The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-09-02
THE JUICE OF THE GRAPE.
soason for tho Making of Delicious Ma
tive Wines.

THE JUICE OF THE GRAPE.
scason for tho Making of Delicious Ma
tive Wines.
Correspondence Ners and Courier
GREENvILLE, August 16.-Greenville
grape.growers and wine-makers are now
in the midst of their busiest season, and
good prices for fruit and good wine de-.
pends more upon prompt and intelligent
work and careful handling than upon
any other consideration. There is no
waiting. Grapes intended for the mar:
ket must be carefully and neatly culled
and packed in neat, clean baskets and
shipped hurriedly. The people Of the
North use greater pains to make their
packages attractive and tempting than
do the beginners in the South. For in
stance, their baskets and boxes of grapes
GO into market in the neatest trim, lined
with tinted paper and on the lid of each
is neatly pasted q colored plate of the
fruit, presenting q highly colored and
even an exaggerated picture of tie lus.
cious clusters in the highest state of per:
fection. In this there is an element of
humbuggery, Notwithstanding the fruit
inside may be of fine quality. Be that
as it may, this beautifying of the pack
ages has much to do with selling the
fruit, and the same identical product,
shipped in rough, dirty packages, put up
carelessly and in bunglesome way, will
sell for two or three cents less per pound
than when packed with the pains and
care described. This being the case, it
pays to be painstaking, and all extra ex:
pense is regained in better prices and
prompter sales. Ten and fifteen pound
baskets, made at the factories in North
Carolina, are most commonly used here.
The shipments this season have been
quite heavy Notwithstanding the crop was
greatly diminished by rot during the con-
tinued wet weather of June and July.
Messrs. Marshall Brothers alone have up
to this date shipped nearly twenty thou.
sand pounds Of grapes to the Northern
and Charleston markets, aud there are
others who have made considerable ship
ments. Mr.. Carpin, whose vineyard is
the most extensive in the State, compris-.
ing seventy acres on which there are TO-
900 vines, makes his entire crop into
wine and ships no fruit. He has lost
heavily by the rot and where he was sure
of vintage of at least ten thousand
gallons, he will scarcely make five thou
sand. Such seasons of continued rain
are few and far between. Never before
has such year come upon the grape
crop of this locality. Greenvillc growers
are not discouraged, therefore, for such q
season is not likely to occur again in
many years.
The wine making seaaon is at hand.
The grand question is how to make good
wine. As asserted in former letter, the
practices of Carolina people are all wrong
and contrary to nature. Good dry wines
are the wines that wine.drinking people
want, aud they will have no other. A
dry wine is that in which all the sugar
contained.in the juice has gone through
the process of fermentation. Fermenta..
tion converts sugar into alcohol and car:
bonic acid gas, the gas escaping. Twen.
ty.6ve per cent. of sugar in grape juice
will ordinarily produce about II per
cent. of alcohol in the wine-suficient to
preserve it. If the fermentation is not
complete, that is to say, if all the sugar
is not fermented, or, as the California
people express it, if the wine is not "fer.
mented out dry" the wine will be sweet,
and unless very carefully managed and
watched, or unless alcohol is added, it
will be very liable to sour or cloud into
an unpalatable stuff that wine drinkers
will not have. Neither,sweet wines nor
wines dosed with alcohol to preserve
them are the kinds of wines to sell to
wine drinking people; nor are they wines
that will encourage home people to drink
wine instead of whiskey and beer. The
stomach rebels against their use. 1t be.
hooves our wine makers. therefore, to
learn to make, keep and handle good
dry wines devoid of sugar and excess of
alcohol. The main purpose of alcohol
in wine is to preserve it. How much
alcohol is necessary for this purpose !?
In California they frequently reduce the
percentage of sugar below that of the
normal juice, and ferment it at from 1S
to % per cent, Of sugar, resulting in
from 9 to II per cent. of alcohol When
it is known that most of the grapes grown
in this State contain, when dead ripe,
nearly 80 per cent. of sugar in the juice,
and when it is known also that it Califor-
mia the wine makers consider it very
difficult to completely "ferment out dry"
q Juice containing over % per cent. of
sugar, it looks like superfuous foolish
ness to add two and three pounds of cana
sugar to the gallon of juice, as is prAc-
ticed commonly in this State. The very
opposite-a reduction of the percentage
of sugar is what is needed to make dry
wine. This reduction is accomplished
by the use of pure water, in which case
the use of small quantities of tannin-
say at the rate of one fourth Of a pound
or less to hundred gallons-is advisable
to give the wine character and color, and
to prevent souring. All wine-makers
should have Balling saccharometer. It
ia stated by good authority that what is
called milk sour does not occur i'll wine
unless there is sugar in it-that is, unless
a part of the sugar remains unfermented,
and is the original unconverted saccharine
matter, sweet to the taste.
These things are clear: To make a
good, palatable dry wine not more than
25 per cent. of sugar is necessary; less
will do. The temperature during fer.
mentation must not be too high or too
low; either will arrest fermentation.
Between sixty five and seventy.fiye de-
gress Fahrenheit is the proper tempera.
ture, making it necessary to have cool
cellar in which to carry on successful
wine. making.
1t is the custom in California and in
France to crush the grapes and allow the
pomace to remain in the. juice from
twelve to twenty.four hours. and even
longer before pressing. This gives ad'
ditional tannin, more body and richer
color to the wine. If wine is fermented
in hot room; where the temperature
goes up to ninety or higher the heat will
be so great as to kill the ferment germs,
and fermentation will stop, and the
wine, only half made, will not keep.
IL