The quickest way
The quickest way
I MUST not forget to say a word about the grape juice concentrates which are now
on the market and which are a real boon to the winemaker who is anxious to see results
quickly, yet at a reasonable price. Grape juice concentrate, of course, will make "true
wine," and at a price far below that of wine bought in a shop, and by using it one can
avoid all the "cookery" aspect of making wine at home.
Consequently many people are by-passing the flavour extraction part of the hobby
nowadays and making wine from these concentrated grape juices—red or white—which
have merely to be diluted as required, and fermented; excellent wine can be produced in
this way at a most reasonable price. It has the advantage, too, that it is ready for drinking
much more speedily than the average country wine, so that by using this system one can
acquire cheaply the nucleus of a cellar whilst waiting for one's country wines to mature.
One of the best concentrates on the market has a specific gravity of 1.325 (see:
Using Your Hydrometer). Recipes for its use involve adding 2, 2 ¼, 2 ½, 2 ¾ or 3 parts of
water to one part of concentrate, plus the juice of one lemon per gallon to supply the
requisite acid, and fermenting. For even greater dilutions one adds some compensatory
sugar, the biggest dilution recommended being 1 gallon of grape juice to 4 gallons of
water and 8 lbs. of sugar (plus 1 oz. Tartaric Acid). Yeast culture is supplied with the
concentrate.
This works out more expensive than most country wines, but with an average
dilution the wine will still cost only 2/- a pint.
Southern Vinyards Ltd., of Hove, have evolved and simplified a complete system
of this sort which is set out in the handbook they issue with their grape juice, and it is
certainly "winemaking made easy." By using it one can have wine finished and drinkable
in only a few weeks, and it is at first hard to believe that such delicious wine can be
produced with such simplicity and speed.
The cardinal factor in their system is the use of thorough filtering and racking (see
pp. 29-33) which clears the wine of dead yeast and oxygenates it so that it matures more
rapidly. The use of a high-grade filter-bag, or jelly-bag, is recommended.
A winemaking club, buying the concentrate in bulk, can obtain it for 40/- per
gallon, and members can then make wine for as little as 1/3d. to 1/4d. per pint. The firm
has in addition to the ordinary red and white special concentrates for Italian and French
Vermouth and port-type wines.
Herbs and flavourings
A simple and quick method of preparing herb wines of many varieties is by the
use of a standard basic recipe, such as Barley Wine, with the addition of the necessary
herbs or the herb flavour extracted into the water for making the wine by steeping the
dried herbs or boiling the fresh herbs.
Particular attention should be paid to obtaining the maximum extraction of the
flavours and qualities of the herbs. Two ounces of dried herb usually suffice (a standard
proprietary pack costing a few shillings will meet your requirements) and certain herbs
with strong aromatic qualities may be suspended in a linen bag for a few days in the
liquor made from a standard basic recipe. Check from time to time until the strength of
flavour is to your liking. An ordinary barley wine is an excellent base; so is a tea wine.
The herbs powdered or bruised, can be either:
(a) Boiled or soaked in the gallon of water and strained before adding to the main
recipe.
(b) Be added powdered or bruised to the must; or
(c) Suspended in a linen bag in the fermenting standard basic must.
Another new development is the introduction of flavourings, which can be used to
produce from any finished wine several quite different aperitifs, and French or Italian
Vermouth. Flavourings are also obtainable to produce liqueurs at home—Cherry Brandy,
Curacao, Green and Yellow Convent, Kirsch, Eau-de-Vie, Juniper Gin, etc., etc. With
liqueurs, of course, some fortification with brandy or vodka is to be recommended, to
obtain the strength required (liqueurs are really sweetened spirits). Some economy can be
effected by using a proportion of strong wine in place of a third of the amount of spirit
recommended by the suppliers.
"Ferments" have a wide range of most effective flavourings which will enable you
to make some most interesting experiments in this line. Grey Owl Laboratories also
supply some of the more popular ones, including a most interesting "sherry" flavour.
In quantity
SOONER or later, most winemakers are not content to make just one gallon of
their favourite wines; their thoughts turn to the idea of making them in larger quantities,
say 4 ½, 5, or 6 gallons, or even more.
Many winemakers make 20 or 30 gallons of their favourite wine each year and
this "bulk" method has much to commend it. Many winemakers are nervous of
attempting, say, five gallons of one wine, but it is a fact that five gallons is much less
liable to "go wrong" than one, if ordinary precautions are observed.
And consider the advantages . . . wine seems to ferment better in bulk (in small
quantities it is like a plant in too small a pot!); the large bulk means that it is less subject
to violent temperature fluctuations; it is very little more trouble to make five gallons than
to make one (and it lasts nearly twice as long!). Certainly, if you have a good stock of
wine, bolstered by one or two wines made in quantity, there is less temptation to drink
wine which is immature, and you can still do your experimental single gallons.
By making a few wines in bulk you can have as much wine to drink as you wish,
every day . . . a satisfying thought.
The way to set about it is to choose one or two ingredients which are readily
available, or very cheap, and which can be retied upon to give you a wine of reasonable
quality for your vin ordinaire, both red and white.
I personally have settled for apple for the white (from which a whole range of
wines can be produced), and dried bilberry for the red.
The apple I make on the principle of 12 lbs. of mixed apples to 1 gallon of water,
which gives 1 ½ gallons of "juice." Twelve pounds of apples fill a plastic bucket (an easy
measure) and are run through a Bryants crusher, the resultant "purée" falling into an
11-gallon dustbin. Then a gallon of cold water is added. Then another 12 lbs. of apples,
another gallon of water, and so on. When I have enough a vigorous yeast is added and
well stirred in. Fermentation on the pulp goes on for a week, the "cap" of fruit which rises
to the top being broken up and well stirred each day.
Then the must is pressed and the juice runs off through a fine sieve into 1-gallon
jars for measuring purposes. For each jar 2 ½ lbs. of sugar (for a dry wine) or 3 lbs: (for a
sweet) are put into a large dustbin, and all the one-gallon jars emptied on to it. Then one
stirs well to dissolve all the sugar before pouring all the must into a cask or carboy for the
main fermentation—and the wine is made.
Apples are usually readily obtainable free in our area and we use a couple of
hundredweight each year.
Dried bilberries, on the other hand, may sound expensive if one uses them at the
rate usually recommended, 1 lb. to 1 gallon, but this is, if anything, too much. In practice,
by successive washings, one can get no less than 4 gallons of wine off 1 lb. of dried
bilberries, the first gallon being of heavy body and the succeeding mashes each producing
an increasingly light wine, the last being only a pale rosy. These four grades of wine
enable one to blend to produce a wine of exactly the desired body and colour.
I now use 5 lbs. of dried bilberries to 8 gallons of boiling water, 20 lbs. of sugar,
and five level teaspoons of citric acid. The water is boiled in an electric boiler and run
straight on to the ingredients. When it cools, add the yeast, and ferment for a week. Strain
off the fruit and put on one side; run the liquor into fermenting casks, but put the last
half-gallon aside in a glass jar stoppered with cotton-wool.
