Wino

At long last the wine is brewed and bottled. It's not quite ready to drink yet as it needs to settle for a few days and despite all the precautions, I can still see a little bit of sediment floating about in it.

I have to say that it smells...ok. And just OK. Nothing particularly special. I got a little taste during the rustic siphoning episode and again it tastes just OK. I'll see how it is a few days as I've put some in one of those 200ml airport bottles so that I don't have to open a full one. Who knows, in 10 years time they actually might taste above mediocre.

Thirst for life/booze

Well that's another year and another 40 days booze free. Actually quite difficult this time as I was doing it at my folks house where mother-dearest always has an open bottle of red, a glass of which is consumed nightly. Makes it hard which each dinner is accompanied with the question "would you like some wine with your meal?"

Despite that hurdle the 40 days passed quickly and although many of my friends question the worth of this exercise, I do find that if nothing else at least it makes you question you're reasons for wanting a drink.

Actually the time scale wasn't completely booze-free as I choked on some of the home made wine a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to syphon it out of one bucket and into another. I hope that inhaling alcohol doesn't count!?!

Home brewed wine

So I've started trying to ferment my own wine. I bought one of those homw starter kit last week and mixed everything up in a big (sterilised) tub, stuck the one-way valve on, and let those busy yeast get to work.

I've been meaning to try it for ages and the kits are really straight forward. The only thing that I can't help feeling is that I'm being ripped off. It cost £25 and that should make about 6 bottles of wine (Cab Sauv in this case) but really all you are paying for is the grape concentrate, a few additives and some buckets and tubing. Of course, you get to reuse the equipment and further batches should be a lot cheaper but £4 per bottle isn't all that cheap especially if it tastes like complete crap.

I think what I'll do is by the additives in bulk and then just stick any old fruit juice in there and see what happens. That might, however, put an end to my wine career and my liver. We'll see what this lot tastes like.