THE WINES OF ITALY. 287 



The Italian producers will not neglect to improve their system of 

 making and keeping wines ; and the prospects opened to them by 

 foreign commerce will be embraced with a conviction of their com- 

 petency to meet any demand, still reserving to the produce of different 

 places, the original distinctions which attach to them from the circum- 

 stances which have made them famous. 



The determination of various elements of the wines of Italy, which 

 were made by M. Fausto Sestini and M. Attilio Fabrini, subsequently to 

 the Italian Exhibition, upon specimens which leave no doubt of their 

 genuineness and the completeness of the selection, have, on that ac- 

 count, an especial value. The Royal Commission of the Italian Exhi- 

 bition of 1861, upon the requisition of M. A. Targioni Tozzetti, inspector 

 and reporter of the fifth class of the above Exhibition, ordered these 

 experiments to be made, and this duty was performed, together with a 

 number of others of the same sort, in the laboratory of the Agricul- 

 tural Institution in Florence, by the young and able chemists who have 

 been so favourably mentioned, under the supervision of M. Targioni 

 himself, who has recently presided at the inauguration of that insti. 

 tution dedicated to agricultural experiments of all sorts. M. Cozzi and 

 M. de Luca have given some analyses of the wines of Italy, which ought 

 to be consulted concurrently with the above, however partially they 

 may be. 



The analyses of M. Cozzi, inserted in the proceedings of the Royal 

 Academy of Georgofiles of Florence (1848), give for the maximum of 

 alcohol 9-80, the minimum 5'83, the average being 7"81. Those of M. 

 De Luca, inserted in the Nuovo Cimento, fourth year, with reference also 

 to those of M. Cozzi on the wines of Tuscany, give 



Maximum. 



Alcohol 14-0 . 



Fixed organic matters 5*0 . 



Inorganic mattter . . - 6 . 



Alcohol is always fixed at 1,000, whilst in the analyses made by 

 Brande of the wines of Marsala and Syracuse it is 0*825. 



The acidity is estimated collectively, supposing that it proceeds from 

 tartaric acid. 



The sulphurous smell of the grape wine, which has been treated with 

 brimstone on account ,0!' the vine disease, has stimulated other re- 

 searches ; which, being completed, together with those by M. Sestini, 

 under the supervision of M. Targoni, have discovered that the sulphur- 

 etted hydrogen is a product of the decomposition of sugar, which, in 

 presence of sulphur, and the act of fermentation, undergoes partially a 

 lactic fermentation and gives out a quantity of hydrogen, which, being 

 evolved under the above conditions, combines with the sulphur sus- 

 pended in the must. Amongst all the processes employed to get rid of 

 the smell of sulphuretted [hydrogen, there is nothing better than ex- 



Minimum. 

 . 4-0 . 



Average. 

 . . 900 



. l-o . 



. . 2-62 



. o-i . 



. . 0-24 



