AND WINE MAKING. 159 



A good or normal must should contain all these ingredi- 

 ents in due proportion. If there is an excess of one, and 

 a lack of the other, it can not make a perfect wine. 

 This would seem apparent to every reasoning wine maker. 

 Must which contains all of these in exactly the right pro- 

 portion we call a perfect or normal must ; and only by 

 determining the amount of each of the ingredients in 

 this so-called normal must, can we gain the knowledge 

 that will enable us to improve must which has not 

 the necessary proportion of each. The frequency of 

 unfavorable seasons in Europe, set intelligent men to 

 thinking ; their grapes were sadly deficient in sugar, did 

 not ripen fully, and also lacked in flavor. How then 

 could this defect be remedied, and a grape crop which 

 was almost worthless from its want of sugar and excess 

 of acids, be made to yield at least a fair article, instead 

 of the sour and unsalable wine generally produced in 

 such seasons ? Among the foremost who experimented 

 with this, object in view I will here mention Chaptal, 

 Petiol, but especially Dr. Ludwig Gall, who has at last 

 reduced the whole science of wine making to such a 

 mathematical certainty, that we are amazed that so 

 simple a process should not have been discovered long 

 ago. It is the old story of the egg of Columbus, but the 

 poor wine-makers of Germany and France, and we in 

 this country also, are none the less indebted to those in- 

 telligent and persevering men for the incalculable benefits 

 they have conferred upon us. 



The production of good wine is thus reduced to a 

 science ; though we cannot, perhaps, in a bad season, 

 produce as high flavored and delicate wines as in the 

 best years, we can now always make a fair article, by 

 following the simple rules laid down by Dr. Gall. 

 Nay, as most of our grapes, in a good season, contain 

 flavor in excess, we can often make fully as palatable 

 wine in a poor season, when that flavor is not so fully 



