BOOK XIV. XXV. 130-xxvir. 133 



the must which he calls * squeezinf]^s,' which \ve take 

 to mean that which is the very last pressed out. 

 Also we know that for the sake of colouring the wine 

 colours are added as a sort of pigment and that this 

 gives the wine more body. So many poisons are 

 employed to force wine to suit our taste — and we are 

 surprised that it is not wholesome ! 



It is a proof that wine is beginning to go bad if a 

 sheet of lead when dipped in it turns a difFerent 

 colour. 



XX\7. It is a pccuharity of wine among hquids Preseria- 

 to go mouldy or else to turn into vinegar ; and whole 

 vohimes of instructions how to remedy this have been 

 published. Wine-lees when dried will catch fire, 

 and go on burning of themselves without fucl being 

 addcd ; their ashes have the nature of nitre, and the 

 same properties, with the addition that they are 

 greasier to the touch. 



XXVII. Even in regard to wine already vintaged stomgeo} 

 there is a great difference in point of chmate. In the 

 neighbourhood of the Alps they put it in wooden 

 casks and close these round with tiles^ and in a cold 

 winter also hght fires to protect it from the effect of 

 the cokl. It is seldom recorded, but it has been seen 

 occasionally, that the vessels have burst in a frost, 

 leaving the wine standing in frozen blocks — almost 

 a miracle, since it is not the nature of wine to freeze : 

 usually it is only numbed by cold. Districts with a 

 milder chmate store their wine in jars and bury them 

 in the ground entirely, or else up to a part of their 

 position,* so protectingthem against the atmosphere ; 

 but in other places people keep off the weather by 

 building roofs over them. And they also give the 

 followin-g rules : one side of a wine-cellar or at least 



273 



