So where's the snow?

Muddling through life from Austria to Wales; God, life and a small black dog

Category Archives: Wine making


by Leave a comment

Blackberries

After the glut of last year, I wondered if we’d get any this year. The wine I made was fantastic, so I’ve kept some back to treasure.

This cold June seems to have held a lot of things back, and there have been no flowers as early after last year. I think the wet March brought them on.

I’ve been watching the bushes and at last there are flowers. One variety seems to have much larger flowers and stalks compared to last year.

I’m hoping they’ll bring fruit. Other bushes are just showing smaller lanky flowers.

I know we’re all going on about climate, but I wonder what this cool is having on the bugs which the birds need to feed their babies on. My bird feeders are really busy.

I’m sure all this is to do with the slip stream, we had this cool spell in May last year. I’ve seen it’s slipping, but we quite often got a cool spell in Austria.

Can’t see myself picking for wine this August, so will the blackberries be so full of sugar. Oh the joys of wine making.

Then I saw this hedge!


by Leave a comment

To write or not to write?

Swingle is going to be famous next  month, but that’s top secret!

I vowed that I would take a break from writing until the new year, but a new book is coming to birth, but I am fighting starting to write it until after the summer and I’m not going to rush this one, it’s going to be deeper, a real mainstream, Christian novel, AND NO HORSES… well maybe a couple.Life here in Wales is fab. We’ve just had a wonderful, hot June, the garden is looking great, just wish my geraniums would flower, I’ll start them later next year. The pond is still leaking but Dave and I have talked ourselves out of the rebuild yet again. I’ve got Elderflower wine bubbling away, and it looks like there will be more blackberries than last year, but the Elderberries still don’t look so good. We’ve had visits from family which have been such fun and are making new friends around us.

Our lovely fellowship is changing and growing in all sorts of ways as God begins moving in Mountain Ash. I still have no idea what the future will hold and what it’ll look like, he’s keeping that under wraps. We had our first evening service last week and it was a deeply relaxed spiritual, joyous time, and I came home full of peace and eagerness for the path forward.

Yet, this week for the first time I actually wanted to go back to Austria. It was a conversation at the Riding for the Disabled group, where we were having a coffee chat. This wokeness is out of hand, and I was so upset when I heard of how teaching riding has changed since I left the UK, and how the horse world is under pressure from people ignorant of working with and loving horses. I wanted to run back to Austria where I could remain ignorant of this, bury my head. But that’s not God’s plan and here I stay and I’ll have to learn to deal with it.


by Leave a comment

Wine time!

A week later than usual, I’ve just got my wine started. A friend gave me her red Gooseberrys as a certain dog dug a hole by my bush and it had to be cut back.

The hot summer, with long dry spells then loads of rain doesn’t seem to have affected the fruit,although I only had just enough blackcurrants. Only downside was the scars from the hail…

Three days on, the wine is percolating like mad. Its 26c in my garage, which is really too warm. But nobody told my yeast, it’s having a party!

Now I need to wait for the elderberrys to ripen. I havent made that wine for two years due to bad weather. Looks like it could be a good year for wine!


by 6 Comments

Perfect summer

This summer in Lungau has been text book. The farmers had just enough rain and sun for their first cut of silage. We had the heat of 30 degrees, but it was bridged with rain that had the best growing conditions for the flowers and the veges. I found it too hot when I had to go grass mowing with Dave, but I just don’t do hot. He’s spent a working life out in the heat, and to use his highest form of insult, I was born to work in an office………

We had odd bouts where there was snow on the tops, but you can have snow here any season of the year! Some farmers made three cuts of hay and silage, and there has been time for the grass to re-grow for when the cows come down. I’ve yet to get my picture of them looking out of the trailer tops.

We’ve had brilliant thunderstorms that went with the hot weather and yes, there had been a lot of damage, but where we’re protected by the Tauern mountains, we missed it this year. But all normal alpine weather, if bit more extreme due to the higher temperatures!

The final heat ended on the dot of September first, and since then its been appreciably colder, thank heavens. The hill behind us is white again this morning after a couple of days of rain, and I think of the cows stuck up there. In 2007 there was a really heavy snow and a lot died, but I think this will melt.

And the fruit and veges have been brilliant, and we celebrate our first ever Lungau melon!

Only down side was I seem to have the latest ripening Elderberry tree in the valley and I may only be able to make jam, but I have a few bottles of last years to keep us going!

How was your summer? Or those in other climes, your winter?


by 1 Comment

A new venture

I had a go at wine making years ago when we had our small farm.  Trouble was that I let the fermenting bubbles get dry and it all went wrong.  We even tried marrow rum, and Dave’s Dad drank that and lived but we didn’t fancy it!  I’m quite surprised no one makes it here – I’m talking fruit as opposed to grape wine.  There are so many fruit bushes in people’s gardens, but they make loads of jams and syrups.

Schnapps distilling is the main occupation here. Usually from the berries of the mountain ash, which I used to think was poisonous or with zirben, a sort of pine cone that drips a thick resin.  This is added to a brandy or schnapps base and with sugar is fermented into a lovely syrupy liquor.  There are variations on this with all sorts of  fruit too.  So I’m going to try to make Elderberry. Two trees have self seeded in our garden so I hope that’ll be enough!

Finding the equipment was a non starter – nothing on the net anywhere in Austria. Then my sister in-law said her shop where she works in the UK did all the stuff, so she brought me over all the bungs and bubbles and yeast.  The only problem was then the fermenting bottle, and blow me down, Linda had two in her attic, her mother in law used to make it in Steiermark!  I went to the local Iron mongers  and they had the bung -for schnapps storing/brewing I suppose. I don’t have means to cork the bottles so I’m going to use the beer bottles with the flip over top with a metal spring that seals – a bit like on a Kilner jar.

The fruit is there and green on the bushes, they’ll be ready in a few weeks, just need to beat the birds to them!

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started