240 GRAPE CULTURE AND WINE-MAKING. 



tional day the grapes are allowed to hang on the bush, the sweet- 

 ness increases while the acid diminishes, it must clearly aj^pear, 

 even to those not interested in practical grape-growing, that the 

 best and true policy would be always to wait for the highest pos- 

 sible state of maturity to gather in the grapes, provided that the 

 state of the weather be favorable enough. 



It seems rather singular that while every one breaking off 

 fruits always selects for his choice principally the most luscious 

 ripe ones, leaving the remaining cherries, apples, etc., to mature, 

 yet ill regard to grapes — this superb fruit, whose culture is so te- 

 dious and expensive, whose thriving and sale affects materially 

 the welfare of entire populations — it has almost remained custom- 

 ary to gather together bad and good, ripe and unripe, and throw 

 them all in one heap. 



No other fruit, however, matures so irregularly as the grape. 

 The difference of soil, the declination, the temperature, the kinds 

 of seed, the treatment, the site, and the age of the stock, affect 

 more or less the period of maturity. Even on one and the same 

 bush the grapes will ripen the sooner the nearer they are to the 

 ground ; and even in the same cluster one finds berries in differ- 

 ent states of maturity. 



In what manner, therefore, shall we proceed in gathering the 

 grapes — a labor which Nature has imposed uj^on man — in order, 

 at least, to produce as good a wine, even in inferior years, and 

 this without any mixture, pure as nature gives it, as the best years' 

 vintages may enable us to produce ? 



This question we will answer in the next chapter by a few il- 

 lustrations, which, although long known, are yet but little re- 

 garded. 



III. 

 METHODS OF PICKING GRAPES. 



I PROCEED to describe the means of producing wines of prime 

 quality, even from inferior vintages, without the aid of artificial 

 means, beginning with a few examples of the mode of picking the 

 grapes, as practiced in celebrated vineyards. 



Method jpracticed at Castle Johannisherg. 



Here the gathering of the grapes begins as late in the season 

 as possible, in order to give them plenty of time to attain their 

 fullest maturity. It takes place usually in November, frequently, 

 however, not before the first fall of snow, and only in very good 

 years in the month of October. The care expended upon the 

 vintage itself, and the treatment of the wine, is undoubtedly one 

 of the main causes of the superior quality of the article. The 



