Topping Up

I decided to add white grape juice to the quickie elderflower gallon that needed topping up, rather than sugar solution. Why? Well there isn't much juice in this wine anyway (2 litres/gallon) so topping up without some more fruit juice seems a bit optimistic, especially when a litre was needed. The juice weighs in with an OG of 1070, so it's not dissimilar to the OG of the original brew, I may adjust it with a little sugar solution for the last 100ml or so, to maintain additions with a very close gravity to the OG. It just makes calculating the %ABV easier.

These additions should make this gallon of wine noticeably different to the other 4 gallons started from the same base brew. I'm not sure how much so, it'll be interesting to see when the time comes. It will of course need a little longer as this gallon will be fermenting for some time yet, while the others have more or less stopped and will be degassed and stabilised soon.

It's Hot in Much of the UK

Some of you, like me, will be fermenting at the mo. Some of you, unlike me, will be concerned that your brew is getting to hot (I put a wetsuit on and tried body-boarding in a surf-less sea, still had a nice day out tho). You'll probably be wondering about all sorts of ways to cool it down. But before you start emptying the freezer to make ice consider this low tech but very effective method....

Wet a towel, or some tea towels. Squeeze them 'til they stop dripping and then drape them over your fermenting vessel. Put them in a well ventilated spot, like next to an open window. As the water evaporates it cools the contents of the fermenting vessel. All you have to do is keep wetting the (tea) towels. If you have a fan then this will help, and if you have a cool stone (tiles, cement etc) floor this will further help.

This is all due to something called latent heat of evaporation. In a nutshell it takes energy to get water to evaporate, this energy comes from heat, the heat comes from whatever is in the fermentation vessel.

Elderflower Shuffling etc

The Elderflower wines have been demanding attention, so they got some!
Yesterday I took the flowers out of both batches.
Today I moved the larger one to 5 DJ's, one of which needs a top up (sugar and water at around 1070-1080). I'll label this DJ separately, it'll be interesting see how much difference the topping up makes.
Also today moved the smaller batch (3 gallons) to the secondary fermenter.

The Amazing Bottle Opener

Gah! Not another gratuitous piccie! This is the bottle opener that I know as an "Ahso". Tho this one is stamped "Italy" and "FGB". I think the "Ahso" came from the Far East, as you would expect of such a neat gadget.

You place the longer of the two prongs between the cork and the bottle neck. Then wiggle it down until the shorter prong reaches the cork on the other side of the neck. Another little wiggle ensures it is properly in on both sides. Then you "rock" the opener down, side to side. When at the bottom you stop rocking and start twisting upwards and hey presto out comes the cork, undamaged, No push-ins, no crumbling no problems. And the real magic is that by doing the opposite (twist down and rock up) you can reinsert a cork! And they are cheap as chips.

Cork Thoughts

So what's this gratuitous picture then?
These are corks recently pulled from 2 bottles of wine. As the astute amongst you will be aware I didn't use a corkscrew, I used a two-pronged type bottle opener. The first one I got to know went under the brand name of "Ahso" if i remember right. Anyway the cork on the left is the type I have been using most often for med-long term storage. The one on the right was the type I was using 2 years ago. It had leaked every so slightly, you couldn't see any volume change, but the neck of the bottle was sticky and the top of the cork a little sticky too. It was also a little grey/green in the "grain" of the cork. The ones on the left don't seem to do this. And I'm telling you all this because the right one came out of tonight's bottle of Rosehip & Star Anise wine (see earlier post) and it hasn't suffered at all for this.

I'm still not sure which cork is best, but when I opened the Rosehip & Star Anise it felt like I was opening a 50 year old bottle and was quite exciting!

Tidy up & Quality Control

With the 5 gallon Elderflower ferment slowing down now I've been thinking ahead a little. So today had a bit of an organise; washed and sterilised some bottles, starting checking the empty DJ's for dodgey smells and found a couple, so washed and sterilised them too. Almost ready to go for racking now, just to make sure I remember which DJ's I checked.

Checked the wine rack for vacancies and found there was none of last year's Elderflower in it, neither Rose Petal. So put that to rights with full labelling, and then found that I hadn't put simple labels on the Rose Petal wine (I don't bother with a full picture label for my wine unless they are gifts or on display). So put that right too.

Felt pleased with myself for being prepared and organised ... and avoiding finding an unlabelled bottle of wine in a few years and not having a clue what it is! So I grabbed myself a bottle of almost 2 year old Rosehip & Star Anise.

