Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/196

 balance the advantages with the disadvantages of each, keeping in view the circumstances in which he is placed.

The capacity of the vat, should also be varied according to the nature of the grape. When it is very ripe, or dried, and contains much saccharine matter, the must is thick and clammy, and the violence of a large mass fermenting, is necessary to decompose it. If it is not fully decomposed, the wine remains luscious and sweet, and does not acquire all the perfection it is susceptible of, till after being long in the cask.

On the other hand, when the grape has not attained a perfect maturity, when the temperature, is cold, or when the vintage has been made when the grapes were wet, a large mass is advantageous on account of the heat it produces. All these causes, and their effects, should be continually present in the mind of the cultivator, because it is from them alone he can draw rules for his guidance.

The saccharine principle. The sweet matter, the water, and the tartar, are the elements of the grape which appear most powerfully to influence fermentation.

It is not only to their existence that the first