Return the fruit to the fermenting tun, run in five gallons of boiling water and a
further 12 ½ lbs. of sugar and three level teaspoons of citric acid. When this has cooled
pour in the half-gallon from the previous must as a starter and it will almost explode into
fermentation. The second batch is also fermented for a week before straining off the pulp
and there will still be colour in the skins of the bilberries and goodness in the fruit to
make a third batch if desired. This is an easily made winter wine and to my mind the
colour and flavour of the bilberry is infinitely to be preferred to the more commonly made
elderberry.
Utensils for making wines in quantity are a gas or electric boiler holding, say 5
gallons. A "Baby Burco" I find ideal; it is even marked out in gallons internally. Such a
boiler can often be picked up second-hand for next to nothing and is easily cleaned. A
large plastic dustbin (11 gallon size) is useful, so is a fruit crusher to avoid having to cut
up large quantities of fruit. A press you can do without at a pinch, and use a
pectin-destroying enzyme to break down the fruit instead. A wooden paddle is useful for
stirring, so is a plonker for pushing down the cap of fruit during mashing. Both these are
easily made from broom handles and squares of oak.
Containers for fermenting and storage? Carboys (fragile, but all right if you keep
them in their rather untidy cages), stoneware "barrels" (old-fashioned and heavy), plastic
bags in cardboard outers (suitable but not very longlasting) and rigid polystyrene 5-gallon
cubes. Of the last, those in which wines have been sold are usually safe, but others can
confer horrible flavours upon your wine, even when they smell sweet, and are best treated
with suspicion.
CASKS
BEST containers of all to my mind are casks; they are safe, easy to handle,
long-lasting, and do impart "character" to a wine. Optimum sizes for home use are
probably the 4 ½ gallon and 6 gallon sizes, a 3 gallon being rather too small and a
9-gallon heavy to move. Paradoxically, the larger a cask is, the cheaper it is
proportionately.
A few golden rules: Avoid like the plague casks which smell of vinegar. Keep
your cask on a stand or stillage, so that the centre bottom stave is not supporting all the
weight; always keep casks FULL (most important), topping them up regularly; refill a
cask as soon as it is emptied; avoid the use of taps (which always drip and leak) and
siphon wine out through the bung-hole. Use always oak casks, wine casks if possible
(beer "barrels" are thicker). Siphon wine into 1 gallon jars or bottles for drinking and
refill cask. Normally keep separate casks for white and red wines.
TO PREPARE NEW CASKS: Fill with clean water for 2 or 3 days, then with hot
soda solution (4 oz. soda in 1 gallon of boiling water). Rinse with sulphite solution (¼ oz.
potassium metabisulphite and ¼ oz. citric acid in 1 gallon water) and then with water.
TO STERILISE SECOND-HAND CASKS: Fill with solution of hypochlorite (4
oz. of domestic bleach in 10 gallons of water). Leave 24 hours. Or half-fill with hot soda
solution as above. Roll, empty when cool. In either case then rinse (i) with water, (ii) with
sulphite solution, and (iii) with water. (To remove surface deposit insert 3 foot length of
heavy chain and roll cask.)
MUSTY-SMELLING CASKS: Use 1/3 oz. of calcium chloride, 2/3 oz. sulphuric
acid and 5 pints of boiling water. Leave 2 hours. Rinse with 10 % solution of sodium
hydroxide, then thoroughly with water.
STAGNANT-SMELLING CASKS: Wash with 2 gallons of boiling water and 1
oz. of calcium chloride. Rinse with cold water.
STORAGE: Wash thoroughly, removing all surface deposit with chain, sterilise
with sulphite solution. Some of this (say ½ gallon for a 4 ½ or 6 gallon cask) should be
left in the bunged-up cask. Store cask on end; invert at intervals; renew solution every
two or three months.
Chamber of horrors !
—FAULTS AND REMEDIES
WHILST something must be said about faults and diseases of wine, it should be
emphasised at once that several of these disasters which can befall your wines are rarely
encountered. Observance of commonsense precautions will ensure that your wines are
sound, and you may never need to refer to these particular pages. I hope you do not!
—but "just in case" there are listed here some of the disasters most probable to be
encountered.
ACETIFICATION . . . or formation of vinegar. This will normally only occur in
conditions of extremely bad storage, and in the presence of air. Therefore keep your
bottles full. If it is noticed in the early stages—there is a very slight smell of vinegar and
an acid taste—it can probably be halted by adding one Campden tablet per gallon, waiting
24 hours, and then introducing a vigorously fermenting fresh yeast. In the later stages the
smell of vinegar will be pronounced, and indeed what you now have is wine vinegar.
Remedy: Use it for cooking or pour it down the drain!
Sometimes a wine will smell vinegary but not taste acid, and this is the effect of
ethylacetate, produced by wild yeasts present on the fruit. Prevent. this by adding one
Campden tablet per gallon 24 hours before your chosen yeast.
OVER-SWEETNESS. The bugbear of the beginner. It can be avoided by not
using too much sugar initially and always using a nutrient (see pp. 21 and 22). Remedy:
Blend the vine with one from similar ingredients which is over-dry, or with dry rhubarb
wine, which will take up its flavour. See also "Low Alcohol Content."
LOW ALCOHOL CONTENT. Usually allied to oversweetness. If it is the result
of a fermentation having ceased prematurely, adding fresh yeast direct will rarely
succeed, since it will be inhibited by the alcohol present. Remedy: Make up half-a-pint of
fresh juice with 1 oz. sugar and some fresh yeast and nutrient as a "starter." When it is
fermenting vigorously add an equal quantity of the low-alcohol wine. When all is
fermenting well, again add an equal quantity of the wine, and continue the process until
the whole is fermenting once more. Adding nutrient to the bulk and keeping in a
temperature of 70 deg. F. will help.
OVER-ACIDITY. A slight over-acidity can often be corrected by stirring up any
yeast deposit and causing a malo-lactic ferment. With a strong wine slight dilution will
help to reduce acidity, and with a weak, dry one the overacidity can often be masked (but
not corrected) by the addition of a little sugar. BEST Remedy: Add glycerine, at the rate
of 5 %, or 1 pint to 2 ½ galls. A third of an ounce of procipitated chalk to 1 gallon
(preferably added before fermentation) will also correct over-acidity. Added afterwards it
may leave a taste. (See Rhubarb Wine recipe.)
MEDICINAL FLAVOUR. The result of insufficient acid in the must. If the fault
is but slight the addition of a little citric acid to the finished wine may help, but if the
flavour is pronounced little can be done.
MUSTY FLAVOUR. Some writers describe this as a "mousey" taste, but I have
never tasted a mouse! Actually this is probably a corruption of the French wine term
"moisi," or mouldy. Caused by wine standing overlong on dead yeast, particularly baker's
yeast. Prevent this fault occurring by methodical attention to racking. Once a firm yeast
deposit has formed—rack! Remedy: See "Taints and Smells."
