AMERICAN WINES are now an important and rapidly increasing product. When the Northmen from Iceland and Greenland visited the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, between 995 and 1000 A.D., one of their sailors was a German, named Tyrker. One day he came from a stroll in the woods in a state apparently of intoxication, mut tering incoherently in his native tongue. lie had discovered wild grapes. a fruit unknown to the Icelanders. and had made a temporary winepress of himself by eating them to his fill. We hear no more of grapes in America (for the colony of Northmen did not become permanent) until the middle of the 10th c., when wine was made in Florida from the wild grapes still so abundant there. Grape-growing was tried by the early English settlers in Virginia, but did not continue as a business. Thirty years later, however, wine was made there, and special rewards were offered to sustain the business. The first English governor of New York in 1064 granted to one Richards, a wealthy citizen, the plivilege of selling native wines without tax, and lie undertook grape culture upon an extended scale. About the same period wine was made in Dela ware, and its production was tried but failed under the auspices of William Penn, though it succeeded in New Jersey. The early French settlers in Illinois made wine in considerable quantity before the close of the 18th c. ; and the Harmonists. who settled in Pennsylvania in 1803, being Germans, naturally went into the business, taking it with them to Indiana. There is hardly a state of the union out of New England in which grape-growing has not been tried with success. The wine was brought to southern California by tlp, early Jesuit missionaries, who planted cuttings at first, but as these did not fulfill their expectations, they tried the seeds found in raisins, and from these came the abundant and prolific Los Angelos grape, the only kind raised in California until about 1820. This, with a variety supposed to have come from Madeira, is known as the "California grape," and makes nearly two thirds of the grape crop of the state Within the past dozen years nearly 200 different grapes have been tried in California, aid most of them have done well. There are now some very large vineyards, including from 100 to 430 acres, and front hundreds to hundreds of thousands of vines. Some of the varieties largely cultivated are the Catawba, Concord, Delaware, Diana, and Ives; and of foreign origin, the Black Hamburg, Chasselas. Muscatel, and Tokay. White, red, and sparkling wines are produced in California. Hock is tine and strong and much in demand; port is dark, sweet, and strong; sherry, muscatel, and Madeira are made, but not largely. The sparkling wines arc good, but not equal to those of Europe. The process of wine making in one of the largest of the California vineyards is as follows: About Sept. 1, the pickers, each with a basket, begin work. followed by a wagon to receive their gatherings, which is furnished with boxes each holding 90 lbs. of grapes. When loaded with a ton and a half of fruit the wagon is drawn to the press. The grapes are first east into a sieve with meshes about three quarters of an inch square This sieve is the "Stemmer," and as workmen with wooden hoes draw the bunches two and fro, the berries drop through the meshes, and the stem are left in the sieve. From the stemmer the berries drop into the hopper just below, at the bottom of which are two rollers, separated from each other about three sixteenths of an inch. one about four incheS more in diameter than the other. As the rollers rotate at the same speed as to their axes, and one has the greater diameter, it follows that the rate of speed at the cir cumference is different. This results in the rubbing of the skin of the grape sufficiently to thoroughly break it, and, to it certain extent, mash the pulp. Immediately below the
rollers is a receiver, a long wooden box with a false bottom, and into this the broken berries fall. A large part of the juice drains front them and is pumped into vats to fer ment for the purpose of making white wine. Remaining in the, receiver is a mass of pomace. If red wine, such as (!met or burgundy, is desired, this pomace is placed in vats. If white wine only be wattled, then it is taken at once to the press and all the juice in it extracted. The press presents a remarkable appearance. Imagine a beam 50 feet long, 12 inches thick, and 14 inches high, with one end having an iron rod run through and the other fastened to a rope running over a pulley. The frame which holds down the beam is built of the strongest oak timber and firmly anchored in the earth. About three feet in front of it stands the press itself, a movable box made with clasps so that it can be opened at will, and standing on a bed rather larger than itself. The pulp arrives to be pressed, the beam is raised by the tackle, and the pulp is placed in the box, which is about 31 ft. square, and 3 ft. high. After the box has been filled, boards which exactly fix the box are placed on top of the pulp. Across them others are placed, and again and again is this done until there are four tiers of wood, each tier crossing the one below it. Then the long beam is let down, slowly at first, but with constantly increasing pressure.. The first thing to be clone with the juice is to bring it to fermentation. For red wine the pomace is not pressed as it conies from the receiver, but Is placed in a large vat, filling the vat about four fifths full. On top is placed a cover. held in place by four screws, and pierced with a great many little holes. On the second day the fermentation begins, and the wine commences to rise through the holes and swell up in the vat. The pomace being kept down by the cover, and being cov ered with wine, cannot come in contact with the air; if it (lid it would sour and spoil the wine. At the end of six or seven days the fermentation subsides, and the wine is drawn, or "racked," off into casks, which are kept full all the time. A second fermen tation then takes place, which continues for three or four weeks, during which time the bung-holes of the casks are kept partly open. to allow the gases to escape; then the wine is ready for storage. The Ices that remain after the wine is racked off are gathered and allowed to settle once more. and the second drawing is used to give body to light wines, or distilled into brandy. The process of making white wine differs from the former in only the preliminaries. The juice which runs from the grapes at first and that which is expressed from the new pomace is pumped into casks to ferment. The fermentation begins in about two days' time, and continues about six or seven days; during that period it discharges through the bang hole of the cask a thick, greenish-yellow matter of the consistency of molasses. This is the vegetable matter remaining in the wine, and it has to he cleaned off twice a day. The casks, too, are kept filled with new wine all the time, in order to prevent any of the vegetable matter souring. Fermentation having ceased, the after operations are the same for both red and white. After the wine has lain in casks four or five months, it is once more racked off into fresh casks, and the sediment. amounting to about tett per et.. left behind. This is all thrown together and allowed to settle again. During the first year this racking takes place three times. A curious -thing is that during the first year, ;About the time when the vines begin to throw out their branches. the wine undergoes what is called the after fermentation, and changes itself for the last time. During the second year the wine is racked twice, and during the third once. It is then fit for market.