Name/Title
LetterEntry/Object ID
Q2022.21.52Scope and Content
Copy of a two-page letter, on onion skin paper, from Wilbur P. McDonald, M. D., to Mr. Richard Altman, Rock Port, Mo., in response to a letter he received dated April 5, 1962. This letter is dated April 24, 1962. The letters COPY in red ink are down the left hand side of both pages.Context
Dear Mr. Altman,
Thank you for your wonderful and comprehensive letter of April 5th. I enjoyed every paragraph. My experience with wine making started when I was in High School. A friend and I picked sufficient elderberries to make 5 gallons of elderberry wine. This we put in a 5 gallon keg, . . . it was pretty awful to taste. After 5 or 6 months . . . we despaired and put it back in a dark corner of the basement, then went off to college and medical school. Sometime . . . my father wrote and asked if I had ever made any such wine. He had found the keg, tapped it, and there remained about 3-1/2 gallon of the most delicious elderberry wine imaginable.. . . .
During my early years in practice in St. Joseph I did manage to have a small garden in which I raised vegetables, . . . Seven years ago we moved to . . . where I have 5 acres to play on and I immediately joined the New York Fruit Testing Assoc., planting a number of French Hybrids along my east fence lines. . . . compete(ing) with trees, flowers, plants and other shrubs. Many of them did not do well . . .(and) not sufficient quantity for a 5 gallon batch. I again started my wine making in 1958, learning the fundamentals from Ernest Pollock . . . in the Rueggsegger Winery, and also from Lloyd Rueggsegger . . . . Last year I obtained sufficient grapes to make varietal 5 gallon batches of Ravat 262, Couderc 7120, Delaware, Seyve-Villard 5276, and . . . "Golden Mustang" , . . . . . It is a grape that I am not familiar with . . . . Do you know of this variety?
It is my purpose to make small 5 gallon varietal batches . . . from grapes that can be grown in Northwest Missouri in the Loess soil . . . . Grapes grown in one location do not produce the same wine as when grown in other locations; . . . I had to opportunity to obtain additional land suitable for a vineyard, . . . this spring I . . . completed putting in a vineyard, 10 plants each of: Steuben, Seibel 10868, Sheridan, Seibel 5279, Buffalo, Alden, Delaware, Catawba, Elvira, and Foch. I have room for 40 more grapes, . . .
I have tried to obtain the Missouri Reisling and the Cynthiana, but have been unable to do so. . . . I (wrote) to the West Hill Nurseries of Fredonia, New York . . . to the Fosters Nursery at Fredonia and the Millers Nursery in Canandaigua, New York . . . ; all to no avail. If you know of any place I can obtain these grapes. . . I would be more than happy. If not, I guess I will just have to ask for cuttings next fall.
. . . . I am legal and licensed. I have the No. 2 Domestic Wine Production License in the state of Missouri which entitles me to make 500 gallons per year. . . . I also have the Federal Permit which allows up to 200 gallon per year. . . . . . Phillip Wagner's books I have and use, as well as a technical book or two put out by the University of Southern California. The "Grapes of New York" I have not read and will . . . see if I can find it.
I have been over to see Irwin Abmeyer . . . and have taken a lesson or two in pruning from him. . . . . . The No. 1 Domestic Wine license is held by Emil Wepprich . . . and I have had some correspondence with him. . . . . . He discontinued raising grapes 8 years ago, . . . . so now he buys the Concord type grapes from Cuba, Mo. He states that he does not know of anyone who now raises Missouri Reisling and Elvira grapes in that area, nor does he know where I can obtain the Cynthiana.
This correspondence has been pleasant. I hope that we can sit and talk about it some day over a glass of wine. . . .Please drop in when you are in St. Joe.
SincerelyLexicon
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Dimension Notes
8.5" x 11"