TAINTS AND SMELLS. Not always readily identifiable; they can be caused by
damaged fruit, bacterial action, tainted plastic containers, bad casks, or proximity of wine
to strong smells (onions, paraffin, etc.). They can occasionally be removed by charcoal
treatment but it is necessary to experiment to discover how much charcoal is needed. Add
a small quantity to a measured quantity of wine, stir two or three times during first 24
hours. Allow to settle. Leave a further day, then rack, and filter to remove particles of
charcoal. Some of the flavour and colour may also be removed. If dose is satisfactory
treat bulk of wine in the same way.
METALLIC FLAVOUR. Sometimes encountered when wines have been made
with tinned fruit, juice, or concentrate, or when ferrous metals have been allowed
prolonged contact with the wine. Remedy: Avoid "unsafe" metals.
FAILURE TO CLEAR. Usually the result of over boiling ingredients (see
PECTIN HAZES) or of hastening unduly the initial straining, which should be both slow
and thorough. Remedy: Move wine into cold place for two or three weeks and see if it
clears. If not, try filtering through asbestos pulp (see p. 33) or using a good wine finings,
such as Serena. If all of these fail, try pouring into the top quarter of the bottle some clear
wine of the same variety. This will often carry down the suspended solids. Isinglass or
gelatine as finings are tricky, and not recommended for the beginner.
PECTIN HAZES. Many hazes in wines are due to gelatinous solutions formed by
pectins in fruits, and are aggravated by initial boiling. They can be avoided by using a
pectin-destroying enzyme such as Pektolase, Pectozyme, Pectinol, etc. To improve the
yield of juice when making fruit wines the enzyme should be added to the pulp of the
fruit, using ¼ oz. to each 8 lb. pulp (¼ oz. each 5 lb. blackcurrants). If the juice is allowed
to stand at room temperature overnight or longer the enzyme will act satisfactorily, and
the juice will clear.
A check that any haze is caused by pectin can be made by adding 3 or 4 fluid
ounces of methylated spirit to a fluid ounce of wine. If jelly-like clots or strings are
formed, then the haze can be regarded as pectin and the remaining wine treated with
Pectozyme. For each gallon of wine ½ oz. of Pectozyme should be added to ½ pint of
wine and the wine kept warm (70-80 deg. F.) for four hours, stirring at intervals. Strain
through muslin and add to the bulk of the wine. Leave the wine at 60-70 deg. F. for
several days. The pectin haze should clear but if it does not use asbestos filtering medium.
STARCH HAZES. Treat with another enzymatic preparation, Amylozyme. Mix ½
oz. Amylozyme 100 with 2 to 3 oz. water and leave for two hours, stirring or shaking, if
in a bottle, at intervals. Meanwhile put the wine in a preserving pan and heat to 170
degrees F., and hold this for 20 minutes. Cool the wine to 110 degrees F. and stir in the
diluted enzyme. In about one hour the reaction will be complete and the temperature of
the wine should again be raised to 170 degrees F. and held for ten minutes. After cooling
the haze will settle out and the wine should be racked.
COLOURED HAZES. Usually the result of metallic contamination, copper, zinc
and iron being the usual causes. Containers or implements of these metals should be
rigorously avoided for fermentation purposes or white, dark, purplish or brown hazes may
appear, often after a sudden drop in temperature, which renders the solutes less soluble.
Remedy: For iron or copper hazes add a little citric acid; this often works.
DARKENING—is most commonly caused by oxidation. If a glassful of finished
wine darkens after 24 hours exposure to the air it is not fully stable. If the cause is
enzymatic, darkening can be prevented by adding 2 Campden tablets per gallon as a
stabiliser. Darkening may also be due to the presence of iron, which can be corrected by
the addition of a little citric acid (½ oz. to 5 gals.).
TOO MUCH COLOUR. If you wish to decolour a white wine use clean eggshells
which have been immersed in boiling water and crushed, or the charcoal treatment under
"Taints and Smells."
HARSH FLAVOUR. Add glycerine to taste, or treat as for "Darkening," or use
gelatine firings. (See "Clearing" (p. 31).)
FILTER-PAD FLAVOUR. Caused by failing to wash the filter pulp with water or
wine before filtration. The first wineglassful of wine through the filter should always be
thrown away.
FLATNESS OR INSIPIDITY. The result of insufficient tannin in the wine.
Remedy: Add grape tannin or a small quantity of strong tea (up to 1 tablespoon per
gallon).
THINNESS, or lack of "body." Due to using insufficient fruit as the basis of the
wine. Naturally thin wines, such as plum, can be improved by adding up to 1 lb. of wheat,
barley or maize to the gallon when making. Thinness in a finished wine can only be
overcome by judicious blending with one of considerably more body. Marrow wine and
robust grain wines are excellent for this purpose, since they usually have good body.
Regularly using a Campden tablet per gallon in the must 24 hours before adding the yeast
will also improve the wine by putting into it a little glycerine.
FLOWERS OF WINE. Powdery, whitish flecks appear on the surface of the wine
and if left unchallenged wilt rapidly increase and will turn your wine first to carbon
dioxide and then to water. It is caused by an organism like yeast, mycoderma, an aerobic
bacterium, and is usually the result of admitting too much air to the fermenting vessel.
Remedy: Remove as much of the surface flecks as possible, filter through unmedicated
cotton-wool or filter papers, introduce some vigorous fresh yeast, and fill the fermenting
bottle as full as possible to exclude all air. If a substantial film has been formed there is
no remedy.
ROPINESS. The wine takes on a repellent, oily appearance and pours very slowly,
like treacle, but the taste is unaffected. The wine will look rather like the raw white of an
egg and in it will appear rope-like coils—hence the name. This is the work of the lactic
acid bacterium. Remedy: Whip the wine into a froth in a polythene bucket, add two
crushed Campder tablets per gallon, and filter through asbestos pulp or filter paper.
Do
Keep all your equipment spotlessly clean.
Keep your first ferment closely covered.
Keep air away from the secondary fermentation.
Always use fermentation traps.
Keep all bottles full to within ¾ in. of cork.
Strain liquor off must slowly and thoroughly.
Make wines too dry rather than too sweet: sugar them later.
Use yeast nutrient regularly, and reliable yeast.
Add sugar by stages. Keep detailed records.
Rack at least once, and preferably twice or thrice.
Taste the wine you are making, at intervals.
Always use new corks or stoppers, and boil old ones.
Keep red wines in dark bottles, or they will lose their colour.
Don't
Sell or distil your wine.
Allow a single vinegar fly access to your wine at any stage.
Use any metal vessel if the wine will be long in contact with it.
Use any tools or containers of resinous wood.
Omit to stir a must twice daily.
Use too much sugar initially.
Try to speed a fermentation by too high a temperature.
Be impatient; making wine takes time.
Let your wine stand on dead yeast or sediment.
Filter unnecessarily or too soon; most wines will clear of their own accord.
Put wine in unsterilised bottles or jars.
