This once a month blogging is getting on my nerves! I need to get into a more regular schedule. If for no other reason than to clear my brain. This actually does not take much effort as there is not a great amount of activity upstairs, but it does help keep things tidy in the grey matter.
It is mid September and we are winding down the year. Oddly enough, the wine making appears to be kicking up in small batches. I believe it was inspired by uncorking a split of the currant wine. Robin and I pulled one out late in August. It was a sparkling beauty that had a perfect blend of sweetness and stars in the glass. It took us some effort not to knock down the remaining eleven splits immediately. We brought out one of our precious reserves to the folks house at a gathering and the family there got a sip or two of this and I may need to lock our doors to protect us from "visits" to check on our welfare (wine)... These bottles will definitely go out in Christmas gift baskets for family and friends.
On a side note, Robin and I have been talking seriously about our bees. We expect to extract somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 pounds of honey this year as our bees have been prolific. Last year and the year before, I did it the very basic way of uncapping the frames and pressing out the gold with the back of a spoon. This was labor intensive and made the foundation un-useable for the following season. Each foundation runs about a dollar a sheet and with a ten frame box and extracting about four boxes lies the math lesson that indicates an actual extractor saves money over time. Robin took the hit on this one and purchased us a two frame extractor for our little, but spendy hobby. We love the bees and are eager to see what they will share this year. October 1st is our planned extraction date and we will post some pictures of the process.
Back to the actual work. I bottled five gallons of the oldest metheglin last week and moved around my last five gallons of metheglin and the five gallons of blueberry wine that's been a perkin'. I usually pull off a bit to taste where things are looking at each transfer. The mead is doing well as expected. The blueberry is quite interesting. It has a dry finish and there are tannins in there along with a nice blueberry tang going on. I am not sure how the wine is supposed to taste or how it will mellow, but I find it a nice dry red-type wine at the moment.
Our pear trees yielded quite a batch of pears this year. We were wondering what to do with them when Robin piped up that we have available carboys. I thought to try a one gallon batch and it is looking very nice after a couple days of perking. It is next to the raspberry-grape batch. Yes, a raspberry-grape blend! We had a bunch of himrod grapes this year and I decided to crush the lot for some wine. Robin and I also pulled off a cup or so of raspberries. Not enough for a batch alone, so we added them to the grapes. It is very pretty, but not the bright mix of the currant wine. We shall see on the flavor soon enough.
A stop by at Johnson's Orchard brought home about 20 pounds of peaches. You can see where this is going. Today, I will try a hand at a peach-raisin wine. I understand that peaches alone don't give enough body to a wine, so it should be fortified a bit. The same was the case for the pear wine. I got a couple boxes of golden raisins and only used one on the pears, so I am going to use the other box with the peaches. I will share what this produces.
Oh, I guess I should give a bottle yield so far. It seems we are currently holding about eighty bottles of mostly 750 ml of metheglin wine and ten splits of the currant wine. That is mostly why I am slowing down a bit on production. What to do with that amount. I did get carried away with wanting to do 50 gallons this year and met about half that goal along with the fruit wines that are cropping up. We are having fun playing around though and plan to do more of this next year.
Wine making is a pretty easy process outright and often produces some very good product if you are patient. Once you get going, the biggest expense seems to be the bottles if you buy new as I have tended to do so far. I did build a wine case for the rack that Robin bought me and it will hold about 60 bottles. Robin also purchased a small wine refrigerator to hold our currant wine.
I am now off to prepare some peaches and cut up some raisins. I will try to get some pics on the next posting.
Outside is the calling of a large flock of birds. The music would be more enticing if they were not starlings. Sigh. Yet it is a beautiful day and I have been going on regular bicycle rides that so far are on the four mile treks and I am looking forward to today's journey. What will be my path today? How about you?
