1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

Hoiv Port Wine is Made.

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lost its inspii-ation and authority its teiTors, and the men,dead heat, raise one purple leg languidly after the other. In the stUl 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. Bythetime the trending is completed the violentfermentation of the must has commenced,and is left to follow its course. According as the grapes are moderately or over ripe, 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 of the must,form a thick incrustation. To ascertain the proper moment for drawing the wine off into the tonels, recourse is usually had to the saccha- Tometer, when, if this marks four or five degrees, the farmer knows the wine will be sweet; if a smaller number of degrees are indicated the wine will be moderately sweet, while zero sig nifies that the wine will be dry. Some farmers judge the state of the fermentation by the appearance of the wine on the con ventional white porcelain saucer,and the vinous smell and flavour which it then exhibits. When it is ascertained that the wine has sufficiently fermented,it is at once run off into the large tonels, holding their ten to thirty pipes each, the mosto ■extracted from the husks of the grapes by the application of the huge beam press being juixed with the expressed juice resulting from the treading. It is now that brandy—not poisonousBerlin potato spirit, but spirit distilled from the juice of the grape—^is added at the rate of 5| to11 gallons per pipe,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 until 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