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Wines, Home-Made

Home-made wines differ chiefly from foreign or grape wines in containing a much greater quantity of malic acid, whilst the wine of the grape contains chiefly tartareous; for it is the presence of super-tartrate of potash by which the grape is most strongly distinguished from all the other sub-acid fruits applied to the purposes of wine-making. This salt is most abundant in the grape before ripening, and a portion of it disappears during this process. A consideration of this diversity led Dr. Macculloch to point out to the public the useful practice of introducing super-tartrate of potash into all those juices of fruits which are intended for the basis of home-made wines. This salt is doubtless decomposed during the fermentative processes, and a considerable quantity of what remains is subsequently deposited in the casks or bottles in which the wine is kept, constituting what is termed the crust of the wine. Few of our home-made wines possess an intense colour; with the exception of the elderberry, mulberry, and the black cherry, scarcely any colour is contained in our domestic fruits. The colouring of home-made wines may be effected by bilberries, mulberries, or the husk of elderberries; these substances impart a fine red colour to vinous fluids; they are sometimes suffered to ferment with the must, to render the colour more intense. The practice of making wines from the produce of our gardens is deserving of very general attention. Foreign wines are entirely beyond the reach of the poor; and, therefore, the benevolent will endeavour to supply them, in age and sickness, with the best substitutes which our native fruits will afford. The following domestic fruits are well adapted for the fabrication of wine:--The gooseberry, elderberry, mulberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, red currant, black currant, white currant, and cranberry. These ferments will afford good and wholesome wines. It is a vulgar prejudice to suppose that the wines made from our domestic fruits are unwholesome. They may disagree with the constitutions of some persons, but no fact can warrant the assertion that they are more injurious than wines made from the grape. The pulpy fruits of our gardens, such as the peach, nectarine, plum, cherry, damson, and apricot, may also be employed; but, upon the whole, they answer not so well for the fabrication of wines as the domestic sub-acid esculent berries.

The gooseberry and currant are, of all other fruits, most commonly employed in the fabrication of home-made wines; and, on the whole, they are best adapted for the purpose. When used in their green state, both gooseberry and currant may be made to form light brisk wines, falling little short of champagne. Ripe gooseberries are capable of making sweet or dry wines; but these are commonly ill-flavoured, particularly if the husk has not been carefully excluded.

Ripe currants, if properly managed, make much better wines than gooseberries. These fruits are much improved, according to Dr. Macculloch, by boiling previously to fermentation. This, he states, is particularly the case with the black currant, which, when thus managed, is capable of making a wine closely resembling some of the best of the sweet Cape wines. The strawberry and raspberry are capable of making both dry and sweet wines of agreeable quality.

The elderberry is capable of making an excellent red wine. Its cheapness also recommends it. It does not, indeed, possess any great degree of flavour, but it possesses no bad one, which is a negative virtue often of great importance in artificial wine-making.

The cherry produces a wine of no very peculiar character. If used, care should be taken not to bruise too many of the stones, otherwise a disgreeable bitter taste will be imparted to the wine.

The blackberry and mulberry are capable of making coloured wines, if managed with that view: they are deficient, however, in the astringent principle; nevertheless, they may be occasionally employed with advantage when a particular object is to be gained.

The sloe and damson are so associated in qualities that nearly the same results are obtained from both. Their juice is acid and astringent, and hence they are qualified only for making dry wines. By a due admixture of currants or elderberries with sloes or damsons, wines not unlike the inferior kinds of port are often produced.

Grapes, of British growth, are capable of making excellent sparkling and other wines by the addition of sugar. The grapes may be used in any state however immature; when even but half-grown and quite hard they succeed perfectly. Raisins are extensively used in this country for making domestic wines; therefore they deserve to be mentioned here. When properly managed, they are capable of making a pure and flavourless vinous fluid, well adapted for receiving any flavour which may be required, and thus of imitating many wines of foreign growth.

The orange and lemon are likewise used for making domestic wines. Upon the whole, however, they are not very well adapted for the purpose, as they contain too little acid and too little of the extractive or fermentative juice.

The quince, from its analogy to the apple and pear, is better qualified for making a species of cider than wine.

