Home › The Principles of Cookery › Wine from the Leaves and Stalks of the Grape

Wine from the Leaves and Stalks of the Grape

The following is Dr. Macculloch's recipe for making this wine:--"The young leaves may be taken at any period from vines which have been cultivated for this purpose, and from which no fruit is expected. In other cases they may be obtained from the summer pruning. The tendrils and green shoots are equally useful. The claret vine may be cultivated for this purpose, in which case the wine will have a red colour. The leaves are best when young, and should not have attained more than half their growth; they should be plucked with their stems. In the neighbourhood of London they require to be carefully washed to remove the taste of soot which so often adheres to them: sometimes that is insufficient. From sixty to eighty pounds of such leaves being introduced into a tub of sufficient capacity, seven or eight gallons of boiling water are to be poured on them, in which they are to infuse for twenty-four hours. The liquid being poured off, the leaves must be pressed in a press of considerable power; and being subsequently washed with an additional gallon of water, they are again submitted to the action of the press. "The sugar, varying from twenty-five to thirty pounds, is then to be added to the mixed liquors, and the quantity being made up to ten gallons and a half, the process for making gooseberry wine is to be followed. Although the water is here directed to be boiling hot, it must be remembered that it is immediately cooled down to that temperature which is most efficacious in extracting the several soluble ingredients of the fruit."