1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

The Vintaging of Bucellas.

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■with bare feet, -were anlde-deep inmud in the clayey goil of the Icwer vineyards. They cut off the grapes ■with knives and threw them into small baskets, ■which, as soon as filled, were emptied into larger ones, the latter being carried onmen's backs direct to the pressing-house when this was no great distance off. The Bucellas ■vines are chiefly of the arinto variety, which is commonly believed to be the same as the riesling, the prevalent grape on the banks of the Shine. The bei-ries are small and round, the bunches long and veiy compact. Interspersed among the vines are a few black grapes, which are rarely pressed separately. In this particular vineyard the vines were on an average twenty years old, and they "will bear, we were told, "until their hundredth year. The shoots, after having been planted for three years, yield a fair supply of fruit. The rule is not to manure the vines, which seem to be allowed to run a good deal to wood. We noticed that the upper andmore favourable slopes, which offer a natural drainage—an important advantage con-' sideriug the nature of the soil and the antipathy of the vine to moisture—were rarely planted with vines, and on inquiring the reason were informed that this was simply because the labour would be greater than on the lower grounds. From the 20th of July until the end of the "vintage the Bucellas "vineyards are carefully watched by local guards armed with rusty fii-elocks, who are paid by subscription among the vine proprietors. The men who perform the hard work of the vintage, such as carrying the baskets of grapes to thepressing-house when no buUock-cart is available for the purpose, and there treading and pressing them, receive 240 reis, or 13d., per day, while the women get about 9d. Neither food nor lodging is pro"vided for them, as they all live in the immediate neighbourhood. New "wine, when drawn off the lees in the follo"wing spring, -without any spirit being added to it, fetches on the spot from .£12 to £16 the tun of about a couple of hundred gallons. The purchaser has to send his own empty pipes and pro"vide the bullock-carts for con veying the wine to Lisbon. The average annual produce of the Bucellas district proper is a little over 1,000 pipes.