Xmas Tutti Fruti 2020 - Second Bottle (A5), 15th January 2022

I took this bottle to York with me, where we had a lovely weekend with my parents. Mom cooked 'Biochemist's Lamb' and we spent the evening drinking and chatting. Pop had several helpings from this bottle so I think he enjoyed it. Rightly so! It is a light, fruity red with a touch of fizz.

On Sunday I went to the Unitarian Chapel with Mom & Pop and quite enjoyed it. I have little spirituality, though, and had to suppress that. The best element was the music: there was a terrific pianist who played Piazolla, Janacek and Lionel Bart!

Taken on 15th January

Elderberry Wine 2017 - Thirteenth Bottle (C1), 24th July 2021

It is not many bottles of wine that result in five people dancing to a mix of Abba and Tchaikovsky in the garden after dark. This was one such bottle. Actually, it was one of many that evening, but it was a glorious night. This was the first weekend since the Covid restrictions had been lifted and we spent it in Cambridge with Rachel & Duncan (Howard was our fifth). 

Earlier in the day we had helped out at a Food Hub, which was itself an interesting and enjoyable thing to do, but it is the evening that will stay with me. One of those magical times where my own universe is full of joy. The wine wasn't bad either.

Rachel at the Food Hub

Rose Petal and Orange Wine 2019 - Fourth Bottle (1), 22nd May 2021

Lockdown has taken a significant move towards release. We can now visit people indoors and stay over night. Our first visit, therefore, was to York where we spent Saturday night with my parents, the Eurovision Song Contest and this bottle of Rose Petal & Orange which I think everyone enjoyed. It retains its buttery smoothness.

Spending time with Mom & Pop was wonderful and, of course, immediately felt normal. Getting rapidly drunk on a Saturday night at Heworth Green is such a pleasure! As was Eurovision - as ridiculous and camp as ever. And we watched it exchanging WhatsApp messages with Todd & Anne, who were sharing the experience 8,000 miles away. 

A picture I took in York the following day

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)

Prune & Parsnip Wine 2017 - Final Bottle (B5), 4th April 2021

This bottle was retrieved from our crypt on Easter Sunday. I had spent most the day in the kitchen, making peanut-butter cookies, followed by a lemon meringue pie (a Triumph, he said, modestly) and then the beginnings of Spiced Beetroot Wine, all while listening to Classic FM's Top 300 Countdown. 

This wine was a sherry-like as ever and was certainly effective. It would be dishonest to blame the subsequent poor night's sleep on anything else.

Peanut-butter Cookies

Lemon Meringue Pie

Blackberry Wine 2020 - First Bottle (C3), 13th-15th March 2021

On the strength of this bottle, 2020 was a good year for blackberries. This was everything that blackberry wine should be: rich, smooth, a hint of sweetness and full of bramble flavour. It was also a bottle drunk immediately after it was bottled, and this was because the string snapped a second time and wasting more than two corks seemed excessive.

Half of the bottle accompanied The Blues Brothers which (shockingly) I had never seen. Lots of fun and hyper-cool. It has not aged badly at all - with its best attribute being its sound track, but with the most ridiculous car chase running it a close second.

Taken on 15 March

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

Prune & Parsnip Wine 2021 - The Making Of...

Saturday 6th February was a dismal day. I woke to heavy rain and it did not let up throughout the lighted hours. When Claire suggested that I drive to collect the week's groceries rather than walk to Chapel Allerton, I took little persuading. Whilst I prefer to buy my parsnips from the independent Fruit Stall, carrying home 4 lbs of them together with my other shopping in a downpour would have been entirely miserable, so I drove to Sainsbury's instead.

Prunes and Parsnips

I left the wine-making until Sunday, 7th February, which was a much more productive and happy day. I managed to have a 5 mile walk, do a modicum of bassoon practice, make a 'Fly Leg' cake (no flies were harmed in the process) and make my Prune & Parsnip wine. The wine making was done whilst listening to the whole of Hansel and Gretel on Radio 3 - such a fabulous opera, and I know nothing else by Humperdinck.

