The Art of Living in Australia Part 13

besides ruining the name of Australian wine when sold as such.

"I may here warn vine-growers against the advice given to them by some would-be authorities, who tell them they can make a light wine by picking grapes before they are ripe. This is absurd. The unripe grape contains a certain percentage of vegetable acids, such as tartaric, malic, &c., &c. some of which are themselves converted into glucose during the process of ripening, whilst others are eliminated after helping to transform the starch of the vegetable tissues into glucose.

It stands to reason that if the fruit be picked before complete maturity, these acids, which are not capable of fermenting, will be found unchanged in the wine produced, thereby rendering it acid and undrinkable. It is, of course, necessary, in warm climates, to pick the grapes before they get over-ripe or shrivel up; but it would be just as foolish to rush to the other extreme, and pick the fruit too soon.

"If, instead of blindly following the mode of culture which has been adopted in a cold climate, the vine-grower would listen to the dictates of reason, and were to try a few inexpensive experiments, he would soon find out his mistake, and confer a boon on himself as well as on his neighbour, not to speak of the consumers of his wine.

"Even in the cooler districts of Victoria, such as the Yarra Valley, I do not know of any variety of vine which is weakened by long pruning, even in a series of years; while certain varieties are so influenced by short pruning as to bear no fruit at all. If this be the case on the Yarra, how much more must it be so on the Murray?"

Mr. de Castella then referred to some other matters connected with the practices followed at Mildura, and concluded with these encouraging words:--

"I contend that no other culture will give such magnificent returns, do so much good to a country, or have greater attractions for the happy proprietor of the vineyard, as there is no branch of agriculture which presents such a vast field for experimental research, or which is so extensively benefited by the practical application of scientific laws and principles, as viticulture."

THE MAKING OF THE WINE--THE CELLAR.

Up till this time our whole attention has been taken up with everything that has to do with the production of the grape. But with the gathering of the crop a complete change has taken place, for nature no longer exercises such a controlling influence. At this stage the art of winemaking really begins, and the climate, the soil, and all the other factors that have so much to do with the growth of the grape a.s.sist us no longer. From the moment that the grapes are gathered till the wine is ready for bottling is a most eventful period; for, during this important time, under proper treatment, wine may be made to reach perfection.

Indeed, it is only by paying the most minute attention to all the details connected with the making of wine that Australian vignerons will succeed in placing our wines before all others; because it is very important to remember that the must produced in Australia is equal, if not superior, to any in the world. Now, all that follows this portion relates to wine-making alone; and it should for that very reason, therefore, possess a special interest for us. Moreover, it will be a good thing for the wine industry, for Australia, and for her people, when such an interest becomes part of our daily life.

Naturally the first thing to suggest itself, therefore, in the making of the wine, is the place in which it is made. There is no doubt that in Australia the importance of a proper cellar has never been sufficiently appreciated. But the French have a proverb, "the cellar makes the wine," showing that it plays no inconsiderable part in the production of good wine. As Mr. Walter W. Pownall, the representative of the Australian Wine Company, explained before the Vegetable Products Commission in Victoria, a knowledge of cellar routine and cellar work would aroid the spoiling of much good wine. A man thinks when he has grown the wine that is all that is necessary. But the fact is, a wine-grower has never done with his wine till it has pa.s.sed out of his hands.

There was a valuable pamphlet on Australian wines written by the late Doctor Bleasdale, of Melbourne, in 1876. It is now out of print, and regrettedly so, for the worthy Doctor was one of the best connoisseurs of wine Australia ever had. Mr. L. Bruck, the well-known medical publisher of Sydney, however, has placed me under considerable obligation by giving me his own copy, and in the preface therein I note that the author, in speaking of this very question, remarks:--"I would here reiterate what I have often stated, namely, that if the cellar management in the three colonies were equal to the magnificent produce of the vines, no "country on the earth could surpa.s.s, in quality and variety "of kinds, Victoria, South Australia, and New South Wales."

