98 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



maker of the Urbana Wine Company, and his name is 

 favorably mentioned in connection with awards of the Paris 

 Exposition of 1878. 



PROCESS OF WINE-MAKING. 



Still Wine. — The fruit is brought to the wine-house, 

 where it is carefully tested with the must scale, the price 

 being graduated by the amount of saccharine matter con- 

 tained in the grape. Good, well-ripened Isabellas range 

 from seventy to seventy-five degrees of the saccharometer, 

 Catawbas eighty to eighty-five degrees, Dela wares and Ion as 

 occasionally reaching one hundred and ten degrees. 



The grapes are then ground through a grating-mill, set 

 sufficiently close to break the berries without cracking any 

 of the seeds. From the mill the pulp falls into a ferment- 

 ing-tub or directly on the press, for here is determined the 

 kind of wine to be made. If it falls on the press it is 

 pressed and deposited in large cakes in the cellar as soon 

 as convenient, so that no coloring matter contained in the 

 skin is mixed with the wine, leaving it pure and white. 

 This is called press wine. If it falls into the tub it is left 

 to stand a short time (if white wine is wanted) to allow 

 the wine to settle apart from the pulp, when the wine is 

 drawn from the faucet, and no wine is taken except what 

 will run oif without pressing, which is termed " cream 

 wine." If a colored or red wine is desired it is allowed 

 to ferment on the skin from two to four weeks, and is then 

 drawn or pressed, as is desired. What remains in the tub 

 after the wine is drawn is allowed to ferment, and some 

 time during the year, usually in March or April, is distilled, 

 and from this is obtained the brandy. When the largest 

 quantity of cream w^ne is made the most and best brandy 

 is made, while from pressed husks the yield is small. 



The average yield of press wine from good, well-ripened 

 grapes is about eight gallons to the hundred pounds, while 

 the cream only yields five or six gallons. It is estimated 

 that one -hundred pounds of grapes will make about one 

 gallon of brandy, so that what is taken out in wine will 

 lessen its yield in brandy. These figures are subject to wide 

 alterations, according to quality and condition of the fruit, 

 but are given to show what may be expected of the grape. 

 If the grape has been grown upon a favored locality, prop- 

 erly trained and cultivated, as the season is favorable, its 

 yield is much more valuable than when reverses follow from 

 the season of blossoming to harvest. The greatest amount 

 of sunshine and the least amount of water that will grow 

 and mature the fruit seem to be the height of excellence. 



Whether the wine is leached or pressed, it is stored in 

 large casks in the cellar, to ferment, and is racked when 

 sufficiently cured and ^'-finedr The settling of these casks 

 is termed " lees^^ and is put with the husks and termed 

 " brandy material." 



Sparkling Wine. — In order to make sparkling wine or 

 champagne, it must first go into and be a good article of still- 

 wine. Sparkling wine is made by inducing a second fermen- 

 tation in still-wine, which is then corked down, and the gas 

 which the fermentation engenders is held in and forced to 

 mingle with the wine, and ever after seeking its liberty 

 when loosed from its confinement. This gives the wine a 

 sprightly and lively taste, peculiarly palatable and exhila- 



rating. It is the knowledge and skill in creating and con- 

 trolling the amount of gas in the wine which is so valuable 

 to a wine-maker and wine-making. Indeed, it is one of the 

 nicest points, and requires the most careful attention, for a 

 little too much pressure bursts the bottles, and all is lost ; 

 too little, and the wine is worthless. The grape is perhaps 

 the most delicate and sensitive fruit grown ; and it is sur- 

 prising, even to those who are accustomed to the grape and 

 its habits, to learn, as experience often shows, how the 

 quality of the fruit may be varied by the location and sur- 

 roundings while growing. So, too, nice care is required 

 to know when the wine is in just the right fermentation for 

 bottling. The bottles are filled by a machine (imported 

 from France) with great facility and with the greatest ac- 

 curacy, so that none will be too fifll and none with less than 

 enough. They are then corked by another machine, which 

 at once presses the cork and drives it home, when it passes 

 to the grafi'e machine, and is there secured in the same 

 speedy and peifect manner by a grafi^e or gripe (a late 

 French importation) made of small half-round iron, passing 

 over the cork and fastening under the flange of the bottle 

 on each side. The bottles are then laid down on the side, 

 so that the wine comes in contact with the cork, causing it 

 to swell and make still more secure that which was firmly 

 fixed before. 



Although the wine when bottled is as well cleared and 

 m^aly fined as skill can do it, yet, at the expiration of a 

 year, there are found to be dirty streaks of sediment deposi- 

 ted on the lower side of the bottle. If through accident 

 or carelessness this sediment becomes disturbed, the bottle 

 has again to go down on its side for another long rest, and 

 the operation is retarded for months. This is why strangers 

 are warned in every such manufactory to keep their hands 

 off the bottles. 



When the wine has lain a sufficient length of time to 

 deposit its sediment and properly ripen, the bottle is placed 

 on a table with the same side down it occupied during its 

 long rest, slightly inclining, the cork downward. An ex- 

 pert shakes each bottle twice a day from four to six weeks, 

 by seizing it by the bottom and giving it a quick, rotary, 

 shaking motion each day, inclining the cork more and more 

 downwards. By so doing the sediment is gradually slid 

 down from the side of the bottle until it rests on the cork, 

 and the wine is clear. The bottles are then removed from 

 the table and piled in large boxes, cork down, to wait their 

 turn for disgorging. When this is done they are hoisted 

 to a room above (always cork down), when the expert seizes 

 one, with the neck of the bottle in his left hand and the 

 bottom in his arm-pit ; he removes the graffe and allows the 

 cork to fly out with a report like a pistol, when all the sedi- 

 ment and a small portion of the wine is thrown out. Then 

 for the first in a long time the bottle is turned bottom down 

 or placed upon its proper base. This process is termed 

 disgorging. By a nicely-constructed graduated scale, an 

 amount of syrup (made from rock candy dissolved in wine) 

 is injected into the wine, without allowing much of the gas 

 to escape. The bottle is again corked, and the cork graffed 

 the same as the first time, but with a new and much finer 

 cork. The first cork cost three cents and the last one five, 

 all of which are imported, as are also all the machinery and 