Bottle your wine whilst it is still fermenting.
Use screw-stoppered bottles.
Drink too much!
Grow your own grapes
"BUT surely you can't ripen grapes out of doors in this country?" This, with
variations, is the common incredulous reaction one gets each time the subject of outdoor
vine-growing is mentioned to the average Englishman.
Vines, so the popular belief runs, are delicate, temperamental things, hard to
propagate, complicated to prune, and suitable really only for greenhouse culture, and even
then only by an expert viticulturist. And even if one succeeds in growing some vines,
declare the pessimists, in our climate it will be impossible to ripen the crop.
These fallacies are widely believed, even amongst amateur winemakers, yet are
the opposite of the truth.
Vines can be grown successfully in the southern half of England, and in a
reasonably good summer the grapes can be ripened (a really wet one admittedly produces
problems). And when we get one of our really hot summers, such as we enjoyed in 1959,
the owner of a vine is a happy man indeed.
Vines were grown in southern Britain by the Romans (so this is no new idea!) and
today there are many small vineyards where experiments are once more being made in
order to accumulate indigenous experience again. Sir Guy Salisbury Jones, indeed, has
established a large vineyard at Hambledon in Hampshire, which is well worth a visit, and
Mr. and Mrs. Gore-Brown have done likewise at Beaulieu.
The truth is that the growing and training of vines is so straightforward that all
who are interested in winemaking should try it; vines occupy little space, they can be
planted at the back of flower borders, along fences, beside paths, or on a south-facing
wall. They make ideal screens, and they interfere little with flower or salad crops, for they
are deep and not surface-rooting. They are as easy to grow as, say, raspberries or
blackcurrants. If they are grown espalier fashion along a wire fence it is the work of a
moment to throw mats or polythene sheeting over them to protect them from frost, or
netting to prevent depredations by birds when the grapes ripen.
The all-important point is to make sure, when you choose your vines, that you
select only the earliest cropping varieties.
Just as the Englishman classes his potatoes as "First Earlies," "Second Earlies,"
"Maincrop" and so on, according to when the crop is ready, so the Frenchman talks of his
vines as "Première Epoque," "deuxième Epoque" or "Troisième Epoque" (First, Second
or Third Epoch). Thus early ripeners are all of the "lère èpoque," and very early ones the
"lère èpoque prècoce." These will all ripen well in our English climate, whereas 2nd or
3rd Epoch vines will not. Black Hamburg, for instance, which is perhaps the most
generally known grape in this country, is only so because it was once widely cultivated in
greenhouses, but it is unsuitable for outdoor use here, being of the Second Epoch.
So make sure you choose an early ripening variety, and if in any doubt consult
your nurseryman. Vine growers who will be able to help you are Messrs. M. S. E. Lytle,
of Formby,. Lancs. (who will send you a useful 16 page booklet, "Successful Growing of
Grape Vines," for 6d.), Mr. Barrington-Brock, of the Viticultural Research Station,
Oxted, Surrey, and Mr. Edward Hyams, of Kent. Many nurserymen can also supply the
more popular varieties.
It is not the intention to discuss here viticulture in detail, for many excellent
technical books are available on the subject, but only to give, as it were, a few pointers to
the complete novice.
Firstly, if you are planting many vines, do not have all the same variety. Obtaining
satisfaction from your vines will be a long-term project, and it is best to choose several
different vines and grow them experimentally rather than make a large outlay on one
variety which may prove disappointing. Nor need this be expensive, for, cuttings from
friends' vines can easily be rooted. Then select the ones that do best in your soil.
Secondly, remember that vines fall into two main categories, producing wine
grapes or dessert grapes, and that in each case black and white grapes of varying
sweetness are obtainable.
So decide what type of grape you want, and choose some early burgeoning
varieties to meet your need.
HYBRIDS
One point to note is that the beginner is well advised to plump for "hybrid" vines
(Continental vines crossed with American) which are vigorous, prolific, early ripening
and resistant to lime and disease. The American root stock resists the vine louse (or
Phylloxera) which is the scourge of the vitis vinifera, or Continental varieties. The
phylloxera kills off the vinifera by destroying the root system, but the American vitis
rupestris stands up to it satisfactorily.
It is as well, too, to give your vine grower as much accurate information as you
can about your soil, so that he can the better advise you.
You can either grow vines from cuttings or purchase them when 1-2 years old,
and plant them in spring or autumn.
PLANTING
If you have them in a row or rows in the garden, growing on a waist-high fence
(which is a practical system because they are then much more controllable and more
easily protected) they should be at least 2 ft. 6 ins. apart, preferably more, and there
should be 3 ft. between rows.
When the vine arrives, if it has not been pruned, cut it down to the lowest two
buds on each branch, even if it is 10 ft. high this must be done, or it will never grow
grapes of any consequence.
The reason for this drastic pruning, and for those of subsequent years, is that for
three years at least one should concentrate about building up a really strong and extensive
root system, and not top growth, otherwise the vine can never be really strong and
prolific. Therefore the growth above ground must be curtailed so that all the strength of
the plant will go into developing its roots. In the fourth year or so it is allowed to fruit. So
vine-growing, as you can see, is rather a long-term affair. Luckily winemakers are used to
exercising patience!
Choose a sunny position for your vine, facing south if possible, dig a hole big
enough to allow the roots ample room, and place the vine in position Space out the roots
well, and cover with light soil mixed with silver sand and old compost until the hole is
filled. Be sure to tread well in.
As with raspberries, the fruit of the vine is borne on the wood of the previous
year, so if a vine is spring planted you could obtain your first grapes in 18 months (though
they will be scanty and it is better not to let the vine fruit). Certainly no more than two to
three bunches should be allowed to form, or the strength of the vine will be sapped, but
from then on a few more may be allowed each year until, in about four years, the vine
will be cropping well.
As the fruit begins to ripen keep a close eye on it, and cover it either with netting
or with high cloches or the birds will have it first. When the grapes are thoroughly ripe
they are pressed, yeast is added, and they are fermented in the usual way (see under
"Grape Wine").
FROM CUTTINGS
If growing from cuttings, take your cuttings in the autumn. You need pieces of
stem about 9 inches long, with a pair of buds at either end. Bury these a foot or so deep,
laying them horizontally, so that they will survive the winter, and in late March or early
April dig them up, and set them just like any other cutting, with the topmost two buds at
ground level. Sift some light soil in a little mound over the cutting (about 11 in. high will
do) to prevent the wind from drying it out, or frost damage, mark the spot with a cane,
and await results.
There are many ways of pruning, and training vines, and the illustration by George
Hodgson shows some suggested ones.
Hybrid varieties of Wine Grape to try:
White grapes: Seibel 5279, Seyve Villard 5/276, Seibel 5409, Baco 2-16, Couderc
272-60, Chenin Blanc, Excelsior.