Parsnips, sliced and in the pan of water

Anyway, to make the wine I sliced 4 lbs of parsnips into small bits and put them into 16 pints of cold water, bringing this up to the boil and then simmering for 20 minutes. (This was done in two lots.) Meanwhile, I snipped up 1 lb of prunes, each prune into 4 or so pieces, and put these in my bucket along with 5 lbs 8 oz sugar. When the parsnips had boiled their 20 minutes, I poured the water into the bucket through a colander and threw out the vegetables.

An enthusiastic fermentation

On Monday morning I added a teaspoon of pectolase, a teaspoon and a half of nutrient and two teaspoons of yeast (though I started the yeast first in a jug with a bit of sweetened water, because I am suspicious of this yeast brand). The wine fermented enthusiastically in its bucket until Saturday morning, 13th February, at which point I put it into its two demijohns, this time listening to Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite. The wine is far lighter, far more golden, than it has ever been before.

The wine in its demijohns

Blackberry Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

What an unusually busy weekend we have just had. Saturday was spent yomping in the North York Moors with Bob & Judith - the first time that we have seen them since January. Then on Sunday, 23rd August, we went to York to pick blackberries and see my parents, whose 56th wedding anniversary it was.

Sarah Moore's grave

We arrived at the cemetery at around 11 and mostly went our separate ways to collect brambles. Claire found a bountiful patch that was sufficiently overgrown to be secluded and which led to a bee hive. I was rather less successful, finding the odd stem laden with fruit here and there, but mostly found whole areas where the blackberries were already rotten or covered in grey mould. 

Claire picking blackberries

During this search I coincided with a man and his pre-teen children: Elliot and Isobel, who were enthusiastic bramble pickers. Isobel had a large tub full of blackberries, reserved for crumble, and they were interested in how I turned blackberries into wine. The father commented that the beauty of the cemetery was that there was enough fruit for everyone. "Yes," I agreed, secretly not agreeing at all and seeing him and his children very much as the competition. We went our separate ways and finally, finally I found an excellent area for foraging - near to, but behind, the chapel. Here the graves were Mary Ann Nightingale and her husband George, Sarah Moore and Jane Oldfield. Earlier I had picked from Harriet Atkinson and Robert Burton. Thomas Douthwaite did not figure this year: his grave had been cleared of brambles.

Near the Chapel

Once back in Leeds I weighed the fruit. I had picked 4 lbs 1 oz and Claire won convincingly with 6 lbs 5oz. I used 8 lbs, putting the rest in the freezer, and mashed them in my bucket. I poured in 5 lbs 12 oz of sugar and 11¼ pints of boiling water (though could have used half a pint less). Next morning I added the yeast (Mangrove Jack's R56), 1½ teaspoons of nutrient and a teaspoon of pectolase.

Blackberries in their bucket

I put the wine into its demijohns on Friday 28th August whilst listening to the first Prom of 2020 - played to an empty Albert Hall. And now I have two demijohns of blackberry wine bubbling away.

Two demijohns of Blackberry Wine

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

Magnolia Petal Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

After last year's Magnolia Petal Wine was a surprising success, I decided to repeat it this year. 

St John the Baptist's Petals

Since the Great Covid 19 Lockdown of 2020 began, I have been going on hour-long walks early every weekday morning, and many of these have taken me past Angie and Phil's house. I noticed that their magnolia tree was not as prolific with its petals as last year, so on these long walks I have been trying to spot magnolia trees elsewhere. One of these was outside St Edmund's in Roundhay, where I surreptitiously gathered fallen petals (which remain in our freezer). Another was at St John the Baptist's Church in Adel, which was the halfway point of my 7-mile walk on Good Friday. This magnolia tree was of the 'small, delicate' petal variety which meant an age gathering enough to make it worthwhile. But I can think of worse ways to spend a sunny Bank Holiday.

