Cheese and Wine Anyone?

As if we don't have enough to do, what with working, running a smallholding, birding, and running the Smallholders Club, I have set a new target for Sue and I - to hold a cheese and wine party next year.

Now that would actually be quite a challenge for me anyway, but there is a twist... it will be cheese and wine made by our very own hands.

Sue has taken a few tentative steps with the cheese and I have decided that my mangolds, parsnips, carrots, redcurrants, strawberries, gooseberries and apples are going to contribute to a general state of inebriation. These wines are known as country wines.

I have read one book. It was originally written before I was born and yet everybody reckons it is still the best one. First Steps In Winemaking by CJJ Berry. Personally, I reckon it could do with updating. Anyhow, I have been reading and planning and reading and planning but it doesn't all quite make sense. Really I need to just get on and have a go.

As luck would have it, the Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group had a speaker on Thursday evening on the subject of brewing. I was keen to get along to the meeting, despite the threat of snow drifting across the roads. Unfortunately Sue would have to drive as my car was stubbornly refusing to start with temperatures below zero for days on end.
In the end the talk was a very general one as it covered a lot of different areas in a short time. We did have a nice time though.

I also found out that home brew beer, even from a kit, runs in at just 57p a pint. I'm not tempted to get into mixing my own hops and barley and malt and whatever, but now that I will have the equipment for the winemaking I see no harm in using it for the occasional 40 pints of beer!

Arthur is still not completely better and Boris has now caught the same bug. So I have been staying at home to look after them and to keep an eye on all the livestock in the snow. It's not been possible to do any work on the land though, so I've been internet shopping!
As a result, there is now a plethora of country winemaking homebrew equipment and ingredients winging it's way to the farm.
The first batch should be on the go by the end of the week.

Update:
The dogs are both on the mend and enjoying their new diet of rice and chicken. We even managed to get them both out along the river before the snow disappeared.