Sept. 26, 1884.] 



♦ KNO\A/'LEDGE ♦ 



249 



MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE 



PLAINLYWORDED -EXACTLYDESCRIBED_ 



LONDON: FRIDAY, SEPT. 26, 1884. 



Contents op No. 152. 



PAGB 



The Chemistry of Cookery. XLIII. 



—The Cookery of Wine. By W. 



Mattieu Williams 249 



The Electro-Magnet. (/;(«».) By 



W. Slingo 260 



Flight of a Missile. (/i(ii«.) By 



Bichard A. Proctor 252 



Education 253 



The Entomology of a Pond. By 



K. A. Butler 253 



Notes on Coal. By R. A. Proctor.. 265 

 Other Worlds than Ours. By M. 



de Fontenelle. With Notes by 



Richard A. Proctor 256 



Fiei 



Dickens's Story Left Half Told. 



By Thomas Foster 267 



Post-Mortem Attitudes. (lUm.) ... 258 

 The International Health Elhibi- 



tion. XVII. (Illus.) 260 



Editorial Gossip 261 



Reviews : — 



Bible Folk-Lore. By Edward 

 Clodd 262 



Some Books on Our Table 28:i 



Face of the Sky. Bt F.R.A.S 265 



Correspondence : — Tea-Drinking — 



Mind and Brain, A<- 265 



Our Chess Column 268 



THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 



By W. Mattieu Wiluams. 



XLIII.— THE COOKERY OF WINE. 



IN an unguarded moment I promised to include the 

 above in this series, and will do the best I can to 

 fulfil the promise ; but the utmost result of this effort 

 can only be a contribution to the subject which is too pro- 

 foundly mysterious to be fully grasped by any intellect that 

 is not sufficiently clairvoyant to penetrate paving-stones 

 and see through them to the interiors of the closely-tiled 

 cellars wherein the mysteries are manipulated. 



I will first define what I mean by the cookery of wine. 

 Grape juice in its unfermented state may be described as 

 "raw wine," or this name may be applied to the juice after 

 fermentation. I apply it in the latter sense, and shall use 

 it as describing grape juice which has been spontaneously 

 and recently fermented without the addition of any foreign 

 materials, or altered by keeping, or heating, or any other 

 process beyond fermentation. All such processes and ad- 

 mixture which affect any chemical changes on the raw 

 material I shall describe as cookery, and the result as 

 cooked wine. When wine made from other juice than that 

 of the grape is referred to it will be named specifically. 



At the outset a fallacy, very prevalent in this country, 

 should be controverted. The high prices charged for the 

 cooked material sold to Englishmen has led to absurdly 

 exaggerated notions of the original value of wine. I am 

 quite safe in stating that the average market value of rich 

 wine in its raw state, in countries where the grape grows 

 luxuriantly, and where, in consequence, the average quality 

 of the wine is the best, does not exceed sixpence per 

 gallon, or one penny per bottle. I speak now of 

 the newly - made wine. Allowing another sixpence 

 per gallon for barrelling and storage, the value of 

 the commodity in portable form becomes twopence 

 per bottle. 1 am not speaking of thin, poor wines, 

 produced by a second or third pressing of the grapes, 

 but of the best and richest quality, and, of coui-se, I do 

 not include the fancy wines, those produced in certain 

 vineyards of celebrated chateaux, that are superstitiously 



venerated by those easily-deluded people who suppose 

 themselves to be connoisseurs of choice wines. I refer to 

 the ninety-nine and nine-tenths per cent, of the rich wines 

 that actually come into the market. Wines made from 

 grapes grown in unfavourable climates naturally cost more 

 in proportion to the poorness of the yield. , 



As some of my readers may be inclined to question thb 

 estimate of average co.st, a few illustrative facts may be 

 named. In Sicily and Calabria I usually paid at the road- 

 side or village " osterias " an equivalent to one halfpenny for 

 a glass or tumbler holding nearly half-a-pint of common 

 wine, thin but genuine. This wag at the rate of less than 

 one shilling per gallon, or twopence per bottle, and included 

 the cost of barrelling, storage, and inn-keeper's profit on 

 retailing. In the luxuriant wine-growing regions of Spain, 

 a traveller baiting at a railway refreshment station and 

 buying one of the sausage sandwiches that there prevail, is 

 allowed to help himself to wine to drink on the spot with- 

 out charge, but if he fills his flask to carry away, he is 

 subjected to an extra charge of one halfpenny. It is well 

 known to all concerned that at vintage-time of fairly 

 good seasons, in all countries where the grape grows 

 freely, a good cask is worth more than the new wine it 

 contains when filled ; that much wine is wasted from lack 

 of vessels, and anybody sending two good empty casks to a 

 \-igneron, can have one of them filled in exchange for the 

 other. Those who desire further illustrations and verifica- 

 tion should ask their friends — outside of the trade — who 

 have travelled in Southern wine countries, and know the 

 language and something more of the coimtry than is to be 

 learned by being simply transferred from one hotel to 

 another under the guidance of couriers, cicerone, valets de 

 place, and other flunkies. Wine-merchants are " men of 

 business." 



Thus the five shillings paid for a bottle of rich port is 

 made up of one penny for the original wine, one penny 

 more for cost of storage, ic, about sixpence for duty and 

 carriage to this country, and twopence for bottling, making 

 tenpence altogether ; the remainmg four shillings and two- 

 pence is paid for cookery and wine-merchant's profits. 



Under cookery I include those changes which may be 

 obtained by simply exposing the wine to the action of the 

 temperature of an ordinary cellar, or the higher tempera- 

 ture of " Pasteuring," to be presently described. 



In the youthful days of chemistry the first of these 

 methods of cookery was the only one available, and wine 

 was kept by wine-merchants with purely commercial 

 intent for a considerable number of years. 



A little reflection will shoiv that this simple and original 

 cookery was very expensive, sufiiciently so to legitimately 

 explain the rise in market value from tenpence to five 

 shillings or more per bottle. 



Wine-merchants require a respectable profit on the 

 capital they invest in their business — say ten per cent per 

 annum on the prime cost of the wine laid down. Then 

 there is the rental of cellars and offices, the establishment 

 expenses — such as wages, sampling, sending out, adver- 

 tising, losses by bad debts, ifcc. — lo be added. The capital 

 lying dead in the cellar demands compound interest. At 

 ten per cent, the principal doubles in about seven and one- 

 third years. Calling it seven years, to allow very meagrely 

 for establishment expenses, we get the following result : — 



S s. d. 



Here, then, we have a fair commercial explanation of 



