Section B. 

 CH EM ISTRY. 



I.— THE SUGAR STRENGTH AND ACIDITY OF 

 VICTORIAN MUSTS, WITH REFERENCE TO 

 THE ALCOHOLIC STRENGTH OF VICTORIAN 

 WINES. 



By W. PERCY WILKINSON. 



Part I. 



The present is a second instalment of a systematic examination 

 of Victorian and other Australian wines with a view to making a 

 scientific comparison between these wines and the typical French 

 and German, for which such elaborate data have been published 

 by various French chemists (Faure, Analyse chimique et comparee 

 des Vins de la Gironde ; Fortes & Ruyssen, Traite de la Vigne et 

 de ses produits, 1886; Gayon, Blarez, & Dubourg. Analyse 

 chimique des Vins de la Gironde, 1888 ; and numerous analyses 

 by Houdart, Girard, and others, quoted in Viard's Traite General 

 de la Vigne et des Vins, 1892), and the German Imperial Com- 

 mission for Wine Statistics, appointed in 1884 (Zeitschrift fiir 

 Anal. Chemie, 27, et seq). 



In the first instalment (Journal of the Board of Viticulture for 

 Victoria, May, 1892, pp. 81-96) it was pointed out, as the result 

 of determinations on 600 Australian wines, that the average strength 

 of Australian wines is 12 grammes of absolute alcohol per 100 

 cubic centimetres, as compared to an average of 8 grammes per 

 100 c.c, characteristic of French and German wines (nearly 2,000 

 samples). 



In view of the great practical importance of the fact that Aus- 

 tralian wines are half as strong again in alcohol as French and 

 German, it was necessary to ascertain whether it is due to a 

 corresponding excessive sugar strength in Australian musts. Some 

 attention had already been given to the relation of Australian 

 musts to wines, resulting in the publication from time to time of 

 specific gravities of musts, by the Hunter River Vineyard Asso- 

 ciation from 1847 onwards, by the Royal Commission appointed to 

 inquire into the Alcoholic Strength of South Australian Wines in 

 1874, and by H. Lumsdaine, Chief Inspector of Distilleries for 

 New South Wales, 1875. These determinations demonstrated the 

 high specific gravity, and accordingly the high sugar strength of 

 Australian musts as compared to French and German. (The 