Then again, Mr. James Smith, of Melbourne, in the course of his admirable prize essay on Australian wine, which appeared in GREVILLE'S YEAR BOOK OF AUSTRALIA for 1886, has these observations on this subject:--"It is, however, in the management of the cellar that one must look for the most efficient means of securing that uniformity of quality which I regard as such an important desideratum. If it be not a science, it is certainly an art requiring special knowledge, training, and experience, combined, perhaps, with natural apt.i.tude. And it is precisely in this respect, I fear, that our deficiency in Australia is greatest.

"In the wine-making countries of Europe the cellarmaster is an expert who inherits the skill, traditions, methods, and usages of many generations of men who have adopted and followed the same calling. His organs of smell and taste have been educated to practise the nicest discrimination of flavour and odour, and if the vintage of a particular year differs in quality from that of its predecessor, he knows how, by a judicious blending of the old with the new, of the highly-coloured with the pallid, to arrive at that uniformity which is so indispensable."

The cellar must neither be too damp nor too dry. Any excess of dampness would rot the casks and give a musty taste to the wine; while, on the contrary, in too dry a cellar the staves of the casks would shrink and cause leakage. The cellar is usually kept somewhat dark. The openings for the admission of air and light should be provided with shutters, so that the atmosphere and temperature may be under control. The floor of the cellar should be paved or cemented, be well levelled, and cleanliness throughout should be strictly and strenuously maintained.

But the following remarks of Signor Bragato as to what a cellar ought not to be will perhaps be more instructive, and besides they contain a vast amount of information on the subject. In referring to some of the cellars he came across during his tour of inspection through one of the Victorian districts, he writes:--

"The majority of the buildings used as cellars are nothing less than wooden sheds, with galvanized iron roofs. Here the air has a free circulation day and night, and the cellerman is thus rendered powerless to control the temperature, which very often, from 100 degrees in day time, goes down to 54 degrees or less during the night. The appliances required for winemaking are all round badly preserved, and are covered with mouldiness and dust. The floor of the buildings is not paved or cemented, and it consists of earth, so that it has the power of absorbing the wine that gets spilt and becomes the source of pernicious germs, which will spread all over the cellar and in the air, to be finally deposited in the must and in the wine, causing irreparable loss in the quality of the wine. There are a few good cellars, but these, also, are badly kept and badly used.

"The casks are neglected, and the coat of tartar is scrupulously left in the cask, with the erroneous idea that it tends to preserve the wine. All the empty casks I have smelt in the cellars inspected are impregnated with bad odours, which are not detected by the majority of the owners, in consequence of having accustomed their olfactory organs to the predominant odour of mouldiness in their cellars, and so they are unable to detect if the odour of their casks is healthy or not.

"With the bad cellars which the vignerons have at their disposal, combined with the neglect of the casks and other appliances, and the little care in the preservation of the wine, it is only natural that a large quant.i.ty of the wine produced is spoiled, and condemned to the still to be converted into inferior brandy of bad taste and colour, which is often used to fortify the wines, with the result of rendering them unfit for consumption. "Amongst the wines I have tested, I found some really very good ones, presenting all the characteristics required in a fine wine. But if there are good wines, there are also very bad ones, and these, I am sorry to say, represent the bulk in every cellar I visited. Some of the wines are cloudy, sweetish, with a good deal of asperity. Others present tartaric, lactic, and acetic fermentations."

After some further comments on various other matters, the same gentleman concludes his report with the following:--

"Finally, I may say that by what I have seen I cannot help expressing the opinion that Australia is capable of producing really fine wines, to be highly appreciated in the world's markets. But to produce an appreciable wine, it is necessary that the vignerons should improve in their system of wine-making, and subst.i.tute for their sheds cellars constructed on a rational principle; and by devoting more attention to the cleanliness of the casks and other cellar appliances. A modification in the system of cultivation and pruning of the vines will also be factors in improving the quality of the wine.

"There is in this country good soil, and a climate which cannot be equalled for the successful cultivation of the vine. Capital is plentiful, and the people very enterprising; so there remains only the want of Technical Instruction, by the inst.i.tution of practical schools of Viticulture, without which it is doubtful if ever its vignerons will succeed in making wines likely to be appreciated in the foreign markets."

