Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/171



To the liberality of nature we are indebted for the grape, but it is the art of man, in submitting its juices to fermentation, which gives us wine.

The method of submitting the grapes to fermentation, varies, according to their qualities, in different countries; or, the degree of maturity to which they arrive, in different seasons, in the same country; or, to the particular description of wine most in request.

Pliny (de Bico vino apud Græcos clarissimo) informs us, that for this wine, the grape was gathered a little before its maturity, and exposed to the rays of an ardent sun, during three days, being turned three times a day, and on the fourth day its juice was expressed.

The ancients were also acquainted with the method of digesting or concentrating the must, as appears, by their having three kinds of concentrated wine. The first, called passum, was made from grapes dried in the sun; the second, defrutum,