What a delight. Warm, med/dry, star anise is there but my taste buds are asking is it licorice, aniseed, star anise, fennel, not quite sure, but definitely good, you smell it a little before it reaches your mouth. Once there of course you taste it, it's not overpowering but isn't subtle either. There's also well rounded fruit flavours, tho I can't put my finger on them, if I try hard then I'd say perhaps pear, apricot and a little pineapple and raspberry. So I'll stop trying cos that just sounds way confusing!

Anyway it's made my mind up, I'll do another batch of Rosehip this year, I won't bother with the Cinnamon version. Instead I'll just do Mace (also works well) and Star Anise.

If you want to know the recipe but can't be bothered to wait til I post it then it's more or less the recipe in CJJ.Berry's book, except I added a single whole Star Anise flower to each DJ when it had finished fermenting, and left it in for a few months. Then I left it for about12-18 months longer. It definitely needs time to age, At 6-12 months it was hooch, coarse, hot, loopy juice. Now it tastes great and is rounded.

OK, this is an edit some 30 minutes later .... I just had a big swig and knock me down with a feather I can taste raisins, this is what is behind the anise flavours, giving it all body. Talk about not seeing the wood for the trees!

Critter Wines Get's Out 'n' About

Tonight Critter Wines went to a typical English BBQ (it rained!). The company was good, chilled, interesting, relaxed. The food was good too;

• Homemade burgers (with herbs from the garden). 
• Homemade marinaded fish and veggie kebabs. 
• Homemade chocolate brownies, 
• and plenty of other stuff. 

The wine went down well too, a bottle of Green Tea & Ginger was taken along and got shared around and snaffled down - quite pronto - with compliments.

The chilly weather meant that on returning home something warming was required, so a 1/2 bottle  of Orange & Hawthorn Blossom was opened and hit the spot.

It's times like these that put the icing on the cake as far as brewing is concerned.

Elderflower Wine Batch 2 is go

Hopefully all the wild yeasts and little bugs are now knocked out, so I added all the rest of the ingredients to get the second batch of Elderflower wine going. OG for this one turned out to be 1078.

Recipe; Not Content with One Batch ....

We picked 5 litres of flowers all together, which was way more than enough for 5 gallons of quickie Elderflower wine. So I got a repeat brew of last year's wine on the go, 3 gallons for this one.

Recipe (3 gallons)

6 Litres of White Grape Juice
3 Litres of Elderflowers
Around 3 Kg Sugar
9 Tsp of my acid mix (1 part Citric Acid: 2 Tartaric: 3 Malic)
1.5 Tsp Wine Tannin
2 Campden Tablets (crushed)
Nutrient
Water to 3 Gallons
Sauternes Yeast

Method

Put the flowers into muslin bags and tie them up. Add to fermenting bin. Pour on the grape juice, crush the campden tablets and add them to the must. Give it all a stir, put a lid on and forget about it til the next day by which time the campden will have knocked out the wild yeast. This is as far as I have got, tomorrow all the action happens.

Then add all the other ingredients. Aim for an OG around 1080-1090. After a few days remove the flowers, transfer to secondary and then follow all the usual procedures of racking, degassing, fining (if needed), stabilising etc as and when needed. Ready to drink after a few months.

Finally It's Elderflower Wine Brewing.

Today the brew I got going last week finally became Elderflower; having collected the flowers, bagged them and left them overnight.

I shook the bag for a few minutes and most of the petals dropped off. The picture is a kind of before and after shot. The spray on the right is fairly typical of what you can expect. Most sprays are stripped of their flowers but a few hang on. Probably 'cos they only just opened or perhaps hadn't opened at all. That's ok tho because those ones don't have the great scent that we want.

Next I put 2 litres of the flowers into a nylon net bag and tied it up. There were 5 litres of flowers all together but 2 litres is enough for this brew. In fact I probably don't need as much as 2 litres but I don't want a subtle elderflower flavour ... I want plenty!

Then I greased up the lid, o-ring and bung on the airlock (just be be sure) for my new 5 gallon fermenting bin and threw in the bagged flowers. Then transferred the 4 gallons of base brew from my primary bin into the new one. This is important cos the new one has a cap and airlock which means it'll keep the air out. I then Added another litre of white grape juice, and another litre of apple juice, 600 grams of sugar and made the volume up to 5 gallons with water. All these additions were made to match the original gravity of the brew (to save on doing the maths). Then screwed the lid on and shortly after heard the welcome sounds of bubbles coming through the airlock.