In the same way Mr. J.A. Despeissis, of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture, also insists upon cellar cleanliness. And it would seem, indeed, that there is ample justification for his deprecatory remarks. It appears that on several occasions he has noticed fowls and pigeons roosting in the wine cellars. Now, as he pungently observes, the wine cellar was never intended for this sort of thing. Another way of putting the matter would be to point out what a mad thing it would be to use a fowl house as a cellar. Moreover, he gives minute directions for disinfecting the cellar, in order to destroy any germs or minute organisms which may be lurking in crevices or in odd corners.

This is best accomplished by burning some sulphur in earthenware pots, distributed over various parts of the cellar; previously seeing that all the windows and gaps are rendered air-tight by means of bagging.

The fumes should be left in the cellar--for a day or two, after which the doors are opened, and a free current of air allowed to sweeten the whole place.

Moreover, a model cellar is necessarily a very elaborate affair, considering it is the laboratory, so to speak, in which the wine is created. A model cellar would consist of the following six compartments:--

* 1. The section for the first treatment of the grape.

* 2. The fermentation department.

* 3. The section for the preparation and storing, of the new wine.

* 4. The underground cellar for the storage of the matured wine.

* 5. The bottle department.

* 6. The distillation department and for the utilization of the refuse of wine.

The cellar of Mr. Henley, near the Ovens River, in Victoria, is very complete. It is provided with a steam lift, a steam crushing machine, and a steam pump, while there is perfect ventilation and a uniform temperature. His cellar is divided into three compartments: the fermenting house in the middle, the cellar for the new wine, and the cellar for the old wine. The building is 83 feet by 80 feet, built of brick, with double walls 9 inches thick outside and 4 inches inside, and between the walls there is 4 1/2 inches of s.p.a.ce. The temperature on the hottest days in the summer never surpa.s.ses 80 degrees Fahrenheit; and, lastly, the floors, both of the cellars and the fermenting house, are cemented for the purpose of absolute cleanliness.

THE MAKING OF THE WINE--THE GATHERING OF THE GRAPE.

At the very beginning one of the chief matters to be looked to is the selection of the time at which the grapes should be picked. The proper period is that when the interior of the grape contains its princ.i.p.al components, the sugar and the acids, in the right proportions. In the warmer districts the grapes are sometimes allowed to become too ripe.

In such a case there would be an excess of sugar and a deficiency of acid, and a regular fermentation would be impossible. On the other hand, it will be remembered in the course of the remarks upon pruning that I quoted Mr. Francois de Castella to show what a mistaken idea it is to pick the grapes before they are thoroughly ripe in order to produce, as it is erroneously supposed, a lighter wine. It is of the greatest consequence, therefore, to choose that particular time for gathering the grapes when they contain the respective elements in their strictly proper proportions.

On the eventful day for the picking of the grapes the weather should be fine and bright, and in the warm districts they should be picked early in the morning and late in the afternoon, so that they are not too warm. The grapes should never be taken to the fermenting house when too heated; indeed, it would be better not to crush the grapes at all than to have them in such a state. As Signor Bragato observes, if they are too warm the fermentation will start with too high a temperature in the must, and very likely the result will be the formation of lactic and acetic germs. In Algiers and other warm regions the grapes picked in the day are left outside during the night; by this means the temperature of the must is lowered.

In the picking of the grapes the greatest care should be taken to discard the mouldy, dry, and dirty grapes, and leaf insect worms should likewise be got rid of. Once the gathering of the grapes is commenced it should be concluded as quickly as possible, and therefore a sufficient number of hands must be engaged for the purpose. For instance, with the Riesling, if the grapes are left on the vines on a hot day twenty-four hours after they arrive at perfection, the wine will not be nearly so good.

THE MAKING OF THE WINE--VARYING ADDITIONS TO THE MUST.

On the arrival of the grapes at the press-house, the first thing to be determined upon is whether the stalks are to be used or not. In the case of white wines it is not customary to separate them from the grapes. A good deal, however, will depend upon different circ.u.mstances.

