260 P RES EN 7 POSITION OF 



wine, or he merely employed methods similar to those pro- 

 posed by Pasteur in 1876, for the purification of brewery 

 yeast. Rommier attacks the question as if investigation had 

 since then been at a standstill, and he appears to be partly 

 in ignorance of, and partly to intentionally ignore, the ad- 

 vance made outside France. According to his statements, 

 the bouquet of wine is dependent upon the yeast alone, and 

 must from districts which only produce inferior kinds of 

 wine, can be made to yield wine possessing in the main 

 the same characters as that of any typical high-class wine 

 by fermenting it with yeast from the latter. These observa- 

 tions are in agreement with the statements of Marx, but 

 they are recorded as if they required no qualification. No 

 importance is attached to the chemical composition of the 

 must ; it is assumed that the yeast will do everything. Similar 

 loose statements have been made by several other wine 

 technologists. As Rommier did not work with pure cultures 

 of definite species, no definite conclusions could be drawn 

 from his observations, as was justly pointed out by Wortmann. 

 In 1882-84, as already mentioned, I proved for the first 

 time, by means of accurate experiments, that there are dif- 

 ferent beer yeasts, and that these give rise to fermentation 

 products differing in their character. Whilst, in the accounts 

 I published of my investigations connected with brewing, 

 I urgently insisted on the importance of conducting the 

 fermentation with a single selected species or race, I also 

 emphasised the fact that the general character of the beer 

 was dependent upon several other factors besides the yeast ; 

 the latter is certainly a very important factor, but it is only 

 one of several. For instance, a beer of the Pilsener type 

 will not be obtained by the employment of yeast from Pilsen 

 in a brewery whose wort is prepared according to the 

 Munich system. Every experienced brewer knows this ; 

 and in the brewing industry it is scarcely conceivable that 

 such exaggerated statements as those of Rommier and his 



