A real vintage!

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My mother used to enjoy making preserves. As a child I remember lots of jam-making. Later we got interested in making wine, I think it started when we picked up a book on home wine-making at a jumble sale or something like that. It was also fuelled by the mindset that none of us ever liked to see anything go to waste, so if we had too much of some kind of fruit, or there was a glut of wild fruit, we would make wine. My first attempt was apple wine, which worked out quite nicely and was the start of a long tradition of wine making from various fruits and other produce. After I left home Mam still continued making jams and wines. After she died, Dad and I found a large store of jars of jam and bottles of wine. She had continued making both even though the two of them only occasionally ate jam and virtually never drank alcohol except for a small glass of wine with Christmas dinner. I guess she couldn’t give up the habit of making things! Mam also never bothered with any fancy wine-making equipment. She would ferment the fruit in a bucket covered with a tea towel, then strain it into a clean bottle (begged from a local hotel) and put the lid on. So I didn’t have high hopes regarding the contents. But on the other hand there was no harm in trying and it would be a waste just to throw everything out without even tasting it! So far I’ve only tried a few bottles and the results have been mixed; a couple were not very nice and a couple were pretty good. This old Martini bottle actually contains ‘Elderberry 1991’ (neatly labelled at the neck in Dad’s impeccable hand-writing) and it turned out to be one of the good ones! There are still a lot more bottles to try, and since my partner and several of our friends have given up alcohol and I only drink in moderation, this could be a long process, especially since several bottles are the 1 L size! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2023.