The Wine Press and the Cellar: A Manual for the Wine-Maker and the Cellar-Man

by Emmet H. Rixford

PORT WINE.

The Musts of the port wine grapes grown in the Upper Douro, Portugal, show from 24 to 29 per cent. of sugar, according to the variety. There are others cultivated in the district which contain less sugar. The sweetest of all is the Bastardo. The fermentation takes place under cover, in what is called a lagar, which is a large stone vat, about three feet deep. According to Dr. Bleasdale, it is necessary to gather the grapes as soon as they are completely ripe; that the lagar or fermenting vat should be filled as promptly as possible; that the mass should be thoroughly stirred; that the fermentation should be tumultuous and uninterrupted, and that the wine should be drawn off when it has developed a vinous smell and flavor, and astringency and roughness to the taste, though all the sugar has not been fermented. The defective grapes are picked out, and only good ones put into the vat. As soon as the fermenting vat is filled, a sufficient number of men enter into it to complete the treading. Three men to each 120 gallons of must are employed, who with bare feet tread and dance upon the grapes. If fermentation is slow in starting, more men are put in to impart warmth, or a quantity of warm must is added. The first treading lasts, in the instance given by Dr. Bleasdale, six hours during the first night, and is continued next day with two men, where three were employed the first night. Men enter again during the active fermentation and tread to keep down the pomace, and to extract as much coloring matter as possible. Then the treaders leave the lagar, but the fermentation is closely watched.

The following graphic description, which differs in no essential respect from that of Dr. Bleasdale, is from Vizitelli:

“When the mid-day meal is over, the grapes having been already spread perfectly level in the lagar, a band of sixty men is told off to tread them. The casa dos lagares[5] is a long building with a low pointed roof, lighted with square openings along one side, and contains four lagares, in the largest of which sufficient grapes can be trodden at one time to produce thirty pipes of wine.[6] As is universally the case in the Upper Douro, these lagares are of stone, and about three feet in depth. In front of each, and on a lower level, is a small stone reservoir, called a dorno, into which the expressed juice flows after the treading of the grapes is concluded, and which communicates by pipes with the huge tonels[7] in the adega below, although not beneath the lagares, being in fact in the face of the reservoirs, but on a level some twelve feet lower, with a long, wooden staircase leading to it. In front of the lagares runs a narrow stone ledge, to which ascent is gained by a few steps, and here while the treading is going on the overseers post themselves, long staves in hand, in order to see that every one performs his share of labor. The treaders, with their white breeches well tucked up, mount into the lagar, where they form three separate rows of ten men each on either side of the huge, overhanging beam, and placing their arms on each other’s shoulders, commence work by raising and lowering their feet alternately, calling out as they do so, ‘Direita, esquerda!’ (Right, left!) varying this after a time with songs and shoutings in order to keep the weaker and lazier ones up to the work, which is quite as irksome and monotonous as either treadmill or prison crank, which tender-hearted philanthropists regard with so much horror. But the lagariros have something more than singing or shouting to encourage them. Taking part with them in the treading is a little band of musicians, with drum, fife, fiddle, and guitar, who strike up a lively tune, while their comrades chime in, some by whistling, others with castanets. Occasionally, too, nips of brandy are served out, and the overseers present cigarettes all round, whereupon the treaders vary their monotonous movements with a brisker measure. This first treading, the ‘sovar o vinho,’ or beating the wine, as it is called, lasts, with occasional respites and relays of fresh men, for eighteen hours. A long interval now ensues, and then the treading or beating is resumed. By this time the grapes are pretty well crushed, and walking over the pips and stalks strewn at the bottom of the lagar, becomes something like the pilgrimages of old, when the devout trudged wearily along with hard peas packed between the soles of their feet and the soles of their shoes. The lagariros, with their garments more or less bespattered with grape juice, move slowly about in their mauve-colored mucilaginous bath in a listless kind of way, now smoking cigarettes, now with their arms folded, or thrown behind their backs, or with their hands tucked in their waistcoat pockets, or raised up to their chins, while they support the elbow of the one arm with the hand of the other. The fiddle strikes up anew, the drum sounds, the fife squeaks, the guitar tinkles, and the overseers drowsily upbraid. But all to no purpose. Music has lost its inspiration, and authority its terrors, and the men, dead beat, raise one purple leg languidly after the other. In the still night time, with a few lanterns dimly lighting up the gloomy casa dos lagares, such a scene as I have here attempted to sketch has something almost weird about it. By the time the treading is completed, the violent fermentation of the must has commenced, and is left to follow its course.[8] Accordingly, as the grapes are moderately or overripe, and the atmospheric temperature is high or low, and it is intended that the wine shall be sweet or dry, this fermentation will be allowed to continue for a shorter or a longer period, varying from fifteen hours to several days, during which time the husks and stalks of the grapes, rising to the surface, form a thick incrustation. To ascertain the proper moment for drawing off the wine into tonels, recourse is usually had to the saccharometer, when, if this marks four or five degrees, the farmer knows that the wine will be sweet; if a smaller number of degrees are indicated, the wine will be moderately sweet, while zero signifies that the wine will be dry. Some farmers judge the state of the fermentation by the appearance of the wine on the conventional white porcelain saucer, and the vinous smell and flavor which it then exhibits. When it is ascertained that the wine is sufficiently fermented, it is at once run off into the large tonels, holding their 10 to 30 pipes each, the mosto extracted from the husks of the grapes by the application of the huge beam press being mixed with the expressed juice resulting from the treading. It is now that brandy—not poisonous Berlin potato spirit, but distilled from the juice of the grape—is added at the rate of 5½ to 11 gallons per pipe,[9] if it is desired that the wine should retain its sweetness. Should, however, the wine be already dry, the chances are that it will receive no spirit at all. The bungs are left out of the tonels till November, when they are tightly replaced, and the wine remains undisturbed until the cold weather sets in, usually during the month of December. By this time the wine has cleared and become of a dark purple hue. It is now drawn off its lees, and returned again to the tonel, when it receives about 5 gallons of brandy per pipe.[10] In the following March it will be racked into pipes preparatory to being sent down the Douro to the wine shippers’ lodges at Villa Nova de Gaia,” a suburb of Oporto.

