Manufacture of Wines in the South, Part II [pp. 251-279]

MANUFACTURE OF WINES IN THE SOUTH.
D.TE.' Sp. GR. Gts.
Sept. 17 Little wild grape, Hammond, Redeliffe............ 1093.
Large wild grape, Hammond, Redeliffe............ 1059 2.37
Green wild grape, Hammond, Redeliffe............ 1047 3.13
25i Catawba, Cook, sound.......................... 1089 1.65
Catawba, Cook, rotting.......................... 1096 2.85
27 Blue grape from New York, called Isabella........ 1038 3.63
29 Catawba, New York............................, 1060 3.69
N. B.-The specific gravities in the table above were taken at temperatures ranging between 80~ and 90~, when the 1000-grain bottle was constructed for a temperature of 64~: hence a correction becomes necessary.
The recorded numbers may be considered to be 3 grains below the true
specific gravity, hence the addition of 3 will approximate the true specific
gravity. WVhen great accuracy is required, the instrument can be adjusted
for each daily operation by filling the bottle with water at the temperature
of the air and the juice, and making it equipoise by the addition or subtraction of weights to or from the counterpoise. It is manifest, if the
instrument be true to water it must be also true to any other fikid whose
specific gravity is required.
ON TIIE PRESERVATION OF GRAPE JUICE.
Our hopes and prospects thus far are founded upon the suecess of excavated cellars to moderate the ardor of an August
sun, and secure a proper temperature to the fermenting juice,
and upon the introduction and cultivation of later maturing
varieties of grapes. But while these improvements are in progress, or in th'event of their impracticability, we should seek
out other plans by which the present condition of things may
be ameliorated. I have clearly shown that the purely manufactured wines of Aiken are either too acid or too weak in
spirits - that these defects proceed from immaturity of the
grape, and from the high temperature of the must during fermentation. The high temperature induces two evils which are
injurious to wine, viz: the loss of alcohol by its conversion
into acetic acid, and its loss ly more rapid evaporation during
the exposure of fermentation. The presumed richness of the
Catawba juice employed in the production of the Hammond
wine of 1859, should have afforded more alcohol than the
analysis exhibited. The difference of saccharine matter between
the RlIenish and Catawba musts could not have been as great
as the respective quantities of alcohol indicated; hence, some
loss must have occurred somewhere, and this loss was most
probably during fermentation by spontaneous evaporation.
Ruin follows the removal of the cork from a bottle of the best
French wine, not only by contact with air, exciting the acetic
fermentation, but by the evaporation of the alcohol, and consequent loss of the preservative element of the whole compound. The antiseptic power of alcohol is well known, yet it
might not have occurred to my readers to -refer the preservation and durability of wine to tiff alcohol whichl it contains.
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