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Gooseberry Wine, Still
Pick and bruise the fruit, and put it in a large tub. Let it stand twenty-four hours, then drain off the juice, and add a quart of lukewarm water to every gallon of gooseberries. Let this stand twelve hours. Mix the water with the juice, and add twelve pounds of loaf sugar to five gallons of liquid. Let it ferment well. The temperature should be in proportion to the ripeness of the fruit. If necessary, the liquid should be placed near the fire. In two or three days it will be ready for the cask. Put it into the barrel with two quarts of brandy to five gallons of liquid. Bung it well. To be in perfection, gooseberry wine should not be bottled for five years; but, if required, it may be used at the end of twelve months. Probable cost, 1s. 8d. per gallon, exclusive of the brandy.
A country fruit wine of the fortified sort, written for a household with a cask, a cellar and five years to spare. Everything about the method assumes wild fermentation and an ambient temperature you controlled by moving the tub nearer the fire.
- The hinge: do not bung tight while it is working"In two or three days it will be ready for the cask" is far too early by modern reckoning — a gooseberry must at that stage is still fermenting vigorously, and a well-bunged barrel becomes a pressure vessel. Modern practice is a fermentation lock until the specific gravity is stable, and only then a tight closure.
- Gallons and quartsThese are imperial: a gallon is 4.55 litres, a quart 1.14 litres. Five gallons of liquid is about 23 litres, and 12 lb of sugar to that volume is roughly 5.4 kg — a high-gravity must, aimed at a sweet, long-keeping wine.
- Loaf sugarRefined cane sugar sold in a cone and broken up with sugar nippers. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent; there is no flavour difference worth chasing.
- No yeast is mentionedThe recipe relies on wild yeasts on the fruit skins and in the tub, which is why the bruised fruit stands a day and why the temperature matters. A cultured wine yeast gives a predictable ferment; if you want the old character, a pied de cuve from unwashed fruit is closer, with the usual risk of acetic or off-flavoured results.
- "Temperature in proportion to the ripeness of the fruit"In practice, aim for 18-22C (65-72F). Standing the vessel near an open fire gives wide swings and a hot, solventy ferment; a steady warm room is better.
- The brandy is a fortificationTwo quarts of brandy to five gallons is roughly 2.3 litres in 23 litres, enough to raise the finished strength by a few per cent and to help the wine survive years in wood. Left out, the wine is unfortified, and less certain to hold for the five years the recipe assumes.
- SanitationNineteenth-century tubs and casks were scalded, and sulphur matches were used to sweeten casks in the wine and cider trades, though how far households did the same is unclear. Sterilise everything with a proprietary steriliser; an unsanitised 23-litre batch fermented in an open tub is a likely way this recipe fails today.
- Yield and the cost noteAbout 23 litres, or some thirty 750 ml bottles. The "1s. 8d. per gallon" is a mid-to-late Victorian household costing and is useful only as a period price signal.
Gooseberry was among the most widely made of British country wines in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, valued because the fruit is high in acid and low in colour and so gave a pale wine that could be coaxed toward something resembling grape wine — sparkling versions were sold and served as "gooseberry champagne", and the word still in this title is most plausibly there to distinguish this recipe from that. Gooseberries suited the climate and the kitchen garden: they cropped heavily in the north of England, where competitive gooseberry clubs weighed prize berries into the twentieth century, and a glut of hard, unripe or over-ripe fruit was more useful fermented than fresh. Cassell's includes it among a run of domestic wines and cordials, and the confident instruction not to bottle for five years tells you the book assumed a cellar, a cask and a settled house.