These Lodges or Storehouses are large, one-story buildings above ground, dimly lighted through small windows, for Mr. Vizitelli informs us that it is considered that ports mature less perfectly when subject to the influence of the light. But like other fortified wines, exposure to the air is considered beneficial to them; and in racking, they are drawn off into a wooden pitcher holding about five gallons, and poured into the cask to be filled, coming freely in contact with the air.

All Wines of Similar Character are Blended together at the lodge, by mixing in large vats, sometimes stirred with a large fan operated by machinery. The blending is also performed in casks, by pouring into each one successively a certain number of gallons of each kind of wine, so that the contents of all the casks will be uniform. A small quantity of spirit is usually added at the time of cutting. After blending the wine is racked every three months, until in a condition for shipment, which may be in from fifteen to twenty-four months, according to quality.

Port loses its Color rapidly in Wood, and much of its fullness, and wines five years old cease to be regarded as shipping wines, and are then kept in store and used to give age and character to younger wines. It is then a valuable, old, mellow, and tawny wine, which the merchants of Oporto themselves drink.

Port Wine Contains from 18 to 23 per cent. of absolute Alcohol after fortifying, the amount of spirit added depending upon how much is developed by fermentation, and the amount of sugar in the grapes. It is customary to add a small amount whenever it is racked, and before shipping. The object of these frequent additions is to keep up the necessary strength, for a certain amount of alcohol is constantly evaporating while the wine is in casks, and it may fall below the required strength if these additions are not made.

Mr. Vizitelli has fallen into the error of stating that in dry climates wine becomes stronger by the evaporation of its watery parts; but this is impossible, for alcohol is more volatile than water, and whenever there is evaporation in a wine, it becomes weaker from the loss of alcohol; and whenever a wine gains strength by keeping, it is because the sugar contained in it has been transformed into alcohol, etc., by fermentation, as stated in other parts of this work.