Shed Red 2012

The Shed Red 2011 is nearly ready for drinking, that is, nearly ready for drinking by other people after I give bottles as Christmas presents, once the recipient has signed a legally binding disclaimer, naturally.  Indeed, I have already given one bottle away to a relative who was interested in trying home wine making or, to give it its scientific term; ‘getting drunk on the cheap during a recession’.  Early reports are that Shed Red is better drunk after leaving it to breath for a couple of days.  This, I am given to understand, gives the chemical smell and aftertaste time to dissipate.  This may well be the first wine that should not be decanted near varnished surfaces.

So while Shed Red 2011 will shortly only be a memory, and for those whose higher brain functions it inhibits, maybe not even that, excitement is building about Shed Red 2013 – okay rosé!

This was a golden summer, but only in terms of the medal haul of Team GB.  Weatherwise it wasn’t great, in fact the Met Office put out a press release officially declaring it the most ‘bloody miserable’ summer since records began, and that includes the one with the Ark.

The wet summer has given us a truly golden autumn.  The trees have been spectacular this year, leaves shimmering gold and amber and fiery red.  They are, as a result of the (surprise) wind and rain, mostly on their way to being attractive mulch now, but for a few days the colours were glorious.

The wet weather may have produced attractive foliage, but it’s been hard on the crops, my vine in particular.  One of the most important decisions in any grape grower’s life is when to prune the leaves from the vine, allowing the sunlight to shine directly on the crop.  The problem is that the leaves also shelter the grapes from being battered by the rain.  This year, the decision was simple, there was no sunshine and there was plenty of rain.  In addition to a lack of sunshine, I am now able to say with certainty that grape guzzling critters are quite happy to brave the elements while the cats that kept the squirrels at bay last year were, presumably, at home curled up on top of a radiator, occasionally shitting in their owner’s shoe to relieve the monotony or whatever the hell it is that cats do.

The result is that the yield, as they say, is down.  This has affected not just my harvest, but the good people at Nyetimber, who are reported not to have even bothered harvesting this year.

Yea, well, Nyetimber may have bottled it (or not), but it takes more than a vastly reduced yield and the possibility that the under-developed grapes may result in a drink that requires its own entry on the periodic table (SRx) to put team Shed Red off getting out the demijohns, the sugar and the fining powder and other chemical additives that make the stuff drinkable and, importantly, makes drinking it ‘quite an experience’ rather than ‘death by misadventure’.

I have actually tried some of the 2012 and it is an improvement on the 2011, a darker colour (although still a rose rather than a true red, it is a much darker blush, think ‘social mortification resulting in having to make a large donation to a badger sanctuary’ rather than ‘used wrong soup spoon at dinner’ levels of embarrassment) and a more complex taste, there is almost no way in which this could be mistaken, or used for, paint thinner.

Moreover, this is very much a limited edition.  Last year there was about forty bottles of the stuff, this year, a mere eleven or, as my winemaker explained the other night ‘ten’, not that I begrudge him a bottle although I hope that he sipped it and savoured it rather than bolting it with the determination of Frankenstein attempting to destroy his own creation.

Odd though that a year which gave the smaller crop of poor grapes has produced a superior wine.  One thing is for sure, when drinking a 2012 vintage, people will be thinking about gold.  A shame Nyetimber passed on that.

From vine to wine, it's all fine

This has been, in every way, a ripe year for British fruit. The harvest has been bountiful and the fruit itself, taking an invented figure, at least 20% plumper and juicier than average. On the Imperial measure, that's at least one third of a smiling child more than normal and on the Summerisle scale, it means that demand for virgin sacrifices is down one on previous years.

The branches have hung heavy with fruit and the hedgerows were busy with birds at first flitting from branch to branch, then lunging from branch to branch before finally crashing heavily from branch to branch as their now almost spherical forms provided inspiration for any passing app maker. While in the supermarket the bumper harvest brought about by unseasonable, unreasonable but very welcome warm Autumn weather went unnoticed because while more of a product should mean it gets cheaper, rocketing diesel prices meant that transporting the stuff from farm to shop was getting more expensive, it was very noticeable in the fields, in those little roadside stalls you get when you travel the back roads, in the increase in demand for sugar, glass jars and other jam making accessories (jam making kitchens, the crystal meth labs of the English middle classes), and in back gardens.

