Summer wine...

Wine and sunshine, what more is there? The heat of the sun is making my wines bubble away merrily as they move towards full fermentation, the sunshine making them shine, the heat helping the alcohol along.

The Elderflower has been going two months now, the carrot about six weeks, and the honeysuckle three weeks or so. They’ll all be okayish to drink by Christmas and I’m looking forward to a Christmas Day tasting.

Next comes the elderberries and blackberries for the red wines I’m planning to make. They won’t be around until the end of August and the wine won’t be ready until the spring. Yes, wine is a slow old process and needs a bit of planning. Still, I’m learning as I go and enjoying the process, apart from the laborious sterilisation of everything. It’s a bit like the chemistry lessons when I was at school, except there are no exams to take and no stink bomb smells hanging around the room.

I found that five litre still water bottles make excellent demijohns. All you have to do is carefully cut a hole in the top and fit a filter. They cost about a quid in the supermarket and I use the water to make the wine. I started by buying two online for about eight quid and then I realised that they were just still water bottles with a filter fitted. Fit a filter yourself and, hey presto, a demijohn for free.

Oh well, we live and learn.