on,
the variety of grapes, the growing season and the location of the
vineyard. Its duration, also, depends on these same factors. The
season is usually lengthened by the fact that wine-makers require for
their purposes a number of varieties of grapes which ripen at
different times. Before or during the vintage, representatives of wine
cellars usually make contracts for the number of tons of grapes
required at a certain price a ton.

The notion prevails that grapes for wine and grape-juice need not be
first-class. This is far from the truth. To make good wine the grapes
must be carefully harvested, transported with as little injury as
possible and must be protected from dirt, mold and fermentation before
reaching the winery. European vintagers maintain that grapes picked at
sunrise produce the lightest and most limped wines and yield more
juice. They say, also, that the grapes should not be gathered in the
heat of the day because fermentation sets in at once. These niceties
are not observed in America.

_Prices paid for wine grapes._

Supply and demand regulate the price paid for wine grapes. There is
always demand for good wine grapes, although a poor product often goes
begging for market. In the East, the highest prices are paid for the
grapes used in making champagne. The champagne region of the East is
confined to a few localities along Lake Erie and to western New York
about Keuka Lake, where the industry is most largely developed. The
varieties used in champagne-making in the East are Delaware, Catawba,
Elvira, Dutchess, Iona, Diamond and a few other sorts. Prices differ
with the many conditions affecting the grape and champagne industries,
perhaps the average price for Catawba, the grape chiefly used in
making champagne in this region, being from $40 to $50 a ton. Choicer
grapes, as Delaware, Iona and Dutchess, often sell from $75 to $100 a
ton. Concords are sometimes utilized in making dry wines in the
eastern states, $30 or $40 a ton being the average price. Ives and
Norton are much used for red wines and sell for top prices.

Wine-makers in the East are at a disadvantage in producing wines other
than champagne, since the price paid on the Pacific slope for wine
grapes is much lower; Grapes for sweet wine in California often sell
as low as $6 or $7 a ton, the average price being $10 or $12. Grapes
for dry wines, such as Zinfandel and Burger, bring on the Pacific
coast from $10 to $12 a ton. Choice varietie