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!