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wine is made mostly from the Vitis monticola grapes, to which less sugar but also 

 water is added. However since there is a genuine rush to get these grapes, they 

 are often torn off unripe, so that one gets them before the other. Whoever is used to 

 wine can become quite intoxicated from 1 bottle. Whoever is not used to it, even from 

 a half bottle. Furthermore, a much better wine could be made from monticola , if the 

 people would let the grapes ripen fully. I have bought such wine made from fully 

 ripe monticola and without any sugar, from a man on the Balcones (tributary of the 

 Cibolo) in the chalk-formation, ivhich was somewhat sweet, dark red almost black, and 

 really tasted like Burgundy, also was so strong that one glass made one fairly 

 intoxicated. Of cultivated grapes near Friedericksburg mostly only Black Spanish 

 and Concord are grown, also some wine is made from them. As I have already men- 

 tioned to you earlier, the origin of . Black Spanish is unknown. Presumably, like 

 Fl Paso , it originally came into this country from Spain and probably was p-ro^n 

 by the monks in the missions. I have already sent vou some cuttings of both , Did 

 they grow? El Paso certainly is Vitis viasfera. With Black S panish I am in doubt, 

 because the root is less delicate, and rather woody, hard and tough, as with the 

 indigenous grapes. Both have rare grapes without foxy smell and taste, like 

 European table grapes. Of Black Spanish, every year 1,000,000 cuttings are sent 

 to France. It is the only reliable cultivated grape which thrives also without 

 irrigation, and has regulär harvests for Texas. The other grape varieties need 

 Irrigation in order to produce dependable harvests each year. The Fl Paso often 

 suffers from dry-rot, perhaps only because not irrigated as at 51 Paso, where it 

 regularly bears and does not get dry-rot. 



You ask if the people at Friedericksburg make wine only from Monticola or 

 also from Rupestris or from both. I presume mostly from Monticola , often also 

 mixed, if I depend on the descriptions, because according to the descriptions they 

 also gather the gr-pes from the shrub-like grapes, which do not climb. With cer- 

 tainty I can express myself about them only after I myself have seen the described 

 shrub-like ones. Phylloxera has up to now not been observed on Fl Paso nor on 

 other grape vines. Centn inly not on Black Spanish , 



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