ON FAMILY WINE MAKING. 339 



and requires to be kept a long while before it can attain its 

 ultimate perfection. 



u I have had too little experience in the practice of Grape wint^ 

 making grape wine to enable me to speak with precision. 

 The flavour of different kinds of grapes we know varies 

 consid .<ibJy, which must affect the wine; but other cir- 

 cumstances in the process must affect it greatly. It is the 

 only fruit known in this country that affords juice in abun- 

 dance sufficient to admit of being made into wine without 

 the addition of water, or rich enough without the use of sugar. 

 Two years ago the season was so favourable, that my grapes 

 (the muscadine) ripened completely, and I determined to 

 try to make some wine of them without either sugar or 

 water. The juice was squeezed out by hand without any 

 pressure, as I had no press. It fermented very well, and 

 after a proper time it was tried. The liquor tasted sweetish, 

 but wanted much of the vinous zest we wished for. This 

 arose, I have no doubt, from the want of a due proportion 

 of native acid, which would have been probably supplied 

 by a complete pressure of the must, had I possessed the 

 means of doing it, especially if the bunches of grapes had 

 not been separated from the small foot-stalks to which 

 the berries adhere. But not having a quantity sufficient to 

 make it worth while to have a press, I thought of another 

 method of attaining the end I aimed at, to which I was Birds and ver- 



forced to resort: on finding that birds and vermin are nnnfondof 



-, - t i grapes. 



so greedy of the grape, that it is a matter next to impossi- 

 ble to preserve them for any time here in quantities after and frequently 



they are ripe without being broken, which, by letting the occasioua 



. . n , , i i . . i , nmstv taste by 



juice ilow out, lodges between the berries in the clusters, opening them. 



and there becomes mouldy, and communicates a musty 

 taste that cannot be got rid of. 



" To avoid all these evils, I determined to gather the fruit Attempt to 

 when it is so far ripened only as just to begin to be pecked re medy this. 

 by the birds. As the juice possesses at that time more ve- 

 getable acidity, and less of the saccharine taste than when 

 fully ripe, I conceive that the wine made from it will be 

 sharper, and have a higher zest than the other ; but dread- 

 ing that the juice might not be sufficiently matured to do by 

 itself, I added a portion of sugar and water to the juice, 



and 