Magnolia Petals outside Phil & Angie's

That evening, Angie came past our house on her run and stopped to tell me (at a safe distance!) that her tree was now discarding its petals and I was welcome to collect these at any point. This I did on Saturday morning, 11th April. I meant to make the wine that afternoon and evening, but instead Claire and I cut each other's hair (I am now completely bald!) and then she seduced me into drinking a bottle of champagne rather than make wine. Therefore, I have made wine this Easter morning whilst listening to Classic FM's Hall of Fame.

I measured 6 pints of petals and put these in my pan with the thinly peeled peel of two lemons and one orange. I poured in 7 pints of water and put this onto boil. When the water was getting close, I added 2lb 8 oz of sugar and once it reached the boil I let it do so for 20 minutes.

Petals that I used

I squeezed the orange and lemons and put the juice into my bucket along with 500g of minced sultanas (yes, I am mixing Imperial and Metric, for which I make no apologies). I then poured the contents of my pan (petals now brown and sludgy) over this and stirred it all around.

The mixture in its bucket

Later that night I put in the yeast and a teaspoon each of tannin, pectolase and nutrient. On Friday night, 17th April, whilst Claire was out processing Covid 19 samples, I put the wine into its demijohn. It is a murky beige.

 

An arty shot of the demijohn.

Having racked this on 7th June, I cannot tell whether it is going to be good or not. It has yet to clear properly. I fit 2 oz sugar and three-quarters a pint of water into the demijohn.

If you want to see how this wine turned out (and for a comedy photo!), click here.

Julia's Wines - Elderberry 1993, 15th February 2020

I took this bottle over to Ros's, where we were planning the music for Alex and Vicky's wedding this September. The bottle was only three-quarters full and by the time it had spent half an hour's walk in the rucksack, it appeared to be fizzy. Things did not bode well. However, and with much surprise all round, this was rather drinkable. It had that cross-between sherry & port feel that wines this age tend to acquire - but it hadn't gone off. We all had a glass - raising them to Julia.

A photo taken on 16 February

 - a greengage tree being planted

Ginger Wine 2019 - Fourth Bottle (3), 15th-16th May 2020

We are getting through this flavour more quickly than I might otherwise have planned. However, what other flavour should I have chosen for a Chinese Takeaway? Friday evening was beautiful weather, if cold, and it felt so normal (and therefore abnormal) to wander out, hand in hand, with my wife to collect a takeout. Claire donning a facemask, as she went into the shop and I stood outside, was a reminder of course.

We drank half the bottle on Friday and the remainder on Saturday evening whilst watching the Eurovision Song Contest replacement, which was surprisingly lovely as all 41 countries sang Love Shine a Light.

A photo I took on 16th May

Prune & Parsnip Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

This year I have decided to do a single batch of Prune & Parsnip, and consequently will do a double batch of Orange Wine next month. Whilst I am certain that I am not drinking less, it feels like I am drinking more proper wine, which means that the home-made stuff is accumulating rather.

The Fruit & Veg stall where I bought parsnips

I bought my parsnips on 8th February from Kirkgate Market. I was in town anyway because I had a WYSO meeting with Jude & Katie (which ended with me sitting in Leeds Town Hall listening to the BBC Phil rehearse the Romeo & Juliet Overture) followed by the last night of playing in the pit for Don Giovanni. So I went to one of the Fruit & Veg stalls and bought the 2 lbs of parsnips required for this wine. My server looked about 14 - and very probably he was. I think 14 year-olds are allowed to have Saturday jobs.

Prunes & Parsnips

Whilst I meant to make the wine on Sunday I delayed it until Monday 10th February, which I had taken off from work to recover from a week of Mozart. I cut the parsnips into small pieces and boiled them in 8 pints of water for 20 minutes (bringing the parsnips in cold water up to the boil rather than putting them directly into the boiling water).

Weighing the ingredients

I sliced up 8 oz prunes into three or four pieces per prune and put these into my bucket along with 2 lbs 12 oz sugar. Once the parsnips had finished boiling I poured the water into the bucket, leaving the parsnips to one side. Claire used a small selection of these to make a curried mashed parsnip dish, which was rather good.

