When In Slovakia

It's been a while since I've posted anything here about anything at all but today feels like the right time to do it.

So, when it comes to the production of wine, the outcome has been pretty decent. I'm not suggesting for one second that this wine is pure or would be considered by wine connoisseurs to be anything worthy or fame or recognition, but for us it's a really pleasing result to what was a hell of a lot of hard work.

The white wine is generally not transparent. Only one demijohn contains clear liquid and the other two are cloudy for some reason. Perhaps it's because we didn't 'rack' them. This was a new word for me but basically it means siphoning from one container to another while trying to avoid getting tipsy in the process. Sucking from the pipe is necessary to get the liquid moving and sometimes it takes a few attempts and a few mouthfuls of wine as well.

One of the wines that we took was a bit smelly. It had a smelly egg smell but tasted fine. Supposedly it happens when there isn't enough aeration or it can be from having too much sulphur in the wine.

The red came out pretty well and is the most satisfactory one as it involved more work and there's something very majestic about seeing this juice of the gods flowing from bottle to glass.

The general feedback we've had has been pretty good which has also been very pleasing as we are certainly not objective at all.

The experience has been a very good one and while the grape vines are still asleep, I'm looking forward to the time when they burst into life and so will begin
another season of battling with the natural elements in order to give them the chance to produce this special fruit.

The Good and the Bad

The Bad

Slugs are eating their way through lots of the things we have planted. They have eaten our pumpkins, courgettes and nearly all of our cucumbers. Desperate attempts to save one last pumpkin sadly failed despite going round at night and rounding up as many slugs as we could. Below is just one portion of snails just before they got boiled.

The Good

Flowers are blooming and it's strawberry season. I don't have a picture yet but there are so many strawberries that we are finding it hard to think of ways to eat them and preserve the ones we can't possibly eat. We are in the process of making jam and have been enjoying smoothies the last few days but there are so many there that we may have to just restrict our diet to strawberries for the next while. Radish has been picked, the salads are growing well and we have finally planted the tomatoes that we had been growing at home. The vineyard is proving to be a challenge. We have pruned the shoots and branches without grapes and are carefully monitoring them for diseases as this seems to be a big problem here. Fingers crossed.

Satisfying

The next update of life on the land, where life is never boring.

It's so satisfying to see some green coming up from the depths of the ground. All they needed was a little water and they have responded in turn.

The problem is with some areas of the land where the grass is too high. As I love old-school things, I decided to buy a scythe to cut the grass around the vines. After cycling all around the nearest town of Pezinok during which time I got a puncture, I was unsuccessful.
The next day, Saturday, I found one but the hardest part was mounting the scythe, at least I thought so anyway. After a lot of head scratching and some pointless hammering, we succeeded in fitting the blade onto the rest of the body.

The problem then became how to sharpen the blade. With a stone I spent ages going back and forth but it didn't seem to make a difference. A neighbour suggested hammering the blade to thin it out. we tried this but no joy. Now it seems that we will have to forget about being old-school and just buy a petrol garden trimmer. It's a shame but a lot of effort has yielded very little result and the grass is still high and growing. Next mission, find a garden trimmer.