Especially mine. This was the year that Jeremy, my vine, came good.

Not to say that in previous years he's not tried, it's just that this year he's had help.

Previously, Jeremy has fruited, with tiny buds slowly turning into grapes and those green grapes turning a luscious deep, dark purple (causing me to look again at Jeremy's tag and try to recollect if I had intended to buy a white-wine, sorry, a green grape vine, and had accidentally grabbed the wrong stalk in the garden centre. Of course it may have been that three or four years ago I was going through a red wine phase, which would certainly explain both my choice and my inability to either recollect my intention or to grab the right vine if green grapes had been my intention), I looked on them with pride, turned my back, heard a grey whoosh and turned back to see no grapes and a grape-laden squirrel shooting up a tree, just out of twatting-with-a-spade range.

This year, however, a more relaxed attitude to regimenting the garden has led to the borders growing in a 'wild garden' fashion. The idea was to encourage wildlife such as butterflies and bees, while freeing up valuable drinking time by avoiding excess pruning or trimming. Have no fear though, my lawn has been kept in pristine condition and could, at any time, have been pressed into service as a surface to play croquet, bowls, cricket, polo or, after one particularly close pass with the mower, snooker, on. The move towards wild gardening has led to the arrival of sentinel cats who, apparently, like nothing better than to curl up in the long grass and snooze away the afternoon, watched resentfully by squirrels who are now too scared to enter the garden. Hence the vine has been unmolested and hence there has been a bountiful harvest of grapes.

The cats are tolerated not just because they are even better squirrel deterrent than me running round the garden in my pants swinging a shovel round my head and screaming my dread squirrel-slaying war cry of 'Die Tufty Dieeeeeeeeeeee!' but because they don't crap in the garden. I have nothing against cats in and of themselves, after all, spinsters need love too, but I do have an objection to animals that crap in my garden. Obviously, these cats are fastidious and have decided that nothing puts a cramp in your nap when you are entirely covered in fur quite like poo. This is plainly a view shared by the fox that also took up residence for a short spell this summer, and who could be seen snoozing in the sunshine, moving only when the setting sun threw a long shadow across the lawn and he was required to pick himself up, wander a few yards into the sunshine, and drop down again. I thought for years that foxes drew their energy from bin raids and leftover chicken tikka masala, but apparently they are solar powered. So an uneasy peace reigned in my back garden in the summer of 2011, with the fox, the cats and myself all studiously ignoring one another's existence. I've no idea if the truce will be last and fear some sort of fur, fangs and faeces version of a Tombstone showdown moment next time round.

For this year though, all was calm, the only sounds the uncorking of lunch, the occasional sizzle of a sausage on the barbecue and the sound of my tomato plants, and Jeremy, growing. If ever there was a year for growing tomatoes, this was it. It's amazing that water plus sunshine can equal fruit, and free fruit at that. The things grew even taller than I am, and by August I had had to construct a Heath-Robinsonesque framework of bamboo canes held together with gardening twine to support the vertical and horizontal growths. By the time the crop was done I think there was more bamboo than tomato plant but the result was pleasing not only in the sense of getting free food, but of course the blokish sensation of having built something. The tomatoes tasted great, although the choice to go with two varieties, one that is traditional red when ripe and one that is yellow, caused some early confusion in trying to determine when a yellow tomato is ripe - answer: when it's very yellow.

Getting back to vines though, lets be clear, a vine has but two purposes; shade and booze. In sunny countries, like England in 2011, they are just the job for curling around your pergola or hastily lashed together framework of bamboo canes in order to provide welcome shade. Shade under which one can, if one wishes, set up a table and some chairs, and perhaps serve some cheese, with the wine of your choice. That's breakfast sorted, now all that remains is to call into work with a croaky voice, kick back and make the most of the day. Jeremy is not quite up to this yet, he was curled around my shed instead, but he is up to making wine! With a little help.

