours. My most popular post is 'Blackberry Wine 2013 - the Making Of' and the most frequently drunk bottle is a tie between 'Crab Apple' and 'Blackberry' (99 entries each, of which some will be about making the stuff). Thank you for stopping by - and Bottoms Up!

Crab Apple Wine - First Bottle (A2), 5th-6th June 2016

This batch of crab apple wine is vey much like all others: a light, refreshing wine with a strong apple taste. It is my 'House White' and I am sad that we had to leave the tree behind when we moved.

Much of the bottle was drunk on Sunday night after a heavy day of sitting in the garden and reading an early Arthur C Clarke (he could foresee interplanetary space travel, but no jobs for women beyond 'secretary'). On Monday Claire deserved the rest for having to work till 8:30, running genetic tests onf fresh brain tumour samples. So this bottle covered both Brain Surgery and Rocket Science.

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2015 - The Making Of ...

I think it has been several years since I started my Christmas Tutti Fruti on the traditional day, but this year I was taking fruit out of the freezer and weighing it during the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, Cambridge. The fruit has travelled from the freezer at Carr Manor Mount to the freezer at Bentcliffe Drive and I think Claire has resented it in both. But she now has a whole new drawer in the freezer (almost) entirely empty of fruit.

The ingredients immediately after removing from freezer

This year most of the ingredients come from one of our two gardens - only the blackberries, elderberries, figs and satsuma do not. And the figs come from my parents' garden. This pleases me. The wine is a last hurrah for our 17+ years in the Carr Manors and our first hurrah for Bentcliffe Drive.

The fruit, once it had defrosted

I have 8 lbs 8 oz fruit, and this is made up as follows:

• Blackberries 2lb 1 oz
• Raspberries 5 oz
• Gooseberries (green) 2 lb 2 oz
• Strawberries 1 lb 3 oz
• Figs 9 oz
• Elderberries 2 oz
• Crab apples 8 oz
• Quinces 12 oz
• Rose Petals 2 oz
• Satsuma 2 oz
• Sloes 10 oz
• Elderflowers - a pinch (which also did not come from either garden)

The fruit during mashing

I left it all overnight to defrost, and then until after Christmas Day lunch because there was a vast amount of spiced pumpkin soup in the tureen I needed to use. All the Taylors helped me crush the fruit and the gooseberries proved most difficult. I made my Christmas wish while mashing and stirring, and then added 5 lbs 8 oz of sugar. I added 12 pints of boiling water and left it all until Boxing Day morn, at which point I added the yeast, two teaspoons of nutrient and one of pectolase.

The fruit during fermentation

The wine took two days before there was evidence of fermentation. I put it into its two demijohns on Thursday morning, 31st December, while listening to Mozart symphonies. It took a little longer than anticipated, meaning we missed our 1 pm target of setting off to Cambridge. I now have 25 demijohns on the go and all my air-traps in use.

The wine before going into its demijohns

Crab Apple Wine - Eighth Bottle (C5), 29th December 2015

In October, when the house was still a building site and Rachael visited, she suggested that at Christmas the three older Hardy siblings get together for an evening. The last time Chris, Rachael and I were together without the parents was before she met Paul. Judging by the fun we had on Tuesday night, we must do it more often. It was a lovely evening and the first bottle opened was this crab apple wine. It was fine, without being excellent, and no-one really passed any comment. I think we were having far too good a time.

Christmas Tutti Fruti - Final Bottle (B3), 25th December 2015

It is our first Christmas in the new house. Having four proper bedrooms and (now) four proper beds, we are hosting Bob, Judith, Andrew & Susanna. It is one of the things that I am most pleased about - having enough space for guests.

This is Judith's first Christmas in 46 years where she has not been doing the cooking. Claire took this role and produced an amazing, colourful Christmas feast. We had confit of duck, roast potatoes, red cabbage, mushy peas, cranberry sauce, nasty evil sprouts (I actually quite like them), four smeet balls, onion gravy and probably more besides. The wine was delicious too: fruity and rich. This vintage will be missed.

Crab Apple Wine - Seventh Bottle (B5), 12th December 2015

I have left this bottle in 14 Carr Manor Mount's fridge as a house-warming present for John. When we moved there in 1998 the previous owner, Jean, had left us a bottle of wine and it was just a really nice gesture. Crab apple wine was the natural choice - it having been made from the apples of the tree in the garden. I hope John drinks. Of more practical benefit, we have also left him a cooker, the fridge-freezer, a washing machine, two useful pans and the remnants of several tins of paint. Actually,  maybe that last one will sit in the attic for eternity.

Prune & Parsnip Wine - Eighth Bottle (B5), 11th-12th December 2015

Claire opened this bottle while I was galavanting at the Work Christmas Do. It was in the Sky Lounge on the 13th floor of Double Tree Hilton, with floor to ceiling windows. The view across night-time Leeds was a carpet of points of light. But what most occupied my mind was our house-sale. John's solicitors sent the money on Friday morning, specifying the correct bank details, and the money has yet to arrive. A six figure sum is out there somewhere, floating in the ether. Though I have released keys anyway, we technically still own 14 Carr Manor Mount, and every time I think about possible consequences my stomach lurches.

