The Grapes, Having Been Trodden By Men With Large Boots, Are Pressed, And The Juice Of The Commanderia Is Placed In Jars Capable Of Holding From Seventy To One Hundred Gallons.

The refuse of skins and stalks is laid upon one side to ferment for the manufacture of raki, or spirit, by distillation.

The fermentation of the juice proceeds in the earthen jars, and is guided according to the ideas of the proprietor; when he considers that it has continued to a degree sufficient for the strength and quality of the wine, it is checked by the addition of powdered gypsum. Here is one of the patent errors of the manufacture of commanderia as a wine suitable to English tastes. The grape-juice is naturally so rich in saccharine, that it is luscious and vapid to an excess; this superabundant amount of sugar would be converted into alcohol in the natural process of fermentation if unchecked, and by the chemical change the wine would gain in strength and lose in sweetness. Should this process be adopted, the result would no longer represent the wine now accepted as commanderia, which finds a ready market in the Levant, owing to its peculiar sweetness and rich flavour, although disagreeable to Europeans; there would accordingly be a risk attending such experiments, which the grower would consider unnecessary, as he already commands the sale.

The large jars in which the wine ferments are porous and unglazed; the usual waterproofing is adopted, in the shape of tar, with which the inside is thickly coated.

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