Amaretto is the Bacon of Alcohol

Every so often we have a Friday office Happy Hour. This time we held it at our house and Brice supplied the line of the evening. It was not from his T-shirt which asked, "WTF Where's The Fish?"

We wound up going through 5 bottles of home brew, and here they are, in order of consumption (and inebriation).

2015 Elderberry Blackberry Rosé was the starter, chosen because it is pretty reliable. But it was strangely too heavy for a warm evening on the back porch. Can a wine have too much body? At the end of the evening the bottle was empty.

2015 Lychee is as popular as ever. Well balanced, semi-dry, plenty of lychee aroma and flavor. Jamie wants a bottle for her birthday. My parents friends have requested 3 cases. Before bottling this wine, I absolutely agonized over the acid adjustments. It would seem that it was worth it.

2016 Blend 1 was just bottled last weekend. It is 50% Syrah, 50% elderberry and I'm very happy with this result. The Syrah (from grapes) came out smooth and uber-fruity but too thin and light. The elderberry brings the color back. The taste is just what you would expect from this blend, equal amounts of elderberry and fruity Syrah. I need a clever name for this blend.

Bottled wine from last weekend

2016 Blend 2 was also just bottled. 70% Syrah, 15% elderberry, 15% blackberry. Elderberry contributes some color and just a little background earthiness to contrast the fruitiness of the other flavors. I hit this with a little extra KMS before bottling because the Syrah underwent MLF and the blackberry has all of that malic acid. So far so good. Another empty bottle at Happy Hour. 

Finally someone went into the cellar and came back with 2015 Blueberry. I am not fond of this wine. It is made with red grape concentrate, and I simply can't get past the Concord. Saturday morning, even after the second rinse of the bottle, I could still smell the Concord grape. Naturally everyone loved it.

Spring Collection of Pictures

I have been collecting a few pics of some interesting garden, greenhouse, and kitchen things, and so while I have nothing particularly interesting to write about, a post is in order.

Earlier this month we spread 45 cubic yards of mulch. Tom lent a skid loader which made all the difference.

My dear, with my dear dog

Around the yard, we have fruit...

Paw Paws (Asimina triloba)

Seviceberries (Amelanchier 'Regent' and others)

Elderberries (Sambucus canadensis)

...and flowers...

Japanese Snowbell tree (Styrax japonicus)

Shining Bluestar and Threadleaf Bluestar (Amsonia illustris and A. hubrectii)

Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus)

Viburnum sargentii ‘Onondaga’

Carolina Allspice (Calycanthus floridus)

Cercis canadensis 'Appalachian Red'

...and in the greenhouse, fruit as well.

Jaboticaba

Grumichama (Eugenia brasiliensis)

In the vineyard, some vines are showing a lot of growth...

...and, one day, this happened.

We have had a lot of rain.

Anas platyrhynchos

In the kitchen, a few interesting things.

Shawn is fond of carrot fries

Green papaya

Green papaya slaw, much better than expected actually

Blueberry lemon cake 

Kingston is slowly getting trained...

Keeley is not, but she's loyal.

2016 Wines - Chapter 13 - Passion fruit

Finally the last passion fruit dropped so we can move forward with passion fruit wine.

• 5# 1oz passionfruit pulp, frozen, thawed, bagged
• 1 can white grape concentrate
• 456g sugar
• Kmeta at thaw
• 1/4t Fermaid K, divided
• 0.5t GoFerm at hydration
• Tannin 1/4t
• Pectic enzyme 1t
• Water to 1 gal
• Calcium carbonate 3.5t
• Opti Red/Opti White 1g
• Booster Blanc/Rouge 1g
• Lallzyme EX 0.1g
• Bentonite 2g on day 3

I held back a few ounces for a secondary infusion if needed

Just the pulp, bagged up

The sugar brought the SG from 1.042 to 1.085. The calcium carbonate brought the pH from 2.68 to 3.04. Lallzyme went in with the pectic, 12 hours after the Kmeta, and 12 hours prior to pitching QA 23. 

