January 16, 2009

Warm thoughts on a cold night

It is -19 degrees and getting colder out. I'm going to take a break from homework and look over my garden catalogs. My main criteria when shopping for seeds and plants are: will hummingbirds be attracted to it, can we eat it or will it make good wine?

Speaking of good wine. We took a sample of the Red Currant Strawberry from the primary fermenter tonight and it has very nice flavor. Now it will go through the usual stage where it doesn't taste very good. Then it starts to get better and better until we finish with a pretty good wine. Even though we know this, we always get discouraged as it gets a "rough flavor" before it ages a bit. Maybe winemaking will help me to learn to be patient!

5 comments:

Heli gunner Tom said...

Nice blog.

Tom
tschuckman@aol.com
Union Grove

Susan Tomlinson said...

I think those are excellent parameters for selecting seeds.

TSOTE said...

The problem is "the difference between knowing something, and understanding something". Yes, you "know" the process the wine will take, and that it goes from good to bad to better. But there's always this suspicion that the current path is going to be from good to bad to "this is never going to recover, we have to throw this one out". That is, you know what's happened before, but that's no guarantee of future success. You have to understand how the process can go wrong and then take the steps to prevent it. Or, to understand what causes the "good to bad to better" path and be able to project where on the path you are. Patience is a good thing, but always have a back-up plan. In the case of wine, make two batches on two separate days, and if both turn out great, figure out how to sell the excess, or make sure that they mature in time to be given away as cheap gifts.

"Learn to be Patient? Yeah, yeah, how long's that going to take?"

Susie said...

I found your blog thru Blotanical. Enjoyed looking at your posts much. Strawberry wine? Sounds delish!

Chris said...

Susie- we have had some really excellent strawberry and raspberry wine from another home winemaker. The strawberry was delicate but fruity. Very nice.

Thanks for visiting!