1895 The Mixicologist by C F Lawlor

95

THE !IIIXICOLOGIST.

WINE. The word " wine," in its w ildest sense, includes all alcoholic b everages derived from sacchariferous vegetable juices b y spontaneous fermentation. In the nar rower sense of its ordina ry acceptance, it designat es the fermented product of grape juice, with which alone the present article proposes to deal. Wine making is an easy art where there is a sufficient supply of perfectly ripe grapes. In Italy, Spain , Greece, and other countries of Southern Europe, nature takes care of this. · In the more northern districts o f France, and especially on the Rhine in German y, the culture of the v ine means h ard work from one end of the year to the other, which only ex ceptionally finds its full reward. And yet it is in those n aturally less favored districts that the most generous wines are produced. Southern \vines excel in body and streng th, but even the best of them lack the beautiful aroma or bouquet ch::i.rac– t eristic of high-class Rhine ·wine. The large propor– tion of sugar in southern g rape juice would appear t o be inimical t o the development of that superior fl avor. T o secure the highest attainable degree of maturity in the g rape , the v intage on the Rhine is postponed nutil the grapes almost begin to wither, and the white g rapes on the sunny side of the