1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



23 



nine meals, which, together are worth two francs 

 at least. We are, at first, no less astonished at 

 their digestive capacity than at their muscular 

 powers; but the one is soon explained by the 

 other. 



When the grapes reach the cellar ihey are pour- 

 ed, generally without being stripped from the clus- 

 ters, upon a table pierced with holes, surrounded 

 by high raised sides and furnished with a 1 rap-door. 

 This sort of chest is fixed upon handles, by the 

 help of which it is carried like a hand-barrow, and 

 placed horizontally on the vat; it is called gabio, 

 which signifies a cage. 



A man, who receives the name of gabrazre, be- 

 cause he works in the gabio, enters it with naked 

 feet and legs, and tramples the grapes. When 

 the operation is ended, he opens the trap-door and 

 throws into the vat whatever has not already fal- 

 len through the holes of the cage. 



This trampling is not practised by all the own- 

 ers of vineyards; there are some who pour the 

 grapes at once into the vat, where they are after- 

 wards crushed as well as their situation will per- 

 mit. 



Some proprietors strip a portion of their grapes 

 from the clusters. My honorable friend, JM. de 

 Cabneres performs this operation upon all his. He 

 has a double bottom fixed above the grapes which 

 keeps the cene beneath the surface of the liquid; and 

 a cover or lid placed and luted upon the vat pre- 

 vents all evaporation. The results obtained by 

 this intelligent proprietor establish beyond a doubt, 

 that the wines of Marcillac might take their place 

 among the good wines of France, if in the vine 

 lands of this name the culture of the vine and the 

 making of the wine were directed by men like 

 him. 



The question, however, whether it is proper to 

 strip or not to strip the grapes from their clusters 

 cannot be determined by the success of a single 

 individual in a tract composed of such a variety of 

 grapes, soils, and exposures. The introduction of 

 the clusters whole, facilitates fermentation, and, 

 by the principles which it furnishes to the wine, 

 gives it sprightliness, renders it piquant and lessens 

 its tendency to become thick or oily, (toumer au 

 gras.) In these respects it becomes useful, when 

 without it the wine would be very weak and taste- 

 less, and could not be preserved without difficulty; 

 and consequently it is proper on the hills where a 

 sweetish taste predominates, and from which only 

 a wine of very weak quality can be expected. 

 But it is not the same with the crops in which 

 aroma and sugar abound, at least sufficiently to 

 enable us to calculate upon a generous wine, 

 agreeable to drink, and easy to be kept by the or- 

 dinary processes of racking, [vintage] and fining. 

 In such situations it is proper to get rid of the as- 

 tringent principle. It may then be of advantage 

 in one place to strip all the grapes from the clus- 

 ters, in another to strip only a part of them, and 

 in a third not to strip any; and each person ought, 

 in this particular, to pursue the lessons of expe- 

 rience, taking care to modify his practice when the 

 circumstances under which it was established are 

 no longer the same. It might have been proper 

 formerly to strip off the grapes of a particular vine- 

 yard when it was planted inmenn and received but 

 little manure, while this would no longer suit 

 since it is planted in mQi??:agues, in maural, in ca- 



nut. or other varieties which produce only flat 

 wines and since it receives much manure. 



The fermentation generally goes on in an open 

 vessel, whence it follows, first, that the must does 

 not contribute at all, or it contributes very little by 

 its own oxygen, to the formation of the carbonic 

 acid gas, and that a less quantity of this gas is 

 absorbed by the wine; secondly, that the must 

 loses more oJ* its carbon; that its hydrogen and 

 oxygen may be united in greater quantity to form 

 water; that alcohol is produced in less abundance; 

 that the evaporation of this as well as of water ia 

 greater, that, in fine, there is less wine, and that 

 this wine is of weaker quality. 



The grapes generally remain ten days in the 

 vat: the duration of this stay is abridged or pro- 

 longed according as the weather is warm or cold, 

 and the ripeness of the grapes more or less com- 

 plete. When, from the abundance of the crops 

 and the want of vats, it has been necessary to re- 

 move the wine before its fermentation was entire- 

 ly over, the result has been a better wine, but 

 more disposed to become thick, doubtless because 

 there remained in it a greater amount of carbon 

 united with its mucilage. Here perhaps the un- 

 suitableness of habit is felt in a change; because 

 it was right to keep the wine ten days in the vat, 

 when the menu containing a great deal of sugar 

 predominated in the vineyards, it is thought proper 

 still to give the same time when other varieties 

 which produce grapes less sweet and weak wines 

 have been substituted for the menu. 



Some wine-makers, however, take their wine 

 from the vat before the tumultuous fermentation is 

 entirely over, and they applaud the practice; as 

 their proceeding is rational I can easily credit their 

 success. 



The fermentation is often facilitated by pouring 

 into the vat a certain quantity of must boiling hot; 

 but this good method is proscribed by the preju- 

 dices of certain makers who consider wine thus 

 made as adulterated. 



During the fermentation a naked man enters 

 once a day into the vat, and returns towards the 

 bottom the stems and woody fibres of the clusters 

 (rafle) which the fermentation has raised to the 

 surface; he crushes, besides, the grapes when 

 they have not been trampled in the cage. This 

 operation becomes dangerous if the vat is only 

 half full. The danger and the accidents are in- 

 creased by the intoxication of the persons who are 

 exposed to them: in 1831, an imprudent vine- 

 dresser perished in a vat, in a state of asphyxia. 



The temperature in the vat rises in the course 

 of the fermentation to 25° or 26°, (centigrade,) 

 that of the store-house being 15° or 16°. 



When the fermentation is over, the wine is 

 drawn off through a hole, made for that purpose 

 at the bottom of the vat, and kept free from the 

 obstruction of the marc by tiles, vine-branches, or 

 other articles. On some estates the cellar is un- 

 der the store-house, and the wine flows of itself, 

 conducted by tubes, into the casks which have 

 been cleansed and prepared beforehand for its re- 

 ception. 



When the wine has ceased to flow and no more 

 remains in the vat the marc is taken out and sub- 

 jected to the action of the press, an enormous 

 square beam of oak fixed as a lever of the second 

 I order, on which the power is applied by means ot 

 I a screw, of which it becomes the nut, and which 



