AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



ROYAL SCHOOL OF VITICULTURE AND OENOLOGYJ 

 ALBA, PIEDMONT, ITALY, January, 1892. j 



A preface should give an immediate idea of what the author has pro- 

 posed to do in writing his book. As Balbo rightly says in the preface 

 to one of his books: 



" It is the duty of every writer to give the reader a terse and clear idea 

 of the work which he presents him. This sincerity benefits both: the 

 reader, because it puts him in the position of knowing whether or not 

 the book is likely to be of interest or utility to him; the writer, because, 

 whilst it may reduce the number of his readers, it insures him more 

 interested, attentive, and indulgent ones. 



" The clearest and most sincere way of giving an explication of the 

 object of a book is to tell how it was written." 



Thus I will explain, as well as possible in a few words, why I have 

 written this book, which treats especially of the classification, the qual- 

 ities, and the defects of wine. 



When I commenced to give particular attention to viticulture and 

 cenology, I soon perceived that in oenology, and especially in that part 

 which regards classification, qualities, and defects, all authors were not 

 in accord in their use of terms to express the same characters. Thus, for 

 example, some would mean by "seve," a slight sweetness in the wine; 

 others by the same term would intend to express that character by 

 which a wine of good quality affects the mouth and olfactory organs 

 with a certain perfume, for a longer or shorter time after it has been 

 swallowed. 



I will say nothing of the classification of wines according to dishes, 

 as wine to be drunk with oysters, fish, roast meat, etc., which shows a 

 marked tendency to become a veritable chaos. In this classification, 

 the work of Mr. Bertall, " La Vigne- Voyage Autour des Vins de France," 

 is taken too literally. 



How could one speak of the classification of wine, of its qualities, of 

 its defects, without giving some explanation of the mode and proper 

 conditions for tasting? It is for this reason that I have devoted a 

 chapter to the tasting of wine, a chapter, moreover, of great importance, 

 as it is by tasting, more than by chemical analysis, that we can best 

 judge of the constitution and future of a wine. Who is a better judge than 

 an experienced taster of the bad flavor produced in wine, for instance, 

 by the tartaric fermentation, which even in its incipiency he can detect 

 by a certain burnt taste, which, with the progress of the malady, grad- 

 ually develops into an insupportable bitterness? Among these gradations 

 of bitterness we do not find that slight pleasing bitterness peculiar to 

 certain wines, such as Barolo and Gattinara. 



Chemical analysis gives us the principal components of wine, and 

 from the presence or absence of certain of these and from their propor- 

 tions, some judgment may be formed of the character of the wine. The 



