Sweet Wines.— The familiar French term for sweet wines is tins de liqueur. These wines are the result of special treatment or handling The best-known types of sweet wines are: Port, Sherry, Tokay, Madeira, Malaga, etc.
Port Wine.— Wines of this type are pro duced by fermenting the must down to 6 or 8 degrees of sugar and then from 8 to 10 per cent of brandy is added to arrest further fer mentation. This will give a wine having from 14 to 18 degrees alcoholic strength. In the fol lowing spnng the wine is racked and from 2 to 3 degrees more of brandy added. Thus, in the course of a year or so Port wine is gradu ally brought up. or "fortified,' to 20 and 22 per cent alcoholic strength. Contributing to the final result is the 'blending,' whereby improved color, body, flavor, bouquet, etc.. arc obtained.
Wine.— Our word °Sherry' is de n\ e(1 from the Spanish name Xeres, and this t?pe of wine was originally produced and shipped from the town of Xeres. It is made from several varieties of white grapes grown al the province of Andalusia. The former Spanish custom was to sprinkle each pressing of grapes with a certain amount (two or three handfuls) of gypsum. This operation, called plastering, was regarded as favoring fermenta. lion. The must is fermented down to about 8 or 10 degrees of sugar and then alcohol is added, bringing the wine up to 18 or 20 degrees of alcoholic strength.
One feature of the manufacture of sherry wine in Spain is the system of Sokras. The word describes fine old mother wine, and the system consists in blending wines of different ages or years. Thus, the casks of sherry wine i arc arranged in groups, piled in tiers and the groups graded according to quality. When wine for blending or shipment is drawn from the group of casks constituting the oldest solera, they are refilled with wine from the casks of the next younger sokra, and again from the next, and so on down to the last group.
In order to hasten the ageing or maturity of the wine, it is baked by natural or artificial heat. The casks containing the wine are ranged in a building with the roof and side exposed to the hot sun covered with glass. The tem
perature in this sherry-house during the day runs as high as 140° F. and is maintained at night by fires. The large producers of sherry in California and elsewhere attain the same end by baking the wine in a specially-built chamber in room, which is heated by steam or hot air.
and Sparkling Wines.— The word • role was originally very prop erly applied to wines, whether still or sparkling, made in the Champagne district of France. It now has a wider and more special meaning. By custom and popular usage champagne is the name given to a type of sparkling wine produced by a process of fermentation in the bottle. Thus, we have not only French cham pagne, but German champagne, Italian cham pagne, American champagne, etc. Sparkling wines are produced in most wine-making dis tricts; come of the best known are, Sparkling Saumur, Sparkling Burgundy, Sparkling Beau jolais. in France; Sparkling Moselle in Ger man) : Sparkling Catawba, in the United States, etc There are also 'imitation champagnes.• These are still wines which have been made sparkling by having carbonic acid gas forced into them somewhat after the same fashion as soda water is produced.
The manufacture and manipulation of cham pagne requires considerable skill and knowl cove. Some of the steps in the process may be described: After the wine has gone through its first fermentation, it is racked off into casks and a blend of the juices of different grapes is made. The envie, as it is called, is generally a blend of the new wine with some old wine. Then the wine is bottled and put in a warm place in order to start a second fermentation. At the proper time the bottles are stored in cool %antis, where the temperature is 54t' F or lower the year round and where fermentation proceeds very slowly. It is important to keep the eaults at an even temperature. in order to present serious loss from breakage which a sudden rise in temperature would cause This has been met by the installation of cold stoonas plants itt champagne cellars in this country and abtuad.