10 On the Cultivation of the Vine, 



expreffed with the hand : the muft which ifllied from them 

 was exceedingly Unhid, of a dirty-green colour and of a 

 fweetith lour talte, in which the acid predominated fo much 

 that it caufed thole who taAed it to make wry faces. I dif- 

 folvcd in this mult a fufficicnt quantity of brown fugar to 

 give it the talte o( pretty good fweet wine; and, without 

 boiler, funnel, or furnace, I put it into a calk in an apart- 

 ment at the bottom of the garden, where it was left to itfelf. 

 Fermentation took place in it on the third day, and main- 

 tained itfelf for eight days in a very fenfible manner, but Hill 

 very moderate. After that time it ceafed fpontancoufly. 



" The wine thence refulting being newly made, and ftill 

 turbid, had a pretty ftrong and pungent vinous odour ; its 

 taite was fomewhat harm ; while that of the fugar had dis- 

 appeared as completely as if it had never exifted. I Suffered 

 it to remain in the calk during the whiter.; and having ex- 

 amined it in the month of March, I found that, without 

 having been drawn off or drained, it had become clear 5 its 

 tafte, though ftill pretty ftrong and pungent, was, however, 

 much more agreeable than it had been immediately after the 

 fenfible fermentation; it had fomething Sweeter and more 

 racy, but was mixed with nothing that approached to Sugar. 

 I then put the wine in bottles, and having examined it in 

 the month of October 1777, I foyjnd it to be clear, fine, ex- 

 ceedingly brilliant, agreeable to the talte, generous, and 

 warm; in a word, like good white wine made from pure 

 grapes which has nothing lufcious, the produce of a good 

 vineyard in a good year. Several connoiffeurs, whom I made 

 to talte it, gave it the lame character, and could not believe 

 that it had been made from green grapes, the tafte of which 

 had been corrected with fugar. 



<c This fuccefs, which exceeded my hopes, induced me 

 to make a new experiment of the fame kind, and ftill more 

 decifive, on account of the extreme greennefs and the bad 

 quality of the grapes which I employed. 



" 0:i the 6th of November 1777 1 caufed to be collected, 

 from the top of an arbour in a garden at Paris, a kind of 

 large grapes which never ripen properly in this climate, and 

 which we know only under the name of verjus, becaufe they 

 are uled for no other purpole than 10 exprefs the juice before 

 it becomes Spoiled, that it may be employed as a kind of four 

 feaibn'mg in cookery. Thole here alluded to had Scarcely 

 1 to rot though the feaSon was far advanced, and they 

 had been abandoned on the arbour as leaving no hope of 

 iring iuilicient maturity to be fit for the table. They 

 were lull io hard that 1 refoived to make them burft over the 



fire 



