Wine bottling

I spent an evening last week straining the wine and leaving the sludge behind. It is now down to 10 gallons of assorted wines in various stages of clearing. I think another coupe of weeks and it should be ready for bottling.

Although it is not ready yet, it had to be tasted and Nick was the official taster but was rather non commital. Thankfully Jan (who I used to work with) popped in so was the guinea pig. The verdict was quite positive, the favourite being apple and plum which has a nice light bouquet but a rather strange orangy-pink colour similar for a blush sancerre. The runner bean and grapefruit was the most controversial but the final verdict was that it had the 'potential' to be a nice desert wine.

There was one demijohn that I siphoned a couple of weeks ago that I have bottled. This was the elderberry that I made using raisins instead of sugar and I must admit that it tasted alright. It is much lighter and paler than the elderberry made the convential way with sugar which I am sure would make you over the legal limit after one mouthful and is more like sherry.

So, as we are almost at the stage of bottling, the official 'Pyotts Products' labels had to be designed. Here is the 2006 prototype.