Drinking White Wine in the Sun

For the second time in a month, the Pierces are together for the holiday.  This time we headed south.  Marathon, Florida is much nicer than Fulton in the winter.

Monday we tried some snorkeling, and it was quite nice.  Captain Kevin Johnsen put us on several good reefs.  Highlights included moray eel, rays, sharks, barracuda, lobster, and countless different types of reef fish.

 Chili-lime fresh shrimp and rum-soaked grilled pineapple with a citrus rum sauce made a great dinner early in the week.

  Captain Kevin took the boys out again a second time later in the week.  Just for posterity: Snapper (Lane, Yellowtail, Mangrove, Mutton, Schoolmaster), Ladyfish, Nassau Grouper, Blue Striped Grunt, Cero Mackerel, Porgy, and a shark.

We ended up with 5-6 pounds of fish.  It made for a somewhat unconventional Christmas Eve dinner of fish tacos.

 This is, in part, a wine blog.  Thanks to Joy, we celebrated with a bottle of Schnebly Guava wine.   Schnebly is perhaps the most well-known of the tropical fruit wine producers.  We were very impressed with this wine.  It's a lovely rose color, not too sweet, and surprising strawberry element.  We'll be having this one again.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Thanksgiving

For the first time in ages, all of the Pierce kids, Allie, Jake, and Adam, home at the same time.  Betty and Jake's friend Charli came, too.  It was a great Thanksgiving, and yes, it did involve a little wine and a little food.

We bottled Joe and Barb's loquat wine.  This wine is very interesting.  The fruit comes from Joe and Barb's loquat tree to the north of their house.  Jeanna and Charlie helped pick the fruit, and Barb carefully packaged the frozen loquats and shipped them so that they arrived in perfect shape.

When thawed and fermenting, loquat wine smells unmistakably like amaretto.  That is why some recipes call for the addition of almonds in the secondary.  The amaretto smell fades however, and by the time this wine was a couple of months old, unfortunately, the smell was gone.  I was left with a decent wine which was very troublesome to clear.  Time did the trick, and finally, at 16 months, it was ready for tweaks and bottling.

The tweaks were centered on restoring that amaretto smell the loquat had early on.  I bench tested almond extract and backsweetened, but finally settled on simply flavoring it with a tiny bit of amaretto liqueur...just enough to pick up the smell and hopefully no extra bitterness.  I figured that it was justified since after all, amaretto is Italian.

 

We also finally got around to my 5 gallons of white catawba.  This was hand made straight from grapes from the Books vineyard down the road.  This wine was challenging, however, because by the time Lisa and I got there to pick the ends of the rows, the grapes are a little past their prime, as the pH was a ridiculous 2.93.  What I should have done was adjust the pH right at the beginning.  I didn't know better, and I forged ahead, pressing the grapes and fermenting off of the skins for a straight white wine.

It was sharp!  So I tweaked.  In an effort to get some balance, I backsweetened it a lot.  I also gave it a tropical twist with a slight infusion of passionfruit in an attempt to counter the foxiness.  In the end, it came out pretty good.  It won't be a wine for pasta meals.  More likely a wine for spritzers and spicy Asian food.

We experimented with food as well.  We had the usual Pierce Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, dressing, strawberry jello, and 7-layer salad.  With the leftovers, we tried a new breakfast idea.  Leftover stuffing is pressed into a muffin tin to make a thick crust. Then an egg is cracked into the center.  We topped with leeks and cheddar cheese.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until the egg white is cooked.  Excellent.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Fruit. Cake.

It was a productive day.  For the last several weeks, weekends have been consumed by work work.  Today the work work was put aside early in favor of fun work.

This morning, we made wine.  So far, we have 2 3-gallon batches of Allison's Elderberry.  Both are stunning, deep, inky blue-black color and while young, they taste fantastic.  The first batch is oaking now.  The batch we started today is the second run Elderberry Rose.  The recipe calls for body from bananas, and we used Dwarf Red bananas from the greenhouse.  The taste and flavor are very promising.

Last year we found the world's best fruitcake recipe.  This is not the fruitcake with the radioactive green and red candied fruit.  This is rich, delicious, from-scratch fruitcake.

Today we made this year's fruitcake.  Probably too much fruitcake.  We quadrupled the recipe.  Upon reflection, perhaps last year we only doubled the recipe.  Oh well.  It will keep.

This fruitcake macerates apricots, golden raisins, cherries, blueberries, dates, cranberries, candied ginger, and citrus zest in rum overnight.  Then add just a little butter, flour, sugar, and spices, followed by some flour and eggs.

