44 WINE AND THE ART OF WINE TASTING. 



The life of ordinary or common wines, which are harsh, is limited to 

 a few, two or three, years. These wines in losing their harshness gain 

 little or nothing in value, in fact, as they lose the defect of harshness, 

 they acquire another, that due to tartaric fermentation. 



Harsh wines which have good quality and body keep for a long time, 

 and after some years lose their harshness; they thus become more homo- 

 geneous, harmonious, and pleasing, or as the experts express it, they 

 become rounded. 



If these wines are drunk before they have lost a portion of their 

 harshness, they are not very hygienic. 



BITTERISH (Amarognolo, It.; Un pen amer, Fr.). This is not a defect; 

 it is even up to a certain point a good quality; that is, when the bitter- 

 ness is very slight, delicate, aromatic, in short, pleasing; as a rule, a 

 slight touch of bitterness is characteristic of densely colored wines. 



Very often this quality is due to the presence of carbonic acid in solu- 

 tion; for example, in young wines or those which have been treated by 

 the Italian method called " il governo."* 



Sometimes, in the common language, all wines are called bitter, but 

 with impropriety, which are not sweet; from which the Tuscan proverb, 

 Vino amaro tienlo caro, which means, the wine which is not sweet is 

 always of best quality. 



BITTER (Amaro, It.; Amere, Fr.). Bitterness is a defect, and may be 

 due, as in general it is, to a real malady caused by a micro-organism. 



" L'amertume est pour nous la maladie organique des vins de Pinot." 

 Vergnette Lamotte. 



Wines of this kind have a harsh, repelling, nauseating bitterness, due 

 to secondary fermentations, or in the case of young wines, to principles 

 which they have extracted from the skins or stalks during fermentation. 



According to M. Nessler the tendency of a wine to this disease is 

 augmented by remaining long in contact with the pomace. 



The bitter taste affects principally the posterior portions of the tongue 

 and palate, and the sensation persists for some time. 



This fault, which most cenologists consider confined to red wine, is 

 found also, we are told by M. Ottavi, in white wines. He claims to have 

 encountered it in the white wines of Piedmont. 



Nessler observes that white wines are less subject to this defect or 

 malady than red, thus admitting, by implication, that they do some- 

 times become bitter. 



The bitter secondary fermentation may develop in any wine, but is 

 more frequent in fine and delicate wines. In common wines the disease 

 usually occurring is the tartaric fermentation. 



In general, highly colored wines, rich in extractive matters, are most 

 liable to the attacks of the disease of bitterness. 



The high-class wines of Bourgogne, made from the Pinot, not exclud- 

 ing even those made in the most favorable years, are subject to attack 

 by this disease. 



In the finest wines Vergnette Lamotte distinguishes two kinds of bit- 

 terness: That which attacks the wine during the first two or three years 

 of its life, and which is the most dangerous; and that which shows itself 



* " II governo " is a method of wine treatment in common use in Tuscany, which con- 

 sists essentially in maintaining a slow, protracted fermentation in a poor or neutral 

 wine by the addition of half-dried grapes of high quality, or containing an abundance 

 of those substances lacking in the wine treated, as color, body, tannin, etc. Trans. 



