Morning Star

Wine Making.—Says John Tappan, in a letter to the Temperance Journal,—

During the three and a half months we have spent on the continent we have witnessed much wine drinking, with considerable use of brandy; but the cases of beastly intoxication are much less frequent there than in America and England. We passed through the finest wine countries in Europe, in vintage time; and having witnessed the "treading out of the grapes," it may interest you to know the process. On an appointed day, all the inhabitants of a hamlet assemble early in the morning, and with carts containing baskets, tubs and casks, proceed to gather all the grapes, sound, and in every stage of decay, in large tubs, resembling in size and cleanliness the tubs in which hogs are scalded & dressed in America. When the tub is sufficiently filled with grapes, spiders, spiders' webs and flies, a lad jumps into it, and drawing up his pantaloons to his middle, commences, sometimes with bare feet, and at others with his barnyard shoes, to jump upon the grapes, and force the juice through holes in the center of the bottom of the tub into a large tunnel, which is inserted in a cask. When the cask is filled, it is rolled away and carted to the village, from whence it goes to the wine merchant, and is manufactured, which means adulterated, and sent to market. Nothing can be more filthy and nauseating than the dirty, slovenly way wine is made, unless it may be the water back of Albany, of which Mr. Delavan proved they made strong beer. Could wine drinkers, who so much extol the cockroach flavor of their wine, in our country, once realize that it probably is the spider flavor, or, they would loathe what they call the pure juice of the grape. It is a well known fact, that no pure wine is exported from wine countries, and why should it be believed that there is, when it is so notoriously otherwise, that even the dealers themselves make no secret of their mixtures, passes my comprehension. Wine and spirit dealers, of our countrymen, when abroad boast of their mixtures at home; and the idea of any pure spirits, brandy or wine, is absurd, when it can be so easily counterfeited and passed off as genuine.