DR. L. GALL ON IMPROVEMENTS IN WINE-]VLA.KING. 271 



VII. 

 GALL'S REFORMATIONS IN WINE-MAKING. 



Having devoted, says Dr. Gall, considerable time and pains 

 to experimenting on wines, and different methods of making and 

 ameliorating them, I came, in tlic year 1828, upon the idea to try 

 whether I could not produce a drinkable wine without using any 

 grapes at all for the purpose ; and, verily, I succeeded far beyond 

 expectation. I took nothing but grape-twigs chopped into pieces, 

 ancl allowed them to ferment with half an ohm of sugar-water. 

 The result was a very palatable wine. This experiment proved 

 to me that even toialhj unripe grapes have not only too much 

 acids, but too little water and too little sugar in proportion to their 

 acid parts, and that it would be an unwise policy to extract acids 

 from a too sour must, but that water should be added instead, just 

 in the same way as it is to be added to a must very rich in sug- 

 ar to reduce its acids, and to make the wine produced from it 

 drinkable. I believed, therefore, also, that the acids of the grapes 

 were a very valuable part of them, especially in unfavorable sea- 

 sons. 



In subsequent years I madere peated experiments by adding 

 sugar-water to musts, thereby not only increasing this in quan- 

 tity by 20 and 80 per cent, but also improving their quality. In 

 the district of Leutesdorf (which only produces in most of its sites 

 a very inferior grape) I had, in the year 1831, six casks to exper- 

 iment on. 



I numbered them from A to F, their cubic space differing but 

 slightly. A was filled with 6 ohm of must, pressed from grapes 

 without selection : the sugar parts of it amounted to 15^ per 

 cent. ; B with 6 ohm of selected ripe grapes, with sugar parts of 

 17|- per cent. ; C with 5^ ohm of must of selected ripe grapes, with 

 an addition of 50 lbs. of grape-sugar : after this became dissolved 

 in the must its sugar contents were 19^ per cent. ; D with 6 ohm, 

 made of the selected rotten and half-ripe grapes : its sugar part 

 13 per cent.; E with 5J ohm of the same quality of must as the 

 latter, with an addition of 100 lbs. of grape-sugar : sugar contents 

 18 per cent. ; F with 5 ohm of the same must, with an addition 

 of f ohm of water and 125 lbs. of grape-sugar : sugar contents 18 

 per cent. 



After the fermentation was over, all the casks were filled up 

 with wine of the same quality as that of A. 



The next public sale demonstrated the benefits derived from 

 this process. The following tables show the prices brought by 

 the wines prepared by these processes, the gain actually realized, 

 and that which would have accrued had all been similarly treated. 

 The sums are expressed in Prussian thalers. 



