Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1888-07-27
VINTAGE IN CYPRUS.
A Clever Dodge by Which the Cunning
Cypriot Il Evades tho Gaugcr.


The first days OF August open the
general vintage although the grapes
from the warmcst spots are sold and
eaten from the end Of May onward
and IFS duration of some sly weeks is
due partly TO the widely differing alti-
tudes and aspects of tlle vineyards,
and partly TO the custom of first
gathering and pressing the inferior
grapes, and leaving the bost until tho
end of DC obcr to ovcrripcn and grow
sweet for the choicest wines. They
are pounded with Hat mallets on y
sloping hard floor before pressing,
and the dcep-red must ferment in inn
mensc inverted pear-shapcd stone
ware jars, half sunk in the ground.
When the jars are. at the end of sOmo
six weeks, covered over the wine has
become lighter in color. The jars,
which are baked so large as to hold
from twelve 10 twenty barrels. have
been made probably from all antiq uity
at the villages OF Ltpith IS, Korno,
and Varoshia Tho custom of bury
ing those holding the best wine in
deep trenches has long furnished the
cunning Cypriot with q means of
evading the gauger Being por.
Gus, these jars are coated with pitch,
or with Il compost of pitch. turpen-
tine, vine ashes, sand and goats hair.
This applied boiling. penelrates the
substance of the jrr, and never quits
ii. and partly accounts for the repul-
sive taste and smell f almost all the
coarser and newer Cyprus wines. But
the chief cause of this tar flavor is the
transport of the wine in skins. which
are also stanchod with pitch within.
The churning of the wine in these.
under an Eastern sun during tedious
Journey completes tho ruin of the
wine for a European pala c. and it takes
IL ten or fifteen years to recover The
local taste of course approves. and it
is no worse from hygienic point Of
view than Berkeley's once-famous tar
water, which Is still upheld here and
there at tho tabled hoto of the French
and Belgian bagmcn. The only rad
ical cure for it is to make roads prac-
ticablo for carts into the wine districts.
so that the merchants of the towns
for Mohammcd must go to the mount
ain--can send up pure casks, and
bring down the wine themselves.
Some efforts have latoly been made in
this direction near Limasso, and wine
now in some places comes down in
wood on camels, instead of in skins on
donkeys and mules, but the vast ma.
jority of the communications are all
but impraclicablo mountain paths
and mulo tracks, which drive the
peasants to the use of the wino-sl<in.
The more fastilious residents of tho
Scalas have long been accustomed to
send up the large glass demij ohns
"a rabic, ddm1mG) cuscd in wicker
work on donkey back. to bring down
their household wine In c!eanly fashion
from the vineyards. and the wine
keeps better in n dame-joanne than in
wood. but thon they are fragile. SO
long rs the vino was worth little or
nothing tho pitch did not matter
many Spanish village was plastered
with mortar made with wine, rs being
handler than water; but now that
Fran cc's difficulties hare given Cyprus
an opportunity. we ought no 'longer
TO have Cyprus wines offered in posi-
lively repelant condition, as they were
at the Colonial Exhibition last year.
1t is curious to find that so long as
one hundred and twenty years ago,
some winemakers from Provence es-
tablished themselves at Omodcs 10
eradicate tho pitching practices, and
found a good foreign market tor their
produce. Saturday Review.