io: 



tliat the colouring matter would mingle with the must without our 

 having to depend on the brisk or^ violent fermentation to extract ii, 

 it might, I think, be found, that the stem and the stone are both 

 better cleared away than left in the vat, notwithstanding their appa- 

 rent advantage in some cases. This idea is merely hazarded to elicit 

 experiments by well-informed vine-dressers. Meanwhile let us look 

 to the matter in hand. 



The proper time for drawing off is when the transformation to wine 

 is complete ; but, the sinking back of the chaplet, or sheet of scum, 

 though it shows that the strongest fermentation is over, yet, as there 

 are several degrees of change to be undergone by the liquid beneath, 

 before it falls as low as it should go, it remains to be seen how low it 

 must have sunk to afford a sure indication to judge of the completion 

 of the wine. The motion of the wine, or its limpidity and calmness 

 when a glass is drawn off, are by no means signs worth resting on. 



Colour and taste would be preferable indications, but taste and smell 

 are senses so differently enjoyed by different individuals, and of the 

 infinite shades of colour it is so difficult to render a just idea, that 

 neither can be looked to. As the heat developed by fermentation 

 depends on the sugar and spirit in combination, it is idle to refer to 

 what is so perpetually variable. Indeed, vats will olten have reached 

 their maximum of heat at the end of 21 or sometimes 10 hours, and the 

 wine not be complete till 20 or 26 hours after. The thermometer 

 alone is therefore no infallible guide of vinification. 



The essential point is, then, to find a fixed, invariable method, inde- 

 pendent of circumstances, and at the same time capable of application 

 by intellects of the meanest grades, so that not the dullest workman 

 need fail to comprehend it. My late friend BeJfroy de Beauvoir had 

 turned his attention to this subject, and from him I have received 

 the following account of his observations. 



" I have long busied myself about the regulation of the drawing olT. 

 I have thought, that if it could be rated by some simple, economical, 

 mechanical process, the art of making wine would be quite a household 

 affair, no matter what the climate, soil, or quality of the grape, or all 

 the other accessaries which often make the usual indications swerve 

 from their exactness. 



" My idea was to find a measurement of the degrees of fermentation 

 from the first sensible movement until the complete vinification. that 

 is to say, a scale affected by the first sensible repulsion of sohds fioni 

 the fluid, which shows tliat the ferment is begun, until the equally 

 sensible retrogression or reaction, showing its decrease has taken 

 place ; for it seemed to me that there must be a fixed relative proper- 



