Gooseberry Wine

How to make it

1. 1

   The not fully ripe, large, green gooseberries are cleaned and put in a large vat, crushed and poured over with 18 litres of lukewarm water, stirred vigorously and often until the water is cold, after which it is for the time being poured over into another vat.

2. 2

   The crushed berries are pressed through a coarse sieve, whereupon they are once more given 4—5 litres of water.

3. 3

   The sugar and cream of tartar are dissolved in the juice, and one adds enough water to have 50 litres of liquid in all.

4. 4

   The storage vat is covered with a cloth and left standing quietly for a couple of days in a room at 12—13° Réaumur.

5. 5

   The wine is then poured over into a keg that holds exactly 45—46 litres. The remaining 4—5 litres are used for topping up during the fermentation.

6. 6

   As soon as the hissing of the fermenting wine ceases, the keg is closed with a tight bung; a smaller hole, bored close beside the bung hole, is closed with a cork, which every 2nd to 3rd day is removed for a moment to let the air escape so the cask does not burst.

7. 7

   After 10—12 days, when the fermentation is over, the cork is fixed firmly in. The keg is set in a cold cellar; one lets it lie until around the end of December or the first half of the month of January.

8. 8

   The wine is then drawn off the sediment into a clean keg. The isinglass is dissolved in 1 litre of the wine, which is poured onto the wine keg in order to clarify the wine.

9. 9

   Later in the spring, when the gooseberry bushes from which the berries were taken begin to blossom again, the wine is bottled on a day when the weather is clear. The bottles are corked and fitted with wire over the cork.

10. 10

    N.B. Before the wine is filled over into the clean keg in winter, one should check whether it seems too sweet. In that case it is brought to ferment once more by rocking the cask or by stirring up the sediment.