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macquer’s mode.
97
macquer’s mode of making unripe grape wine.
The following are the means used by the cele¬
brated French chemist, Macquer, in making wine
from unripe grapes, with the results:—“ In the
month of October 1776, I procured from a gar¬
den in Paris a quantity of white grapes, sufficient
to make 25 to 30 pints of wine.* The grapes
were of the worst kind; and I chose them in so
bad a state of maturity, that it appeared perfectly
hopeless to make them into a drinkable wine.
Nearly half the berries, and even entire clusters,
were so green, that their acidity was insupport¬
able. Without any other precaution than merely
picking out the spoiled raisins, I caused the rest
to be bruised along with their stalks, and the juice
to be pressed out with the hand. The must was
very foul, of a green colour, and had a mixed taste
of sweet and sour, in which the latter was so pre¬
dominant that it set the teeth on edge. I dis¬
solved in this liquid a quantity of coarse sugar,
sufficient to give a good degree of sweetness to the
must; and, without further preparation, I put it
into a cask which stood in an arbour at the bottom
* The old Paris pint contained two pounds of water, and
was therefore equal to one-fifth of our new imperial gallon.
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