The Goat-Skin Would Quickly Rot, Unless It Was Prepared By A Species Of Tar; Thus Not Only Is The Naturally Unpleasant Flavour Of The Skin Imparted To The Wine, But The Mixture Of Tar Renders It Completely Abominable To Any Palate That Has Not Been Educated To Receive It.

Let any person conceive the result of pouring ten or twelve gallons of Chateau Lafitte into an old and dirty goat-skin thoroughly impregnated with tar, and carrying this burden upon one side of a mule, balanced by a similar skin on the other side filled with the choicest Johannisberger.

This load, worth at least 70 or 80 pounds at starting, would travel for two days exposed to a broiling sun, and would lie for several days before it would be turned into the vat of the merchant at Limasol. By that time, according to civilised taste, it would be perfectly valueless and undrinkable; if the best wines in the world can be thus destroyed by a savage means of transport, what must the effect be upon such inferior qualities as the crude produce of Cyprus? Common sense will suggest that the first step towards improvement will be the completion of roads throughout the wine districts, that will enable the two-wheeled native carts to convey the wine in barrels direct from the growers to the merchants' stores at Limasol.

We will now commence at the beginning, "the cultivation of the vine," and trace its progress until the wine is ready for the consumer.

As I have already described, the commanderia and the black wines are produced by the two different qualities of soils, but there is no difference in the altitudes. The new British road from Limasol to Platraes, thirty miles, cuts directly through the principal vine districts of the country. From the deep valley and roaring torrent, up to the mountain-tops exceeding 4000 feet above the sea-level, the country is green with vineyards in the middle or latter end of May; not a yard of available land is lost. When the shoots are about three feet long and have shown the embryo bunches, a number of men enter the vineyard with switches and knock off the tender ends of the runners, which in a gentler method of cultivation would be picked off with the finger and thumb-nail. Sometimes goats are turned in to nibble off the shoots in order to save labour, and at the same time to feed the animals; they of course damage the vines, but the Cypriote thinks the system pays. The young vines are never staked and tied as in Europe, but are allowed to take their chance, and the heavy bunches in many instances rest upon the dusty ground.

There is seldom rain after May, but a few showers are favourable at this particular season when the young bunches are in blossom. In the best vineyards attention is given to clearing away the weeds after rain, but usually the vines are left to nature after the grapes have formed, as the hot sun and drying wind are sufficient to keep down adverse vegetation.

The grapes ripen towards the middle or end of August. The commanderia grapes are collected and spread upon the flat mud-plastered roofs of the native houses, and are exposed for several days, until they show symptoms of shrivelling in the skin, and the stalks have partially dried: they are then pressed. By this time many of the grapes that have been bruised by this rough treatment have fermented, and the dust and dirt of the house-top, together with flies and other insects, have adhered to the impure heap. It has been imagined by some travellers that the grapes are purposely dried before pressing; on the other hand, I have been assured by the inhabitants that their only reason for heaping and exposing their crop upon the house-tops is the danger of leaving it to ripen in the vineyard. None of the plots are fenced, and before the grapes are sufficiently ripe for pressing they are stolen in large quantities, or destroyed by cattle, goats, mules, and every stray animal that is attracted to the fields. The owner of the vineyard accordingly gathers his crop by degrees, a little before the proper time, and the grapes are exposed upon the house-tops to ripen artificially in the sun. In this manner the quality is seriously damaged; but the natives will not acknowledge it any more than the Devonshire farmers, who leave their apples in heaps upon the ground for many weeks, rotting and wasp-eaten, before they are carried to the pound for the grinding of cider. The grapes, having been trodden by men with large boots, are pressed, and the juice of the commanderia is placed in jars capable of holding from seventy to one hundred gallons. The refuse of skins and stalks is laid upon one side to ferment for the manufacture of raki, or spirit, by distillation. The fermentation of the juice proceeds in the earthen jars, and is guided according to the ideas of the proprietor; when he considers that it has continued to a degree sufficient for the strength and quality of the wine, it is checked by the addition of powdered gypsum. Here is one of the patent errors of the manufacture of commanderia as a wine suitable to English tastes. The grape-juice is naturally so rich in saccharine, that it is luscious and vapid to an excess; this superabundant amount of sugar would be converted into alcohol in the natural process of fermentation if unchecked, and by the chemical change the wine would gain in strength and lose in sweetness. Should this process be adopted, the result would no longer represent the wine now accepted as commanderia, which finds a ready market in the Levant, owing to its peculiar sweetness and rich flavour, although disagreeable to Europeans; there would accordingly be a risk attending such experiments, which the grower would consider unnecessary, as he already commands the sale.

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