Blackberry Wine 2020 - Seventh Bottle (A2), 2nd October 2021

On the dankest of Saturdays I have been out in the rain thrice. The first two were to buy provisions for the coming week. The last was to check if the local garage was selling petrol. We are in the midst of a fuel shortage because (thanks to Brexit - the gift that keeps on giving) there are not enough lorry drivers. And as soon as the Government says "Please don't panic buy", everyone does. There have been queues of traffic at any open garage for the last week. On Saturday evening I joined that queue (short, when I was there) and celebrated my success at home with a bottle of Blackberry Wine, a lamb curry and an episode of The Bridge.

Taken on 2 October - the result of a 
startled cat after I sneezed.

Prune & Parsnip Wine 2020 - Fourth Bottle (5), 23rd October 2021

It has been a quiet Saturday, though originally Chris & Kate were meant to stay for the weekend. That they have both fallen ill (not Covid, I think) is unfortunate but at least it meant that I didn't have to spend two hours tidying frantically. Instead I have shopped, played my mother at Scrabble, made a fabulous bread & butter pudding (from the remains of the Gugelhopf) and tried to watch Lego Batman, which was a fail from me. Oh, and drunk half a bottle of Prune & Parsnip, which is Perfectly Pleasant

Wiggy on 23 October

Gooseberry Wine 2021 - The Making Of...

For years we have been saying that our freezer is too small for all the excess fruit that I pick, and that we must investigate getting a small freezer just for wine making. Claire and I are great procrastinators. If you require further evidence, you only need to go into our front room. We have owned the house for six years now and have yet to paint the plaster.

Some of our gooseberries, close up.

Anyway, on Sunday 10th July I went on-line to investigate mini-freezers and about ten minutes later had ordered one. It arrived on Monday. Why I took about four years or so over this, I do not know. Mostly it will be filled with gooseberries this year. Our bushes are rampant. We have at least three varieties and all have had a good summer.

Gooseberries being washed

On Sunday 11th July I went out to harvest 6 lbs for this wine. Those in the back garden are not as far on as those in the front, but I still picked a few from each bush, getting lightly scratched in the process. Why are gooseberry plants quite so defensive of their fruit?

More gooseberries!

In the end, I picked 2 oz less than the 6 lbs required, but that was Good Enough. I put them in our largest cooking pot with 3 pints of water, brought them to the boil and let them simmer for 5 minutes. The whole lot went into my bucket with 2 lbs 14 oz sugar and a further two pints of cold water. I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient, pectolase and tannin just before going to bed and by Monday morning it was all fermenting nicely

Gooseberry wine fermenting

The wine got one stir each day and I planned to put it in its demijohn on Friday evening. However, by then I had worked until 6:15 and was in a thoroughly bad mood, so I left it until this morning, 17th July.

Gooseberry does take a long time to put into its demijohn, though I had Radio 3's Record Review to keep me company. The wine is going to produce a huge sediment.

The first demijohn of Gooseberry Wine

It did - massive! I racked this on 20th August and I fit in most of 2 pints of water with 4 oz sugar dissolved.

I am making a second batch, this time crushing the berries rather than boiling them and 5 pints of boiling water. I started on Sunday 23rd August and racked it on 25th September. The sediment on this one was slightly smaller, but I put in 36 fluid ounces of water with 2 oz sugar dissolved.

Rhubarb Wine 2019 - Eighth Bottle (A4), 29th-30th June 2021

I have new boots. Bought at great expense and looking as if they have been made by elves for a medieval Germanic shoemaker, I am really pleased with them. It is the first time that I have been at all interested in footwear apart from slippers. On Tuesday I took my first walk in them - just to Sainsbury's - and I did not return limping and blistered. In the evening I opened this bottle and we had our first glass inspecting the garden and spotting amphibians in the pond. The wine is a fine vintage of rhubarb - there is a touch of bronze to its colour and I think it similar to a shop-bought white. Claire may disagree!

I had the last glass on Wednesday after returning from Madeleine's quintets. It is so good to be playing chamber music again. 

New Boots

Crab Apple & Strawberry Wine 2020 - First Bottle (3), 23rd-24th June 2021

This is such a pretty bottle of wine. It is jewel-red and so clear. Taste-wise, it is not bad either and I think rather better than Apple & Strawberry. It has a fruity dryness to it that is appealing and I should have another bottle to see if I think 'crab apple' or 'strawberry' is the dominant flavour. I'm not convinced either is distinctive.