Red grapes: Seibel 5455, Seibel 13053, Seibel 2010, Seibel 8239, Seyve Villard
5/247, Oberlin 595, Baco No. 1
The quickest way
I MUST not forget to say a word about the grape juice concentrates which are now
on the market and which are a real boon to the winemaker who is anxious to see results
quickly, yet at a reasonable price. Grape juice concentrate, of course, will make "true
wine," and at a price far below that of wine bought in a shop, and by using it one can
avoid all the "cookery" aspect of making wine at home.
Consequently many people are by-passing the flavour extraction part of the hobby
nowadays and making wine from these concentrated grape juices—red or white—which
have merely to be diluted as required, and fermented; excellent wine can be produced in
this way at a most reasonable price. It has the advantage, too, that it is ready for drinking
much more speedily than the average country wine, so that by using this system one can
acquire cheaply the nucleus of a cellar whilst waiting for one's country wines to mature.
One of the best concentrates on the market has a specific gravity of 1.325 (see:
Using Your Hydrometer). Recipes for its use involve adding 2, 2 ¼, 2 ½, 2 ¾ or 3 parts of
water to one part of concentrate, plus the juice of one lemon per gallon to supply the
requisite acid, and fermenting. For even greater dilutions one adds some compensatory
sugar, the biggest dilution recommended being 1 gallon of grape juice to 4 gallons of
water and 8 lbs. of sugar (plus 1 oz. Tartaric Acid). Yeast culture is supplied with the
concentrate.
This works out more expensive than most country wines, but with an average
dilution the wine will still cost only 2/- a pint.
Southern Vinyards Ltd., of Hove, have evolved and simplified a complete system
of this sort which is set out in the handbook they issue with their grape juice, and it is
certainly "winemaking made easy." By using it one can have wine finished and drinkable
in only a few weeks, and it is at first hard to believe that such delicious wine can be
produced with such simplicity and speed.
The cardinal factor in their system is the use of thorough filtering and racking (see
pp. 29-33) which clears the wine of dead yeast and oxygenates it so that it matures more
rapidly. The use of a high-grade filter-bag, or jelly-bag, is recommended.
A winemaking club, buying the concentrate in bulk, can obtain it for 40/- per
gallon, and members can then make wine for as little as 1/3d. to 1/4d. per pint. The firm
has in addition to the ordinary red and white special concentrates for Italian and French
Vermouth and port-type wines.
Herbs and flavourings
A simple and quick method of preparing herb wines of many varieties is by the
use of a standard basic recipe, such as Barley Wine, with the addition of the necessary
herbs or the herb flavour extracted into the water for making the wine by steeping the
dried herbs or boiling the fresh herbs.
Particular attention should be paid to obtaining the maximum extraction of the
flavours and qualities of the herbs. Two ounces of dried herb usually suffice (a standard
proprietary pack costing a few shillings will meet your requirements) and certain herbs
with strong aromatic qualities may be suspended in a linen bag for a few days in the
liquor made from a standard basic recipe. Check from time to time until the strength of
flavour is to your liking. An ordinary barley wine is an excellent base; so is a tea wine.
The herbs powdered or bruised, can be either:
(a) Boiled or soaked in the gallon of water and strained before adding to the main
recipe.
(b) Be added powdered or bruised to the must; or
(c) Suspended in a linen bag in the fermenting standard basic must.
Another new development is the introduction of flavourings, which can be used to
produce from any finished wine several quite different aperitifs, and French or Italian
Vermouth. Flavourings are also obtainable to produce liqueurs at home—Cherry Brandy,
Curacao, Green and Yellow Convent, Kirsch, Eau-de-Vie, Juniper Gin, etc., etc. With
liqueurs, of course, some fortification with brandy or vodka is to be recommended, to
obtain the strength required (liqueurs are really sweetened spirits). Some economy can be
effected by using a proportion of strong wine in place of a third of the amount of spirit
recommended by the suppliers.
"Ferments" have a wide range of most effective flavourings which will enable you
to make some most interesting experiments in this line. Grey Owl Laboratories also
supply some of the more popular ones, including a most interesting "sherry" flavour.
In quantity
SOONER or later, most winemakers are not content to make just one gallon of
their favourite wines; their thoughts turn to the idea of making them in larger quantities,
say 4 ½, 5, or 6 gallons, or even more.
Many winemakers make 20 or 30 gallons of their favourite wine each year and
this "bulk" method has much to commend it. Many winemakers are nervous of
attempting, say, five gallons of one wine, but it is a fact that five gallons is much less
liable to "go wrong" than one, if ordinary precautions are observed.
And consider the advantages . . . wine seems to ferment better in bulk (in small
quantities it is like a plant in too small a pot!); the large bulk means that it is less subject
to violent temperature fluctuations; it is very little more trouble to make five gallons than
to make one (and it lasts nearly twice as long!). Certainly, if you have a good stock of
wine, bolstered by one or two wines made in quantity, there is less temptation to drink
wine which is immature, and you can still do your experimental single gallons.
By making a few wines in bulk you can have as much wine to drink as you wish,
every day . . . a satisfying thought.
The way to set about it is to choose one or two ingredients which are readily
available, or very cheap, and which can be retied upon to give you a wine of reasonable
quality for your vin ordinaire, both red and white.
I personally have settled for apple for the white (from which a whole range of
wines can be produced), and dried bilberry for the red.
The apple I make on the principle of 12 lbs. of mixed apples to 1 gallon of water,
which gives 1 ½ gallons of "juice." Twelve pounds of apples fill a plastic bucket (an easy
measure) and are run through a Bryants crusher, the resultant "purée" falling into an
11-gallon dustbin. Then a gallon of cold water is added. Then another 12 lbs. of apples,
another gallon of water, and so on. When I have enough a vigorous yeast is added and
well stirred in. Fermentation on the pulp goes on for a week, the "cap" of fruit which rises
to the top being broken up and well stirred each day.
Then the must is pressed and the juice runs off through a fine sieve into 1-gallon
jars for measuring purposes. For each jar 2 ½ lbs. of sugar (for a dry wine) or 3 lbs: (for a
sweet) are put into a large dustbin, and all the one-gallon jars emptied on to it. Then one
stirs well to dissolve all the sugar before pouring all the must into a cask or carboy for the
main fermentation—and the wine is made.
Apples are usually readily obtainable free in our area and we use a couple of
hundredweight each year.
Dried bilberries, on the other hand, may sound expensive if one uses them at the
rate usually recommended, 1 lb. to 1 gallon, but this is, if anything, too much. In practice,
by successive washings, one can get no less than 4 gallons of wine off 1 lb. of dried
bilberries, the first gallon being of heavy body and the succeeding mashes each producing
an increasingly light wine, the last being only a pale rosy. These four grades of wine
enable one to blend to produce a wine of exactly the desired body and colour.
I now use 5 lbs. of dried bilberries to 8 gallons of boiling water, 20 lbs. of sugar,
and five level teaspoons of citric acid. The water is boiled in an electric boiler and run
straight on to the ingredients. When it cools, add the yeast, and ferment for a week. Strain
off the fruit and put on one side; run the liquor into fermenting casks, but put the last
half-gallon aside in a glass jar stoppered with cotton-wool.