While waiting on the fruitcake, we had pan-seared roasted garlic and rosemary lamb chops for supper.  This was paired with a Sonoma Pinot Noir Forty-Seven Friends which was excellent.

My favorite part of the fruitcake recipe is the brandy.  The idea is that this fruitcake "ages."  Sort of like wine.  So you have to be patient.  While aging, it is spritzed with brandy every few days.  We use a homemade peach brandy made by one of Lisa's patients.

We'll have family and friends home for Thanksgiving this year.  We just might eat a little fruitcake.

2014 Persimmons

In our yard sits the largest largest persimmon tree (Diospyros virginiana) I've ever seen.  For years we let the deer, raccoons, dogs, and any other critter eat all they wanted.  We occasionally made some bread and cookies from the persimmon pulp.  When I started winemaking, persimmon wine seemed like a good idea.

It turns out that, at least for me, persimmon wine is the most difficult of all wines to make.  The first difficulty came in managing the skins and seeds.  Some recipes suggest that you remove the seeds to avoid excessive tannins.  Anyone who has picked truly ripe American persimmons knows that when ripe, the fruit has the consistency of baby food.  Once frozen and thawed, the seeds and skins and pulp are just mixed together in a big gooey mess.  I managed that by just throwing the whole lot in a mesh bag.  It turns out that concerns about excess tannins are unwarranted.

Persimmon wine has an unbelievable amount of pulp.  In my batches, easily 1/3 and sometimes 1/2 of the initial volume is lost as pulp.  Getting the volume right has taken some doing.

Finally, unattended, my persimmon wine tends to develop a smell on about the third day of fermentation that can best be described as that of an old gym bag.  This smell diminishes minimally over time, so if there is any significant degree of what Lisa and I call "the funk," the wine is ruined.  Dealing with "the funk" has been the greatest challenge.  Using K1-V1116 wine yeast, step feeding the nutrients, and strict control of fermentation temperature proved to be the answer.

So yesterday we picked the first of the 2014 persimmons.  I have room in the freezer for about 50 pounds, which should be enough for a couple of 3 gallon batches and some persimmon bread as well.

For a 3 gallon batch:
16# persimmons
3 cans Welch's white grape concentrate or Apple concentrate
Sugar: 5-6#, aim for OG 1.085
Campden:4 tabs
Yeast nutrient: 3t stepwise
Yeast energizer: 3/4t
Tannin: 1t
Pectic enzyme: 12t divided
Acid blend: 3T-4T, aim for pH of 3.3-3.4
4.5 gal water
Bentonite

Freeze fully ripe fruit in 1 gallon Ziplocks, 4#/bag.  Thaw 4 bags, 16# of fruit.  As soon as the fruit starts to thaw, add one crushed and dissolved Camden tab to the bag and work it through the fruit.  8 hours later, add 2t pectic to each bag, mix thoroughly, and wait 12 hours.  When fully thawed, add to nylon mesh straining bag and put in primary.  Boil the water, add 5# sugar, and add to primary, along with the concentrate and tannin.  Let cool, then add 4t pectic and 3T acid blend.  Wait 12 hours.  Make any acid or sugar adjustments to get pH 3.3-3.4 and OG at 1.085.  Add the energizer, make a yeast starter and pitch the yeast.  At the end of lag phase add 1t yeast nutrient, then add the second and third teaspoons at about 1/3 and 1/2-2/3 sugar depletion.  Use ice packs to keep the temp around 20-21C.  Add 5g bentonite at the end of fermentation day 3.  Usual care thereafter.

Greenhouse Redux

For 10 years, the hydrant in my greenhouse stood with the handle up, a reliable source of hard well water.  When the flow dropped off last year, I limped along, squeezing every last bit of rainwater out of my rain barrels and dragging hoses when necessary.

Then I got the bright idea to turn the hydrant off and on a few times.  But the handle wouldn't move.  More pressure.  Nothing.  Full weight.  Nothing.  Leverage.  Movement!  Snap.  Uh oh.

The opportunity to dig up my greenhouse hydrant also presented the opportunity to upgrade some other things.  The RO unit hadn't run for some time.  The demand delivery pump was acting flaky and unreliable.  So we upgraded the old RO unit with a three filter 180gpd model and replaced the old demand delivery pump.  The pressure booster pump still works well.  So now, for the first time in a couple of summers, the misters are back on, the tanks are full, and life is good in the greenhouse.  

The plants seemed to know it was coming.  I have viewed success over the years as one new, edible fruit each year.  The past year has far exceeded that threshold for success.  The Barbados cherry (acerola, Malpighia emarginata) has been impressive.  It flowers, sets fruit reliably, and matures quickly.  New crops of flowers come in rapid succession and tastes like a slightly sour cherry.  It will take some time, but Acerola wine is in the picture.

