206 * RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
Most of the wines hitherto made in California have been 
pure, but not fine in flavor. The Mission grape lacks delicacy 
and fruitiness of taste, and gives an earthiness or harshness to 
the wine. These defects will probably be remedied by the 
use of the foreign grapes, and their mixture with the native 
Mission grape. Still wines, equal to the best still wines of 
France, have been made from foreign grapes in California; 
and we presume that we can make equally as good wine, in 
very large quantities, so soon as we have the grapes. Only 
about one-tenth of the foreign vines planted in the state are 
now in bearing. 
The skin of the grape probably contains tannin, for the red 
wines have an astringent taste not common to the white. 
The cellar is a matter of great importance to the winc- 
maker. From the.moment when the grape-juice comes from 
the press until the wine is brought upon the table to be drunk, 
it should be kept in a cellar; and it is only in a cellar that the 
equability and coolness. of temperature proper to favor fermen- 
tation can be obtained. In France and Germany, it is often 
necessary to have fires in the cellars; and it would be well to 
have them occasionally in California. Indeed, wine-makers 
generally have no cellars, but only houses. In Los Angeles 
county, most of the wine is kept in adobe houses. The sandi- 
ness of the land, the frequent irrigation, and the proximity of 
the vines to the places where the wine is stored, would lead to 
the filling of deep cellars with water; so the cellars are dug 
only three or four feet into the ground; and an adobe wall 
three feet thick, and a thick covering, render the cellars pretty 
cool. In Sonoma, Colonel Haraszthy has dug a wine-cellar in 
the side of a hill of magnesian limestone. The wine-cellar 
should be used for wine alone, because the presence of other 
things—especially salt meat, leather, and putrefying vegetables 
—may spoil the flavor of the wine. 
It is probable that, in many of the vineyards, the soil will 
not produce a first-rate wine. In Europe, the wines from the 
flat lands are generally of an inferior quality. To what extent 
