Year: 1861

! and who have been drinking and recon-
mending to their friends and to the church
es for " saeramental purposes what they
suppose to be pure wine, but which is real
ly manufactured, drugged, miserable trash
the natural juice of the grape having
been treated with a sufficient amount of
neutral spirits to check the spontaneous fer
mentation. Such mixtures have been
thrust upon the market, and such dupes
have been found 10 indorse them. Dupes
we call them, in all charity, since their
high position in society might have led US
to believe their motives and their honesty
to be above suspicion. =


To come down to the matter before US,
the samples presented in competition for
your premiums We are compelled to pre-
mise that they were not as good as we had
hoped to see them, but will admit, that we
have elsewhere seen other exhibitions of
the same sort of material, claiming to be
wine. This will no doubt be very differ
ent in future years; when exhibitors see the
award made to pure, bright and clear article
they will be very apt to endeayor at the
next trial to emulate the same result. A
portion of the committee had a preference
for the sweeter class of wines. l voted
consistently with that taste-this somewhat
modified the result. .-.......


We may set forth the manner of our
voting, for the information of those inter-
ested and how to show the disappointed
ones that they were at least fairly beaten,
in the opinion of the committee. Each
member was supplied with piece of paper
and a pencil. The chairman having en-
joined silence, insisted that no member
should be allowed to make any expressions
as to his impressions of the article under
examination, either by word, look, grimace
or sign, but that each should assume an i'm
aginary standard of one hundred to repre-
sent the best wine of the class, end another
standard of fifty for that which is bad and
with this scale in his mind, each committee
man should silently write down bis idea of
the per centum to which each sample was
entitled, opposite the entry number, as an
nounced by the chairman. This course was
pursued, and at the close of the investiga-
ton the notes were all collected and the
votes averaged, and the premiums awarded
to those that had the highest tally. This
was certainly fair, and we hope that all con-
tributOrs will be satisfied with the impair
tiality, if notswith the taste, of your COM
mittee.


One contributor of currant wine produced
a superior article, which with age will no
doubt rank high in its class at some future
day but as your schedule required that the
article should be of last years production,
older products, as well as newer (thOse of
this year,, and also those from without the
State, were all ruled out of competition.-
A sample of the last class was very highly
commended as pure Catawba wine; it was
made by John Williamson, of New Rich
mond, Ohio. To this we have recommend
ed you to award the honorable diploma of
the Society.


A peculiar sample was presented by John
Dye-an Isabella wine-so sweet was it
that your committee felt satisfied that it had
been sugared, until the contributors note
met our eye. From this we learned that it
was raisn wine;" that is, the berries
were picked when ripened, then kept for
several weeks in an open place to allow for
the evaporation of the watery particles of
the Juice; the shriveled grapes were then
pressed and the preponderence of sugar be-
ing too great for the ferment, it remained
free sugar, instead of being transformed by
the fermentation into alcohol. This consti-
tutes peculiar class of wine, which has its
admirers.


Many of the samples exhibited were not
we'll cleared; some were quite turbid. This
may, in part, have been owing to the stormy
weather which prevailed at the time, but we
suspect the fault lies W ith the manufacturer.
The premium wine was produced by a
lady who had, undoubtedly, taken the prop
er pains in its preparation. The sample was
worthy, in the estimation of the committee,
of the first prize-which was awarded to
Mrs. Patterson, of Jeffersonville, Indiana.