Alcohol in Wine.—A good, saleable dry wine ought to contain from eleven to twelve or thirteen per cent. of alcohol; and to produce such a wine the must should indicate from 22 to 26 per cent. of sugar by the hydrometer. A wine which is soon to be consumed at home does not require that degree of strength necessary for shipment abroad and for keeping, and may contain only ten per cent. of alcohol, and even less, and be found a very palatable drink, and less “heady” than that of a higher degree of spirit. And a wine may contain as much as 14 per cent. of spirit, and be very acceptable to the wine merchant for mixing with weaker wines.

A must which does not contain more than 24 per cent. of sugar per hydrometer, if properly managed, will complete its fermentation, and if it does not contain less than 22 per cent., will make a good, sound, shipping wine, which will keep in almost any climate. Mr. Crabb, a well known wine maker of Oakville, in this State, writes me that such a must will ferment dry in six days, but that if it contains more than 24 per cent. of sugar, fermentation is likely to be arrested by the amount of alcohol, when it amounts to 12 per cent. This gentleman is an intelligent viniculturist and a practical man, and it would be safe to follow his advice. Mr. Arpad Haraszthy, who is noted in this connection, in his lecture on fermentation before the convention of wine growers, held at San Francisco in September, 1882, indicated 22 per cent. as a proper degree of sugar in the must; and it is reported that the wine makers of Los Angeles county, in fixing the prices of grapes in 1882, adopted 23 per cent. as the standard. Undoubtedly the fermentation will be finished sooner, and will be less troublesome, if the must contains sugar within the limits of 22 and 24 per cent., than if allowed to go beyond. (See [Maturity].) If it should go to 26 per cent. and beyond, the chances are that the fermentation will be incomplete, and that a portion of the sugar will remain in the wine, which will cause it to ferment when exposed to changes of temperature; it may become milk sour, and there will be danger of rapid deterioration. From which it follows that, except for making sweet wines, the grapes should be gathered before they develop much more than 24 per cent. of sugar. Supposing, however, that picking commences as soon as the must shows 22 per cent., sufficient force should be employed to finish before it goes beyond the limit indicated. For the writer has seen grapes gathered at the beginning of the season and made into wine which showed 11 per cent. of alcohol, when the wine made from grapes of the same vineyard, gathered too late, either on account of lack of pickers or of fermenting tanks, contained 14.5 per cent., and was still sweet.

CHAPTER III.
SUGARING AND WATERING MUST.

Sugaring.—As early as 1776, Macquer, in France, found that by adding sugar to the must of green grapes, he could make wine; and since his time many authors, notably Chaptal, Gall, and Petiot, have recommended the addition of sugar to the must of bad years when the grapes did not ripen; and had the practice been limited to the addition of sufficient sugar of good quality to a must which was deficient in that respect, but little harm would have been done. The next step, however, was to take the must of partly ripe grapes which contained an undue quantity of acid, and reduce it by the addition of water till the acid corresponded in quantity to that contained in a must of ripe grapes, and then to add sufficient sugar to bring it up again to the necessary degree of sweetness. This may be permissible in those countries where in some years the grapes do not ripen, and in order to make a drinkable wine, water to reduce the acid, and sugar to give sweetness, must be added. But this did not satisfy the greed of the artificial wine makers; they found, so they say, that they could press the juice from the grapes, ferment it by itself, then add to the marc water and sugar enough to bring it back to its original quantity and sugar strength, draw off the artificial juice slightly colored by the skins, and repeat the operation, and so make three and four times the quantity of wine that could otherwise be made, and all good wine.

It was thought that wine making in Europe would be revolutionized, and untold wealth would pour into the coffers of the wine makers. It was found, however, that cane sugar was too expensive, but artificial glucose could be made from grain and potatoes at a very small cost, and by reason of its cheapness its use was forthwith recommended; and to such an extent was the matter carried, that one would suppose that in order to make good wine, it was only necessary to soak a few grape skins in a quantity of sweetened water and let it ferment!

The practice, however, to the extent mentioned, did not commend itself to sensible men, and wine making did not become revolutionized. Yet it was to some extent adopted, and the effect upon the wines of Burgundy is shown by Dubrunfaut in his work on Sucrage de Moûts. He says that starch-sugar (glucose) factories were established in Burgundy, and from 1825 to 1845, this material was used to strengthen the musts. But complaints arose in France and elsewhere against Burgundy wines; they had a new flavor, and unexpected changes in many respects had come over them. A congress of wine makers was held at Dijon in 1845, at which the abandonment of the use of glucose was decreed upon the report of a committee of merchants and proprietors of Beaune, which was in effect as follows: that the long extolled and generally practiced system of sugaring, and against which a reaction set in some years ago, ought to be completely abandoned, as being fatal (funeste) to Burgundy. He considers, however, as do some others who condemn the use of glucose, that the use of refined cane sugar is unobjectionable if used in small quantities and merely to fortify the must when it needs it. There are many authors, however, who speak highly of the wines produced by the addition of sugar and water to the skins after the juice has been drawn off, but it does not seem reasonable that a good wine can be made in that manner. If a good must contained only water, sugar, and acids, then there would be reason for believing that the wine so made would be good. But it is well known that many other ingredients enter into the composition of the juice of the grape which, in some unknown manner, have a very important influence upon the wine made from it. Attempts have been made to produce an artificial must, which is carrying the process but little farther than it is carried by some of the writers on the subject; but Mr. Boireau says that what is produced resembles cider rather than wine. He gives the following composition as approaching very nearly a must for common white wine:

Refined Sugar,25kilog.
Tincture of tannin,20gr.
Crystals of tartaric acid,500gr.
Gum arabic,1kilog.
Vine leaves and fresh twigs chopped,  5kilog.
Distilled or filtered water,1hectol.

The author last quoted is a practical man, and his opinion is valuable. He says, when the fermentation of this artificial must is most active, it has analogies with ordinary white wine, but it costs much more than the natural wine; and when its fermentation is complete, it has not a bad taste, and there is nothing hurtful in its composition, but that it has not the taste of white wine; and the only time when it has any analogy to white wine is during the tumultuous fermentation as already mentioned. Many attempts have been made to vary the formula, but without important results. Tolerably agreeable drinks are obtained, but they are not wine. M. Boussingault gives his experience in sugaring and watering must; and the wine produced lacked acid, color, astringency, and was very inferior to the wine first made from the pure juice; it lacked the fixed substances and aromatic principles. He says that some would prefer it to cider, but that it only differed from piquette in having a greater degree of alcohol.

To give even a summary of what has been written upon this subject would occupy a volume, but the results arrived at by the more intelligent modern writers and experimenters may be summed up as follows:

1. That good wine can be made only from the pure juice of the grape.