628 [Assembly 



1 



Pleasant Valley, Hancock Co. Ga. 

 J^ovember, 1847. 

 Doctor Wm. Terrill, Sparta, Hancock Co. 



Dear Sir: Some of the gentlemen in New-York with w^hom you 

 have been made acquainted during your late sojurn there, may be cu- 

 rious to know something in reference to Georgia wine, and the mode 

 of making it. As soon as the wine made last summer is ripe enough 

 to draw into bottles, I will send you a bottle of the Warren Grape 

 Wine, which is very similar to Maimsey, also one bottle of Cham- 

 pagne, made from the scuppernong and muscadine. The scupper- 

 nong makes a fine still wine like the muscat. I have no doubt from 

 the experiments made, that in time very excellent wine will be made 

 in Georgia and the middle states, preferable, indeed, to any impor- 

 ted wine, because here may be had the pure juice without mixture. 



Wine can be made in small or large quantities, from a bottle to a 

 butt, or one gallon to thousands — the attention and trouble of mak- 

 ing a single bottle, is as great as that of making a hogshead. 



To make wine in small quantity, gather the grapes when fully 

 ripe, pick off the ripe and sound berries, put them in clean earthen 

 vessels or buckets, then mash them with the hands, then place the 

 mashed grapes into a five or ten gallon keg, the upper head being 

 open, having a hole and spile at the lower edge, cover the top with 

 a cotton cloth or with a board, throwing a cloth over it to prevent 

 the intrusion of flies or other insects, let it remain twenty-four to 

 thirty hours, examine it before the termination of twenty-four hours, 

 and when the fermentation assumes a conic form or swelling towards 

 the centre, it is then time to draw it off from the keg, into an open 

 vessel or vessels, which must be perfectly clean; then measure the 

 juice and add to it one, one and a half, or two pounds of clarified 

 muscovado sugar to the gallon, stir it and pour it into jugs or demi- 

 johns, but whatever vessel it be put into , must be filled to the brim, 

 place a piece of cotton or linen cloth over the bung and a small 

 pebble on that — examine it every two or three hours, the first second 

 and third days, during which time it will ferment with considerable 

 ebulition, and must be filled frequently (five or six times a day) with 

 some of the must or juice to be kept in bottles for that purpoj^e, use- 

 ing one bottle at a time, and keeping the other bottles also full — 

 after the third day, the jugs will be required to be filled twice or 

 thrice a dry, and after the first week, only once every day, until the 

 fermentation subsides, which will occupy three weeks or more — 

 then cork the jug or demijohn lightly, and examine it occasionally, 



