1144 WINE 



In the month of January the clear wine is racked off, and is fined by a small quan- 

 tity of isinglass dissolved in old -wine of the same kind. Forty days afterwards a 

 second fining is required. Sometimes a third may be useful, if the lees be considerable. 

 In the month of May the clear wine is drawn off into bottles. Viscount Chelsea 

 says, ' The wine is bottled between April and August. Warm weather is necesssary 

 to produce the sparkling wine. The effervescence is the result of carbonic acid gas 

 produced by fermentation, which being interrupted in the cask, reproduces and 

 developes itself in the bottles. For this a temperature of from 70 to 75 Fahr. are 

 required. The bottles, as soon as they are filled, which process is effected by women, 

 are handed over to men called " boucheurs," who add a certain quantity of a mixture 

 of brandy and sugar-candy (in the proportion of 15 to 16 per cent, for those wines 

 intended for the English market), taking care to leave about 2 to 3 inches space 

 between the cork and the wine ; they then introduce by a machine a moistened cork, 

 and pass the bottle on to other men called " maillochers," whose business it is to 

 drive the cork home with a mallet, who again transfer them to those who fasten them 

 with a string or wire ; sometimes this is done by a machine. It takes an hour to 

 bottle a tun of 88 gallons. The bottles are ranged against the cellar-walls in hori- 

 zontal layers, each being reversed as it regards the previous layer. Eight or ten days 

 afterwards a deposit, called ' griffe,' is found at the bottom of the bottle. This indicates 

 tiie time for removing the bottles to the second or permanent cellar; this is theperiod also 

 when breakage commences. This loss canneither be foreseen nor prevented, and is often 

 dangerous ; it happens mostly at the season when the vine blossoms. The bottles are 

 first placed in the coldest cellars and afterwards removed to warmer temperatures. 

 In the second winter means are taken to remove the deposit formed in the summer ; 

 the bottles are placed with their mouths downwards, and are shaken for twenty days, 

 to cause the sediment to fall into the neck. At the end of this time the bottle is 

 uncorked, the sediment thrown out, and a fifth part of the contents replaced by the 

 sweetened liquor, when the bottles are again corked, tied, and stacked as before.' 

 The bottles being filled, and their corks secured by packthread and wire, they are 

 laid on their sides, in this month, with their mouths sloping downwards at an angle of 

 about 20 degrees, in order that any sediment may fall into the neck. At the end of 

 8 or 10 days the inclination of the bottle is increased, when they are slightly tapped, 

 and placed in a vertical position ; so that after the lees are all collected in the neck, 

 the cork is partially removed for an instant, to allow the sediment to be expelled by the 

 pressure of the gas. If the wine be still muddy in the bottles, along with a new dose 

 of liquor, a small quantity of fining should be added to each, and the bottles should be 

 placed again in the inverted position. At the end of two or three months the sediment 

 collected over the cork is dexterously discharged ; and if the wine be still deficient in 

 transparency, the same process of fining must be repeated ( 



Sparkling wine ( Vin mousseux'), prepared as above described, is fit for drinking 

 usually at the end of from 18 to 30 months, according to the state of the seasons. It 

 is in Champagne that the lightest, most transparent, and most highly flavoured wines 

 have been hitherto made. The breakage of the bottles in these sparkling wines 

 amounts frequently to 30 per cent., a circumstance which adds greatly to their cost of 

 production. The tension of the carbonic acid gas in the best quality of champagne is 

 from 4 to 5 atmospheres. If higher, the greater part of the gas is liberated on 

 drawing the cork, and the wine is in great part lost. About 7 or 8 atmospheres is the 

 highest pressure that the bottles will bear without bursting ; this is about the working 

 pressure of a high-pressure steam-boiler, from 105 Ibs. to 124 Ibs. per square inch. 



(4.) Central Region. In the five departments comprised in this district the common 

 wines alone, are produced ; the white wine of Pouitty being the only celebrated one. 



(5.) Western Region. The two departments lying on the banks of the Loire, 

 Indre-and-Loire and Maine-and-Loire, possess 40,000 hectares of vineyards ; the 

 principal growths are those of Joue, Bourgueil, Vouvray, and the white wine of 

 Saumur. More than 2,000,000 hectolitres of wine are annually devoted in Aunis, 

 Saintonge, and Angoumois, to the distillation of brandy, so well known as Cognac. Of 

 the 200,000 hectares of vineyards in the Charente and Oharente-Inferior, only one- 

 third is cultivated for home consumption or exportation, the remaining two-thirds being 

 employed in making brandy. This is divided into two classes, that which is pro- 

 duced in the plain of Champagne in the arrondissement of Cognac, which is again 

 divided, according to the quality, into Champagne fine and common Champagne de Bois, 

 :tnd Eau de Vie de Bois, and that of Aunis, produced from the vines on the banks of 

 the river. 



(6.) South-Western District. The Gironde and Juran9on are the only localities 

 of any special interest. Although the wines of the Gironde have a common origin, 

 they are divided in commerce into five great classes : Medoc, De Grrave, Des Cotes 

 Palm, and UEntrc Deux-mers.' 