Chopping the parsnips

In the evening, after an Airedale Symphony Orchestra rehearsal, I put in a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase and then pretty much ignored the wine until Saturday morning, 15th February. That was when I put the wine into its demijohn. As the only thing to sieve out was the prunes, I did not bother with a colander. It was not a long process. The amount of water used was just about perfect and I now have a demijohn full of the brownest of wines.

The brownest of wines

By racking on 12th April  2020, this had cleared beautifully and needed little additional sugar. I dissolved 1 oz in half a pint of water and poured this in.

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

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.

Elderflower, Mint & Rhubarb Wine 2019 - The Making Of...

Weather-wise, June has been a terrible month. The last June that I remember being this wet and cold was the year we got married - 1998. It has been continuous grey skies and hardly a dry day. Whilst some rain is good for the garden, sun would be helpful too. This is all a long winded way of explaining why, for this wine, I was not able to use only rhubarb that we had grown.


 For this recipe I needed 3 lbs of rhubarb and only 1 lb was available. (This year, mostly our rhubarb has been stewed and in porridge.) Happily, Liz and David have a monster rhubarb in their garden and did not object to me stealing many butch stalks on Sunday morning, 16th June.

Liz and David's Monster Rhubarb

The elderflowers mostly came from the elder tree in the Synagogue, overhanging our back fence. This is the first year that I have noticed this, and it is a tree to be encouraged (unlike the enormous sycamore which keeps our garden in shade). However, I needed more so walked up and down Bentcliffe Drive, taking at least one head of elderflowers from each elder that I passed (all four of them). I stripped the flowers from their stalks outside during a rare break from the rain and ended up with about a pint (and a black thumbnail).

The mint came from our garden and was a handful of pepper- and spearmint combined.

In the kitchen I sliced the rhubarb into thin pieces and put it  into the bucket with the elderflowers and the mint, roughly chopped. I poured over 3 lbs sugar and 6.5 pints of boiling water. It is always a good perfume when the boiling water hits these ingredients.

The ingredients before the water hit them

The mix had cooled enough by the evening to add the yeast, pectolase and nutrient (a teaspoon of each). I made intermittent attempts to remember to stir this through the week, until Thursday evening, 20th June, when it all went into its demijohn. This was the usual method: colander first to fish out most the solids, followed by funnel, sieve and jug into the demijohn. My backing track throughout was Cardiff Singer of the Year on Radio 3. The resulting wine is just as pink as the pure rhubarb.

The ingredients after the water had hit them

By racking on 20th July, the wine was still just as pink and had mostly cleared. The taste was promising and it did not need much additional sugar. I added 1 oz, dissolved in half a pint of water.


I bottled this on 7th March and I am just a little disappointed with the end result of this wine. It has not cleared entirely and isn't as splendid as previous years. Claire thinks I have overdone it on the mint.

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

The wine in its demijohn

Rhubarb Wine 2017 - Eleventh Bottle (A2), 9th-10th April 2020

On Thursday nights, whilst the country is in lockdown, people have started applauding the NHS and Key workers at 8 p.m. from their front doors. Rainbows drawn by children are appearing in windows at an alarming rate. Hence on Thursday this week I found myself at the foot of our drive playing Somewhere Over the Rainbow with Claire-From-Over-The-Road, a violinist at Opera North. We had a street separating us, so maintained the government approved 2 metre distance. The street applauded and I went inside for a much needed glass of Rhubarb Wine.

Rhubarb Wine - Fifth Bottle (A6), 19th-20th October 2019

We drank most of this bottle on our return from Wakefield on Saturday night. Claire had been playing 'Third Viola' in Heinrich Biber's Requiem and I had the important role of chauffeur and dozing audience member. The music was beautiful: choir, string orchestra and three trombones: but induced sleepiness. As the movements passed by I would wake for the start of each and then return to my slumber. Claire drove home.

The rhubarb wine had been waiting in the fridge and I drank most my share in bed getting on with my book - Skippy Dies.