The most exciting thing to happen on either day was that some new jeans arrived through the post. By far the most expensive jeans that I have ever bought (from Spoke) but they fit perfectly and are so, so comfortable. The adage that you get what you pay for seems true on this occasion.

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

My old jeans - 32" waist apparently!

New jeans - 31" waist

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 2020 - First Bottle (3), 6th February 2021

This Prune & Parsnip is entirely acceptable but not quite as good as previous years. Claire describes the taste as 'more urine-y', which I suspect is not a compliment. It is thinner, more acidic and less like sherry. Maybe future bottles will be better.

The day felt wasted, though I don't know why. I wrote a letter to Ellis, played Scrabble with Mom and stocked up with groceries at Sainsbury's. The weather didn't help: nonstop rain which was oppressive and frustrating.

The view from my car window, on our drive.

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

Ginger Wine 2021 - The Making Of...

Saturday 9th January began as one of those bitterly cold sunlit days which is the best sort of winter day. Friday's snow had turned from damp and malleable to hard, crunchy and entirely satisfying to walk over. Claire's gender non-specific snowperson was still standing and no-one had stolen its hat. There were a fox's footsteps leading down our drive and everything in the neighbourhood looked different. We get snow so rarely, far less than I remember from my childhood, that I become giddy when it is here.

Ingredients in the snow (plus a bird's footprints)

The walk to Chapel Allerton to buy ingredients for ginger wine was a pleasure, particularly my route through the park watching children hurtling down the hill on their sleds, colourful against the white.

Ginger

I had intended to start this wine on the Saturday but the day ran away from me, so winemaking was a task for Sunday instead. I weighed 6½ oz ginger and, having read an article in The Guardian saying that removing skin from ginger was unnecessary, I gave it a quick scrub instead, sliced it thinly - skin and all - and put this in my bucket. Next I took four lemons and sliced the outermost peel from them, avoiding the pith, and put this in the bucket along with all their juice (11 fluid ounces). I then minced 1 lb of sultanas with the food processor and this went in too. My final winemaking task for the day was to boil 3½ pints of water and pour this over everything.

Lemons and peel

On Monday lunchtime, a day where the snow has vanished entirely, I boiled another 3½ pints of water and put this into the bucket with 2 lbs 8 oz of sugar. I let this cool for five hours and then added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase.

The dry ingredients (except for sugar)

It took well over 24 hours before I was convinced that the yeast was doing its thing, but eventually it clearly was. I left the wine until Saturday 16th January before putting it into the demijohn - and there it is bubbling away: opaque and dark yellow.

Ginger wine in its demijohn

Prune & Parsnip Wine 2019 - Ninth Bottle (B6), 16th January 2021

Saturday was one of those days where I pottered. It was much like all other Saturdays have been stretching back for months. Post Office, grocery shopping, Scrabble with my mother, bottle of wine (as prune & parsnippy as ever) and Snarkalong film (Ocean's Eight). The only different thing was that I made a serious effort with our Book Group Book: Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford. It is 824 pages long. I have reached page 144 and Nothing At All Has Happened. I am relieved that I still have nearly four weeks until Book Group.

Parade's End

Elderflower, Mint & Rhubarb Wine 2019 - Second Bottle (2), 26th September 2020

Saturday had the feel of 'Every Saturday' about it: rising later than a weekday, morning trip to the post office to send out the week's documents, afternoon shop followed by Scrabble with Mom. Nice meal in the evening, and then the Snarkalong Film Club: Heathers this week, which I did not much enjoy. Making the day slightly different was installing our new garden bench and christening it with coffee and cake. Also, drinking this bottle of wine (one of my rarer flavours), which I think is splendid but which Claire thinks has a touch of mouthwash.

Christening the bench with coffee and cake

Blackberry Wine 2019 - Third Bottle (B2), 20th September 2020

It has been a thoroughly satisfactory Sunday. After an early morning trip to the Asian supermarket, where we bought vast quantities of pulses, spices and exotic flour, I spent the afternoon gardening and then foraging for sloes. We are having my 50th birthday garden bench delivered this coming week, so needed to clear a space. This is the sort of gardening that I can do - unsubtle manual labour. Then in the evening I made a lasagne, we drank this bottle (entirely acceptable) and watched Line of Duty. A grand Sunday, followed by a night of anxiety dreams about Law Society Finals (sat in 1993). This coming week is likely to be difficult!

