1876 Facts About Sherry by Henry Vizetelly

16

Facts about Sherry.

guards, wlioj armed -witli old-fashioned Moorish firelocks, are employed to ■watch the ■vineyards from the commencement of July until the ■vintage is over, and are after the same fashion as corresponding structures encountered throughout.the Medoc. Upwards of 200 men were occupied■with the ■vintage at Torre Bre-va. Adwocates of women's rights wUl regret to hear that the labours of the softer sex are altogether dispensed ■with in the ■vineyards of the South of Spain. The men are broken up into gangs of ten, each ■with its separate capataz, and they certainly seemed to work ■with a ■will in a heat that rendered movement of any kind httle short of heroic. They were a sturdy-looking, picturesque, raggedy lot, in broad sombreros, shirt-sleeves or linen jackets, and the inevitable scarlet or crimson sash wound tightly round their waists. Numbers of them came as far as sixty miles for a sixteen or seventeen days' hire, at 8 reals, or 20d., a day, ■with onions for their soup, and a nightly shake down on an estera in the casa de la gente of the vineyard. Some few dexterously plucked the bunches (the size and weight of many of which need to be seen to be credited) with their fingers, but the majority used a small bo^wie-knife—the lower class Spaniard's habitual' companion and weapon of offence and defence—to detach the grapes. When the baskets, or the square wooden boxes kno^wn as tinetas, each holding about an arroba of grapes, weighing 251b., were filled, the pickers hoisted them on their heads or sho^ulders, on which a small round straw knot was fixed for the purpose, and marched off in Indian file to the nearest almijar. Here the bunches were spread out in the sun to dry on circular mats of esparto, thus to remain for from one to three days, while all blighted fruit was thro^wn aside for conversion into either spirit or ■vinegar. The sun by this time had well-nigh set, and preparations were made for pressing the grapes throughout the night, when, with a cooler temperature prevailing, there would be much less chance of precipitating the fermentation of the must. This pressing commenced between seven and eight o'clock, and was accomplished in a detached building under a low tiled roof.