Gooseberry Vine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Gather gooseberries in dry weather when they are half ripe.
Pick and bruise the gooseberries in a tub.
Press the gooseberries using a horse-hair cloth without breaking the seeds.
Make and age the wine
To every gallon of juice, add 3 pounds of sugar and stir until dissolved.
Transfer the mixture into a vessel or cask, filling it completely.
If using a 10-12 gallon cask, let it stand for 2 weeks; for a 20 gallon cask, let it stand for 3 weeks.
Store in a cool place, then draw off from the lees and pour the clear liquor back in.
For a 10 gallon cask, let it stand for 3 months; for a 20 gallon cask, let it stand for 4 months before bottling.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Gooseberries
- Provide the fruit juice that ferments into the wine, with their natural acidity and flavour.
- Fine dry powdered sugar
- Dissolves into the juice to feed fermentation and add sweetness to the finished wine.
The step that matters
Keep the seeds intact when pressing. Crushing gooseberry seeds can release bitter compounds into the juice, which then carry into the finished wine and affect its flavour.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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