We fermented it in a water bath chilled with ice packs. The temperature wasn't quite as steady as I would have liked but generally it was no higher than 16C. The last time we made passion fruit wine it ripped through in 3 days - like carambola, it is a very rapid fermenter. This time we stretched to 7 days, and by day 7 at 1.008 we racked to secondary.

We hope to preserve that wonderful passion fruit aroma this time. 

Jammin' for Relay

All day yesterday our radar more or less looked like this:

We ended up with 4.5" yesterday and already today by 7:00am almost another inch. There was no hope of working outside so it turned out to be a perfect day preparing for the Relay for Life.

Each year, led by Mindy and the rest of the staff, our contribution has grown. This year, although twice postponed due to rain, we had a softball tournament which proved very successful. Our fundraising also involves selling homemade jam, and yesterday was the day to make it.

I had a lot of leftover fruit and brought only a portion of it. It seemed to be a fitting use for the last 2.5# of starfruit from 'Kari,' as I don't have enough for a batch of wine. I also brought elderberries, blackberries, and blueberries.

Starfruit Jam in-the-making

A request was also made for wine, and I obliged with elderberry rosé, blueberry, lemongrass mint, lychee, and Dragon Blood. Only the lemongrass was unpopular, although each person had a different favorite. I brought four empty bottles home.

Chief Jammaker Jamie with Lisa

Est. 2017

Last week my dad drove down from Michigan to help plant the vineyard. He arrived on Thursday, and we had a light supper at Bek's. But I could tell something wasn't right. I didn't rest that night and by the next morning I felt entirely unwell. Dad and I went outside and planted two vines, but I could not continue. Six hours later, my swollen appendix was in a jar of formalin.

I woke from anesthesia with a little problem. I had over 100 vines to plant, and while I was much improved, I just wasn't really yet up to the task. Fortunately for me, I have friends and family that pitched in and got the job done.

Shawn, Dad, Jakob, Suzanne, Lisa

The appendicitis rescue crew got the vines in the ground in under 3 hours.

• 9 Foch
• 9 Frontenac
• 10 Chambourcin
• 9 Chardonel (grafted)
• 9 Traminette
• 36 Vidal
• 44 Norton

We heeled in at least 1 extra vine of each variety in the event that I lose one.

On Sunday, Dad and I strung and connected the irrigation lines.

It certainly was a memorable weekend.

Patience Rewarded

Jaboticaba blooming bright.

Narrow garage bed replanted with some lamium and dwarf abelia. The haskap harvest will be limited this year due to a late freeze.

Trying a new pollination technique with the lychees.

With any luck, this will be the Pierce Estate Norton 2020.

And finally, patience rewarded.  Asimina triloba in bloom.

Wasting Time

That was a waste of time.

About 3 weeks ago the water pump in my greenhouse quit working. A limited round of diagnostics revealed an electrical issue. Today I was finally able to dig in, and 4 hours later, I'm right where I started.

This outlet was not the problem.

I started by replacing the GFCI outlet which powers the pump. Working my way back toward the breaker, I checked the junctions and other outlets. I finally determined that the breaker was bad. So I switched with a working breaker, and now while I can get the breaker to stay on, none of the downstream GFCI outlets we stay set. To add insult to injury, I plugged the pump into another outlet by way of an extension cord - nothing. So I'm guessing the one problem led to another, although I'm not sure whether the problem started with the pump, an outlet, or the breaker itself. After 4 hours and with plenty of other work to do this weekend, I gave up. Neal Electric will be getting a call from me on Monday.

March Harvest.

The greenhouse is in decent shape for March. I picked the last of the citrus. While the grapefruit aren't very big, they taste terrific. The passion fruit are going into a batch of wine. We had only a small harvest of oranges this year but they are blooming well. Lychees are in full bloom. We had the first decent bloom on the purple grumichama and at least some fruit set. The papaya has roots out the bottom of the pot and they have grown into the gravel floor. This seems to be the secret, as we have large T.R.Hovey papayas and it is flowering again.

Not blemish free, but will make great green papaya salad.

As important, the first row of grapes went in this weekend. Norton will come from two sources, Double-A Vineyards in New York and Chateau Aux Arc in Arkansas. The Chateau shipment arrived last week and is in the ground.