Gooseberry & Elderflower Wine - Second Bottle (4), 5th June 2012

Tonight's meal required a sharp white, so I opened a bottle of gooseberry & elderflower. I was a little pre-emptive, however. The bottle was opened at 6:30 and we did not eat until nine. So matching food and wine rather went out of the window. It was still a good wine to serve to Bob, Judith and my father - all of whom joined us for the meal - because it is definitely one of my best whites. It is full of its base flavours, yet is more rounded than most homebrews.

We finished the wine quickly whilst picking at chorizo, olives and locally grown asparagus. The evening has been lovely, chatting about family (both Claire's and mine) and generally having a relaxed, entertaining evening in. However, now I must sleep and I have yet to make tomorrow's sandwiches or pack my work bag.

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.

Dandelion Wine - Second Bottle (2), 7th-8th June 2012

Ray Bradbury died on Wednesday. Growing up, he was one of my favourite authors. His short stories were perfect. It was the science-fiction that grabbed me, but often the everyday that stayed. They were sinister, nostalgic, inventive and always beautifully written. Writing that was dripping with both lemon and honey. His death meant there was no other flavour I could open, and we raised our glasses to him. Dandelion Wine is a wonderful book and one that I only read last year. It is full of honest and truth, hearkening back to a childhood in small town America. I will be pulling Ray Bradbury from my bookshelves over the next few weeks and reminding myself of his brilliance.

Rhubarb & Elderflower Wine - The Making Of ...

This flavour is another one suggested by Claire. However, I think her motive was to reduce our holding stock of rhubarb in the freezer rather than necessarily inventing an unmissable combination of ingredients. Our various rhubarb patches in the back garden have been prolific this year and do not show any signs of abating. I am hopeful that this means we will be eating pie into July. It won't result in any more wine, though. 'Rhubarb and Elderflower' is likely to be 2012's last wine involving rhubarb (unless it makes it into the Christmas Tutti Fruti).

Today, 2nd June, is on the early side for elderflowers. I have been noticing the odd 'head' on my way to work this week, but little more. Therefore, when I went out foraging this afternoon, I was expecting to be out quite some time. Including the walk to and from the Stonegate playing fields, I was gone about fifteen minutes. This was hardly foraging at its most difficult. All the elderflowers came from one tree, and I collected about one quarter of a small plastic bag full - which on stripping proved to be half a pint's worth of blossom. I used my new 'birthday jug' to measure this. Though I have yet to turn 42, I spotted Claire coming back to the car this morning with a measuring jug. I did not realise she was trying to be surreptitious, so when she announced she had bought me a birthday present I asked if it was the jug. Apparently this has spoiled the surprise, so she has given it to me - unwrapped - twelve days early.

My Birthday Jug (with elderflowers)

As well as half a pint of elderflowers, this wine also has 3 lbs of rhubarb, 3 lbs of sugar and 7-and-a-quarter pints of boiling water poured over the rest of the ingredients. The rhubarb, being frozen, came to be painfully cold to the touch.

Rhubarb & Elderflower - in a bucket

I added the yeast and a teaspoon each of nutrient and pectolase on the rather rainy morning of 3rd June. It was inevitable that the weather for the grandest day of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebration would be mostly drizzle. I left everything in the bucket, stirring twice a day, until Thursday evening, 7th June, which has been another incredibly wet day. I poured the liquid, sieving out the solids, into its demijohn and I have wrapped this in silver foil, to preserve the pink. The wine is not bubbling as frantically as I would like it to, but there is definitely some fermentation going on.

Rhubarb Wine - 2nd bottle (A1), 1st June 2012

Please raise your glasses to the Queen, Gawd bless Her. It is the start of an extra-long weekend (extending into Tuesday) to celebrate Her Maj's 60th anniversary. I shall mostly avoid the media during the next few days. However, Claire and I did toast the Queen with a bottle of rhubarb wine. Somehow this feels suitable - it has a fizz and its colour is somewhere between red and white (though blue, alas, is lacking). It also sounds like something people would be drinking in 1952, an era of post-war hardship and rationing.

Our food was quiche assembled from garden vegetables, including one broadbean pod and a tiny asparagus spear, with plenty of parsley - which is growing in abundance.

Crab Apple Wine - 4th Bottle (B6) 29th-30th May 2012

Claire announced on Tuesday evening that she had been chilling a bottle of crab apple wine. Rather than being pleased on hearing this, my immediate thought was "Did we not have one of those just a few days ago?" However, this did not stop me opening and enjoying it. Despite being just that little too sweet, it is very drinkable. This particular bottle had huge amounts of sediment which, due to the wine's fizz, was unavoidable.

Wednesday's glass was drunk after our last WYSO rehearsal before the Pontefract Castle concert. I was not heartened to learn that 2,000 people are coming, and that every player will be wearing a microphone. Therefore, I cannot swear when I go wrong, or count bars' rest out loud. Damn and blast. The orchestra as a whole was sounding unsure and under-rehearsed. It will be one of those 'skin of the teeth' concerts. Wish me luck!

Raspberry Wine - Bottle 5, 27th May 2012

Well, today has been tedious. Whilst most of the country has been enjoying a rare Sunday of cloudless skies and warmth, I have been sat in the Alwoodley Community Centre rehearsing for, and then playing in, a concert that went on for two and a half hours. Even good concerts should only go on for ninety minutes. But this one had twelve items, including a concerto, a symphony, most of a sonata, a prelude and fugue, and a them and variations. And there was a raffle. I hate raffles in concerts. They go on forever, for such unexciting prizes. Today's most banal prize was a notebook. God! At least I came home to a bottle of raspberry wine - the last, which is a shame, as this is a terrific flavour. We drank it to a chicken roast (on the hottest day of the year so far) and the first salad of the season where many ingredients were from our garden.