My 50th Birthday Garden Bench (which arrived on 25 September)

Kiwi Fruit Wine 2018 - Fourth Bottle (5), 9th July 2020

My mood on Thursday matched the weather. It pissed it down all day. I cancelled my morning walk and went out after work instead. The rain was only moderately less heavy. At Sainsbury's, I bought some salted caramel cookies and barbecue sauce pop-chips thinking that unwholesome food might cheer me up. This was partly successful. Better, though, was an evening being companionable with Claire and this bottle of kiwi fruit wine. It really isn't bad at all. Maybe a tad sweet, but certainly a long way from "Never again". It may be my April wine next year.

Taken on 10th July - I didn't get

my camera out on 9th July.

Blackcurrant Wine 2017 - Tenth Bottle (A2), 18th June 2020

I do make a good bottle of blackcurrant wine. It has all the fruit taste you want and this vintage is smooth and easy to drink. Possibly too easy. We drank the bottle on Thursday night on a day where very little of interest happened. The most exciting thing was a trip out to the Book Shop to buy books. Whilst this might sound unremarkable, this week was the first week that shops selling non-essential items were allowed to open since Lockdown began. Some might argue that books were never non-essential.

Two more doors I like 

(taken on 17th June)

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.

Rhubarb Wine 2020 - The Making Of...

I have been concerned about rhubarb stocks for wine this year. On the basis that non-essential travel is at best frowned upon and at worst illegal, getting rhubarb from Nick - who lives in Morley and is my usual rhubarb source - wasn't really an option. Whilst we have plenty of rhubarb plants in both front and back gardens, many are junior and a bit weedy. Those that are not are mostly used to make porridge more interesting. I managed to persuade Claire that there would be enough for me to make a single batch of pure rhubarb wine and then, in June, a batch of rhubarb, elderflower & mint - but really I wanted to do a double batch of the former. In years gone by, I have done a triple.

One of our less weedy rhubarbs

It was fortuitous, then, that a couple of weeks ago there was a stormy night (no rain, just wind) that wreaked havoc on our neighbour Liz's rhubarb plant, but which left ours pretty much unscathed. Liz did a batch of wine herself but asked whether I would like any too and brought round 3 lbs in return for a teaspoon of yeast. I chopped these stalks and left them in the freezer for a week or so, getting them out to defrost on Sunday morning, 17th May. Later that day, I negotiated carefully with Claire about which rhubarb plants from our garden could donate another 3 lbs of stalks and once collected I washed and chopped these too.

All rhubarb pieces, including the recently defrosted ones, went into my bucket along with all the sugar I had - 4 lbs 12 oz - and 12½ pints of boiling water. I really needed to put in 6 lbs of sugar, but thought that putting in the remainder later would probably be fine.

On Monday morning I added a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase, and on Tuesday I ventured out for sugar. Baking products are scarce in this era of Covid 19 and all Sainsburys stored was dark brown sugar (though I did manage to grab a bag of white bread flour, which has become as rare as the Siberian Tiger, and don't talk to me about bread yeast!), so I used this instead. Brown sugar is far bulkier than white and I am concerned that it will affect the flavour - it has certainly altered the colour - so I only used 1 lb of this.

I put the wine into its demijohns on Friday 22nd May. There was more sludge that usual, and I think this is because I froze half the rhubarb. The wine is more orange than pink.

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

Rose Petal & Orange Wine 2018 - Second Bottle (5), 12th-13th March 2020

I think that this wine has improved a little through keeping: there is a hint of butter to its taste. The rose petal is dominant but the orange is there and helps.

I was home along on Friday night and drank half the bottle to the series finale of Doctor Who, which was actually quite good. The country is currently in the grip of Pandemic Panic - supermarket shelves are empty of pasta and toilet paper. The only thing that I am stockpiling is wine.

One of our cats, unbothered by Pandemic Panic

Rose Petal & Orange Wine 2019 - The Making Of...

This year I have scaled back my rose petal wine production. I think that I have more bottles of rose petal in the house than any other flavour and 2018's vintage was poor. Going cold-turkey, though, was never the plan so I have made a single batch of rose petal & orange.