Return the fruit to the fermenting tun, run in five gallons of boiling water and a
further 12 ½ lbs. of sugar and three level teaspoons of citric acid. When this has cooled
pour in the half-gallon from the previous must as a starter and it will almost explode into
fermentation. The second batch is also fermented for a week before straining off the pulp
and there will still be colour in the skins of the bilberries and goodness in the fruit to
make a third batch if desired. This is an easily made winter wine and to my mind the
colour and flavour of the bilberry is infinitely to be preferred to the more commonly made
elderberry.
Utensils for making wines in quantity are a gas or electric boiler holding, say 5
gallons. A "Baby Burco" I find ideal; it is even marked out in gallons internally. Such a
boiler can often be picked up second-hand for next to nothing and is easily cleaned. A
large plastic dustbin (11 gallon size) is useful, so is a fruit crusher to avoid having to cut
up large quantities of fruit. A press you can do without at a pinch, and use a
pectin-destroying enzyme to break down the fruit instead. A wooden paddle is useful for
stirring, so is a plonker for pushing down the cap of fruit during mashing. Both these are
easily made from broom handles and squares of oak.
Containers for fermenting and storage? Carboys (fragile, but all right if you keep
them in their rather untidy cages), stoneware "barrels" (old-fashioned and heavy), plastic
bags in cardboard outers (suitable but not very longlasting) and rigid polystyrene 5-gallon
cubes. Of the last, those in which wines have been sold are usually safe, but others can
confer horrible flavours upon your wine, even when they smell sweet, and are best treated
with suspicion.
CASKS
BEST containers of all to my mind are casks; they are safe, easy to handle,
long-lasting, and do impart "character" to a wine. Optimum sizes for home use are
probably the 4 ½ gallon and 6 gallon sizes, a 3 gallon being rather too small and a
9-gallon heavy to move. Paradoxically, the larger a cask is, the cheaper it is
proportionately.
A few golden rules: Avoid like the plague casks which smell of vinegar. Keep
your cask on a stand or stillage, so that the centre bottom stave is not supporting all the
weight; always keep casks FULL (most important), topping them up regularly; refill a
cask as soon as it is emptied; avoid the use of taps (which always drip and leak) and
siphon wine out through the bung-hole. Use always oak casks, wine casks if possible
(beer "barrels" are thicker). Siphon wine into 1 gallon jars or bottles for drinking and
refill cask. Normally keep separate casks for white and red wines.
TO PREPARE NEW CASKS: Fill with clean water for 2 or 3 days, then with hot
soda solution (4 oz. soda in 1 gallon of boiling water). Rinse with sulphite solution (¼ oz.
potassium metabisulphite and ¼ oz. citric acid in 1 gallon water) and then with water.
TO STERILISE SECOND-HAND CASKS: Fill with solution of hypochlorite (4
oz. of domestic bleach in 10 gallons of water). Leave 24 hours. Or half-fill with hot soda
solution as above. Roll, empty when cool. In either case then rinse (i) with water, (ii) with
sulphite solution, and (iii) with water. (To remove surface deposit insert 3 foot length of
heavy chain and roll cask.)
MUSTY-SMELLING CASKS: Use 1/3 oz. of calcium chloride, 2/3 oz. sulphuric
acid and 5 pints of boiling water. Leave 2 hours. Rinse with 10 % solution of sodium
hydroxide, then thoroughly with water.
STAGNANT-SMELLING CASKS: Wash with 2 gallons of boiling water and 1
oz. of calcium chloride. Rinse with cold water.
STORAGE: Wash thoroughly, removing all surface deposit with chain, sterilise
with sulphite solution. Some of this (say ½ gallon for a 4 ½ or 6 gallon cask) should be
left in the bunged-up cask. Store cask on end; invert at intervals; renew solution every
two or three months.
Chamber of horrors !
—FAULTS AND REMEDIES
WHILST something must be said about faults and diseases of wine, it should be
emphasised at once that several of these disasters which can befall your wines are rarely
encountered. Observance of commonsense precautions will ensure that your wines are
sound, and you may never need to refer to these particular pages. I hope you do not!
—but "just in case" there are listed here some of the disasters most probable to be
encountered.
ACETIFICATION . . . or formation of vinegar. This will normally only occur in
conditions of extremely bad storage, and in the presence of air. Therefore keep your
bottles full. If it is noticed in the early stages—there is a very slight smell of vinegar and
an acid taste—it can probably be halted by adding one Campden tablet per gallon, waiting
24 hours, and then introducing a vigorously fermenting fresh yeast. In the later stages the
smell of vinegar will be pronounced, and indeed what you now have is wine vinegar.
Remedy: Use it for cooking or pour it down the drain!
Sometimes a wine will smell vinegary but not taste acid, and this is the effect of
ethylacetate, produced by wild yeasts present on the fruit. Prevent. this by adding one
Campden tablet per gallon 24 hours before your chosen yeast.
OVER-SWEETNESS. The bugbear of the beginner. It can be avoided by not
using too much sugar initially and always using a nutrient (see pp. 21 and 22). Remedy:
Blend the vine with one from similar ingredients which is over-dry, or with dry rhubarb
wine, which will take up its flavour. See also "Low Alcohol Content."
LOW ALCOHOL CONTENT. Usually allied to oversweetness. If it is the result
of a fermentation having ceased prematurely, adding fresh yeast direct will rarely
succeed, since it will be inhibited by the alcohol present. Remedy: Make up half-a-pint of
fresh juice with 1 oz. sugar and some fresh yeast and nutrient as a "starter." When it is
fermenting vigorously add an equal quantity of the low-alcohol wine. When all is
fermenting well, again add an equal quantity of the wine, and continue the process until
the whole is fermenting once more. Adding nutrient to the bulk and keeping in a
temperature of 70 deg. F. will help.
OVER-ACIDITY. A slight over-acidity can often be corrected by stirring up any
yeast deposit and causing a malo-lactic ferment. With a strong wine slight dilution will
help to reduce acidity, and with a weak, dry one the overacidity can often be masked (but
not corrected) by the addition of a little sugar. BEST Remedy: Add glycerine, at the rate
of 5 %, or 1 pint to 2 ½ galls. A third of an ounce of procipitated chalk to 1 gallon
(preferably added before fermentation) will also correct over-acidity. Added afterwards it
may leave a taste. (See Rhubarb Wine recipe.)
MEDICINAL FLAVOUR. The result of insufficient acid in the must. If the fault
is but slight the addition of a little citric acid to the finished wine may help, but if the
flavour is pronounced little can be done.
MUSTY FLAVOUR. Some writers describe this as a "mousey" taste, but I have
never tasted a mouse! Actually this is probably a corruption of the French wine term
"moisi," or mouldy. Caused by wine standing overlong on dead yeast, particularly baker's
yeast. Prevent this fault occurring by methodical attention to racking. Once a firm yeast
deposit has formed—rack! Remedy: See "Taints and Smells."
