356 



ON FAMILY WINE MAKING. 



On r own fruits 

 afford wine as 

 food as foreign, 



Liable to fail. 



Two leading 

 points* 



Quality of the 

 fruit. 



klczcorth, Jan. 24, 1804. 

 Dear Sir, 



" I received your letter some days ago re- 

 specting the wines that may be made from the natural fruits 

 of this country, which I should have sooner answered, 

 could I communicate any thing of the importance I wished; 

 but that not being the case, I felt a great reluctance at the 

 thought of troubling you with any tiling not satisfactory. 



li I can say little else than that from our own expe- 

 rience for a short time past, and what I have seen of others, 

 I am perfectly satisfied that wine may be made from our 

 native fruits — red and white currants, gooseberries, black 

 currants, rasbenies, and other fruits, (with the help of 

 sugar) as good, and of as rich a flavour in all respects, as 

 any that are imported from abroad. But the particulars 

 in the process that may vary the qualities of the wine, 

 where the materials are the same, are so numerous, and 

 the time that must elapse before the result of any experi- 

 ment can be known is so great, that I despair of living to 

 see any certainty established on this head. At present I 

 sometimes taste as good wine of that sort as could be de- 

 sired, and again as bad as can be thought of, made by tha 

 same persons, when they can assign no reason for the dif- 

 ference. From our own limited practice I have been able 

 to ascertain only two points, that I think can be relied 

 upon as tolerably well etablished. These are, first, that 

 age, I mean not less than three years, is required to elapse, 

 before any wine, that is to be really good, can attain such 

 excellence as to deserve the name of good; and second, 

 that it never can attain that perfection, if spirits of any 

 kind be mixed with it. I apprehend that most of our made 

 wines are greatly hurt by not adverting to these two cir- 

 cumstances. 



" Another circumstance that is in my opinion very 

 necessary for the formation of good wine of this sort, is a 

 certain degree of acidity in the fruit, without which the 

 wine never acquires the zest which constitutes its peculiar 

 excellence^ but hurries forward too rapidly into the state 

 of vinegar. Currants at all times possess enough of that 

 acidity ; but if gooseberries be too ripe they are apt to 



want 



