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Wine, Gooseberry

The following is Dr. Macculloch's recipe for making gooseberry wine:--"The fruit must be selected before it has shown the least tendency to ripen, but about the time when it has attained its full growth. The particular variety of gooseberry is perhaps indifferent; but it will be advisable to avoid the use of those which in their ripe state have the highest flavour. The Green Bath is perhaps among the best. The smallest should be separated by a sieve properly adapted to this purpose, and any unsound or bruised fruit rejected, while the remains of the blossom and the fruit-stalk should be removed by friction or other means. Forty pounds of such fruit are then to be introduced into a tub properly cleaned and of the capacity of fifteen or twenty gallons, in which it is to be bruised in successive proportions, by a pressure sufficient to burst the berries without breaking the seeds or materially compressing the skins. Four gallons of water are then to be poured into the vessel, and the contents are to be carefully stirred and squeezed by the hand until the whole of the juice and pulp are separated from the solid matters. The materials are then to remain at rest from six to twenty-four hours, when they are to be strained through a coarse bag with as much force as can conveniently be applied to them. One gallon of fresh water may afterwards be passed through the marc for the purpose of removing any soluble matter which may have remained behind. Thirty or twenty-five pounds of white sugar are now to be dissolved in the juice thus procured, and the total bulk of the fluid made up with water to the amount of ten gallons and a half. If I name two quantities, it is because the fruit itself varies in quality, and it depends on the operator to distinguish. The old recipes allow forty pounds, of which the consequence is, invariably, a sweet wine, while it fails of being brisk in nine cases out of ten. And the smaller proportion here given will most frequently ensure a brisk wine, if the operator will but attend to the progress of the fermentation and the treatment as formerly described. The liquor thus obtained is the artificial must, which is equivalent to the juice of the grape--that is, made to resemble it as nearly as possible. It is now to be introduced into a tub of sufficient capacity, over which a blanket or similar substance, covered by a board, is to be thrown, the vessel being placed in a temperature varying from 55 deg. to 60 deg. of Fahrenheit's thermometer. Here it may remain for twelve or twenty-four hours, according to the symptoms of fermentation which it may show, and from this tub it is to be drawn off into the cask in which it is to ferment. When in the cask it must be filled nearly to the bung-hole, that the scum which arises may be thrown out. As the fermentation proceeds, and the bulk of the liquor in the cask diminishes, the superfluous portion of must, which was made for this express purpose, must be poured in, so as to keep the liquor still near the bunghole. When the fermentation becomes a little more languid, as may be known by a diminution of the hissing sound, the bung is to be driven in, and a hole bored by its side, into which a wooden peg, called the spile, is to be fitted. After a few days this peg is to be loosened, that, if any material quantity of froth has been generated, it may find vent. The same trial must be made after successive intervals, and when there appears no longer any danger of extensive expansion, the spile may be permanently tightened. The wine thus made must remain over the winter in a cool cellar, as it is no longer necessary to provoke the fermenting process. If the operator is not inclined to bestow any further labour or expense on it, it may be examined on some clear and cold day towards the end of February or beginning of March, when, if fine, as it will sometimes be, it may be bottled without further precautions. To ensure its fineness, however, it is a better practice to decant it towards the end of December into a fresh cask, so as to clear it from the first lees. At this time also the operator will be able to determine whether it is not too sweet for his views. In this case, instead of decanting it, he will stir up the lees, so as to renew the fermenting process, taking care also to increase the temperature at the same time. At whatever time the wine has been decanted, it is to be fined in the usual way with isinglass. Sometimes it is found expedient to decant it a second time into a fresh cask, and again to repeat the operation of fining. All these removals should be made in clear, dry, and, if possible, cold weather. In any case the wine must be bottled during the month of March. The wines thus produced will generally be brisk, and similar in their qualities (flavour excepted) to the wines of Champagne, with the strength of the best Sillery, if the larger proportions of sugar have been used, but resembling the inferior kinds with the smaller allowance. Inattention, or circumstances which cannot always be controlled, will sometimes cause it to be sweet and still, at other times to be dry. In the former case it may be manufactured the following season, by adding to it that proportion of juice from fresh fruit which the operator's judgment may dictate, and renewing the fermentation and subsequent treatment as before. In the latter case, as its briskness can never be restored, it must be treated as dry wine, by decanting into a sulphured cask, when it must be fined and bottled in the usual manner. Such dry wines . . . . are much improved by keeping, nor ought they to be drunk under five or six years."