224 



The Grape Cultuibt. 



the room should be heated bj a stove. 

 Beware of cold cellars for young wine ; 

 they will retard fermentation, and you 

 will have continued trouljle. Your 

 ■wine should be clear, and all the sugar 

 changed to alcohol, in three months 

 from the making. 



We hope we need not tell our read- 

 ers that all their utensils, pails, vats, 

 casks, etc., should be perfectly clean 

 and sweet. A sloven has no business 

 to be a grape grower, much less a wine 

 maker, and does not deserve success. 



We can, of course, give only general 

 rules, but we hope that they will be 

 sufficient to enable all of our readers 

 to make their wine. They need not 

 expect that they will reach the climax 

 at once : it will take long years of 

 patient study and experiment to pro- 

 duce the best Avine a grape is capable 

 of yielding. We do not pretend to 

 know all about it; on the contrary, 

 the more we learn we see only the 

 more clearly how little we yet know. 

 But we have made some good wines 

 in our day, and do not fear any more 

 that we will make a really poor article. 

 If these hints will enable our readers 

 to do the same, we shall think our- 

 selves richly repaid; and if they will, 

 now and then, send us samples of their 

 skill, we will try and give them our 

 opinion and advice about it. 



[We republish this article from last 

 year's issue and have but little to add 

 to it. Our wines made last 3'ear, by 

 these rules, are ver}^ satisfactory, and 

 we intend to follow them again — with 

 such variations as the different season 

 may make necessar}^. 



As there is a great demand for 

 white wine, many of our readers may 



wish to make white wine from their 

 Concord grapes. How to do this we 

 have explained in our reply to Mr. 

 Huhner, in Letter-box. We have 

 made, also, excellent white wines of 

 Hartford and Xorth Carolina seedling, 

 by a similar process. But observe, 

 that in each of these cases our grapes 

 must not be too ripe, as their peculiar 

 aroma will then be too strong, and the 

 must will not have acid enough to 

 allow enough dilution of the aroma. 

 Most of the Avhite Concords we have 

 tested do not contain acid enouffh. 



Wc shall also use D'Heureuse's air 

 pump, to hasten fermentation, and in- 

 tend to have our Avines ready for bot- 

 tling in three months from the time of 

 their making. 



A few words to those who can 

 make wiae from the Goethe. This 

 excellent grape, when properly man- 

 aged, makes one of the finest and 

 smoothest white wines we have. But 

 it has the Muscatel flavor to such a 

 degree that it is offensive, in the pure 

 juice of well matured grapes. In 

 January 1867 Ave made Avine from it, 

 which competed Avith Delaware, Hex*- 

 bemont, Rulander, MaxataAvney, Tay- 

 lor, and the choicest Catawba, at the 

 wine trial at Hermann, and received 

 the second premium, as the best Avhite 

 Avine on exhibition. It Avas made in the 

 following manner: The grapes Avere 

 gathered Avhen only Avhite and fully 

 soft and translucent ; thirty gallons 

 of Avater and sugar Avere added to two 

 hundred pounds of the grapes, and the 

 Avhole mixture brought to 80*^ by ad- 

 dition of sugar. The whole fermented 

 two days on the husks, Avas then 

 pressed and put into casks. It AA^as 

 our faA'^orite Avine among some twenty- 



