Introduction

H.E. Bravery has been making wines for over twenty years but took to writing the wine making guide comparatively recently. He has contributed many articles on home wine-making to the Smallholder, Do It Yourself, and the Gardener's Chronicle, as well as to other journals, and he also lectures on the subject.

The making of wine has been the author's life study, and he has examined the scientific and chemical aspects as well as the theoretical and practical side of the art. He is well known throughout Europe and has a large international following. Mr. Bravery's recipes are famous wherever wine is made, and in this book he passes on the results of his most recent successful experiments in achieving trouble-free, top-quality, full-bodied wines.

Mr. Bravery is also the author of a brand new book, Home Brewing Without Failures (Arc, 95 cents), in which he shows how you can make your own beer (light and dark), ale, mead, stout, and cider. Every detail of home brewing is covered step by step in Mr. Bravery's customary thorough, clear, easy-to-follow style, and he includes numerous recipes for making delicious brews.

In 1964, enthusiasts in this country formed the Bravery Wine Club of America. For further information on this club, write to Bravery Wine Club of America, c/o Dr. A. R. Rustebakke, Placitas, Sandoval County, New Mexico.

Introduction-A Chat About Winemaking

When you have read the various directions in other parts of this book it will be clear that we must approach the making of wine, not with the seriousness that becomes almost painful, but in a similar manner to the way one would set about making good jam or a decent cake. No one would mix the necessary ingredients for these in a fire bucket and put them into a rusty tin or dirty jar and try to cook them over a candle. Yet this is the kind of thing many people do when making wines; but only because they have been led for many years to believe that making wines was simply a matter of knocking together a mixture of ingredients, and then fermenting them under any existing unhygienic conditions. This sort of thing gave many people the impression that home-made wines weren't worth bothering with because, while they made a stop-gap drink, they weren't really very nice. This has been the cause of home-made wines getting a bad name and making thousands of people give up the hobby before they could realize that home-made wines can really be magnificent if made in the right way. I could list hundreds of distinguished men and women who make their own wines retired services commanders, doctors, and people such as Conrad Phillips of William Tell fame who makes his own wine, but I wish to convey my methods to everyone, that's why I decided to compile the wine making guide. It is no idle boast to claim that by following my directions your wines will be better than any you have made before. This is because all my methods and recipes are tried and proved and experience shows how spoilage can easily be prevented by the simple rules which ensure success. It all boils down to this: use a good yeast and nutrient, sterilize everything used, keep fermenting brews warm, and keep them covered at all stages of production all part of a simple routine. You will make very good wines with bakers' yeast and a nutrient, provided you keep the 'must' warm during fermentation, but by using wine yeast your wines will be vastly improved. Wine yeast settles to a sediment like cheese-paste leaving a brilliant wine above it, instead of, as bakers' yeast often does, leaving a cloud in the wine that can only be removed with isinglass or some other clarifying medium.

It is important to understand that a recipe is merely a list of ingredients in varied proportions that will make a wine suit different palates. Anyone can invent a recipe, but it does not follow that everybody can invent a good one. There are too many factors to be considered for that, the main one being that the acid and sugar content of fruit varies from season to season. Even the same variety of fruit grown on the same tree in the same garden will not be identical in two consecutive seasons. Nor will the fruit be the same when grown in the same season if in different gardens because the soil, situation, the amount of sun or shade all affect the acid and sugar content. However, this need not bother you if you follow the recipes. Even here you need not adhere to one too faithfully. A half-pound too little of the fruit will not matter, but a half-pound too much would, because you would be putting in more acid and tannin. Neither will it matter if you do not have quite enough fruit to start with because this may be added any time during fermentation. From the large number of letters I receive it is clear that too many beginners and not beginners only are nervous of using their common sense. They think up all sorts of good, solid common-sense ideas and then write asking if, in my opinion, they are good ideas after all.

Provided the simple rules which ensure success are observed, you can do almost anything you like; mix ingredients to get special results, use more yeast if you want to, start half-gallon lots of one kind of wine and then mix them before fermentation has ceased in fact, do almost anything except use more of the main ingredient listed in whichever recipe you happen to be using.

Do not make a wine just because some particular fruit has become available; think first. If you are not fond of a particular fruit the chances are that you will not like wine made from it.

When you bottle, bottle only perfectly clear wine and don't use any old bottle which happens to be available. It is worth while taking the trouble to use wine bottles all the time; dark ones for red wines, clear glass for lighter wines and they should be the sort that have an indenture or 'punt' at the bottom. A punt is the part of the bottle which has been pushed up inside. Use decent labels, even if they are plain ones, rather than strips of gummed paper of any shape or size.

The absolute beginner cannot be expected to appreciate that after few attempts the resulting wines will be so good that only the best bottle and label and seal will be suitable for them. I am perfectly serious I wouldn't dream of putting my wines in any but the best bottles.

I want everyone whoever they may be to realize that they can make wines fit for a king by putting their minds to it.

Beginners often mistakenly imagine that a wine yeast will flavour wines of port or sherry or of whichever yeast is used. This is not so. The name the yeast carries is usually the name of the area from which it comes but not always.

It is best to use, as we shall see later on, the most suitable variety of yeast for the kind of fruit being used, or for the type of wine being made from that fruit, e.g. it is best to use a port yeast with fruits that ordinarily make a port-style wine, or a burgundy yeast if you are making that type of wine even though the fruit being used is also made into port-style wines. The different wine types are possible from one variety of fruit merely by altering the amount of fruit and sugar, but all this is fully covered later on. Although I advise wine yeast in all but the root wines and dried fruit wine recipes, I imagine that most of you will settle for bakers' yeast at least in the early stages of your wine-making and then, as you progress, you will realize that if such wonderful wines can be made with bakers' yeast and household sugar, then surely even better wine would result from using wine yeast and invert sugar. So progress goes on, our wines improving with our experience and as we are able to think for ourselves we find we no longer have to follow too closely a set of hard and fast rules and do better by using our imagination than we ever thought possible.And you'll realize the same while experimenting with the recipes in this wine making guid.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Federal regulations and Internal Revenue law provide that the head of any family may, without payment of tax, produce not more than 200 gallons of wine per year for the use of his family, and not for sale, if he registers to do so. He must obtain Form 1541 from the U.S. Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service, fill out this form, and send it to the Assistant Regional Commissioner of the region in which he resides. No payment of tax is required.

Anyone who intends to produce more than 200 gallons of wine per year, or who intends to produce wine for sale, must obtain a special permit from the Assistant Regional Commissioner (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax), file bond, and meet other requirements for the operation of a bonded wine cellar.