I have a friend who makes wine. Well, let me clarify, I have a friend who makes alcohol and alcohol products. To him, nature is something to be washed, peeled, sliced and then put into a bucket with a pound of sugar and some yeast, left in a shed for a couple of weeks, strained, matured in a bottle for as long as his patience can bear, and then drunk. He has made alcoholic drinks out of cherries, pears, rhubarb and, rumour has it, on one occasion a fox that was not quite quick enough after crapping on his vegetable patch. But never grapes. His vine has, mysteriously, always failed to produce grapes, even this summer.

So, I had a harvest of grapes but no knowledge of how to make wine, and he has all the gear and a good idea, but no grapes. So it was that we entered into an agreement, I would harvest and supply the grapes, he'd do all the hard work and we'd split the result half and half.


The process of wine making only fuelled the expectation of the result. I delivered the grapes to my winemaker and left him to undertake the initial stages. This resulted, a couple of weeks later, in a large bucket of grape juice. We then spent an evening straining the stuff into another bucket, while the dregs were retained. My wine buddy had a plan for those. The resulting strained wine juice was added to another bucket, sugar and yeast was added, a mysterious instrument called a hydrometer was used, more sugar was added, the lid was put on the bucket and the whole thing was returned to the shed.


Sheds have featured largely. Jeremy put on a growth spurts this summer and wrapped himself around my shed, while the fruit has turned to wine in a shed. With this in mind, various names for the wine were considered and rejected ('Vin diesel', 'Van Bloody Ordinary', Vin-mto', 'Grim grape') before we settled on the inevitable 'Shed red'. I think that the close involvement of sheds at every stage has leant a certain something to the wine itself, as it fermented away I was imagining that it would have notes of compost, porn and creosote.

Of course, as with all this home made stuff, potency can be a problem. I tried a glass of his rhubarb wine on holiday and lost the power of speech after half a glass, the use of common sense after the rest of the glass and the use of my ability to climb stairs after a second glass. Good stuff. I think.

Come decanting day, we had moved out of the bucket stage, which was something of a relief. While the reality of actually making something usually demystifies the product, and while the sieving, pouring and standing well back as the yeast and sugar got it on was tremendous fun, there is only so much romance to be had from a plastic bucket. But glass demijohns and tubes - this was much more like it.


The resulting wine is actually a rose, a beautiful pink, like the blush of a convent school girl just having her first inappropriate thought about the captain of the netball team. This was rather unexpected considering how dark the grapes were and one wonders exactly how dark the grapes are that produce those really deep red wines, I suspect most of them are beyond the visible spectrum.

I was told by my winemaker that the result tasted like a Beaujolais nouveaux. This would make perfect sense, as that is a wine synonymous with being drunk practically before the corks are hammered into the bottles. The idea for shed red, like all home made wine, is that you make it, bottle it and then forget about it for at least a year.

However, given all the excitement about this vintage, we had to try it. I would say that the result is...interesting. It certainly packs a punch and resembles nothing so much as a light and fruity lunchtime wine crossed with battery acid and the sort of spirit that one buys at a car boot sale to clear your car windscreen of frost, or possibly a home made cure for removing warts, stubborn stains and all traces of life in any awkward family member. Having said that, we finished the bottle.

I believe the correct term for the resulting wine is 'young'. Like all wines it should be allowed to mature and I have to say that putting it away has already improved it tremendously, in that I don't have to drink the stuff. At present, it's enough to look at it, sitting there gathering potency, and feel a warm glow of achievement and not just a little frisson of anxiety about what the stuff is going to taste like in a years time.

The skins and stalks, by the way, were not wasted. Rather, this was used to make grappa. Grappa is, as anyone who has ever shuddered their way to a pulled muscle after sipping the stuff will know, notoriously vile. If it tastes goodj, you're not doing it right. It's supposed to be made of the leftovers when you have made wine and it is supposed to be rough as a mountain goat's arse in Lithuania's goat shagging season. Thus, the bar had not been set high, or had been, depending on your point of view. When the Shed Red was bottled the grappa was still in the bucket stage of the process, so we all trooped out to the shed for a sip. Itw was sublime. I think that served chilled, ideally so chilled that you don't actually taste it, it would actually be excellent.