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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