None of that is about the wine, however. I managed a glass and a half in front of the stove on Saturday and enjoyed it.

The Sky Lounge during the day

Rhubarb Wine - Final Bottle (A4), 5th December 2015

It was fitting that having had a bottle of rhubarb wine as our last bottle at our old house, our first bottle of home made wine at the new house should also be rhubarb. Different vintages, of course, and in fact our genuine first bottle was a velvety smooth red from Washington State.

Rachel and Duncan arrived with a chicken to roast in our new oven. Claire attended to this whilst I concentrated on the wine. I think we had finished the bottle before the chicken was out and carved, but we had to toast the house properly. It already feels like Home. The place is in chaos, there are boxes and books everywhere, I rarely get the right cupboard when looking for things in the kitchen. But it is ours, and we have already made our mark.

Cheers.

Rhubarb Wine - Sixth Bottle (A3), 1st December 2015

So, tonight is our last night at 14 Carr Manor Mount. We have lived here since April 1998 and it is therefore (just) the house at which I have lived the longest. I was going to open a real bottle of red, but Claire argued convincingly that a bottle made from garden ingredients would be more appropriate. And it is a good bottle - resembling real white.

The evening has been oddly normal, despite being surrounded by boxes and empty book cases. I have played on the computer, cleared up cat sick and am about to do the dishes. That is the way it should be.

Thank you House. You have been fantastic.

Elderberry Wine - Second Bottle (A6), 27th-29th November 2015

This was our final Thanksgiving bottle, opened on the Friday when we were entertaining Sooz, Andrew, Rachel & Duncan. To be honest, good as the wine was (and it is a fine vintage of elderberry wine, full of rich and dark flavours) it was a bottle too far. We drank half of it and I then spent a teetotal Saturday. This Saturday mostly involved the WYSO winter concert with Tchaikovsky's scary Fourth Symphony. My lip survived and I was moderately pleased with my solos.

Claire and I finished the bottle on Sunday after a day clearing the attic - a long job made all the less tedious by Rachel & Duncan forming an industrious chain.

A small proportion of the attic to clear

Rose Petal Wine - Sixth Bottle (A3), 27th November 2015

Rachel and Duncan came for Thanksgiving II, which meant a bottle of rose petal wine was virtually obligatory. It is Rachel's favourite, and its sweet, perfumed taste went particularly well with the sweet potato, mashed with chilli and lime.

Earlier in the day the House came on in leaps and bounds. The kitchen is now fitted (though there is no electricity yet) and Andrew and I laid carpets. Both of these transform the place. Rather than looking like a building site, it now looks like a home. This is a good thing because we will be living there in less than a week.

Orange Wine - Eighth Bottle (A3), 25th November 2015

I committed an act of moral repugnancy while drinking this bottle of orange wine. I wrote Christmas cards. In November. This is against all that I know to be good and true. Hence finishing a bottle of wine on a Wednesday night (and that I am now on holiday for a few days). Claire forced me into it - the Christmas cards, not the wine - arguing that we had to send cards early to let people know our new address. It just feels so wrong. Still, at least they are done - and I was able to drink orange wine in the process, so perhaps it isn't all bad.

Exotic Tinned Fruit - Final Bottle, 23rd-24th November 2015

I had remembered this flavour as being somewhat nasty with a chemical aftertaste. It was therefore a surprise to discover that leaving the wine for over three and a half years from making made it more than palatable. This has reached the realms of "rather good", and it is a shame that there are no more bottles left.

I was on holiday when this was opened, just for a day. I spent it painting a ceiling. I can think of better ways to spend a day off. But the move date approaches (rapidly) and the more ceilings painted, the better.

Blackcurrant Wine - Seventh Bottle (A2), 21st-22nd November 2015

It is rare that I go to a concert in which I am not playing, but that was the case on Saturday night. Chris, the clarinettist in Tony's quintet, was the soloist in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto with Harrogate Phil, and three-quarters of the remaining quintet were there to cheer him on. I felt properly nervous as Chris played but, of course, he was brilliant. At the end of long semiquaver passages he visibly gasped for air as a diver might coming up from ocean depths.

On our return I opened up a bottle of blackcurrant, and it was lovely with its alcoholic Ribena taste. We finished it on Sunday after I had spent most the day up a ladder painting an acre of ceiling.

Rhubarb Wine - Fifth Bottle (B6), 12th-13th November 2015

Dan Benn, our wonderful bathroom fitter, gave me strict instructions to give Claire lots of wine on Thursday night. The latest thing to go wrong with the House is the bathroom - the bath, the sink pedestal and the radiator have all had to be returned to the supplier for being substandard (scratches and cracks mostly). Claire is not finding this easy and is also hugely busy at work. So this bottle was wine as medication and it helped. I detected a slight cheese taste, however.

Prune & Parsnip - Seventh Bottle (B6), 7th-8th November 2015

One bottle is never enough when we have visitors, so our second bottle of the evening was Prune & Parsnip. Judith had made a marble chocolate cake and of the many available options, we thought this flavour would go the best. The unusual thing about the evening was that there was still half a bottle left at the end of it. The remainder helped our Sunday evening after another day of solid decorating for Claire. She is looking exhausted and is not sleeping properly. We will never move house again!