492 
On Wine . 
Ail the first Port wine is regularly bought up for the London 
market, where there is sale for a much larger quantity than Por- 
tugal produces. It is made up in Portugal with brandy, but I do 
not know of any other admixture. Hermitage improves it. Few 
wines admit of so much difference in quality; nor is the Port 
wine imported into this country, to.be compared to the English 
Port. There may be occasional exceptions, but there are very 
few. The price of Port wine, has gradually risen in England, 
within thirty years, from 261, sterling the pipe, to 1001. 
In that country, where the management of it is well understood, 
a pipe of Port, is fined with whites of egg, within a short time 
after it is deposited in the cellar. It stays there from 4 to 6 years.. 
The cellars in England are all arched with brick ; the bricks are 
grouted , that is fresh mortar in a thin paste is poured into all the 
joints so as to fill up every interstice ; a process in my opinion 
indispensible to every arch of brick or stone. The arch is then 
covered with a coating a foot thick of clay well beaten with beat- 
ers. It is thus rendered impervious to moisture. If the cellar 
walls are not perfectly dry they are cased with rough boards. 
Brick partitions at right angles with the wall, are built so as ta 
divide each side of the cellar into bins, calculated each to hold a 
pipe of wine in bottles, or about 50 dozen of 14 to the dozen. 
The partition walls extend from the cellar walls about four feet, 
or a convenient distance for a man to reach from the front to the 
back part of the bin. The front ends of the partition walls are 
finished with upright square posts, grooved for boards to slide in, 
which form the front of the bin. Frequently the front is of brick, 
and a lid with a padlock secures the whole bin from the depreda- 
tion of servants. The wine is placed on dry saw dust on its side. 
It is never touched till about nine months after it has been bot- 
tled. Care is taken to exclude currents of air ; so that the tem- 
perature shall be kept as nearly equal throughout the year as 
possible. The bottles when wanted are carefully brought up in 
a basket long enough to hold two bottles endwise, on their side, 
the crusted side downwards, undisturbed. The corks are drawn 
while the bottles are still kept in a state of inclination, not up- 
right. The cork screw should be the compound double patent 
screw, that draws the cork without pulling and tugging, or any 
other effort than that of turning the screw itself. The cork be- 
ing drawn, a silver anti-guggler is inserted, so as to admit the 
