WINE MAKING

Year Published: 1948

Format: 16mm

Description: Dating to 1948, this British Instructional Films Ltd. production is entitled "Wine Making". The film shows the process of harvesting grapes and fermenting them into wine. The location of the winery shown is unclear. (Note: this film is silent because -- many educational films from this period were released that way. Amplification was expensive, and many school districts could not afford sound projectors. So, films were released silently and a script read out loud by a teacher or student, while the film rolled.) The film begins with a panoramic shot of a valley, with rows of grapes under cultivation (:49). At (1:11), grapes are sampled to see if they are ripe enough for picking. At (1:25) a group of workers, mostly Blacks, arrive to harvest the grapes. At (2:10), buckets of grapes are dumped into a waiting truck. At (2:25), the grapes are assessed and then at (3:09) moved by hand from trucks into a crusher-destemmer machine. At (4:41) the grape juice mash is pumped into a gigantic vat for fermentation. At (6:17) the wine is shown being cooled during fermentation. At (6:47) a sign provides data about the lot. (Note: a "leaguer" is slightly more than 577 litres, or 127 gallons, so the vat holdign four leaguers is approximately 500 gallons.) At (8:40) the finished wine is served and enjoyed at an estate.

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