STUDIES ON WINE. 125 



Ecole Normale and examined a considerable number 

 of specimens. After a series of tastings, which recog- 

 nised, if not a superiority over the heated wines, at least 

 a shade of imperceptible flavour, which, however, it 

 was admitted, would escape nine-tenths of the con- 

 sumers, Pasteur, fearing that there remained still in 

 the mind of the majority of the commission a slight 

 prejudice against the operation of heating, and that 

 imagination, moreover, had some share in deter- 

 mining shades of flavour, proposed that at the next 

 sitting there should be no indication which of the 

 samples of wine had been heated and which had not. 

 The commission, having no other desire than to arrive 

 at the truth, at once accepted this proposition. 



The resulting uncertainty as to whether the heated 

 or the unheated wines were to be preferred was so abso- 

 lute as to be comical. It is unnecessary to say that the 

 heated wines had not experienced the least alteration. 

 At a certain point Pasteur, who was astonished at the 

 extraordinary delicacy of the palate of these tasters, 

 employed a little trickery. He offered them two speci- 

 mens absolutely identical, taken out of the same bottle. 

 There were preferences, very slight it is true, but pre- 

 ferences gravely expressed for one or the other glass. 

 The commission, making allusion in its report to this 

 special tasting experiment, was the first to allow with 

 a good grace that the differences between the heated 

 and non-heated wines were insignificant, imperceptible 



