There are so many wild plums around our way at the moment that we’re having a go at plum wine. This is alongside our existing cider efforts, which are happily bubbling away as they ferment in the kitchen.

I love plums, and the smell of them in the fermenter is just wonderful. Altogether, we picked 5.5kg (12lbs) of fruit, which we have dumped in the fermenter and covered with two gallons of hot water. This started to cook them almost right away. It split the skins and let the pulpy fruit start oozing out, helped along by a bit of stirring and prodding from a wooden spoon.

The result, in about nine months’ time when we’ve added yeast and sugar and left it to mature, should be a lovely rose wine, and already we can see that colour coming out. For now, though, it’s got to spend ten days in the outhouse while the juice and sugar from the fruit seeps out.

It’s very tempting to pop in there every so often and lift the lid for a sniff.

Related posts:

1. Moving on the plum wine
2. Making our first batch of nettle wine
3. We’ve opened our first plum wine