Barbados cherry, just starting to ripen

I got my first cherimoya (Annona cherimola) this year.  The plant was grown from a store bought fruit.  The tree has been easy to grow, happy in a small container, but with the habit of a lanky teenager.  Right now it has three fruit, up to tennis ball sized.  This will be too good to waste on wine.  The first fruit will be shared with Lisa.

Cherimoya

This year also brought the first Noels Big Red sugar apple (Annona squamosa 'Noel's Big Red').  The tree was grown from seeds from Noel, FloridaGreenMan, who was kind enough to share about 4 years ago on our way to Puerto Rico.  Noel's Big Red has the same small footprint that the other sugar apples and cherimoyas do, but with better, more even vertical growth.  My fruit, and trees, are not that big yet but this fruit should be edible and hopefully tasty.

Little Noel's Big Red sugar apple

We have June plums (Spondias dulcis).  I have two trees; one I bought from Patrick, then another which Sheehan shipped me later.  This plant is an easy grower, prolific, with nice habit, and attractive fruit.  Unfortunately my fruit are fibrous, bland, and hard a rock.  I'm counting June plums this year, but just barely.

June plum

Purple grumichama (Eugenia brasiliensis) has tortured me for years.  This darn plant has grown to 8' without so much as a hint of flowering.  Until this year.  We got half a dozen fruit this year, beautiful, round, purple-black berries.  To me it tastes like a cross between a cherry and a grape.  Delicious.

Limeberry (Triphasia trifolia) is a close relative of the citrus.  I brought back seeds from the Tropical Agriculture Research Station (TARS) in Mayaguez, PR 4 years ago.  Just today, I found ripe fruit.  An orange citrus taste is immediately evident, but there is a long, lingering tingle which is interesting.  I'm not quite sure what I'll do with these, but I have 3 or 4 little trees.  None are taller than 18 inches and they are all still in just 4" pots, so there is not much effort in keeping them around.

Limeberry

Finally for new fruit, sapodilla (Manilkara zapota).  I believe this may be my favorite fruit.  It tastes like a pear soaked in brown sugar.  And this year, I got 4 ripe fruit from my 'Nispero Mexicano 7,' a variety I got at Jardines Eneida in PR.  I've never been able to track this variety down anywhere but it produces long, football shaped fruit which are wonderfully sweet.  The flesh is supposed to be light brown throughout, but this variety has delicious, soft, sweet flesh, even when the flesh is still somewhat green.  I also have 'Silas Woods' still hanging around, flowering, but it has yet to hold any fruit.

Sapodilla

We also saw the return of some fruit which had stayed away for a time.  After several years absence, we'll see the return of dragonfruit (Pitaya sp.).  The pot the old dragonfruit fruited in became rotten.  I had to root cuttings, then install a 6x6 post in the ground in the greenhouse and train the dragonfruit up the post.  They don't seem as happy in the ground as they were in the pot.  The 'Dwarf Namwah' from my good friend Jay in Ohio is producing a bloom that is not so dwarf.  We should see a good crop of citrus.  The strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum), fruited so heavily that it fell over.  Once this crop is in the freezer, the tree will meet the saw for some severe pruning.

Dragonfruit

There is more work to do inside the greenhouse.  I have raised beds with rotten wood.  This could turn out to be a big project, but the pruning of the guava tree will make it more manageable.  Hopefully the plants know those improvements are coming as well.

Improving Elderberry

Back in my scoutmaster days, Jake and Adam and I went on a float trip on which we had dehydrated ground beef.  We used it in spaghetti, and after a long day on the river, it was delicious.

A month later we made the same meal at home in the kitchen.  It was awful.  Food on a campout always tastes better.  The same food that produces an average meal at home makes for a fantastic meal around a campfire.  The things that you associate with food strongly affect the taste, both in a positive and negative way.  Context is important.

I'm looking for ways to improve my elderberry wine.  My first batch, made largely from my neighbor Larry's fruit, was light in fruit.  And I should have let the berries ripen a little more.  It is lightly oaked and the flavor is decent.  But it has an odd color, that of tea.  It looks oxidized, but it is not.  So while it tastes pretty good, it is just hard for me to get past that color.

Allison will be going back to school next week. Yesterday, we went back to the elderberry patch.  Patches, really, as they are spread out along a mile of lightly traveled county road.  Allison is small but mighty.  She fought through weeds taller than she is.  Together over two hours we had a great time collecting over 26# of truly ripe berries.

