309 
PRACTICAL PAPERS—VINE CULTURE, ETC. 
manufacture of much inferior wine. This has already injured 
the reputation of American wines, both at home and abroad. 
Of the much more complicated process of making red wine, 
however, American manufacturers are but little informed, for 
the reason that until recently they have had no grapes suita¬ 
ble for the purpose; but now that we have discovered those 
excellent varieties, the Morton and Ives seedlings, our esti¬ 
mate of the value of which has been greatly raised by com¬ 
paring wine from them with some of the highest grades of for¬ 
eign productions, a few observations of methods of fermenta¬ 
tion for red wine as practieed in France may be appropriate. 
In France they w ill make either white or red wine from the 
same grape; but in America they have grapes whose pulps 
are so rich in coloring matter that they yield a very pretty 
tinted wine without any further treatment than what is given 
to make white wine, and a pure white wine cannot be made 
from them ; of this kind is the Morton seedling. Yet not for 
beauty alone do they put them through the process of fer¬ 
mentation on the skin, but because that process imparts quali¬ 
ties which, as affecting the palate, stimulation, digestion, etc., 
are quite different from what the other process imparts. Many 
persons find red wine essential to their health who cannot use 
white wine, and vice versa. 
STEMMING. 
The fruit having been gathered and selected, the next thing 
to do is to stem it. In Medoc and all the Bordelias this is in¬ 
variably done. But in Burgundy and other districts they 
commonly omit it, and throw stem and all into the vat. If,. 
however, the season has been bad, and the stems remain un¬ 
ripe, they are of necessity excluded in whole or in part, lest 
they may do more harm than good. The chief reason for 
putting in the stems is to correct the disease called “tetter,’? 
for which the tannic acid, etc., of the stem is thought to be an 
antidote. Fortunately we know comparatively little, as yet^ 
of any wine disease except acidity; but still it will remain for 
us to decide, upon experience, which of the two methods it is 
