Notes and Gleanings. 173 



month of September, or until the fermentation begins to burst them. The bot- 

 tles requiring great strength, they are imported from Folembray, a town of 

 Champagne in France : they are as much superior to our best American bottles 

 as the best French plate-glass is superior to common American glass. The 

 French bottle will stand a pressure of twenty-five to thirty atmospiieres ; while 

 the American will rarely bear more than sixteen to eighteen, as shown by the 

 manometer used here in testing them. The neck of the French bottle is like- 

 wise more uniform. No old nor second-hand bottles are used. The corks are 

 also imported from Epernay. 



This second fermentation having now progressed as stated, it is arrested in 

 great measure by lowering the bottles into the vaults built for storage of spar- 

 kling wine, where they are stacked by scores of thousands, in long rows resem- 

 bling cord-wood; each bottle being laid on its side, along which now collects the 

 sediment generated by the fermentation. The development of gas may not, 

 however, wholly cease, as the occasional bursting of bottles will show. In one 

 hot August, some years ago, the gas evolved by a slight excess of the rock-candy 

 caused the destruction of fifty thousand bottles. The wine thus spilled is, how- 

 ever, conducted by a contrivance of stone gutters to a reservoir, and is distilled 

 into brandy ; seven measures of wine making one of brandy. 



The bottled wine thus stacked in store may remain undisturbed for years. 

 When wanted for market, the bottles, without disturbance of their sediment, are 

 carefull}' placed in racks, their necks inclining downwards, and are gradually 

 raised, day by day, towards a perpendicular and inverted position, each bottle 

 being every day twirled about one-third round and back again by hand several 

 times ; which agitation causes the sediment to collect gradually in the neck, 

 leaving the wine above perfectly clear. This operation requires two to three 

 weeks. 



The bottles are now carefully elevated from the cellar ; and, as a very skilful 

 workman removes each cork, the puff of gas expels all sediment, — a process 

 known as "disgorging," — -and the bottle passes to the hand of another, who 

 quickly adjusts its mouth to a tube, through which it receives by gauge a small 

 quantity of the wine-solution of pure rock-candy, — just enough to make good the 

 loss in disgorging ; and the bottle is received by a third workman, and furnished, 

 at a single blow of a mallet, with a new cork, which a fourth workman as quickly 

 secures in its place by the use of an admirable machine. The wine is made. 



The bottles are now removed to the packing-room, and there properly labelled, 

 and packed in boxes of twelve quart bottles or twenty-four pint bottles each ; 

 and every box is secured against fraudulent opening by means of Bartlett's 

 patent, — a red tape tied round the centre of the box, fitting in a groove, and 

 sealed with the seal of the wine-house ; which patent has been adopted as the 

 '• trade-mark " for pure wines by the American Wine-growers' Association of 

 Ohio. 



In the preparation of still wines, the proprietor avails himself of a valuable 

 precaution which is of practical interest to the makers of wine. 



The discovery made by L. Pasteur (to which was awarded a gold medal by 

 tlie Emperor of France at the Paris Exposition), that wine heated to the tem- 



