Wine-Making in California, No. III [pp. 105-109]

THE
OVERLAND MONTHLY
DEVOTED TO
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRI'
VOL. 8.-FEBRUARY, I872.-No. 2.
WINE-MAKING IN CALIFORNIA.
No. III.-PROCESSES AND VARIETIES.
HAT the making of wine may be
done in a proper, as well as profitable manner, every available portion of
the grape should be made use of. All
the juice that can be easily pressed out
should be made into wine, and the remnants of the grapes after the pressing
should be used to produce brandy. Unfortunately for the wine - makers of the
State, the laws and regulations made by
Congress for governing distillers generally, are entirely impracticable as applied to the distillation of the product of
grapes. These regulations have proved
in practice to be so onerous and burdensome to this class of distillers, that not
one-quarter of the brandy is manufactured even from the refuse of the press that
should be made. Wastefulness is never
considered profitable, but ife'these Federal regulations are carried out (as they
are), it is almost an advantage to the
wine -maker to throw away the leavings
of the press. And this is just what has
been done ever since the unwise legislation of Congress has been enforced. The
wine-makers everywhere, with hardlyany
exceptions, simply press out the juice as
much as is practicable, and then throw
away the balance, thereby losing, for
themselves and the community, the value
of ten proof gallons of brandy to every
original ton of grapes. Instead of there
being, as there should be, a small still attached to every vineyard, no matter what
its size, there can hardly be found one to
every hundred vineyards, under the present regulations. This is all wrong; and
a strenuous, as well as united effort,
should be made to bring Congress to a
just understanding of the damage that
its inapplicable rules are causing. As a
single illustration of the absurdity of the
law, we will mention the-capacity regulation. This consists in making a survey of the still, and fixing thereby its
capacity for distilling per diem. Now,
some of our wines will yield sixteen per
cent. absolute alcohol, while the remnants from the pressings, in many instances, do not yield five per cent. The
difference is eleven per cent. when half
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year -87i, by JOHN H. CARMANY, in the Office of the
Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
VOL. VIII.-8.