The Rose Petals

Obviously November is not the time of year to be gathering rose petals. In anticipation of this flavour, I started freezing roses past their first flush of youth from June. Mostly they were white roses, as that is our most prolific bush, but I did manage to get a few reds in there as well.

Oranges are available all year round so I left this wine until November and I decided to buy my oranges from the Fruit Stall in Chapel Allerton, albeit that this meant the wine is about 80p more expensive than it might otherwise be. They were large and juicy oranges, though, and I only needed five of them.

On Saturday evening, 2nd November, I thinly peeled one orange and covered its peel with a pint of boiling water, leaving this to one side. I then juiced all five oranges, which gave me a pint of juice, and put this in my bucket. Next I measured two pints of frozen rose petals, which is half what I used last year, and put these into the bucket with 3 lbs of sugar. I boiled 5-and-a-half pints of water and poured this in, releasing a heady aroma. On Sunday morning I added the water that had been covering the peel (but not the peel) and a teaspoon each of yeast, nutrient and pectolase.

The wine in its bucket

Ordinarily I would have put this in its demijohn on Thursday or Friday, but I was out both nights, so it waited until Saturday morning, 9th November. It was a quick job and I am left with a peach-coloured liquid.

The colour on racking was beautiful - a light dusky orange - and the wine has cleared entirely. I couldn't tell from my tiny sip, however, whether this was going to be any good or not. It didn't need much sugar, but I dissolved 2 oz in half a pint of water and poured that in.

The wine when first in its demijohn

If you want to see how this wine turned out (hint: very well indeed), click here

Elderberry Wine 2017 - Sixth Bottle (C6), 15th March 2020

This elderberry wine is splendid. It has the depth of a proper red and was a perfect bottle to go with shepherd's pie. The day had been a quiet one; the most exciting event was going to Sainsburys and failing to buy either eggs or bread flour. We are in a time of panic-buying, fuelled by both traditional and social media. The supermarket felt like it was in a state of chaos and certain sections were bare. I did manage to buy some Herbs de Provence, though, so that's alright.

A photo I took on 15th March

Orange Wine 2019 - The Making Of...

Now that I have had a month to think about it, I have decided that Claire is right. Claire would argue that a month to consider whether she is correct is ridiculous and exactly a month too long. But she is right - I have been making too much wine and I should scale back production this year. So for the first time in probably fifteen years, I am making a single batch of orange wine. It will become apparent in 2021 whether this is a good idea.

I started the wine on Saturday 2nd March. Recently I have installed a step-counter app on my phone and because this is new and shiny I am walking everywhere. I walked to Chapel Allerton to buy the week's groceries and saw that the Fruit Stall was selling oranges at three for a pound. This is far more expensive than I have bought oranges in the past and I did have an internal debate about whether I should drive to Sainsbury's where they would be five for a pound. But then I reasoned that I was not poverty stricken and could probably afford the extra £1.80 for the ingredients. The oranges added significantly to the weight I carried home, and I had to stop and rest three times on the journey.

Back at home I thinly peeled six of the 12 oranges, getting less successful at avoiding the pith as I went on. I put the peel in a bowl, poured a pint of boiling water over it and covered that with clingfilm.

Half of the oranges thinly peeled

Next I squeezed all oranges and measured the juice - two and a half pints. These oranges are far larger and juicier than last year's, where I made a double batch with only slightly more juice. It will be interesting to see what this does to the flavour.

I poured the juice into my bucket and made up the liquid to 6½ pints by putting in 4 pints of cold water. Next I added 2 lbs 12 oz sugar, stirred it all to dissolve this and put in a teaspoon of yeast, nutrient and pectolase. Next day I added the water that had been covering the peel and put the peel itself into our compost bucket.

I transferred the liquid into its demijohn on Wednesday evening, 6th March. It was a quick process as there was little to sieve out. I could have used maybe a quarter pint more liquid. The wine is a vibrant orange colour and I look forward to its taste.

If you want to see how this tasted, click here.

Elderberry Wine - Second Bottle (C2), 2nd February 2019

Leaving this flavour 5 months has done a little to smooth out the wine's sharpest edges, but I still think that this is too young to be an entirely satisfactory bottle - plenty of promise, however. We drank this elderberry on Saturday night after a quiet day mostly taken up with making my prune & parsnip wine - though shopping for food and reading also featured. I'm currently on The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem, which is a deeply uncomfortable coming of age novel set in 1970s Brooklyn. Brilliantly written, but cold and brutal.