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Wine Making January 23, 1833 When Gideon B. Smith, editor of the American Farmer, tasted Nicholas Herbemont’s wine in the summer of 1831, it proved a revelation. He shared his bottles with members of the Maryland Society for Promoting the Culture of the Vine, a group of planters and wine connoisseurs organized in 1829 to advance grape cultivation in the region beyond where John Adlum had taken it. While the group cultivated the clubby epicureanism that became a fixture of bachelor companies of the era, it did have certain serious preoccupations. One concern of the group was the medicinal use of wine for stomach ailments, and the delicacy of Herbemont’s white wine struck the group as ideal for such applications. “This is an important characteristic of Mr. H.’s wine, and enhances the value of it greatly.”1 The restorative power of fine wine had been a commonplace of understanding since antiquity, but in the midst of the rising temperance war on alcohol consumption, it was politic to recall this ancient truth. Yet for the Maryland Society the ground of the vintage’s worth lay in its taste— “the most delicate and delicious flavored of any we ever tasted. We tested its quality pretty extensively, having expended a considerable sample of it among epicures in the article, all of whom, without an exemption, pronounced it particularly fine.” One of the company, “Pomonkey ” (John W. Fendall?) of Charles County, Maryland, wrote Herbemont personally to request the method of his wine making. Gideon B. Smith seconded the request and offered to open the pages of the American Farmer to whatever Herbemont produced. The desire of the Maryland circle had been to secure an account of Herbemont’s process from harvesting grapes to corking the filled bottles. What he produced indicated that he believed his way of cultivating vines was as important to the final product as the art of fermentation. It took five months for Herbemont to fulfill the request. The essay he produced delighted Smith, who in a long editorial effusion published in volume 14, number 48 (February 8, 1833), under his byline, “The Farmer,” recommended it to his readers: This little treatise will be invaluable to vignerons, and to persons about entering upon the culture of the vine, and we bespeak for it an universal reading and entire confidence. For ourselves we consider it very far superior to any treatise extant, because it is so brief, and withal so plain, that any person may follow its directions without difficulty. 1. “American Wine,” American Farmer 14, no. 30 (October 5, 1832), 233. 87 Wine Making Mr Herbemont has been able in this short essay to concentrate all necessary information on the subject; and being a practical vigneron, and the results of his practice being very far superior to any ever before accomplished in this country, every word of the essay is entitled to the utmost confidence. Published in two installments, the editor broke the essay into a section on “the vine” in American Farmer 14, no. 48 (February 8, 1833), 380–82, and “wine” in American Farmer 14, no. 49 (February 15, 1833), 388–90. The title of the entire performance, “Wine Making,” reflected the fascination of the editor. When the piece was reprinted in the Farmers’ Register 2, no. 8 (January 1835), 471–78, it took a phrase from Herbemont’s closing paragraph, “of the culture of the vine and of the making of wine,” as the title. Smith had the essay printed as a pamphlet and distributed it as a premium to interested subscribers. A copy of A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and on Wine Making in the United States (Baltimore : Hitchcock, 1833) survives in the collection of the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia. It does not differ from the text printed in the journal. Columbia, S.C. Jan. 23, 1833 My Dear Sir, The very glittering and pressing request of Pomonkey,2 and so urgently backed by you, that I should communicate fully to the public through your valuable American Farmer, my process for making the wines which yourself and several very respectable gentlemen of Baltimore have been pleased to speak favorably of, renders it a very willing duty on me to do as you request, to the best of my slender abilities. I should have done so long ere this, had I not been prevented by a multiplicity of engagements, which together with my waning strength and ability , have put...

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