20 



tire varieties of a single genus, or species contain the wine mak- 

 ing principles or ingredients in just about the right proportions. 

 Some varieties contain more sugar, and some more acid than 

 ■others, but the variation from the proper quantities of each is so 

 little, that it is very seldom tliat any additions have to be mnde. 

 The juice of the grapes is expressed and manufactured into 

 wine at once. In our own country the juices of all our native 

 grapes are deficient in sugar and have an excess of acid, hence 

 it becomes necessary to dilute the acid principle by adding 

 Avater, and to supply the sacharine principle by adding sugar. 

 A perfect must should contain about seventy-five parts of Avater, 

 twenty parts of sugar and five parts of acid, mucilage, coloring 

 matter, <fcc. Only about six one thousandth of one part in a 

 hundred arc acid. 



FOREIGN GRAPES AXD FOREIGN WINE. 



There are a multitude of varieties of foreign grapes, from 

 which are manufactured all those choice Avines, Port, Maderia, 

 Rhenish, Moselle, Champaigne, <fec., &c., that come to us as the 

 purest and best foreign Avines. But they are all the offspring 

 of a single species of the grape plant, the Vitls Vitifera of 

 Linnaeus. From this single species, are derived all the varieties 

 of cultivated foreign grapes of Avhatever name. And there is 

 a striking similarity in the natural elements of the fruit, or the 

 wine making principle. They exist in each A-ariety, Avith so 

 little A^ariation in quantity, that very seldom anything foreign 

 has to be added. In this consists the difference between them, 

 and our own natiA'e grapes, Avhich are deficient in sugar, and 

 also contain an excess of acid. 



It Avill at once be perceived, that our neighbors over the 

 water, have every adA'antage over us, in the production of Avine, 

 both as regards cost and quality. 



AMERICAN GRAPES. 



All attempts to cultivate the foreign grape in this countiy 

 with projit and success have been nearly, if not entirely, failures. 

 Our climate is not adapted to their healthful groAvth and fruit- 



