33i SUBSTANCES POSSESSING A YINOTJS SMELL. 



ether. If now the brandy which has been distilled 

 over be added to the liquid remaining in the retort, 

 the original vinous smell is not regained, the bouquet 

 is destroyed. 



However carefully the distillation has been carried 

 on in closed vessels, some portion of a very volatile 

 substance has escaped. 



G-eiger has observed that after some years such a 

 mixture regains its bouquet, a proof that it arises 

 from a substance previously extant in wine. 



Schubert * endeavoured to investigate this subject 

 in another way. He evaporated wine, till only one- 

 fifth of its original volume remained, and then confined 

 it in a bottle. At the end of five years this liquid, 

 which contained from 3 to 4 per cent, acid, had a 

 bouquet like that of wine 100 years old. To me it 

 seems very strange that wine entirely free from 

 alcohol should nevertheless possess vinous odour. 

 Aroma may have been produced in the wine men- 

 tioned by Schubert, but since the alcohol was com- 

 pletely expelled, one can hardly imagine the formation 

 of ether to occur. 



Schubert is of opinion that the aroma of wine is a 

 product of the action of tartaric acid on wine extract, 

 and that alcohol has nothing to do with it. This view 

 is entirely opposed to the fact, that many compounds 

 of oxide of ethyl appear among the odoriferous consti- 

 tuents of wine. 



* Pogg, Ann. Bd. 77, a. 197, 397. 



