at the end of twenty-four hours. The water first 
added should be in quantity sufficient to cover 
and float the pulp; perhaps four gallons may be 
generally used. During some hours the gravity 
will increase; and while it does so, the materials 
should remain together, and be stirred five or six 
times. The temperature of the room might be 
about 55°; and the eye of the operator should be 
on the alert to discern, and his hand ready to 
arrest, the very minutest appearance of fermenta- 
tion indicated by small groups of air bubbles. The 
liquor is to be strained off—the pulp squeezed or 
pressed,—and finally washed with more water,— 
strained and again pressed,—and its gravity 
noted down. We will state this gravity at 20 in 
1,000 above water at 60°, 7. e. at 1:020. The 
liquor should measure five gallons at the least; 
and to it may be safely added 15 lb. of good loaf- 
sugar, or 12 lb. of sugar, and 3 Ib. of honey, which 
latter always tends to confer a soft and vinous 
character on the must. If the gravity do not 
rise to 1120, more saccharine material (sugar 
or honey) must be added cautiously, till that 
density be acquired. Fermentation may then be 
suffered to take place quietly, without any extra- 
neous aid, and be promoted by warmth and agi- 
tation if the weather be cold. The liquor should 
be retained in the tun or pan till the gravity be 
reduced to 1:085, at which it will have acquired 
a decidedly vinous odour. It will be understood 
that the fluid is to be made up seven gallons by 
water before the fermentation begins, always add- 
ing sugar till the gravity be found 1:120. This 
quantity will suffice to fill the barrel to within 
an inch of the bung-hole, leaving a reserve of 
nearly a gallon for filling up, after a fermentation 
is nearly completed; the reserve is to be kept 
apart, in a stone bottle, covered with a small 
piece of flat glass. The cask must be perfectly 
clean, sweet, and dry; it should be raised a few 
inches above the floor of a good arched cellar, 
the temperature of which remains pretty equable 
at all seasons. The wine must not throw off its 
yeast ; it is to be agitated by rolling, or stirred 
with a clean stick let down through the bung- 
hole. This hole is subsequently to be covered 
over with a piece of tile or slate, placed over a 
grape leaf. After the hissing shall have subsided 
to a gentle fretting, the clearest portion of the 
reserved wine is to be poured into the barrel, 
when the hole may be partly closed, by fitting it 
loosely with a sound and clean bung. In order 
to afford an example of the progress of vinifica- 
tion, we extract from a journal the minutes of 
several observations made during the season of 
1838 :—Sept. 29. The materials used to prepare 
.6 imperial gallons of wine were—grapes 33 ]b., 
2% lb. grape leaves or tips of shoots digested in 2 
gallons of boiling-water, pressed when cold, and 
_ the liquor poured over the crushed grapes; 16 
lb. of loaf-sugar, and the washings of a few clean 
honey-combs, after the honey had been drained 
| from them; the gravity was at least 1:120, and 
WINE. 
133 
the bulk of must was made up 7 gallons. Oct. 4. 
The gravity of green grape liquor or must after 
the fermentation had been established during a 
few hours, 11115. Oct. 6. (Temperature of the 
room 50° to 55°), gravity 1096. Oct. 8. (Idem), 
barrelled at noon, gravity 1:0840. The hissing 
continued regularly,—the bung was loosely fitted, 
—and the wine was permitted to be at rest, in a 
temperate cellar, till February 1839, when it was 
found quite clear, pale, and rich, but not luscious. 
April 1. The gravity was reduced, by throwing off 
carbonic acid, and the production of vinous alco- 
hol, to 1026; 30 grains of isinglass, dissolved in a 
pint of the wine, poured in as finings. April 6. 
Racked off, reserving the bright wine, and bot- 
tling the lees to settle. Cleaned the cask per- 
fectly, adding half an ounce of powdered white 
marble, and one pint of old bucellas. Returned 
the clear grape-wine, and bunged the barrel. As 
it was not quite full, the wine reserved in bot- 
tles, which became bright as the lees precipitated, 
was poured into the barrel, in which it is in- 
tended that it shall remain till March 1840. 
“The wine from the leaves, tender shoots, and 
tendrils of the vine, if judiciously prepared, is so 
excellent, that Mr. MacCulloch compared it to 
‘white hermitage.” The claret vine leaves, as he 
observes, will produce a red colour, and this tree 
could be cultivated for the express purpose. 
Having repeatedly prepared red and white leaf 
wine, we can with the greater confidence offer a 
few abbreviated extracts from Mr. MacCulloch’s 
book, previously observing, that the specific gra- 
vity of the liquor must here also be taken as the 
criterion of strength ; the proportions are calcu- 
lated for ten gallons of wine. ‘The leaves should 
not have attained their full growth, and must be 
plucked with their stems. On forty or fifty 
pounds of such leaves, seven or eight gallons of 
boiling water are poured, in which they are to | 
infuse for twenty-four hours; the liquor being 
then strained off, the leaves are to be forcibly 
pressed. A gallon more water is to be added, 
and the leaves again are to be pressed. A screw 
wine-press, with hair bags, is very useful in this 
process. Sugar, varying from 25 lb. to 30 lb., is 
then to be added to the mixed liquors, the quan- 
tity is to be made up to ten gallons and a half.’ 
Such are the essentials of Mr. MacCulloch’s di- 
rections. We need only add that, if a ferment- 
ing, lively wine, be contemplated, the manufac- 
ture must be conducted as in the process for 
champagne, and the smaller of the two propor- 
tions of leaves, &c., is to be employed. The spe- 
cific gravity of the must should be 1:110 to 1-115. 
The fermentation must be carried on for a short 
time in the open vessel, or till the gravity be re- 
duced to 1:090; and the barrel will require to be 
filled, and be kept full, in order to carry off the 
froth and leaven that rise to the top of the liquor. 
But we apprehend that grape leaves are better 
qualified to produce a dry wine, and therefore the 
larger proportion of leaves, &c., should be employ- 
