The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1900-01-12
NO2
WINES FROM APPLE JUICE
By HELP OF FUNGI.

Thanks to one of the latest dis
coveries of science, we are now able to
make excellent wines of various kinds
without resortng to th1 grape" said
an expert of the Department of Agri-
culture. "Take a sip of this AMI tell
me what you think OF it," Its sherry
and good stuff, too murmurel your
correspondent. Apple juice; notli-
ing but apple juice replied the pro-
fessor. "Now try this. MADEIRA y
apple juice again. Now this" "Sau-
terne, of course" Apple juice once
more" said the professor. ''Thcse
wines, all of them capital, as you will
have noticed-are simply apple juice,
fermented with yeasts of different
kinds; but the yeasts are wine yeasts,
fetched from famous grape growing
districts in Europe.
"You see, the flavor and aroma OF
sherry, for example, are not due to the
the grape juice from which the wine is
made, but to the microscopic fungus
germs that cause its fermentation.
We import these germs from the
Neres district of Spain, introduce them
into fresh apple juice, and the result is
indistinguishable from an excellent
quality Of sherry. 1t is the same way
with hook, Madeira, or champagne;
we, simply inoculate the apple juice
with the requisite fungi, and they do
| the rest. In the soil of the district of
Neres certain species Of minute fungi
exist, which, floating about in the air
or adhering to the skins of the ripened
grapes, get into the vats of freshly ex-
pressed grape juice and multiply in
the latter in incalculable numbers,
feeding upon it and incidentally giving
| to it the peculiar sherry flavor. We
merely substitute apple juice, which
serves equally we'll as a basis, add to
it a small quantity of the same spe-
cies of germs procured directly from
the Spanish vineyards, and 10! we
have sherry wine, possessing the true
flavor and aroma. There are concerns
now in France and other parts of Eu-
rope Tat make business OF propagat-
ing the yeasts of various kinds OF
wines and putting them up in hermet-
ically sealed bottles for such uses.
''The yeasts are obtained from the
sediments of the vats, and to propa-
gate them is exceedingly easy, the only
difficulty being to separate out and IS
olate those which produce the right sort
of flavor and aroma You see, there
are an immense number of varieties OF
such vegetable organisms, and the
quality of the wine depends mainly
upon the kind of fungi which make the
fermentation. Hitherto such matters
have been left to chance, and hence
the great difference in the quality OF
vintae es, given vineyard yielding in
some years product of a much finer
quality than in others. The grapes
aie the same, the processes used are
identical, but the microscopic fungi
that get unto the raw grape juice vary
in kind.
"For some time past brewers have
fully understood this idea, as it applies
to beer, and in their establishments
nothing is considered quite so impor-
tant as the preservation and propaga-
tion of particular species of germs for
accomplishing the work Of fermenta-
ton. Only recently have wine makers
applied the principle in their business,
but the results already obtained are
wonderful. They may keep on hand
their own yeas's or they can buy them
ready bottled and guaranteed as to
quality, putting into each vat of fresh
grape juice the requisite quantity OF
the germ culture There can be no
doubt that the introduction of this
method in California vineyards will
revolutonize the wine producing indus
try of the State