Hoefully we'll be drinking this brew in about 6 weeks, maybe less.

What Flowers & When

So you want to make Elderflower wine, but how do you know what flowers to pick and when to pick them?

Engage your senses, you'll need your nose especially but also your eyes.

• Wait for the sun to be shining, at least a few hours, preferably a day, since rain fell.
• Smell the flowers, they'll have a citrus, lemon, lychee (litchi), pineapple scent if they are good. Those to avoid are the ones that smell of .... well bluntly .... cat's pee. So if they smell wonderful pick them, if they smell horrid then don't.
• Flowers will be an almost brilliant white to very pale yellow and most on each spray will be open.
• Look out for pollen when you shake the flower sprays. This will look like a very fine dust and you wont have to move the sprays much to see it fall. If it's been a windy day then it may all have been blown off, but otherwise it'll show! Look at your hands after handling a few sprays, they'll be stained orange/yellow in patches.
• Make a note of where you found them, because when the berries out the branches will hang lower, and those trees with horrid flower scents may well be the ideal ones to pick the berries from ... elderberry wine! The tree just keeps on giving .... if you beat the birds to the berries.

This is an uber wine that just screams spring/summer at you. Great to drink on a bright warm day. If you are considering homebrew then this is a must, a real huge must.

• The flowers are free ... just get foraging
• Unlike any wine you'll ever buy and is very traditional
• Totally Delicious

Elderflower Wine Continued

It's been a funny few days of showers and sunshine but today it started bright and dry and stayed that way, so today we had the weather on our side and picked our Elderflowers

This is our favourite tree and always gives us plenty of great smelling flowers (you can't even tell we've picked from it!), tho there are many others very near by. Just to the right is the river.

 The flowers were put straight into these bags, pollen falling from them as they were picked. Then the bags were tied up and they'll stay this way until tomorrow when they'll get shaken about and hopefully all fall from their stems. The fermenting bin underneath has the 4 gallons of base brew in it. There's more than enough flowers here for 4 gallons, so I'll top up the base brew to 5 gallons. The story continues here.

We'll go picking again soon get the remaining flowers to make a further few gallons. Which will be following my original recipe and method.

Recipe; Rose Petal Wine

Around 6 months ago the better half took a fancy to me trying to make a Rose Petal wine, albeit from dried petals bought in a homebrew shop. So I did. Just a few days ago during my Sis's visit she fancied trying it, so I bottled it and we tried a half bottle.

It looks just amazing, beautiful colour (tho I can't manage to capture it's pinkness on camera) and clear as a bell.

It taste is very interesting, definitely another flower wine so in that sense it's like elderflower and is difficult to compare to fruit wines. But anyone who knows Turkish Delight would be able to get such flavours with each mouthful. It was pretty dry, and some would find it tickled their throat a bit (I did). I'll be trying it again and I think a little more citric acid or lemon juice may solve that issue. Apart from that it's quite delicious and grew on me quickly ... perhaps an acquired taste for me then.

Recipe for 1 Gallon

1 Bag of Dried Rose Petals
925g Sugar
Juice of 2.5 Lemons
245g White Grape Concentrate
1/4 Teaspoon Wine Tannin
1 Teaspoon Tartaric Acid
Nutrient
Lees from Tanglefoot Brew (containing Sauternes Yeast)

OG was 1082, FG was 994, around 12%ABV

Method

Standard stuff really, throw the whole lot together (petals in a muslin bag). After a week or so move to secondary fermenter and remove flowers. When it stops fermenting and throws a sediment rack, degas, stabilise. Some weeks later it showed no signs of losing the haze so chitin based finings added. 2 weeks later was clear and got the last racking.

Edit; Update

So it's now about a year since starting this brew. Anyway this has turned out delicious. If you can imagine gently capturing the essence of Turkish Delight and making it into wine, then this is the result. It really is delicious. But it does take a year to get there. Until then it has a little tickle on your throat which is kind of like white pepper. That has now gone.
At first I thought this wine would be informative, and lead to a better version, perhaps though another experiment, using fresh petals. Now I think the result probably wouldn't be better quality, tho it be quite a different wine, equally good, but just fit for a different setting, food or whatever. If you haven't tried making it, and you like Turkish delight, or the smell of roses, then you have to give this a go.

No Yeasty Head

the big yeast cap has gone ... completely, but a gentle stir bore witness to lots of busy yeast action!