The following is the art of making wine from native fruits. We start upon the grounds that home-made wines are intended to be imitations of foreign wines. In the first place, therefore, we have to prepare a juice or must similar to the juice or must of the grape in its general composition. Now, no fruit whatever yields a juice precisely similar to that of the grape. In our northern climate, more especially, the saccharine principle which is the fundamental basis in wine-making, exists in very minute proportion in most fruits. It must be, therefore, supplied artificially. The tartaric acid, or rather super-tartrate of potash, which is another essential principle in wine-making, is likewise wanting in most of our fruits. This, therefore, must be supplied. On the contrary, other substances, and particularly malic acid, exist in too large a proportion in most of our fruits, which, in their natural state, are thus better adapted for making cider than wine. To get rid of the malic acid, and to prevent its deteriorating effects, as well as the deteriorating effects of other foreign principles, is difficult, or perhaps impossible; and this will doubtless always render home-made wines inferior to those of the grape, though very near approaches may be made by judicious management.

The practical mode of obviating these difficulties is to dilute the juice of the fruit to such a degree that a given quantity of it shall contain no more of the malic acid, for example, than a given quantity of the juice of the grape; and, as before observed, to supply artificially the two grand principles, sugar and super-tartrate of potash, which are wanting. Having thus prepared an artificial must as nearly resembling in its composition that of the grapes as possible, the application of the other principles will be obvious, as we have nothing to do but to manage, in general, all the subsequent processes precisely as if we were operating upon the must of the grape.

In manufacturing wine from grapes different methods are pursued according to the kinds of wine which it is intended to make. Now the same thing holds good in manufacturing home-made wines; it is absolutely necessary that the maker should determine beforehand upon the kind of wine which it is his object to produce, and to modify his processes accordingly. We may, with Dr. Macculloch, consider wines as of four general descriptions: sweet wines; sparkling or effervescing wines; dry and light wines, analogous to hock and Rhenish, in which the saccharine principle is entirely decomposed during fermentation; and lastly, dry and strong wines, as Madeira and sherry. Those of the first and most simple class are the sweet wines, or those in which the fermentative process has been incomplete. It is to this class that by far the greater number of our home-made wines bear the greatest resemblance; a resemblance, says Dr. Macculloch, so general, as to show that few makers of this article posses sufficient knowledge of the art to enable them to steer clear of what may be firmly called a radical defect of domestic wines; for so large a quantity of sugar is often added in proportion to the juice of the fruits, that the quantity of natural leaven, or fermentative matter, in the compound, is insufficient for the conversion of the sugar into wine; hence that part of it which remains undecomposed is sweet. The use of the artificial leaven, yeast, may in some measure correct this defect, but the quantity added is generally inadequate to this object. "The addition of brandy," says Dr. Macculloch, "so often recommended in the recipes for making fruit wines, so far from checking the wine from becoming sour, increases it; and therefore the use of brandy as a preservative of wine is founded on error."

Dr. Macculloch recommends a certain proportion of crude tartar; the dose of which may vary from one to six per cent. without materially affecting the wine, as a great proportion of what escapes decomposition will be subsequently deposited. All fruits, except the grape, will require more or less of this salt.

In the manufacture of home-made wines, care therefore should be taken not to use too small a proportion of fruit compared with the sugar employed; for it is this circumstance chiefly which renders the fermentative process incomplete, and thus imparts that sweet and mawkish taste to our domestic wines which renders them intolerable to many people, and even perhaps to all, without the addition of brandy. The strength of the wine is always proportional to the quantity of sugar employed, provided that sugar has been completely decomposed; the most saccharine juices, therefore, afford the strongest wine; or, in the practice which is necessary in making wine from native fruits, that fluid will produce the strongest wine to which the greatest quantity of sugar has been added previous to fermentation, care being always taken to increase the quantity of leaven in such a ratio as to ensure the complete decomposition of the sugar, without which the produce gains in sweetness only without acquiring additional strength. But even with this precaution there is a limit to the quantity of sugar that can be employed, and this limit is obviously the proportion of water which is required to ensure the fermenting process. The fermentation must continue the longer if it is desired that the produce shall be a dry wine, and for a less time if it is wished to produce a sweet wine. But if, on the contrary, it is the wish of the operator to preserve the flavour or bouquet of the wine, it is necessary that the period of the fermentation should be shortened. The case will be precisely the same if it is an object to have a brisk wine, as the carbonic acid, on which this quality exclusively depends, will be dissipated irrecoverably by an undue protraction of the fermenting process.