286 THE WINES OF ITALY. 



Machines for picking grapes or crushing them are not generally 

 known, but everything is prepared by manual labour. Nevertheless, the 

 common presses — that is, mechanical presses — are employed to obtain 

 the wine irom the residue, which is called stretto. 



Some wine producers have constructed vats, others have cisterns, 

 closed hermetically as soon as the fermentation has subsided, wherein 

 the wine is kept for an indefinite period. 



The wine being placed in the tubs and cellars, there undergoes its 

 last vinous change in a natural way, which does not fail to superinduce 

 sensible differences in the article, caused by the position of the cellars 

 themselves, their temperature, and other extrinsic circumstances, and by 

 the variation of seasons. 



But a mixing or doctoring of wines is also practised, by adding at one 

 or successive times to the wines in the tuns, either a quantity of concen- 

 trated must, produced by boiling, which is called cotto, or of grape-juice 

 thickened by exposure to the open air, and made from the sweetest and 

 best coloured fruit ; this gives a tint and flavour to the wine much ap- 

 preciated by consumers, but which certainly does not improve the natural 

 body of the wine itself. For this reason, although the wine-growers suc- 

 ceed in raising the price of some wines, the expedients resorted to, as 

 above described, ought to be condemned rather than approved. The 

 practice of sulphuring wines is well known and resorted to ; not equally 

 so is clarification ; but some wine-growers attempt to improve their 

 wines by clearing them as much as possible from all extraneous matters- 

 The process of changing the liquor from one vessel to another in the 

 month of March is adopted, from which a remarkable clearing of the 

 wine results. 



Considering the natural elements possessed by Italy, and the mode 

 practised of making wine, of which we have just given a brief sketch, it 

 is easy to comprehend what an enormous production of wine there is 

 in ordinary times, and the augmentation of which it is susceptible. 



It is easy to conceive the infinite variety of wines produced, and 

 which depend upon natural circumstances, or upon the system adopted 

 i n preparing the wines, in which a uniformity in the early stages of the 

 process being disregarded, the chances of a variation of the produce are 

 greatly augmented. This will fully account for the variation in the pro- 

 duce of the wanes of Italy, and leaves the field open for immense im- 

 provement. 



It is useless, in the present day, to seek those wines which formerly 

 gave such delight to connoisseurs, those wines of Falerno, of Opiniano, 

 which slowly maturing, and with their spirit preserved for a century, 

 inspired the poets of antiquity. But we have still the wines of Asti, 

 the Montepulciano, the Orvieto, the Lachryma Christi, the muscats of 

 Syracuse, and other exquisite productions, which, with the Marsala, are 

 appreciated wherever they are introduced. There are amongst the wines 

 of Italy sufficient to satisfy whatever demands may spring up from 

 abroad, and the present resources can be indefinitely augmented. 