TAINTS AND SMELLS. Not always readily identifiable; they can be caused by
damaged fruit, bacterial action, tainted plastic containers, bad casks, or proximity of wine
to strong smells (onions, paraffin, etc.). They can occasionally be removed by charcoal
treatment but it is necessary to experiment to discover how much charcoal is needed. Add
a small quantity to a measured quantity of wine, stir two or three times during first 24
hours. Allow to settle. Leave a further day, then rack, and filter to remove particles of
charcoal. Some of the flavour and colour may also be removed. If dose is satisfactory
treat bulk of wine in the same way.
METALLIC FLAVOUR. Sometimes encountered when wines have been made
with tinned fruit, juice, or concentrate, or when ferrous metals have been allowed
prolonged contact with the wine. Remedy: Avoid "unsafe" metals.
FAILURE TO CLEAR. Usually the result of over boiling ingredients (see
PECTIN HAZES) or of hastening unduly the initial straining, which should be both slow
and thorough. Remedy: Move wine into cold place for two or three weeks and see if it
clears. If not, try filtering through asbestos pulp (see p. 33) or using a good wine finings,
such as Serena. If all of these fail, try pouring into the top quarter of the bottle some clear
wine of the same variety. This will often carry down the suspended solids. Isinglass or
gelatine as finings are tricky, and not recommended for the beginner.
PECTIN HAZES. Many hazes in wines are due to gelatinous solutions formed by
pectins in fruits, and are aggravated by initial boiling. They can be avoided by using a
pectin-destroying enzyme such as Pektolase, Pectozyme, Pectinol, etc. To improve the
yield of juice when making fruit wines the enzyme should be added to the pulp of the
fruit, using ¼ oz. to each 8 lb. pulp (¼ oz. each 5 lb. blackcurrants). If the juice is allowed
to stand at room temperature overnight or longer the enzyme will act satisfactorily, and
the juice will clear.
A check that any haze is caused by pectin can be made by adding 3 or 4 fluid
ounces of methylated spirit to a fluid ounce of wine. If jelly-like clots or strings are
formed, then the haze can be regarded as pectin and the remaining wine treated with
Pectozyme. For each gallon of wine ½ oz. of Pectozyme should be added to ½ pint of
wine and the wine kept warm (70-80 deg. F.) for four hours, stirring at intervals. Strain
through muslin and add to the bulk of the wine. Leave the wine at 60-70 deg. F. for
several days. The pectin haze should clear but if it does not use asbestos filtering medium.
STARCH HAZES. Treat with another enzymatic preparation, Amylozyme. Mix ½
oz. Amylozyme 100 with 2 to 3 oz. water and leave for two hours, stirring or shaking, if
in a bottle, at intervals. Meanwhile put the wine in a preserving pan and heat to 170
degrees F., and hold this for 20 minutes. Cool the wine to 110 degrees F. and stir in the
diluted enzyme. In about one hour the reaction will be complete and the temperature of
the wine should again be raised to 170 degrees F. and held for ten minutes. After cooling
the haze will settle out and the wine should be racked.
COLOURED HAZES. Usually the result of metallic contamination, copper, zinc
and iron being the usual causes. Containers or implements of these metals should be
rigorously avoided for fermentation purposes or white, dark, purplish or brown hazes may
appear, often after a sudden drop in temperature, which renders the solutes less soluble.
Remedy: For iron or copper hazes add a little citric acid; this often works.
DARKENING—is most commonly caused by oxidation. If a glassful of finished
wine darkens after 24 hours exposure to the air it is not fully stable. If the cause is
enzymatic, darkening can be prevented by adding 2 Campden tablets per gallon as a
stabiliser. Darkening may also be due to the presence of iron, which can be corrected by
the addition of a little citric acid (½ oz. to 5 gals.).
TOO MUCH COLOUR. If you wish to decolour a white wine use clean eggshells
which have been immersed in boiling water and crushed, or the charcoal treatment under
"Taints and Smells."
HARSH FLAVOUR. Add glycerine to taste, or treat as for "Darkening," or use
gelatine firings. (See "Clearing" (p. 31).)
FILTER-PAD FLAVOUR. Caused by failing to wash the filter pulp with water or
wine before filtration. The first wineglassful of wine through the filter should always be
thrown away.
FLATNESS OR INSIPIDITY. The result of insufficient tannin in the wine.
Remedy: Add grape tannin or a small quantity of strong tea (up to 1 tablespoon per
gallon).
THINNESS, or lack of "body." Due to using insufficient fruit as the basis of the
wine. Naturally thin wines, such as plum, can be improved by adding up to 1 lb. of wheat,
barley or maize to the gallon when making. Thinness in a finished wine can only be
overcome by judicious blending with one of considerably more body. Marrow wine and
robust grain wines are excellent for this purpose, since they usually have good body.
Regularly using a Campden tablet per gallon in the must 24 hours before adding the yeast
will also improve the wine by putting into it a little glycerine.
FLOWERS OF WINE. Powdery, whitish flecks appear on the surface of the wine
and if left unchallenged wilt rapidly increase and will turn your wine first to carbon
dioxide and then to water. It is caused by an organism like yeast, mycoderma, an aerobic
bacterium, and is usually the result of admitting too much air to the fermenting vessel.
Remedy: Remove as much of the surface flecks as possible, filter through unmedicated
cotton-wool or filter papers, introduce some vigorous fresh yeast, and fill the fermenting
bottle as full as possible to exclude all air. If a substantial film has been formed there is
no remedy.
ROPINESS. The wine takes on a repellent, oily appearance and pours very slowly,
like treacle, but the taste is unaffected. The wine will look rather like the raw white of an
egg and in it will appear rope-like coils—hence the name. This is the work of the lactic
acid bacterium. Remedy: Whip the wine into a froth in a polythene bucket, add two
crushed Campder tablets per gallon, and filter through asbestos pulp or filter paper.
Do
Keep all your equipment spotlessly clean.
Keep your first ferment closely covered.
Keep air away from the secondary fermentation.
Always use fermentation traps.
Keep all bottles full to within ¾ in. of cork.
Strain liquor off must slowly and thoroughly.
Make wines too dry rather than too sweet: sugar them later.
Use yeast nutrient regularly, and reliable yeast.
Add sugar by stages. Keep detailed records.
Rack at least once, and preferably twice or thrice.
Taste the wine you are making, at intervals.
Always use new corks or stoppers, and boil old ones.
Keep red wines in dark bottles, or they will lose their colour.
Don't
Sell or distil your wine.
Allow a single vinegar fly access to your wine at any stage.
Use any metal vessel if the wine will be long in contact with it.
Use any tools or containers of resinous wood.
Omit to stir a must twice daily.
Use too much sugar initially.
Try to speed a fermentation by too high a temperature.
Be impatient; making wine takes time.
Let your wine stand on dead yeast or sediment.
Filter unnecessarily or too soon; most wines will clear of their own accord.
Put wine in unsterilised bottles or jars.