Thus, when grapes are grown in flat, damp places, or during wet seasons, it is often advantageous to ferment the berries with part of their stems; but, on the contrary, those grapes which contain a sufficiency of tannin will not require the latter. For example, in the production of white wines at Mr. Hans Irvine's ("Great Western") vineyard in Victoria, the grapes are first crushed with the mill, the mill consisting of two grooved wooden rollers working against each other. After this the skins, together with the stalks, are placed in the wine-press. In the case of red wine, however, the grapes are separated from the stalks by means of an iron griddle, so that only the skins are employed in the formation of the wine.

The methods pursued with regard to the elimination or retention of the grape stalks vary in different parts of the Continent. The most careful vignerons remove the stalks in the case of the finest growths of Burgundy; but in the making of champagne, and also in the Rheingau, from which part come the famous Hock wines, the stalks are allowed to remain. In the Medoc districts, which produce the finest clarets, the stalks are likewise put into the fermentation vat; but this is considered to be a great mistake, since a long time elapses before the astringent taste of the wine subsides. With the far-famed Red Hermitage wine of France, too, the stalks are permitted to pa.s.s into the vat, and in the case of sherry and port, as well, the stalks all take part in the fermentation, though it is believed that better results would be obtained by their removal. But in all these old wine-producing countries of Europe the same customs have been followed from time immemorial, and they are not likely to be altered at present.

THE MAKING OF THE WINE--THE MUST ITSELF.

The must--that is, the juice expressed from the grape, but in which (juice) fermentation has not yet taken place--is a fluid of very complex composition. It is made up of a variety of ingredients, with which it is necessary to become familiar in order to follow, during the process of fermentation, its change into wine. We find, therefore, that a large part of the must consists of water; this serves to dissolve the other const.i.tuents, and to dilute them to the required extent. For instance, the sugar in the must needs to be considerably diluted for the purposes of fermentation. In too concentrated a form it actually prevents it, as we see when fruits are preserved in syrup.

Next to water, sugar is the material which exists in the largest proportions in the must; it is, however, that peculiar kind of sugar termed "glucose," which may be described as uncrystallisable sugar, and as consisting of half grape sugar and half fruit sugar. It possesses the property of being able to ferment, which cane or crystallisable sugar cannot do, unless, indeed, it first be changed into glucose. Now, it is a curious fact that although cane sugar can be transformed into glucose, yet the latter form of sugar has never, so far, been changed into cane or crystallisable sugar. As Mr. J.A.

Despeissis points out, the invention of a process that would achieve this would be worth more than all the mines of New South Wales put together.

In the process of fermentation the glucose is broken up into a number of substances, which differ entirely from it; and as these different bodies are very important they deserve much attention. Under the influence of fermentation glucose undergoes a great change, of which the princ.i.p.al products are alcohol and carbonic acid gas. The alcohol is, of course, the one predominant feature in wine; and according to the amount of alcohol which wine contains, so it varies in strength.

In addition to these two main products of glucose by fermentation, namely, alcohol and carbonic acid gas, there are glycerine and succinic acid, as well as a lesser proportion of other derivatives, very much akin to alcohol. Of all these glycerine is by no means unimportant, as it confers a blandness or mellowness upon the wine. The succinic acid, also, is distinctive for this reason, that it is the source of that characteristic flavour in wine known as "vinosity."

Besides the water and the glucose, the must likewise contains quite an appreciable amount of those important bodies, the various acids. These consist of tartaric acid, so frequently met with all through the vegetable world; of malic acid, which is the acid almost distinctive of apples; of tannic acid or "tannin," and of other acids. These different acids play an important part in the production of wine; without them, in truth, it would be a mere admixture of spirits and water--a colourless, flavourless, and insipid product. By their a.s.sistance, however, wine is endowed with the brilliancy it possesses. And more than this, the action of the alcohol on these acids develops those exquisitely delicate ethers--the oenanthic and other ethers--which const.i.tute, in fact, the bouquet of the wine. At the same time, it has also to be remembered that while these many acids const.i.tute the life and soul, so to speak, of the wine, their very presence is absolutely necessary for the process of vinous fermentation. That is to say, the active agents of vinous fermentation are only enabled to work perfectly in a liquid which is somewhat acid.