It is too cold at the moment to play in the garden, it is absolutely arctic outside. Instead we are focusing on indoor tasks, like checking the progress of our apple and plum wines that we made in August last year.
The apple wine was very pleasing, a nice pale yellow colour and a hint of Chardonnay with its buttery, apple flavour. We had a glass with our lunch, only a small one though because with an alcohol content of about 15% it is quite strong. Paul thought it was slightly too dry so we added a small amount of syrup and will leave it to mature for a few more weeks before bottling.
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| apple wine |
We then tried the plum wine. The combined flavours of vinegar and corked wine were immediately apparent! Oh dear, this was very disappointing. A whole demi john of wine was tipped down the sink.
Fortunately the four other demi johns of plum wine were delicious so they were racked off (transferred into a clean container leaving the sediment behind) and, again, we added a very small amount of syrup to sweeten them up slightly. It is a simple process to sweeten the wine but you have to be extremely careful not to overdo it.
Hopefully we shall be able to bottle and cork the wine in a few weeks time.
Cheers!
I used to enjoy making beer and wine - and being gleeful that the chancellor wasn't raking off any duty! Tee total nowadays so sort of lost the enthusiasm for it - understandably I guess.
ReplyDeleteWe shall continue to buy our fine red wines but I just had to find a way to use our surplus of plums and apples.
DeleteCheers to you - I shall raise a glass with my wine. I must say they are both such a beautiful colour which does make them look so appetising.
ReplyDeleteI think they will be nice to drink chilled on a warm summer's day.
DeleteWhat a very talented pair you are! I am very envious of the finished product.
ReplyDeleteWe shall just be happy if the end product is drinkable.
DeleteYou seem to have mastered the fine art of wine making. What a good way of using all those apples and plums. The color looks superb.
ReplyDeleteTrial and error, I don't think we've mastered it!
DeleteLady M was saying recently that we'll have to make our own wine when we're in the UK, as the ready-made is so expensive. What a shame about your Plum Wine; it's a pity you don't have a home-made still, you could have used it for eau de vie. Paul could make a still from an old pressure cooker and a length of copper tubing (see YouTube).
ReplyDeleteI think we're going to have more wine than we can ever get round to drinking. DOn't give Paul ideas!
DeleteHappy to pop round and help you with the drinking of wine! It looks very pretty. Shame you live too far away for an evening trip!
ReplyDeleteHertfordshire is just a bit too far away!
DeleteWhat a shame you've had to pour one demi-john away, but it looks as though you still have a good amount.
ReplyDeleteThe last photo reminds me of when my husband used to make wine, when we lived in the UK. He used to buy tins of concentrate from Boots and had some very good results - particularly the whites. When we moved out here we shipped all the paraphernalia with us, and I do believe some of it might still be gathering dust in a corner of the garage. Of course we didn't need it. With a reasonably decent wine at about 3 or 4 euros a bottle, it was just a waste of time to go through the whole process!
Wouldn't have dreamt of doing it while we were living in France.
DeleteDo not add antifreeze like some producers did. We used to make red from concentrate like the Coppas and it was very acceptable - never got round to putting it in bottles though. I think that now I'd go with stewed apples and plums in bottles and stick with Lidls wines.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame you, it's quite a lot of kerfuffle.
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