The Compleat Winemaker's Guide

THE COMPLEAT WINE-MAKER'S GUIDE    -  Robin Blackburne

Making wine - there's nothing to it

Buy a book on how to do it.

Pick a bunch of grapes or two

Doesn't matter - white or blue.

Buy a tub some six feet wide

Remove the stalks and tip inside.

Now take off your shoes and socks

(This method's still quite orthodox).

Wash your feet in boiling water

(That's a thing you always oughter)

 Till your toes are sterilized;

 It's rather hot, don't be surprised.

Leap into the tub and soon

You're treading grapes all afternoon.

Squeeze and squelch between the toes

CO2 gets up your nose.

Soon the juice will start fermenting

Gently first - then unrelenting.

What takes place is roughly this,

 Mother nature's synthesis:

Yeast cells are quite primitive

But still need oxygen to live.

They cause the sugars to divide

Into Carbon Di-Oxide

And Alcohol - that lovely stuff

Of which we seldom get enough.

In case it's been too long since school

A simple sugar molecule

C6 H12 06 will thus

Give 2C2 H60 +

2C02 you may recall.

Did science drive you up the wall?

This magic chemical mutation

Is alcoholic fermentation.

The sugar's right - a perfect model.

 Messrs. Baumé, Brix and Twaddell

Tell us how to measure must

Hydrometer's the thing to trust.

To keep your fermentation slow

Hold the temperature quite low;

If it rises you've got troubles.

Now observe the tiny bubbles

Bursting through the frothing juice.

The yeasts are trying to reproduce.

But as the alcoholic strength

Goes up they perish. Then at length

Your wine is very nearly made;

It's cloudy still - don't be dismayed.

Separate the pips and skins

 Leaving all the vitamins.

Transfer to casks of fine French Oak

 And crack some eggs without the yolk.

Mix the egg whites with the wine.

Although this may sound asinine

Don't panic, you have nought to fear -

 In weeks your wine is crystal clear.

Taste it first; and next your task

 Is rack it off from cask to cask.

 Then taste again, please don't forget

To spit not drink - at least not yet.

Then leave your wine throughout the Winter

 Engage a trusty label-printer.

 Buy some bottles when you can

 And corks - they must be Catalan.

Rack again and in the Spring

You're ready to start bottling.

 Bash the corks in with a hammer.

 Make a last check of the grammar

On the labels; it won't do

 To have the syntax just off true.

"Mis en bouteilles à or au"?

You must be quite punctilio.

When you're sure it's perfect, you

 Can slap the labels on with glue.

 And spin the capsules on with ease,

Your job is done. Remember please

The cellar keep humidified

 And lay each bottle on its side.