Big Yeasty Head

Yup, the ferment is properly underway with a huge yeasty head.

Anticipation .... Again, Elderflower Recipe

So I've got elderflower fever, getting weather forecast updates regularly, sniffing elderflowers and recording their locations at every opportunity, counting days etc. finally took the plunge and trusted the forecast would give a few hours of good continuous sunshine sometime over the weekend.

All of which means I started a base brew for 4 gallons of elderflower wine. Details below

Recipe (for 4 gallons)

4 Litres Apple Juice
4 Litres White grape Juice
Sugar Solution to 4 Gallons
4 Teaspoons Tartaric Acid
4 Teaspoons Pectolase
Yeast Nutrient
Yeast: Gervin D, white label, Germanic

OG was 1078 @ 25.5 degrees C (2.5kg sugar)

Method

Stick everything in a fermenting bin, stir to dissolve, pitch yeast, cover, simple!
In a few days I'll collect the flowers, and a day later I'll get it going properly when I transfer the base brew to the secondary fermenter, add elderflowers in a muslin bag, fit an airlock, wait a month +, rack, bottle and enjoy. I'm hoping for crisp, dry, bouquet loaded elderflower wine uniqueness.

Notes and Thoughts

This won't be the only Elderflower wine I'll make this year. I'll also be making a repeat of last years wine. Adding flowers at the start of the ferment, using grape juice (or concentrate only), citric acid not tartaric and sauternes yeast. It needs longer, uses way more flowers, but it ain't broke so at this point I'm not trying to fix it, just trying something different - very different - alongside.

Results

Only 9 weeks later and I'm drinking it. FG is 995 so ABV comes in around 11.5%. Light, delicate, bit fruity, bit of elderflower flavour. Absolutely ready to drink, nothing wrong with it but it's main purpose is be something yummy to drink while the good stuff ages. And with 5 gallons of it I reckon it'll fulfill it's purpose.

Recipe: A Whole Lotta Rosé

Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh,
Never had a wine,
Never had a wine like you,
Doing all the things,
Doing all the things you do.

I'm on a roll with the Rosés, so this is what I call Cheapskate Rosé light, and it's earlier incarnation Cheapskate Rosé. This wine was probably the favourite when my Dad and Sis visited last year. It was less than a year old at the time and is great for a beginner, tho you'll have to buy a kit first ....

So start with a decent red wine kit. I was curious to try one of these kits after hearing such good reviews in various places. The Beaverdale range was the one I happened to hear about most often, and Shiraz is my favourite red, hence the no-brainer choice I made. Having spent good money on the kit (it works out around £1.50/bottle) I wanted to ensure that I got the most from my investment.

Recipe for 1 Gallon of Cheapskate Rosé Light.

3.5 Litres Pressed Red Grape Juice
1/2 Litre Sugar Solution
Nutrient
1 Teaspoon Citric or Tartaric Acid
Lees from a decent red wine kit (I used Beaverdale Shiraz)

Method

Get your kit wine going according to the instructions. Follow the instructions but with this single exception - when the fermentation has almost stopped (just a few bubbles/minute passing through the airlock) then rack it. Make sure that you carry over plenty of sediment so the ferment will finish. Then top up the newly filled DJ and follow the kit instructions again.

You'll be left with some sediment in the original DJ (or fermenting bin is you made more than 1 gallon). Add all the ingredients from the recipe list to this. You'll want an OG or around 1070 -1080. The grape juice will be about 1070, so you won't need to use much sugar in the sugar solution. Fit an airlock and in a day or so it'll be fermenting vigorously. After a few days, when the ferment has quietened down a bit top up with sugar solution of similar gravity to the original must. Then treat it as any other wine, rack, degas, fine if needed, stabilise etc etc when needed.

Result & Observations

This wine will be good for drinking from about 4 months old. the original version was exactly the same except that I fermented with 4.5 litres of red grape juice with a little sugar added to take OG to 1095. It was good to drink after 6 months. It was quite a big rosé and came in at 13.2% ABV, so I decided to make a lighter version that could be drunk sooner. So less grape juice, and a lower OG (1072) bringing it in at around 11% ABV. It works. Both work.

So if you like your wines light then do the recent one, if you like more body and more ABV then do the original. Either way you'll be getting a neat wine on the back of a decent kit. Which means you'll have a good yeast, probably some oak chips, and a minimal outlay for other ingredients. Not bad really considering the time and effort the kit makes will have put into selecting a yeast and oak chip that is perfect for homebrew.

