32 WINE AND THE ART OF WINE TASTING. 



its yellow or straw color, will have a pinkish tint of more or less intensity. 

 This may be considered as due to imperfect cleanliness of the vessels 

 used in wine making, or of the barrels in which the wine has been put. 



ROSE-COLORED, SniLLER (Rosato, 'It.; Rose, Fr.). White wines made 

 from red grapes frequently possess this color in greater or less degree; 

 especially is this the case when the grapes have not been picked and 

 handled with great care, or when the grapes have become the least heated. 



A white wine may also acquire this color by contact with barrels or 

 utensils which have been used for red wine and not been thoroughly 

 cleansed afterwards. 



This color is sometimes produced artificially. In France they use 

 extensively teinte de Fismes, so called after the town in which it is manu- 

 factured. It is claimed that it is free from alum and sulphuric acid,* 

 but wrongly. 



White wines which have commenced to spoil, or in which viscous fer- 

 mentation has started, and which begin to become brownish, or even 

 bluish, and at the same time turbid, what the French call vin oeil de 

 perdrix, are rendered salable by the use of this teinte de Fismes, and are 

 sold by the French under the name of vins roses. 



Jacquesson, pere, states that this coloring fluid not only colors and 

 clarifies the wine, but also arrests the progress of the disease, or pre- 

 vents it if it is to be feared. This fluid is also used in France for color- 

 ing sparkling wines. 



BLUISH-BROWN, BROWN- YELLOW (Bruno-bleuastro, Giallo-bruno, It.; 

 Brun-bleudtre, Fr.). This color, which the French call oeil de perdrix 

 (partridge-eye), is a dull, dark yellow, proper to some old, southern 

 wines, but due in the majority of cases in which it is found to some 

 malady of the wine, f 



This phenomenon is observed not only in old but also in young wines, 

 both red and white. Very probably its origin lies in several causes, as 

 the numerous explications given by different authors would lead us to 

 believe. Nessler has studied the change of color as it takes place in 

 white wines. He tells us that the substances that cause the coloration, 

 more or less deep, of the wine are contained in the stems and the seeds. 

 Thus, wines which have been fermented in contact with the solid part 

 of the grapes blacken very easily when exposed to the air. The pres- 

 ence of bad grapes in the fermentation also tends to render a wine liable 

 to this discoloration. 



This change of white wine depends directly on the action of the air; 



* The vin, or teinte de Fismes, was first prepared by Manceau by boiling elderberries and 

 cream of tartar together. 



t It sometimes happens, writes Robinet, that a perfectly bright white wine which has 

 never been racked or otherwise treated before, is racked from its lees and treated with 

 tannin and some clarifying material; then instead of becoming bright and clear the 

 operations to which it has been treated have had diametrically the opposite effect. The 

 wine has not taken the clarification, as the cellarmen say, has a bluish tint, and is 

 turbid. 



This change or malady of the "blue color" happens most generally in wines of low 

 acid and alcoholic contents, and which are at the same time rich in nitrogenous sub- 

 stances. According to Robinet this malady is due to a secondary fermentation, caused 

 by a mycoderm which is analogous to the mycoderma crocceum, and has a very ephem- 

 eral existence. 



To cure this disease in a wine it generally suffices to raise the alcoholic strength, or 

 sometimes an addition of six or eight grains of tannin per hectolitre is necessary. In 

 the latter case the wine is allowed to settle for twenty-four hours after the addition of 

 tannin, and then clarified with isinglass. 



The above mycoderm is killed and precipitated by cold. 



