The blackberry wine is coming along nicely. I checked the SG (specific gravity, basically a reading to help calculate the alcohol content) and it was right at 1.0, which is just about right for finishing up primary fermentation and racking into a secondary fermenter. It has good color and is progressing right on schedule. I'll give it a month in secondary and rack again, I should start seeing some clearing by that time. I will ferment this wine completely dry, then back-sweeten a bit because I like most of my fruit wines a bit on the sweeter side.

There is snow or ice or some combination of both in the forecast for the weekend, fairly uncommon here in South Carolina, so of course everyone will panic and go buy bread and milk because that's just what you do here when a "winter weather event" is forecasted. Current estimates are for 5-8 inches of accumulation at my house, more in the higher elevations. If that does indeed happen, and since I don't own a sled, live on a hill, or have the energy even if I did, I will likely have a day in the winery bottling, racking, cleaning, and maybe even starting the sweet potato wine. This is assuming power doesn't go out of course, not at all uncommon during icy weather here. If power does go out I can envision sitting in front of the fire in my recliner sipping a nice port or maybe even an ice wine, in keeping with the situation! We'll see how the weather pattern plays out, we could get anything from light rain to 2 feet of snow based on the wildly inaccurate weather models being tossed about on the news by giddy meteorologists who never pass up an opportunity to bask in their temporary spotlight. Since Monday is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and a lot of school districts have returned to temporary e-learning anyway as Omicron has picked up, the local kids will undoubtedly feel cheated out of a day off from school, affectionately known as a "snow day" here, but I'm sure they'll make the best of it regardless. Should the stars align and the sweet potato wine makes it into the fermenter I will follow up with details on that. In the meanwhile, stay warm and safe!