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Grape Wine, Sparkling

Take the grapes before they are fully ripe, put stalks and fruit into a convenient-sized tub, delicately clean, bruise them until every berry is broken, and to every pound of fruit add a quart of cold water. Leave them for three days, stirring them two or three times every day. Strain and add three pounds and a quarter of lump sugar to every gallon of liquid. When this is dissolved, put the wine at once into the cask, which should be kept full to the bung. It is well to reserve half a gallon for the purpose of filling it up as the fermentation subsides. In ten days add one pint of brandy and a quarter of an ounce of isinglass to every five gallons of wine. Keep the cask in a cool cellar. The wine should be bottled in champagne bottles when the vines are in bloom the following summer, and the corks must be wired down. Time, a fortnight to make. Probable cost, 4s. per gallon, exclusive of the brandy.