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

Prune & Parsnip Wine 2019 - First Bottle (B3), 1st February 2020

I think this batch of Prune & Parsnip is paler than previous vintages. That does not affect the taste, however, which is very much Business as Usual.

I opened the wine on Saturday evening after an entertaining day which started with the first rehearsal for Don Giovanni - which I will be playing all the coming week - and ended with Midsomer Murders. In between I visited the Kirkgate Market Food Hall, which is excellent - packed with street food vendors (I had a Vietnamese sandwich), people and some terrific buskers - and went to Carla's leaving party. So it has been a day of many pleasures.

The fabulous buskers - Luna & the Moon

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

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.

Xmas Tutti Fruti 2018 - Second Bottle (A1), 10th-11th March 2020

Thin and a bit disappointing.

I ventured under the stairs for a bottle of blackberry wine but pulled this Xmas Tutti Fruti out instead. It was okay and filled its role of 'midweek bottle', but I have had better.

On Tuesday I drank a glass whilst watching Inside No. 9 - this series has been excellent and the writers are the masters of misdirection. Wednesday's ration was drunk after what proved to be our last WYSO of the season. Our opera is now cancelled because of Corona Virus fears (and the baritone being quarantined in Northern Italy). We are living in strange and exciting times.

A photo taken on 8th March of 

The Corn Exchange in Leeds

Blackberry Wine 2018 - Fourth Bottle (A3), 18th-19th March 2020

We should have been at WYSO on Wednesday for our final rehearsal of La Villi before Saturday and Sunday's performances. Instead we were at WYSO collecting the music in to return to the publishers. It is only a small sacrifice to have made to the Corona Virus pandemic, but a miserable one. Artistic life is going to be devastated over the coming months.

At home I opened a bottle of blackberry wine and we had a take-out pizza. The pizza was somewhat less disappointing than the wine. Curiously, the wine had improved the next day.

Some mushrooms - I took this photo on 18th March

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.

Blackberry Wine 2017 - Fifteenth Bottle (A1), 7th-8th February 2020

Bizarrely, after reading the above two entries, I was a little disappointed with this wine - certainly on the Friday evening. By Saturday I thought it had improved. But I did not get the mouthful of blackberries sometimes experienced. Both nights the wine followed performances of Don Giovanni done by Leeds Youth Opera, where I was playing second bassoon in the pit. It has been an exhausting week but one thoroughly worth doing. There are some talented youngsters in Leeds. It has left me with a head full of music, which is lovely unless I am trying to sleep.

First and Second Bassoon in the Pit

Elderflower, Rhubarb and Mint - Sixth Bottle (2), 28th April 2019

We have not had a Parents' Evening for an age - many years - and for this one I wanted to treat the ancestors with some of my best wine. Therefore, we started with a bottle of Elderflower, Rhubarb and Mint (if one does not count the Cosmopolitans). It continues to be an excellent bottle: there is a freshness to it, with I think must be the mint. By the time we reached the dinner table, the wine was mostly gone, so I fished out a blackberry from under the stairs.

We are so lucky to have four parents between us, who we like enormously and who get on fabulously well with each other. It is the very opposite of a soap opera.

Orange Wine 2015 - Final Bottle (A6), 27th-28th March 2018

Having had a weekend stuffed with concerts (including a spine-tingling performance of an opera in a barely converted mill) and consequently little alcohol, I opened this bottle on a Monday night. Claire asked for something citrusy to go with fish. It has been over a year since our last bottle of this vintage and age has changed the wine. There is something fuller about it; you do not get the first, lingering hit of orange. Claire says she prefers her orange wine young and sharp, and I can't decide which I would choose. It was a pleasure, though, to have both Monday and Tuesday night at home not rushing off anywhere, recovering from the previous week.

Me at the opera...

Prune & Parsnip Wine - Second Bottle (B4), 21st-23rd March 2018

WYSO has, in the past, played on a beach, in a warehouse loading bay and in a swimming pool. We have not done anything quirky for a while. That has changed this week: we are performing La traviata in a disused mill. On Wednesday night we rehearsed there for the first time. It was so cold that you could see your breath. As the singers sang, their music took on this physical manifestation. I wore four layers - three of them fleeces - and could not get warm. Home, then, for a glass of prune & parsnip. Friday was much better, and the opera is sounding fantastic. We finished the bottle as a wind down.

This is a picture from the performance

Apple & Strawberry Wine - Second Bottle (5), 10th-11th January 2018

Last time we drank a bottle of this flavour, I thought it better than anyone else did. This time Claire enjoyed it more than I. It is a light wine with an unusual taste - almost herby. I could not detect strawberry and only a hint of apple.

We drank half the bottle after WYSO. This term we are doing a semi-staged performance of La traviata and whilst we are without the chorus or soloist, it is currently a Karaoke version, with the conductor singing all parts surprisingly tunelessly.