| Show how they make port fort wine A correspondent of all the year round who happened d to be in oporto during luring the last vinta vintage 0 e seas beason season olf thus describes the process the first care of the wine farmer when his harvest time approaches is to engage men anti anil women enough for the vintage thela theia the laborers engaged are almost savages wild in their tempers dirty in their persons and each male maie of them man or boy goes armed after the custom of the province with an ugly glin pun otin olin slang to his back the days food of these P poor poon people is a little matter they will i t think hink themselves very well off if they can get a couple of dried sardines for dinner aa as a relish to their bit of indian corn bread the dut duty y of the women in the vineyard is i s to cut the bunches into large baskets which the men carry upon their shoulders to the press there is a great deal of singing on the ground and all seem to work very contentedly in spite of or the gre great at heat when darkness ends the labor of t the he day the laborers all meet outside the farmhouse farm house bouse a guitar is produced and dancing is kept up for some hours when all the grapes are in the wine wine press the first thing to be done is to drag them well over with wooden rakes to separate some of the stalks then all the men tuck up their trousers and jump in at my friends farm a tub of water was ostentatiously set by the side aide of the press I 1 suspect however that this was a concession to the prejudice of visitors for it did not go to the extent of actual ablution nobody used the tub of water all see seeming mingto to have a supreme contempt for cleanliness the scene inside the press is very animated twenty or thirty brown faced and black bearded tatterdemalions up to their knees in the purple juice smoke sing quarrel dance and scream half mad with excitement for to them this is the crowning event of the year every now and then a cry is raised for brandy which the farmer furnishes it is the pure puri white spirit as it has run from the still and very strong As it begins to take effect the singing becomes louder and the dancin dancing gr which within the press is the tile desired work fast and furious A t general beneral fi fight often ensues in which IT aich the long guns sometimes play their part when all t the e juice is trodden from the grapes rape a plug is drawn the must runs rum through into a smaller tank whence it is carried i in n buckets to the tuns auns containing four to fi five pipes i pes each there to ferment we the wine press is then half filled with water the husks are again trodden and finally s uee zed under a press of wood the liquor thus obtained fernier fervier ferrae ItS into what is termed agua pe a liquor that will be drunk by the laborers when they come a month later to prune the vines when the fermentation of the wine in the auns tuns is complete the result would not suit english palates being thin and tart and rough it has therefore to be sweetened and for fortified tidied for sweetening cero eero pipa piga is used this is made by addin bi ato a martof the fresh must which is thus thus thug prevented from fermenting in and rp retains taing therefore the sugar 0 the grape grapp brandy is arod to strengthen the wine often there is deficiency of color and this defect is cured with dried fried elderberries elder berries tied I 1 in n a sack put into a tub about half full of wine into the tub a man gets and by dreadin treading on the tahe sack soon draws we coir color from tre the tha berries and the darkened liquor is added the wine this practice ia is common all over oy erthe the wine country and favorable spot spots are chosen for plantations of elder bushes bolela solely to sup supply pay ft tue demand damand for berri berries vs |
