Oti the Strength of Wines. 



White Port, 



Sherry — Wtakest, 



Mean of 13 wines, excluding those very long 

 kept in cask, ..... 

 Sherry — Strongest, 



Mean of 9 wines very long kept in cask in the 

 East Indies, 



Madre da Xeres, 



■,,■,. ( all long in cask / Strongest 

 *^^*^*^"'^' I in East Indies (Weakest . 

 TeneriiFe, long in cask at Calcutta, 



Cercial, 



Dry Lisbon, 



Shiraz, ........ 



Amontillado, 



Claret, a first growth of 1811, 



Chateau-Latour, first gi-owth 1825, 



Eosan, second growth 1825, 



Ordinary Claret, a superior " vin ordinaire," 



Rives Altes, ■ 



Malmsey, 



Rudesheimer, superior quality, .... 



Rudesheimer, inferior quality, . . . • 



Hambacher, superior quality, ..... 



Giles' Edinburgh Ale, before bottling. 



The same Ale, two years in bottle, 



Superior London Porter, four months bottled, . 



Ale. p. c. 

 by weight. 



14.97 

 13.98 



15.37 

 16.17 



14.72 



16.90 



14.09 



16.90 



13.84 



15.45 



16.14 



12.95 



12.63 



7.72 



7-78 



7.61 



8.99 



9.31 



12.86 



8.40 



6.90 



7.35 



5.70 



6.06 



5.36 



199 



P. Sp. p. C 

 by volume. 



31.31 

 .30.84 



33.59 

 35.12 



32.30 

 37.06 

 30.80 

 36.81 

 30.21 

 33.65 

 34.71 

 28.30 

 27.60 

 16.95 

 17.06 

 16.74 

 18.96 

 22.35 

 28.37 

 18.44 

 15.19 

 16.15 

 12.60 

 13.40 

 11.91 



In addition to certain obvious general conclusions which may be 

 drawn from this table, the author stated, as the result of his expe- 

 riments, that the alcoholic strength of various samples of the same 

 kind bears no relation whatever to their commercial value, and is 

 often very different from what would be indicated by the taste 

 even of an experienced wine-taster. 



Some observations were next made on the effect produced on 

 the alcoholic strengtii of wines by certain modes of keeping or 

 ripening them, more especially by the method employed in the case 

 of sherry, madeira, and such other wines, wliich consists of slow 

 evaporation for a series of years through the cask, above all, in hot 

 climates. The researches made by the author on this head are not 

 yet complete ; but he is inclined to infer, from the experiments al- 

 ready made, that, for a moderate term of years, the proportion of 

 alcohol increases in tlie wine, but afterwards, on the contrary, di- 

 niinisiies ; and tiiat tiie period when the wine begins to lose in al- 

 coholic strength is probably that at which it ceases to improve in 

 flavour. The increase which takes place at first in the alcohol of 

 wine undergoing evaporation through the cask, appeared at first 

 view parallel to the fact generally admitted on the authority of 

 Siiemering, that spirit becomes stronger when confined in bladder, 

 or in a vessel covered with bladder, in consequence of the water 

 passing out by elective exosmose. 



The author, however, on repeating the experiments of Soeme- 

 ring, as related by various writers (for he could not obtain access 

 to the original account of them), was unable, by any variation of 