Recipe: Oaked Rosés

This is very much my own recipe, I didn't do a search for it, I just made it up based on what I have learned over the years. It works and is ready to drink in 10-12 weeks, tho I strongly suspect that it will be a cracker if you wait for 6-12 months - the longer the better.

For 1 Gallon

3.5 Litres of Pressed Red Grape Juice
700 ml Sugar solution
1 Tablespoon French Oak Chips
1/2 Teaspoon Wine Tannin
1 Teaspoon Acid (Citric or Tartaric)
Nutrient
Yeast (Gervin B - Black Label)

OG: 1072
Tartaric acid version,   FG: 998 = 10.1% ABV
Citric acid version,      FG: 997 = 10.2% ABV

Method

Mix the lot together, it wont be a full gallon. Aim for your gravity around 1070-1080. The grape juice will probably be around 1070 so you wont need much sugar for the sugar solution.
Pitch the yeast and fit the airlock etc
When fermentation settles down top up with sugar solution of similar gravity to the original must.
Rack, degas and stabilise as usual. You probably won't need finings.

I used "Sungrown" pressed red grape juice. Bought in Tesco, cheap enough at around 80p/litre so you most expensive ingredient comes in at less than £3.00 and all in all your bottles cost less than £1 each to make.

I used Gervin B - black label - yeast. I like a clean, cool fermentation and used this yeast as a trial. The ferment was messy and vigourous (fouling the airlock etc). However the resulting wine is good. If you want a less messy ferment all I can recommend is what I know, Sauternes yeast - my favourite. (Edit; see the end of this post for more suggestions)

Result and Observations

I made two batches of this wine, the only difference was the acid. For one I used citric acid, the other tartaric. The citric gave a slight lemony flavour (not surprising). The tartaric didn't have this and was crisp and a little sharp. I'm sure that the sharpness will go with time when it rounds off, and perhaps even drops some crystals. Despite this I prefer the tartaric acid version even now. There isn't much in it but for a rosé the loss of the lemon flavour is no big deal and there is plenty enough body and feel anyway so the relative simplicity doesn't make the wine uninteresting. However, if you like the citrus notes then go for the citric acid version. Both are very good, it just comes down to personal preferences.

This is a great wine to try experiments with. Try different acids, yeasts, oak chips, gravity etc. keep it simple tho, vary one thing at a time so you can easily identify what influences the result. And start the comparative brews at the same time. It's easy enough to do, make up your basic must, split it, then make the addition that varies according to your experiment. Great fun, simple, keep records, you are now doing science!

Edit (4.11.10): At a little over 6 months old this is just fine and dandy enough to be kept for special occasions. The only thing I would change is the yeast to make the ferment less messy. Sauternes, Gervin D, Gervin 5 (GV5 or Lalvin D47) or perhaps Vintner's Harvest MA33. 

Rumpot is Go

After all the racking and degassing I still had some energy, so I did the homebrew washing up and then got my first ever rumpot on the go.

About 350 grams of ripe strawberries and 150 grams of demerera sugar. Before I got to be I'll add the el cheapo white rum.

It's been a productive night!

Racking Tales Part 2

2 Gallons of what I call Cheapskate Rosé also racked and degassed. It's made by using the lees from a Beaverdal Shiraz kit, which contains active yeast and oak chips. This was the wine that was the inspiration behind making the two oaked rosés, as I thought it would be nice to have a good rosé that didn't entail buying an expensive first.

So, upon racking I got a sip of course. It tastes lighter than the oaked rosés, and is both smoother and rounder, tho it is a few weeks older so that should be expected. The cheapskate was made with citric acid additions, so can't compare it with the tartaric version of the oaked with any authority. But comparison to the citric oaked it is reasonable. My verdict is that they would be quite remarkably similar if I used less oak chips in my oaked rosé version.

So all in all, again a good result, both for the wine and the experiment to compare.

Racking Tales Part 1

At last got around to the racking etc of a number of gallons that needed sorting.

First was this year's Beaverdale Shiraz; already tasting good enough to drink, tho I really want to put this away and forgot about it for at least a year. So it'll get a safety bung and be placed in the deepest darkest recess I can find.

Second up was 2 oaked (french chips) rosés made from cartons of pressed red grape juice (3.5 litres per gallon) OG 1072, Gervin B (black label) yeast. The only difference between the two was in the acid adjustment. One was done with tartaric acid, and the other with citric acid. The ferment was messy, which I don't like, but both taste pleasant already, the citric one has a ... well citrus note to it. The tartaric one is crisper and simpler.

