Plum plum plum plum plum

Finished up with the plum harvest last week, so have well over 100 lbs of plums in the freezer awaiting a convenient time to start the wine. Got a good crop of cherry plums (5 lbs. 9 oz.) harvested mid-June. The skins have a very intense tart and rustic quality that adds a lot to the wine, even though it's a small percentage of the blend.

The '09 plum wine is showing really well already. Great intensity and very enjoyable, maybe the best yet. I really worked on getting them as ripe as possible. While the range of ripeness adds to the complexity, the proportional shift is better.

One thing I've always said about the plum wine is that (unlike some of the other fruit wines) there's no way it could be confused for a grape wine. Well, I dug up some '07s, serving a couple in May, and the obviously plum fruit quality has mellowed so much, and it's picked up a meaty quality, so it reminds me of a Cinsault dominated Rhone wine - and not bad, either.

Racked the elderberry wine off the sediment. Should be bottling it next week. In tasting, it's bone dry, firm, a bit harsh and with bit of sulfite, showing dark, smoky, meaty raspberry and apricot. Definitely needs sugar and some time. Next time we should rack earlier.