Wine Matters

It has not escaped my notice that I still have a freezer full of redcurrants & a garage full of apples, & if I want to store anything else in the freezer, or use the apples before they go off, I'd better step up wine production.

All this means in practice is that I should jog thing along a little, & to be a bit less tardy about getting the stuff bottled & stored.

So today I bottled the iffy gooseberry & rhubarb wine - by the time I've taken a generous jugful out to make risotto, & had a couple of extended testing sessions, I have just three full bottles which will be kept for some months to see if it improves.

That left a demijohn free to transfer the latest batch of apple wine into from its fermenting bucket (the other half going into a spare demijohn). I split the wine into two halves as it is just over a gallon in total - once racked it will be just about on the nose - & given the vigorous ferment, if it was in one over-full demijohn it would go mad frothing up through the airlock, so it's chuckling away in the two demijohns now.

Finally I racked the first batch of apple wine - it still has the odd bubble showing, but having re-read CJJ Berry's words of wisdom that stale yeast can taint wine, I thought that racking it off might not be a bad thing.

In the process, I measured the SG at 1002, and had a taste. I don't think that it's quite finished 'working' yet, but at present it is lined up as being on the sweet side - which will suit mum down to the ground - but at over 15% it's not to be bandied about with abandon at the ladies luncheon circuit...