The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

The different processes in wine making, range themselves under the following heads:

Gathering the fruit,—picking the fruit,—bruising the fruit,—and vatting the fruit.

Vinous fermentation, flavouring the wine,—drawing the must,—pressing the husks,—casking the must.

Spirituous fermentation, racking the wine,—fuming the wine,—bottling and corking the wine.

APPARATUS FOR WINE MAKING.

To make wine well, and with facility, persons should have all the requisite apparatus, namely, the vats, vat-staff, fruit-bruiser, strainer, hair-bags, canvas-bags, wine-press, thermometer, and bottling-machine.

133. GATHERING THE FRUIT.

Fruit of every description, says Mr. Carnell, in his excellent treatise on wine making, should be gathered in fine weather; those of the berry kind often appear ripe to the eye before they really are so, therefore it is requisite to taste them several times in order to ascertain that they are arrived at the crisis of maturity. If the fruit be not ripe, the wine will be harsh and hard, and unpleasant to the palate, and more so to the stomach; it will also take more spirit and saccharine, and take a longer time to be fit for the table. If the fruit be too ripe, the wine from it will be faint, low, and vapid; it will not be strong and generous; it will also require more trouble, additional spirit, and expense.

134. PICKING.

Detach the unripe and bad berries: the result when the wine is drank, will be greatly superior in richness. Pick the stalks from grapes, currants, and gooseberries, previously to their being placed in the vat.