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WINE MANUFACTURE. 



WINE MANUFACTURE. 



95 1 



in large vessels, especially when prepared as above, than in the lesser 

 ones used by small proprietors. The casks, being full, are left about 

 eight days without being bunged ; care, however, is taken for the time 

 to cover the bung-hole with a stone, brick, or piece of wood. They 

 are filled up every two days, and when bunged, every eight days at 

 least, till the wine is in a state to allow the cask to be kept with the 

 bung-hole at the side, which is not till after eighteen months. 



Manner nf mutiny White Wine. To make the white wine it is not, 

 like the red, put into the vat to ferment, but the grapes are trod, and 

 when taken from the press, the juice, skins, and seeds are put into 

 casks (the stalks having been separated) ; here it ferments and becomes 

 wine of itself. When the fermentation in the barrels has entirely 

 ceased, it is racked off, and care is taken to fill up what has been con- 

 sumed by evaporation, as often as possible, and this operation ought to 

 take place at least once or twice a week. 



'J he wine, if it has succeeded, ought to be clear, transparent, of a fine 

 soft colour, a lively smell, and a balsamic taste, slightly piquant, but 

 agreeable, inclining to that of the raspberry, violet, or mignonette, 

 filling the mouth, and passing without irritating the throat, giving a 

 gentle heat to the stomach and not getting too quickly into the head. 



It is necessary to know what is meant by the flavour of wine, aud 

 what by bouquet, terms often confounded. The flavour, called by the 

 French sire, indicates the vinous power and aromatic savour which are 

 felt in the act of swallowing the wine, embalming the mouth, and con- 

 tinuing to be felt after the passage of the liquor. It seems to consist 

 of the impression made by the alcohol and the aromatic particles which 

 are liberated and volatilised as aoon as the wine receives the warmth of 

 the mouth and stomach. The nine differs from the bum/vet, inasmuch 

 as the latter declares itself the moment the wine is exposed to the air ; 

 it is no criterion of the vinous force or quantity of alcohol present 

 (being in fact greatest in the weak wines', and influences the organ of 

 snu'll rather than of taste. In the red wines of Medoc and the Graves, 

 the *erg and bouquet exist only in the old wines: these qualities cannot 

 be known, but only conjectured in the new wines; and experience has 

 alone taught the brokers, that when wines of particular growths present 

 themselves without harshness (rerdeur), with colour, body, and vino- 

 iiity, they will, when old, acquire a balsamic flavour (fire) and mellow- 

 ness (milieus), besides the colour and body ; they will also keep well, 

 which constitutes the perfection of wine. To give bouquet to the 

 wine, two drachms of orris (the rhi/oma of the Ira Jt-trentinn) in 

 powder are put into a fine bag of muslin, and hung for about fifteen 

 days in the cask. Many persons, to make the wine appear older and 

 higher flavoured, and at the same time to prevent injuring its quality, 

 employ raspberry brandy. The bouquet which by these means is 

 given to the common or ordinary wines never replaces perfectly the 

 natural flavour of the choice wines of Medoc and Graves, It is very 

 may to distinguish the fictitious bouquet by even moderate experience 

 in tasting wine. The bouquet is altogether a new product, and is in no 

 way dependent on the perfume of the grape from which the wine is 

 made. Red wines scarcely ever retain a trace of the odour of the 

 grapes ; the white muscadine wines do in some degree, especially Fron- 

 tignan. It has been recommended to suspend some of the ripest and 

 most odoriferous bunches of the grapes in the cask after the first 

 fermentation has subsided, in order to heighten the perfume of the 

 wine, a practice long pursued in the vinl rutpati of the Italians, and 

 vin* rapfi of the French. But if the (enanthit acid and ananthic ether, 

 on which the bouquet depends, be the consequence of a true process 

 of putrefaction (somewhat similar to what occurs in musk, by which 

 the odour is evolved), by a mutual interchange of the elements of 

 gluten and sugar, this process cannot accomplish the object, and only 

 runs the risk of exciting a hurtful fermentation. The best account of 

 the bouquet of wine is given by Liebig, who, with Pelouze, discovered 

 IP-TI iiittiic ether : " It is well known that wine and fermented liquors 

 generally contain, in addition to alcohol, other substances which could 

 not be detected before their fermentation, and which must have been 

 formed, therefore, during that process. The smell and taste which 

 distinguish wine from all other fermented liquids are known to depend 

 upon an ether of a volatile and highly combustible acid, which is of 

 an oily nature, and to which the name of ccnanthic ether has been 

 given . . . The substances in wine to which its taste and smell are 

 owing, are generated during the fermentation of the juice of such 

 grapes as contain a certain quantity of tartaric acid ; they are not found 

 in wines which are free from all acid, or which contain a different 

 nrgmic acid, such as acetic acid. Tim wines of warm climates possess 

 no odour ; wines grown in France have it in a marked degree ; but in 

 the wines from the Khine the perfume is most intense. The kinds of 

 grapes on the Rhine which ripen very late, and scarcely ever com- 

 pletely, such as the Riesling and Orlcant, have the strongest perfume 

 or bouquet, and contain proportionally a larger quantity of tartaric acid. 

 The earlier grapes, such as the Jtitlantlei' and others, contain a large 

 proportion of alcohol, and are similar to Spanish wines in then- 

 flavour, but they possess no bouquet .... The acid of wines, and 

 their characteristic perfumes, have some connection, for they are 

 always found together ; and it can scarcely be doubted that the 

 presence of the former exercises a certain influence on the formation 

 of the latter. Whatever opinion may be held regarding the origin 

 of the volatile odoriferous substances obtained in the fermentation of 

 wine, it i quite certain that the characteristic smell of wine is owing 



to an ether of an organic acid, resembling one of the fatty acids . . . 

