Boiling the fruit is a practice of decided advantage. From this
treatment many tasteless fruits acquire a flavour, as is well known,
and many bad flavours are converted into agreeable ones. In no case
perhaps is this more remarkable than in the black currant, which,
harsh and comparatively insipid in its natural state, acquires
by boiling a powerful, and, to most persons, a highly agreeable
flavour. In making wine from this variety of currant, the effects
of this process are very remarkable; the produce of the raw fruit
being scarcely distinguished by any particular property from the
herd of made wines, while that of the boiled fruit may with careful
management be brought to resemble some of the best of the sweet Cape
wines. In the white and red currant the same precaution has been
attended with results equally successful, though not marked by a
contrast so decided. If sweet wine is intended, the quantity of fruit
for 10 gallons should not exceed 40 pounds; if dry wine is desired,
it may extend to 60. The proportion of sugar will be 30 pounds as
before. If a much stronger wine of either quality is desired, it must
extend to 40 pounds. Unsound or bruised fruit should be rejected; and
the remains of the blossom and fruit stalk carefully removed.