I must say that while the difference is obvious when you are primed to look out for one, I don't think I would have noticed otherwise. Personally I prefer the tartaric so from now on all rosés I make with RGJ only will only have tartaric acid added. As for other fruit juices I'll make my mind up as I go along.

All in all very pleased with the results, both the "finished" wines, and the experiment.

Making Progress

Slowly making progress towards the Elderflower brew. Finished labelling etc the 25+ bottles in the wee small hours. Lay them all down too. Must have around 20 unique wines bottled at the mo, some almost 2 years old. There are at least another half dozen to bottle aswell.

Yesterday went sniffing Elderflowers in our favoured picking spots. Just as we got out of the car in our very scant summery clothes the clouds opened in a tropical kind of way ... but we soldiered on and got completely drenched. All in the name of Elderflower wine, it's worth it, the flowers smelled great and now we just need a dry day with a sunny spell to go picking. There should be a suitable day in the week ahead.

A New Arrival

Today I dropped into Oxfam hoping (very optimistically) that a Rumtopf had been dropped off. On the first pass around the shop I didn't see any, but on a second pass I glanced upwards at the high shelves and lo and behold there was a cute gallon sized Rumtopf!

I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for another as I'd like a colourful one, but this is a great start and looks very traditional. The rum and the first of the fruit (strawberries) has been bought, so I'll have the first infusion on the go soon.

One Day at a Time

So it's been one of those days that I was thinking ahead about last time I blogged.

I just finished bottling for the night, one gallon each of;

• Pineapple quickie wine
• Pomegranate blush (quickie wine too)
• Tanglefoot
• Green Tea & Ginger

and that's a good enough excuse for a piccie

So bottled stocks look good again, wine racks will be full, enough DJ's are now empty for a big Elderflower wine brew. And I bought 5 litres each of apple juice and white grape juice. This is going to be the base of up to 5 gallons of a quickie elderflower wine.

Another day I'll do some racking and stabilising, another day soon! And also maybe some more bottling as I have a dozen empties and a couple more DJ's that are ready .... rose petal being the most tempting to try.

Looking Ahead

aarrrrggghhhhh .... so much to do, and then last night the screen on my laptop gave up and died. took a day to organise and back-up and botch a solution to keep me in action. Now I'm on the look-out for a mac genius (to cannibalise two identical laptops to make one good one ... basically swap the screens), or a cheap monitor, or failing that a new puter! so I lost a much needed day

Anyway, on topic now .... we are all out of pomegranate and pineapple quickie wines, so I have to bottle a gallon of each. Likewise tanglefoot, and also green tea and ginger. That'll free up 4 DJ's, which is excellent because then I'll have 7 empties which means I can get at least that many gallons of elderflower wine on the go! I should also bottle 2 gallons of blackberry wine (one from wild berries and one from the trained bramble in the garden), so that means more elderflower potential. All of which is great news cos the flowers are here! so I only need the sunny days to gather them! But it's all quite a bit of work and I only have about 30 empty bottles, and I need to get a base fermenting for a late addition of elderflowers brew (so I'd better buy some grape juice soon!)

AND I also really ought to rack two 2 gallon batches of oaked rose, and a single gallon of a red kit.

AND then there are quite a few wines that I haven't tried yet that probably ready to have the first gallon bottled: Rose petal, Blackberry & Elderberry, Blackberry & Elderberry Rosé

AND I have 2 kits ready to start!

AND the garden needs some attention, weeding, mowing, watering, netting (cherries), training (brambles) and perhaps even some cropping (mainly garlic and chives).

A Week Later

Critter Wines took a trip to a festival, small world, and of course took some bottles along. Friends were eagerly waiting for some pineapple wine. This was a good thing because me and the better half talked for some time about what wine to take over to their van to share; our favourite (tanglefoot) or something else. So when they requested pineapple we could hang onto the tanglefoot! So we took pineapple and also pomegranate.

On the last night we took a couple of bottles to our "neighbours" campfire, pomegranate and also the tanglefoot. Bothe went down well, one preferring the pomegranate, two preferring the tanglefoot. And we hung onto the orange & elderflower which we enjoyed on a chilly night.

All in all critter wines thoroughly enjoyed the sharing and the positive feedback, and especially when folks expressed a preference so definitely.