102 MICRODES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



Wine affected by Ropiness. White wines, and 

 especially champagne, are more often affected by this 

 disease than red wines. It is more apt to attack wine 

 which has little alcohol and is deficient in tannin, 

 and under its influence the liquor becomes turbid, flat, 

 and insipid, ropy, like white of egg, and it loses its 

 sugar. 



This change is effected by a filamentous microbe, 



Fig. 55. Disease of ropiness in wine, affecting champagne, nn<1 caused by a bacterium 

 which assumes two forms : the figure 8, and chaplets. 



even more like the lactic ferment (Fig. 58) than the 

 one we have just described, since it is likewise formed 

 of very minute globules, united in chaplets, which 

 are, however, more attenuated than those of the lactic 

 ferment. These filaments form a species of feltwork 

 through which the liquid slowly filters; hence its 

 oily appearance. It is probably a bacterium (Fig. 55). 