Elderberry Wine - Seventh Bottle (A3), 20th January 2019

This was a post-concert bottle. Airedale Symphony Orchestra played Roman Carnival by Berlioz, Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony in Saltaire. The concert went well, but for me it will be remembered as 'The one where I had a coughing fit'. I was trying my best to supress a cough during the violinist's cadenza and ended up turning purple, nearly choking with tears streaming down my face. It was awful. Anyway, back at home I restored myself with a bottle of elderberry wine - which is particularly fine, and a venison sausage and red cabbage casserole.

A view from the stand, during the rehearsal

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2018 - The Making Of...

Though I pretend not to, and despite being distinctly grumpy at work, I do enjoy Christmas. More accurately, I enjoy the feasting, the friends and family, and the sheer laziness of it. Today, Sunday 23rd December, has emphasized the last of these. I got up late and, other than a jaunt out to pick up provisions from Harehills, I have done very little. Or 'very little' unless one counts wine-making, which personally I don't. A hobby does not fall into the category of 'chore' (though rinsing and sterilising equipment is never exciting).

This afternoon I began my Christmas Tutti Fruti, though this has only consisted of digging fruit out of the freezer, weighing it and putting it into my bucket to defrost. In total I have 8 lbs and ¾ oz of fruit, which is enough for a double batch. Taking the fruit in the order that I added it I have:

Quince - ¾ oz

• Elderberries - 6 ¾ oz
• Blackberries - 7 ½ oz
• Strawberries - 10 ½ oz
• Rosehips - ¾ oz
• Sloes - 12 ½ oz
• Blackcurrants - 3 lbs, 3½ oz
• Redcurrants - ½ oz
• Raspberries - 4 oz
• Gooseberries - 1 lb 6½ oz
• Apple - 9 oz
• Satsuma - One (weighing in at 2 oz)

I left the fruit overnight to defrost. That evening, my Christmas started in earnest with Christmas carolling round the neighbourhood, organised by Angie for St Gemma
's Hospice. This is the event which marks the beginning of Yuletide for me - it is a pleasure to sing carols half-remembered from my youth, in a group where virtually everyone else can sing in four-part harmony.

The crushed fruit, with sugar added

On Christmas Eve I waited until 3 p.m. and the strains of Once in Royal David's City from King's College, Cambridge before mashing the fruit. I added 5½ lbs sugar and 12 pints of boiling water and gave it all a good stir, crushing any whole gooseberries I found with the back of the wooden spoon. The yeast, nutrient, pectolase and a small quantity of tannin went in on Christmas Day.

The fruit, fermenting in its bucket

I left the wine mostly unstirred (on account of being in Newcastle and York) until Sunday, 30th December, when I put the wine into demijohns. The wine has the most sludge that I can remember and made the process long and sticky. The following morning I weighed the discarded fruit. From the original 8 lbs, it now weighs 3½. The rest must be juice.

Rhubarb Wine - Fifth Bottle (C6), 21st October 2018

I opened this bottle on Sunday night after returning from a terrific concert in Leeds Town Hall. We were playing crowd-pleasing patriotic guff and the 1812 Overture (though no actual cannons) and the audience loved it. A great cheer arose as we finished - and I think not a cheer of relief. My parents and Nancy Voynow were in that audience and returned to ours for a meal. Nancy asked for a glass of white wine so I gave her a glass of rhubarb without telling her what it was. When she was several sips through I confessed all - though rhubarb (oddly) is quite close to real white. Nancy said she enjoyed it - and let's face it: what's not to like?

The interior of Leeds Town Hall - a ridiculous wedding cake of a building

Blackcurrant Wine 2015 - Twenty Second Bottle (D3), 31st August - 3rd September 2018

This started life as a Friday night bottle, but on the basis that we had cocktails and the remainder of a bottle of Prune & Parsnip to finish, it would have been disgraceful to empty it. We were two inches away from Disgraceful. But blackcurrant wine is so drinkable.

It was Monday when Claire finished this wine. I was at the Airedale's first rehearsal of this season bashing my way through patriotic nonsense written by Elgar & Walton. It was only ever so slightly disappointing to find the bottle empty on my return.