446 On the Cultivation of the Vine, fgc. 
they are charged. This acid, by disengaging itself 
from the liquor by the temperature of the stomach, ex 
tinguishes the irritability of the organs, and brings on 
stupor. 
Old wines, in general, are tonic, and very wholesome ; 
they are suited to weak stomachs, old people, and in all 
cases where strengthening is necessary : they afford very 
little nourishment, because they are deprived of their really 
nourishing principles, and contain scarcely any other than 
alcohol. 
It is of such wine that the poet speaks, when he says ; 
— — Generosum et lene requiro 
Quod curas abigat, quod cum spe divite manet 
In venas animumque meum, quod verba ministret. 
Quod me, Lucane, juvenem commendet amicae. 
Oily thick wines are the most nourishing. Pinguia 
mnguinem augent et nutriunt Galen. The same an 
thor recommends the wines of Therea and Scibellia as 
highly nourishing : quod crassum utr unique, nigrum et 
dnlce. 
Wines differ also essentially in regard to colour. Red', 
in genera], is more spiritous, lighter, and more digestible : 
white wine furnishes less alcohol, and is more diuretic 
and weaker, as it has remained less time in the vat : it is 
almost always more oily, more nutritive, and more ga- 
seous, than the red. 
Pliny admits four shades in the colour of w ines — albu m , 
fulvum , sanguineum , rubrum : but it would be too minute 
as well as useless to multiply shades, which might be- 
come infinite, by extending them from black to white. 
Climate, culture, and variety in the processes of fer 
mentation, produce also infinite differences in the quali- 
ties and virtues of wine. To avoid fatiguing repetitions, 
we must refer to what we have already said on this sub- 
ject. 