Bottle your wine whilst it is still fermenting.
Use screw-stoppered bottles.
Drink too much!
Grow your own grapes
"BUT surely you can't ripen grapes out of doors in this country?" This, with
variations, is the common incredulous reaction one gets each time the subject of outdoor
vine-growing is mentioned to the average Englishman.
Vines, so the popular belief runs, are delicate, temperamental things, hard to
propagate, complicated to prune, and suitable really only for greenhouse culture, and even
then only by an expert viticulturist. And even if one succeeds in growing some vines,
declare the pessimists, in our climate it will be impossible to ripen the crop.
These fallacies are widely believed, even amongst amateur winemakers, yet are
the opposite of the truth.
Vines can be grown successfully in the southern half of England, and in a
reasonably good summer the grapes can be ripened (a really wet one admittedly produces
problems). And when we get one of our really hot summers, such as we enjoyed in 1959,
the owner of a vine is a happy man indeed.
Vines were grown in southern Britain by the Romans (so this is no new idea!) and
today there are many small vineyards where experiments are once more being made in
order to accumulate indigenous experience again. Sir Guy Salisbury Jones, indeed, has
established a large vineyard at Hambledon in Hampshire, which is well worth a visit, and
Mr. and Mrs. Gore-Brown have done likewise at Beaulieu.
The truth is that the growing and training of vines is so straightforward that all
who are interested in winemaking should try it; vines occupy little space, they can be
planted at the back of flower borders, along fences, beside paths, or on a south-facing
wall. They make ideal screens, and they interfere little with flower or salad crops, for they
are deep and not surface-rooting. They are as easy to grow as, say, raspberries or
blackcurrants. If they are grown espalier fashion along a wire fence it is the work of a
moment to throw mats or polythene sheeting over them to protect them from frost, or
netting to prevent depredations by birds when the grapes ripen.
The all-important point is to make sure, when you choose your vines, that you
select only the earliest cropping varieties.
Just as the Englishman classes his potatoes as "First Earlies," "Second Earlies,"
"Maincrop" and so on, according to when the crop is ready, so the Frenchman talks of his
vines as "Première Epoque," "deuxième Epoque" or "Troisième Epoque" (First, Second
or Third Epoch). Thus early ripeners are all of the "lère èpoque," and very early ones the
"lère èpoque prècoce." These will all ripen well in our English climate, whereas 2nd or
3rd Epoch vines will not. Black Hamburg, for instance, which is perhaps the most
generally known grape in this country, is only so because it was once widely cultivated in
greenhouses, but it is unsuitable for outdoor use here, being of the Second Epoch.
So make sure you choose an early ripening variety, and if in any doubt consult
your nurseryman. Vine growers who will be able to help you are Messrs. M. S. E. Lytle,
of Formby,. Lancs. (who will send you a useful 16 page booklet, "Successful Growing of
Grape Vines," for 6d.), Mr. Barrington-Brock, of the Viticultural Research Station,
Oxted, Surrey, and Mr. Edward Hyams, of Kent. Many nurserymen can also supply the
more popular varieties.
It is not the intention to discuss here viticulture in detail, for many excellent
technical books are available on the subject, but only to give, as it were, a few pointers to
the complete novice.
Firstly, if you are planting many vines, do not have all the same variety. Obtaining
satisfaction from your vines will be a long-term project, and it is best to choose several
different vines and grow them experimentally rather than make a large outlay on one
variety which may prove disappointing. Nor need this be expensive, for, cuttings from
friends' vines can easily be rooted. Then select the ones that do best in your soil.
Secondly, remember that vines fall into two main categories, producing wine
grapes or dessert grapes, and that in each case black and white grapes of varying
sweetness are obtainable.
So decide what type of grape you want, and choose some early burgeoning
varieties to meet your need.
HYBRIDS
One point to note is that the beginner is well advised to plump for "hybrid" vines
(Continental vines crossed with American) which are vigorous, prolific, early ripening
and resistant to lime and disease. The American root stock resists the vine louse (or
Phylloxera) which is the scourge of the vitis vinifera, or Continental varieties. The
phylloxera kills off the vinifera by destroying the root system, but the American vitis
rupestris stands up to it satisfactorily.
It is as well, too, to give your vine grower as much accurate information as you
can about your soil, so that he can the better advise you.
You can either grow vines from cuttings or purchase them when 1-2 years old,
and plant them in spring or autumn.
PLANTING
If you have them in a row or rows in the garden, growing on a waist-high fence
(which is a practical system because they are then much more controllable and more
easily protected) they should be at least 2 ft. 6 ins. apart, preferably more, and there
should be 3 ft. between rows.
When the vine arrives, if it has not been pruned, cut it down to the lowest two
buds on each branch, even if it is 10 ft. high this must be done, or it will never grow
grapes of any consequence.
The reason for this drastic pruning, and for those of subsequent years, is that for
three years at least one should concentrate about building up a really strong and extensive
root system, and not top growth, otherwise the vine can never be really strong and
prolific. Therefore the growth above ground must be curtailed so that all the strength of
the plant will go into developing its roots. In the fourth year or so it is allowed to fruit. So
vine-growing, as you can see, is rather a long-term affair. Luckily winemakers are used to
exercising patience!
Choose a sunny position for your vine, facing south if possible, dig a hole big
enough to allow the roots ample room, and place the vine in position Space out the roots
well, and cover with light soil mixed with silver sand and old compost until the hole is
filled. Be sure to tread well in.
As with raspberries, the fruit of the vine is borne on the wood of the previous
year, so if a vine is spring planted you could obtain your first grapes in 18 months (though
they will be scanty and it is better not to let the vine fruit). Certainly no more than two to
three bunches should be allowed to form, or the strength of the vine will be sapped, but
from then on a few more may be allowed each year until, in about four years, the vine
will be cropping well.
As the fruit begins to ripen keep a close eye on it, and cover it either with netting
or with high cloches or the birds will have it first. When the grapes are thoroughly ripe
they are pressed, yeast is added, and they are fermented in the usual way (see under
"Grape Wine").
FROM CUTTINGS
If growing from cuttings, take your cuttings in the autumn. You need pieces of
stem about 9 inches long, with a pair of buds at either end. Bury these a foot or so deep,
laying them horizontally, so that they will survive the winter, and in late March or early
April dig them up, and set them just like any other cutting, with the topmost two buds at
ground level. Sift some light soil in a little mound over the cutting (about 11 in. high will
do) to prevent the wind from drying it out, or frost damage, mark the spot with a cane,
and await results.
There are many ways of pruning, and training vines, and the illustration by George
Hodgson shows some suggested ones.
Hybrid varieties of Wine Grape to try:
White grapes: Seibel 5279, Seyve Villard 5/276, Seibel 5409, Baco 2-16, Couderc
272-60, Chenin Blanc, Excelsior.
Red grapes: Seibel 5455, Seibel 13053, Seibel 2010, Seibel 8239, Seyve Villard
5/247, Oberlin 595, Baco No. 1
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