The Raisin Industry / A practical treatise on the raisin grapes, their history, culture and curing

by Gustavus A. Eisen

As will be seen, most of the vineyards are situated within the reach of the seabreezes, some even being almost on the edge of the waters of the Mediterranean. The best vineyards are those which are situated inland from seven to twenty miles from the coast. The vineyard districts are all rough and hilly, except those in the Vourla district, which are on comparatively level ground. While some vineyards stretch from the seashore, others reach an elevation of four hundred feet or over. The soil varies with the districts. The best soil for the Sultanas is considered to be hippurite limestone soil, common in some districts. This white, marly soil is in places mixed with a yellow-ocher-colored loam, with sand and gravel. The abundance of the rainfall makes irrigation unnecessary, and no vines are grown with irrigation.

Care of the Vines.

—While no general irrigation is needed, the young vines are watered by hand in years of exceptionally light rainfall. The vines are generally grown from rooted cuttings, which have been planted in trenches the year before. Previous to the planting of a vineyard, the soil is dug to the depth of three or four feet. If this can be done the year before planting, it is considered better, as resulting in a quicker and stronger growth of the vines.

In older vineyards, the vines are set in rows six or seven feet apart, and with three or four feet between the rows. The vines are not grown to standards, but from branching stalks from one to two and a half feet high, with an average height of one and a half feet from the ground. No stakes are used, and only occasionally is there seen a prop under heavier loaded branches.

The pruning is done in the winter, when the vines are comparatively dormant. The superfluous branches are then cut away, and the remaining ones are cut to two or three eyes each. The cultivation was, until lately, performed in the simplest way with pick and spade. The first digging is done in January, at which time also the ground is manured. This is done by digging pits and trenches in the vineyard, which are filled with goat and camel dung. These trenches remain open for a month or more, and are after that time filled in. The first digging in the soil is done in November, the second one in January and February, when, in leveling the ground, it is at the same time dug over again one foot or more. The third or last digging is performed in March, when simply the weeds are spaded under. Of late years, vineyardists from other Mediterranean districts have settled in Smyrna and brought with them better methods. Greek farmers have especially done much to improve the old ways of cultivation used by the slovenly or ignorant natives.

In May, the young shoots are pinched back after the grapes have set well and began to develop. The pinching of the ends produces a second crop, which, besides being later, also consists of smaller grapes than the first. All sterile and inferior shoots are then cut off, and this is repeated during the summer in order that the vines may not be weakened unnecessarily. The vines come into bearing in the third year, begin to pay expenses in the fourth year, and leave a profit in the fifth year after being set out. In the seventh and eighth years the vines are considered in full bearing.

The Sultana grapes begin to ripen in July. The vintage begins towards the end of July, and lasts until the middle of August. Other varieties of grapes are later, lasting from the middle of August to the end of September, their vintage seldom lasting as late as the first week of October. The first raisins are ready about August 1st, and the last Sultanas are all in by September 1st, the other varieties of raisins coming in later.

Dipping, Drying and Curing.

—The curing of the grapes into raisins requires great care, and nowhere is any more skill shown than in Smyrna. Its raisins are the most beautiful of any, their splendid appearance and transparency being due to the process employed. The drying is done on drying-floors, which sometimes consist of the bare ground only, at other times of elevated beds of earth a foot or so high. When the soil is not naturally hard and suitable for drying-floors, it is first prepared by cutting off the weeds, and is then watered and packed until a smooth and hard surface is produced. This hard bed is sometimes left bare, and at other times covered with matting. In other places the grapes are dried on canvas, or on trays made of the Italian reed, or of grasses. These trays are raised on props three or four inches above the ground, and are loose so that they may be put on top of each other to exclude the sun, rain or fog, according to locality and season. Great stress is laid upon having the grapes fully ripe. Before thus exposed, the grapes are dipped in a solution of lye and oil, and upon the skill in this performance depends the beauty and value of the raisins. A potash is made from the ashes of the vine cuttings of the previous year. About one gallon of this potash solution is mixed with from twenty to twenty-five gallons of water, making a weak lye solution of a strength of from five to six degrees in Beaume’s “Lyeometer.” A similar strength would be obtained by dissolving one pound of pearl ash in ten gallons of water. Tubs of wood or zinc of the size of two and a half by two feet are used for dipping. To every such tub of twenty-five gallons is added from one-fourth to two gallons of olive oil. The latter quantity is used in the Karabournou district, where the finest raisins are made. When of proper strength as regards both oil and lye, the wash runs off from the bunches smoothly; when, again, the wash runs off in small globules, there is a deficiency of either oil or potash. The grapes are loaded in small baskets of twenty-five pounds each, and immersed in the wash for half a minute. They are then taken out and spread either on the ground or on trays or canvas. In the interior, where the sun is hot, the reed mats are placed on top of each other to exclude the sun. The same is also done if rain or fog is feared. After a few days of exposure, and when partially dried, the raisins are sprinkled every morning with the same lye solution, but without oil. The Sultanas are dried in from five to eight days. This dipping process is also used for the larger Muscatels, but the lye is made stronger, probably reaching the proportion of about one and a half pounds of pearl ash to five gallons of water. The carefully dipped raisins have a pure greenish amber color, and a peculiar flavor. They are worth twenty per cent more than undipped fruit.

The Sultanas of the better grades are now sold off-stalk or loose. The finest brands are the Chesme elemê, or Chesme select. Elemê means choice or select, and is used both for raisins and figs. The yield of an acre of Sultana vines varies in different vineyards, according to the quality of the soil. A good yield is considered about seven tons of fresh grapes, or about two and a third tons of raisins.