This year, I'll cold soak the elderberry and bump the volume of fruit.  Even if the flavor doesn't improve much, the color should be much better.  But this year's wine will also be made from Allison and Robert's berries.  And that might be the thing to make this year's elderberry as good as dehydrated ground beef on a campout.

Batting .750

Guava, my first batch of wine 2 years ago, came out quite good.  It was a trick, designed to lure me into yet another hobby.  I learned that with my second batch, carambola (starfruit).  This batch required numerous tweaks, and eventually was uncorked twice to achieve something just drinkable.

In that next year I made some really bad wine.  Some of it is still in the basement.  Pumpkin, now almost 2 years along, refuses to release its overpowering vegetal character.  Wild plum not only refuses to clear but remains bitter beyond belief.  Others have already found their way to the drain or the still.

So it was with some pride last week that we bottled 4 separate small batches of novelty wines, 3 of which I would be willing to submit to friends.  The lime-ginger wine is afflicted by that funny chemical aroma that all of my citrus wines seem to have.  But the passionfruit, hibiscitrus (hibiscus-citrus), and most recent carambola wines were excellent.  Passionfruit wine takes surprisingly little pulp (I helped it along by a secondary addition) which makes the developing crop even that more exciting.  I learned a lot about what makes carambola wine tasty through the acid adjustments required with my first batch.  The hibiscitrus required a little special something in the secondary, but with that, it when from completely unremarkable to perhaps the best of the three.

Last night, Lisa gave me a nice picture from bottling day, when we finished the leftovers on the back porch.  I think if I can maintain this average, I will be quite happy.  

Guys Hangin' Out

A few hundred yards down the county road is a house with a fencerow choked with pokeweed, wild grape, and lots of poison ivy.  In that fencerow however is enough elderberry for a gallon or two of wine.  Larry, the owner of the home, gave me permission last year to take those elderberries, and from them I made a couple of gallons of forgettable elderberry wine.  I took him some of this wine a few weeks ago, and asked for permission to pick again.  He kindly obliged, then excitedly told me about a spot, available for picking, that had many times the elderberries in his little fencerow.  He volunteered to take me there when the berries ripened.

This past week I had a free evening, and the berries were ripening, so I rang him up.  I was mainly fishing for directions; I expected that his offer to take me to the spot was just small talk.  Instead, his instructions were to pick him up in 30 minutes.  He was going with me.

Larry and his wife live in the house he built 29 years ago.  His kids are grown with families of their own, and I suspect he's nearing retirement.  I've lived a few hundred yards from Larry and his wife for the past 17 years, and for 16 of those years, I didn't really know him.  My loss.  I first started to realize this when I got a tour of his yard last year after picking the fencerow.  I thought for years that I was somehow special for growing Metasequoia glyptostroboides.  It turned out that Larry had also come to appreciate the tree and had a couple of nice specimens in his yard.  We spent an enjoyable hour touring each other's properties, reviewing the history of certain specimens, what grew well, what failed, and what was planned next.

So I should not have been surprised when Larry walked out to the car this past week, clippers in hand, with every intent of making the the most of the opportunity.  He is one of the most interesting, vital, and engaging persons I have the pleasure to know.  For the next 3 hours, we battled the weeds and the wild blackberries, me in the lead, Larry just behind on one artificial knee, to collect 13# of elderberries.  Larry charted the course of the conversation, which covered families, travel, interests outside of work, the upcoming election.  He probed, but in a genuine, sincere way.  It was a surprisingly interesting, sweaty, prickly, productive, enjoyable 3 hours.

And I told him that. His response struck me.  "Guys need to hang out more often with other guys. It's good for us to do that."

Indeed, Larry, indeed.

Kicking off a blog

Finally we're here.  This blog has been bouncing around in my head for a few years.  Today my friend Shawn and I came to an agreement: we would each start a blog and we would read each other's work.  So here it is.  Shawn's blog will be linked in the sidebar.  We may be the only readers, but that is fine.  It will make a good diary.

If anyone should find their way here without knowing me, some background: I've been gardening for some 20 years, and for the past 10 or so I've had a hobby greenhouse.  Here you can read about my misadventures in gardening, growing tropical plants, killing tropical plants, coaxing flowers, playing plant pimp, praying for fruit set, and cooking just about anything.  My winemaking schtick is to only use homegrown or very locally grown fruit or plants.  Each wine has as a main ingredient something I grew or something a close friend or neighbor grew.  Winemaking in a way is like soccer...it is very simple and easy to do, but it is very, very difficult to do well.  I'm getting better, slowly, thanks to help from friends.

So welcome to the blog, feel free to like or leave a comment.