On Colonial Wines. 63 
acid left, as it is not attacked by gelatine. A blackening of 
the wine so treated would show gallic acid. 
In all the samples which had stood the severe handling 
just described, I found hardly more than a trace of gallic 
acid ; and in the soundest and finest of them, the Yallumba 
Sherry and one or two of Peake’s and Gilbert’s scarcely a 
trace, and not a great excess of tannic acid ; showing that 
the excess of tannic acid had been happily removed, if it 
ever was great, and that what remained had not been 
oxidized and raised into the higher form of gallic acid. 
Whilst treating of these chemical aspects of wine, I will 
avail myself of the present opportunity to say a few words 
upon another interesting point. I know I am going to run 
the greatest risk of forfeiting my good reputation in the 
minds of the great part of wine-makers in Victoria. But 
truth and science are to be preferred to prejudice ; and if 
I must forfeit my reputation in consequence of what I am 
going to add—well, let it be so. 
The subject, then, that I am going to call your attention 
to is the use of strong spirits of wine under certain circum- 
stances. 
This employment of brandy, or spirit of wine, is useful 
under at least two wholly different conditions, and for pur- 
poses widely distinct. It must be borne in mind that wine- 
making and maturing are almost entirely of a chemical 
nature, scarcely any operation but involves numerous 
chemical laws. Yet as a rule. scientific chemists are bad 
makers of wine, partly because the whole chemistry of wine 
is not yet fully known, and partly because they are 
habitually too fond of instituting new inquiries. Perhaps 
these admissions will soothe, if not quite appease, my pre- 
judiced friends. Now to the subject. ; 
In countries like the warmer districts of Victoria, and 
the whole of South Australia, the musts are exceedingly 
rich in saccharine matter, with abundance also of those 
nitrogenised substances which are necessary to fermentation ; 
and so actively does fermentation proceed, that in a very 
few days the whole of the saccharine matter is split up into 
spirit, water, and carbonic acid. For if left to themselves in 
warm weather the saccharine and nitrogenous matters will 
soon come to a balance ; either the whole of the sugar will 
have been split up—and in that case a dry wine will result 
—or if there be too little nitrogenous matter to exhaust it, 
then the product will be a sweet one. 
Whatever the wine is, sweet or dry, one thing is certain, 
