INTRODUCTION. 



The rapid growth of viticulture in the United States indicates that 

 this branch of agriculture will soon assume national importance. It 

 is evident from a cursory study of this industry that it has often been 

 conducted in a desultory manner, without scientific control and without 

 the aid of experts either on the part of the grape growers or the wine 

 makers. It is not at all surprising, therefore, under these conditions, 

 that the American wines should vary greatly in character among them- 

 selves and also from wines of the same type in other countries. 



The red wines or clarets, which are made in an indiscriminate way 

 in the various parts of the country, under widely varying climatic con- 

 ditions and without uniformity of methods in fermentation or clearing, 

 are evidently of the most widely diverging character. 



This great variation in the character of our wines has been the chief 

 impediment in the way of their becoming established in the markets 

 of this country as well as of the world. A wine merchant is not able 

 to handle a brand of wine which varies from year to year in such a 

 manner as to be almost unrecognizable as being of the same variety. 

 He demands a uniformity of type which, with slight variations due to 

 the conditions of the vintage, may be practically the same from year 

 to year. 



It is believed that one of the first steps toward securing such a 

 uniformity in the types of our wines will be accomplished by bringing 

 together, in so far as possible, the data which have been obtained in 

 the analyses of wines in different parts of the country. The object of 

 this compilation is not so much to show the character of our wines as 

 to indicate their widely divergent properties. One object which has 

 been kept in view also has been to make a starting point for future 

 investigations in regard to the uniformity of our wines of reasonably 

 well-established types. 



The analytical data which follow, therefore, must be considered 

 solely in this light, namely, as an expression of what has been accom- 

 plished heretofore in the analysis of wine in this country over a series 

 of years ; as the result of the investigations conducted by various ana- 

 lysts and by methods which have been entirely lacking in uniformity. 

 The desirability of having all these analyses compiled lies in having 

 them accessible as knowledge. 



