The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American WinesHusmann, George
Science
The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines
Husmann, George
Viticulture -- United States; Wine and wine making -- United States
"In this use of the grape, all depends upon the judgment of man to
select such of its parts as he wishes, and by his skill he adapts and
applies them in the best manner for his purposes. In eating the grapes,
he throws away the skins and seeds; for raisins, he evaporates the
water, retaining only the solid parts, from which, when he uses them,
he rejects their seeds. If he manufactures must, he lets the skins
remain. In making wine, he sets free the carbonic acid contained in the
must, and removes the lees, gum, tartar, and, in short, everything
deposited during, and immediately after fermentation, as well as when
it is put into casks and bottles. He not only removes from the wine its
sediments, but watches the fermentation, and checks it as soon as its
vinous fermentation is over, and the formation of vinegar about to
begin. He refines his wine by an addition of foreign substances if
necessary; he sulphurizes it; and, by one means or another, remedies
its distempers.
"The manufacture of wine is thus a many-sided art; and he who does not
understand it, or knows not how to guide and direct the powers of
Nature to his own purposes, may as well give up all hopes of success in
it."
So far DR. GALL; and to the intelligent and unbiased mind, the truth
and force of these remarks will be apparent, without further extending
or explaining them. How absurd, then, the blind ravings of those who
talk about "natural" wines, and would condemn every addition of sugar
and water to the must by man, when Nature has not fully done her part,
as adulteration and fraud. Why, there is no such thing as a "natural
wine;" for wine--good wine--is the product of art, and a manufacture
from beginning to end. Would we not think that parent extremely cruel,
as well as foolish, who would have her child without clothing, simply
because Nature had allowed it to be born without it? Would not the
child suffer and die, because its mother failed to aid Nature in her
work, by clothing and feeding it when it is yet unable to feed and
clothe itself? And yet, would not that wine-maker act equally foolish
who has it within his power to remedy the deficiencies of Nature with
such means as she herself supplies in good season, and which ought and
would be in the must but for unfavorable circumstances, over which we
have no control? Wine thus improved is just as pure as if the sugar and
water had naturally been in the grapes in right proportions; just as
beneficial to health; and only the fanatical "know-nothing" can call it
adulterated. But the prejudices will disappear before the light of
science and truth, however much ignorance may clamor against it.
GALILEO, when forced to abjure publicly his great discovery of the
motion of the earth around the sun as a heresy and lie, murmured
between his teeth the celebrated words, "And yet it moves." It _did_
move; and the theory is now an acknowledged truth, with which every
schoolboy is familiar. Thus will it be with improved wine-making. It
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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