AND WINE MAKING. 183 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



CONCLUDING REMAEKS. 



I have little to add regarding wine making in all those 

 sections where American grapes are the basis of the wine 

 industry. The principles remain the same, though 

 some of the many new varieties may need more or less 

 modification in their treatment to make palatable wine 

 from them. Some of the new varieties recently intro- 

 duced by Professor Munson, Hermann Jaeger and the 

 late John Burr, will probably yield better wines, if prop- 

 erly handled, than the old sorts. The seedlings and 

 crosses from the Herbemont and Unceoiimii types will 

 furnish specially valuable material. 



Here on the Pacific coast, where I have followed grape 

 growing for the last fifteen years, and introduced many 

 of our American varieties with high hopes of success, 

 the outcome has in most cases been disappointing. The 

 Norton and Cyntliiana were total failures, not alone in 

 amount of production, but also in the quality of the 

 wine made from tliem. The fruit was only half the nor- 

 mal size and almost destitute of jui^e, so that here, where 

 gallizing is not practiced, they were wholly unprofitable. 

 The only American varieties which succeed, to any ex- 

 tent, are the Herbemont, Lenoir, Louisiana and Ru- 

 lander. These make a fair natural wine, without any 

 addition. The Herbemont, if pressed lightly, makes a 

 good white wine, sprightly, and of good aroma. The 

 Lenoir makes an exceedingly dark wine, whicli is con- 

 sidered valuable as a so-culled *' doctor wine," to blend 

 with vinifera wines, and to impart color to claret and 

 burgundies. The Louisiana and Rulander make a nat- 

 ural sherry, about IGO gallons of which, made in my 

 vineyard last year, are of high promise as a natural 



