taste, and nevertheless produce a very indifferent wine, because the saccharine principle may exist in very small quantity in a very sweet grape, and this is the reason that the sweetest grapes to the taste, do not always afford the strongest wines. The chapelas of Fontainbleau is a proof of this; it is one of the most delicious grapes to the taste, but at the same time, one of those which furnish a very bad wine.
The same sweet taste, or sweet principle, exists in many gums and mucilages, which contain no sugar; thus, it is most necessary to distinguish these two substances, on account of the difference of their effects. A little habit is sufficient for this, a palate accustomed to the really sugary grapes of warm climates, will not confound with them the grape, however sweet, in which a colder climate has not developed the saccharise principle.
The sugar, then, being considered as the principle, which, by its decomposition, gives place to the formation of alcohol, and the sweetish body, as the true yeast of the vinous fermentation; that the must may be susceptible of a good fermentation, it is necessary that it should contain these principles in suitable proportions.
A proper degree of fluidity in the must, is also one of the requisite conditions for procuring a good fermentation. It is as difficult to excite fermenta-
