324 FOOD AND FOOD ADULTERANTS. 



time doses of salicylic acid that will completely stop digestion for some hours in the 

 case of others, it is altogether unlikely that even the strongest person could continue 

 its use indefinitely without injury. After some years of toleration, the legal pro- 

 hibition of its use in articles of food or drink seems, in Europe, to be only a question 

 of time ; the more as in the case of wines, the process of "Pasteurizing" removes all 

 legitimate reason for the longer continuation of a doubtful practice, liable to gross 

 abuse. 



In view of this fact, it is curious that its use for the conservation of must in the 

 unfermented condition has not only been extensively introduced in this country, but 

 the resulting beverage is especially recommended, as a healthful and harmless substi- 

 tute for wine, by those who consider alcohol as necessarily harmful in any form and 

 quantity. A few years' experience will doubtless show how unfortunate has been 

 the choice of a substitute in this case. 



Aiid again as follows : l 



Finally, when wines are not entirely sound and with the methods of fermentation 

 now in vogue this is a very prevalent condition the remedy to be applied should not 

 lie in the use of antiseptics, sulphuring, salicylic or boracic acids, and the like, but in 

 the simple and rational heating process devised by Pasteur, and named for him. The 

 " Pasteurizer " should be an indispensable appliance in every wine-house ; and its use, 

 if properly understood and practiced, will at once do away with nine-tenths of all 

 doctoring for unsoundness. The universal adoption of this simple and inexpensive 

 expedient will save all losses now sustained in the shipment of our young wines, and 

 will soon do away with the reproach that " California wines will not keep." 



If in the face of all these facts and legitimate substitutes for medication there are 

 those who desire to adhere to the old doctoring system, it is at least the right of those 

 who do without them and furnish the consumers the pure product of the grape to 

 have a legalized mode of expressing the fact on the packages. 



. VARIETIES. 



The different kinds of wines sold can be numbered by the hundreds. 

 They refer usually either to the country where it is produced, or of 

 whose product it is an imitation, as Port, Sherry, Ilochheioier, Madeira, 

 &c., or to the variety of grape from which it is made, as catawba, ries- 

 liug, zinfandel, &c. 



No generally recognized classification is made except into white or red 

 wines according to their color ; and into dry or sweet wines according to 

 their content of sugar. The general name of champagne is given to ef- 

 fervescing wines. 



COMPOSITION OF WINE. 



In countries where the production of wine is one of the leading in- 

 dustries, like France and parts of Germany, the composition of the wines 

 made is very well established. Scarcely any article of consumption has 

 been the subject of so much chemical investigation as wine. Thousands 

 of analyses have been published, so that one is at a loss to choose among 

 them for representative figures. 



In a general way the normal constituents of a natural wine may In- 

 divided into two classes, volatile and fixed. 



The volatile matters are as follows : Water, constituting from 80 to 

 90 per cent, of the weight; alcohol, 5 to 15 per cent. ; glycerine, 2 to 8 

 1 Bulletin No. 65, Univ. of Cal. Agl. Ex. Station. 



