It is a shame to turn
such delicious juice into such sour wine as they make in Tuscany. I
tasted a sip or two of a flask which the contadini sent us for trial,--
the rich result of the process I had witnessed in the barrel. It took me
altogether by surprise; for I remembered the nectareousness of the new
cider which I used to sip through a straw in my boyhood, and I never
doubted that this would be as dulcet, but finer and more ethereal; as
much more delectable, in short, as these grapes are better than puckery
cider apples. Positively, I never tasted anything so detestable, such a
sour and bitter juice, still lukewarm with fermentation; it was a wail of
woe, squeezed out of the wine-press of tribulation, and the more a man
drinks of such, the sorrier he will be.
Besides grapes, we have had figs, and I have now learned to be very fond
of them. When they first began to appear, two months ago, they had
scarcely any sweetness, and tasted very like a decaying squash: this was
an early variety, with purple skins.
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