288 AMERICAN GRAPE GROWING 



will commence quickly, and go through perfectly, if other 

 conditions are favorable. But take the Mission or Chas- 

 selas at thirty, or even above, and then have indifferent 

 fermenting rooms, and you cannot make a good, sound, 

 dry wine; but, to make anything out of it, it must be 

 fortified with brandy to make sweet wine. The great 

 trouble in making dry wines in this State may be summed 

 up in the following causes: Varieties of grapes which 

 will not make fine wine ; gathering and working the 

 grapes at the wrong time; imperfect fermenting vats and 

 rooms; negligence and slovenliness during fermentation; 

 and improper handling afterwards. 



Two of the leading grapes, those which produced most 

 abundantly, were the Mission, originated and first distri- 

 buted by the Jesuit Fathers of the Mission St. Gabriel, and 

 the so-called Black Malvasia, and most of the older vine- 

 yards were largely composed of these. Neither is a fine 

 wine grape ; the Mission has little flavor, but developes 

 a great deal of sugar and tannin. Its white wine 

 will, with age, develop a certain sherry-flavor, but 

 is harsh, heady, and heavy, affecting the nerves of 

 those who drink it freely, and its red wine has only 

 roughness, while it lacks flavor and that agreeable 

 acid so essential in good claret. The Black Malvasia (so- 

 called, though it is no Malvasia) is a large, pulpy, black 

 grape, with a heavy bunch, and large, oblong berry. It is 

 a good table grape. It has not color enough to be worked 

 alone into claret or port, but the first juice is made into 

 white wine, which is passable, but has no distinguishing 

 qualities or fineness. The red wine is said to make about as 

 good port, in quantity, if worked into it the first season, 

 as has as yet been produced; but as a dry wine, though 

 passable the first year, it developes a very disagreeable 

 flavor with age, and contains too much acid. Most of 

 the so-called California hocks and clarets were formerly 

 made of these two grapes, and even the best of them 