 On the Rhine, an artificial bouquet is often given to wine for fraudu- 

 lent purposes, by the addition of several species of the sage and rue to 

 the fermenting liquid ; but the perfume thus obtained differs from 

 the genuine aroma by its inferior durability, it being gradually dis- 

 sipated " (Liebig's ' Organic Chemistry.') 



The fermentation is more prompt and lively in proportion to the 

 quantity of must ; hence the best wine is made when a large quantity 

 of must is operated on. In some cases, when the season is cold and 

 the grapes are imperfectly ripened, it is necessary to promote the 

 fermentation by artificial means ; either adding some boiling must, or 

 withdrawing some of the excess of water by adding baked gypsum. 

 The fermentation is best carried on iu covered vats : since in open ones 

 not only the carbonic acid gas escapes, by which the wine is rendered 

 flatter, but much of the alcohol and aroma are lost, and the wiue 

 rendered weak. The length of time that the fermentation is continued 

 in the large vats depends on the kind of wine intended to be made. 

 The temperature also influences its progress and the results. 



In the Champagne country, the grapes which are to fill one cure are 

 all pressed within the space of two hours, and the must allowed to 

 remain in the cure for a period varying from six or twelve to eighteen 

 hours, according to the temperature, during which it undergoes a 

 process of spontaneous purification, becoming as clear as water. The 

 moment when this is complete is watched for with the utmost care ; 

 it is then drawn off into small casks, which are well sulphured (a 

 process which is hereafter explained), and put into cellars below 

 ground, the bunghole being left open, but covered with a flint stone. 

 The overflowing froth, or yeast, is removed from time to time till 

 December or January, when the chief purchases are made, as then thi- 

 wine can be tasted and proved. It is then also submitted to the 

 process of Jin in</. 



At Tokay the must is allowed to remain in the vat from twenty- 

 four to thirty-six hours, till the first signs of fermentation are mani- 

 fested ; it is then drawn off into small casks (which are never sulphured) 

 and placed in a still part of the cellar. The effervescence lasts two r.r 

 three months. 



The fermentation spoken of hitherto is called the primary or active 

 fermentation ; but there is a subsequent one, called the secondary or 

 insensible, which, though obviously a continuation of the former, is 

 less attended to, but yet of great importance as relates to the ripening, 

 keeping, and acidity of the wine. A knowledge of the causes of fer- 

 mentation, and the conditions under which it can take place, i 

 essential to the comprehension of the measures necessary for ripening 

 the wine and preserving it iu perfection. The subject has been fully 

 explained in Liebig's ' Chemistry of Agriculture,' and Muldrr's 

 'Chemistry of Wine,' London, 1859. 



When a di-y wine is wished, it is necessary that all the sugar should 

 be transformed into alcohol. To do this the fermentation is excited 

 from time to time, by rolling the wine, or returning it to the lees to fcnl. 

 As the wine contains variable quantities of undecomposed gluten in 

 solution or thrown down to the bottom of the cask, it is only neces- 

 sary to stir up the lees to re-excite the fermentation. But lest the 

 point should be passed at which the vinous fermentation is nearly com- 

 plete, and the acetous would begin, all the uudecomposed ferment is 

 removed. Much of it remains in the vat in which the first and violent 

 fermentation takes place ; when the fermenting liquid is put in casks, 

 these are generally kept nearly full, by frequent additions of fresh 

 juice, so that much of the ferment works out at the bung hole, which 

 is seldom perfectly closed for two or three months. Racking is 

 practised, for valuable wines, as often as three times the first year. 

 This consists in transferring the wine to a fresh cask. It is in doing 

 this that the practice of iuluhwriny is mostly adopted. It consists in 

 burning sulphur-matches or linen steeped in sulphur in the cask 

 previously well rinsed, by which all the oxygen of the atmospheric air 

 is consumed, and a quantity of sulphurous acid gas produced. This 

 must be carefully done, as, if in excess, the wine acquires the taste of 

 sulphur, which it would keep for some time. White wines require 

 most sulphur, especially when very dry. It is proper to transfer the 

 wine immediately to the exhausted cask, otherwise it would speedily 

 get filled again with common atmospheric air. Dr. M'Culloch recom- 

 mends the following method, as he remarks that by tbe common 

 method of tapping it is scarcely possible to draw the wine without 

 mixing a portion of the lees with it : " To effect it, a cock is introduced 

 into the full cask at the usual place of tapping, three or four inches 

 above its bottom, from which a leather hose (a flexible caoutchouc tube 

 would be better) pipe passes into the bung-hole of the empty one. A 

 common pair of bellows may then be so fitted to the bung-hole of the 

 full cask as to force by its action the whole of the clear liquor through 

 th hose into the empty vessel. By this means the least possible 

 disturbance is created, and the wine is at the same time preserved from 

 the injurious contact of atmospheric air." The whole of the wine 

 should not be drawn off, as the cap frequently contains principles 

 which would readily re-excite fermentation. What is left may be 

 employed to form either brandy or vinegar, according to its kind or 

 value. Another means may be used, instead of sulphuring, to 

 preventing the acetous fermentation, namely, the use of sulphite of 

 potaxh. A drachm is in general sufficient for a pipe of wine, and it 

 communicates no taste. The utility of both agents consists in 



