“Because he plainly perceives that his piquette stands in need of being enlivened by a mixture of good wine.”
Further down the list in quality came other more or less famous wines, such as the wine of Sorrentum which Tiberius could not bear, finding it an insipid taste and disgusting.' The extravagant Caligula gave it the name of 'piquette'. (This is an official French word, in the Code du Vin, and means a drink made by adding water to the marc of grapes and fermenting it. Such a wine in France can only be used for family consumption and
must not be transported from one place to another with a view to sale.)
Who wants to tell us what "marc" is?
I think it's the post-pressing residue of grape mush. Prolly originally a mishearing of "muck"! :)
Dear Mav: You remind me that I read somewhere long agoo that in antiquity, the grapes were crushed by being trodden on in a large tub by the feet of virgins. I wonder if the supply of virgins was always sufficient. And what the fate of the wine was, if trodden by unchaste feet.
I reckon wine's often led to chased virgins, Bill
Dear Mav: I found out what the "marc" is, from a site that gives the name of each step in the process of making wine:
"2b. Breaking - Foulage
A horizontal press squeezes the broken grapes, separating the fresh juice (must) from the skins (marc). For most red wines, this process is used to breaking up caked grapes, but the marc goes into the fermation vats with the juice.
Note - Breaking the grapes starts the fermentation process."
Re: Note - Breaking the grapes starts the fermentation process."
Most grape have a soft dusty look to the skins,if you wash and wet them they look shiny, but they dry to the same soft dusty bloom.
The soft dusty bloom is wild yeast that grow on the grape skins. Once you crush or press the grapes, the yeast will start to work on the juice-
press the juice out of the grape, and you will, at the same time, wash the yeast bloom into the juice, and unless its almost immediately sterilized, it will start fermenting.
(apples do the same thing, but most commercial produced apples have a wax coating, that kill the natural yeast, and prevents new yeast from growing.) i don't know if all fruits have this natural yeast -- but american blueberries do. (wild blueberries, and mullberries will ferment on the bush, birds love the slightly fermented berries and get drunk eating them!)
You can get white wine from red skinned grapes,-- the color (and most of tannin) are in the skins. Red wine is the result of letting fermations start with the both the juice and pulp in the 'fermatation tank'. (but i didn't know the pressed grape pulp was called marc- i did know the word must for fresh grape juice.)
(crushed apple pulp is called pumice, and is (was) used as animal fodder, it too would ferment-- which helped to preserve it. and fresh cider will ferment, too, unless sterilized.)
i like to go up Faldage's/AsP's neck of the woods, the NY Finger Lakes region is also NY's wine region, and i have gone on a few tours of the wineries!--i know all sorts of odd details about wine making. The old Gallo winery was one of the nicest, with the 'wine cellars' carved into stone cliffs, with beautiful arched doorways. (now it belongs to some big commercial winer company)
That’s interesting. Hmm, I just looked it up too, and get this slightly varying description of the process; certainly the second def accords with some fierce stuff I’ve drunk in France!
marc[MARK; MAHR]
1. A French term (known as
pomace in English) for the residue (skins, pips, seeds, etc.) remaining after the juice has been pressed from the grapes.
2. A potent eau de vie distilled from this mixture. It's the French counterpart to grappa (the name used in Italy and California).
© Copyright Barron's Educational Services, Inc. 1995 based on THE FOOD LOVER'S COMPANION, 2nd edition, by Sharon Tyler Herbst.
http://eat.epicurious.com/dictionary/wine/index.ssf?DEF_ID=1867&ISWINE=T