A good wine grape should have a large amount of sugar, with the acid in due proportion, a distinctive flavor or aroma; though not so strong as to become disagreeable, and for red wines a certain amount of astringency. It is an old vintner's rule, that the varieties with small berries will generally make the best wine, as they are generally richer in sugar, and have more character than varieties with larger berries.
Fig. 28.
Clara.—Berries ½ diameter.
WINE-MAKING.
GATHERING THE GRAPES.
Although I have described the process already, I will here again reiterate that the grapes should be thoroughly ripe. This does not simply mean that they are well colored. The Concord generally begins to color here the 5th of August, and we could gather the majority of our grapes, of that variety, for market, by the 15th or 20th of that month; but for wine-making we allow them to hang until the 15th or 20th of September, and sometimes into October. Thus only do we get the full amount of sugar and delicacy of aroma which that grape is capable of developing, as the water evaporates, and the sugar remains; it also loses nearly all the acidity from its pulp; and the latter, which is so tough and hard immediately after coloring, nearly all dissolves and becomes tender. The best evidences of a grape being thoroughly ripe are: 1st. The stem turns brown, and begins to shrivel; 2nd, the berry begins to shrivel around the stem; 3d, thin and transparent skin; 4th, the juice becomes very sweet, and sticks to the finger like honey or molasses, after handling the grapes for some time.
It is often the case that some bunches ripen much later on the vines. In such a case, the ripest should be gathered first, and those that are not fully ripe remain on the vines until mature. They will ripen much quicker if the ripest bunches have been removed first.
The first implements needed for the gathering are clean wooden and tin pails and sharp knives, or better still, the small shears spoken of in a former part of this work. Each gatherer is provided with a pail, or two may go together, having a pail each, so that one can empty and the other keep filling during the time. If there are a good many unripe berries on the bunches, they may be put into a separate pail, and all that are soft will give an inferior wine. The bunch is cut with as short a stem as possible, as the stem contains a great deal of acid and astringency; every unripe or decayed berry is picked out, so that nothing but perfectly sound, ripe berries remain.