Manner of making White Wine.—To make the ivhite wine it is not, like the red, put into the vat to ferment, but the grapes are trod, and when taken from the press, the juice, skins. and seeds are put into casks (the stalks having been separated); here it ferments and becomes wine of itself. When the fermentation in the barrels has entirely ceased, it is racked off, and care is taken to fill up what has been con sumed by evaporation. as often as possible, and this operation ought to take place at least once or twice a week.
'I he wine, if it has succeeded. ought to be clear, transparent, of a fine soft colour, a lively smell, and a balsamic taste, slightly piquant, but agreeable, inclining to that of the raspberry, violet, or mignonette, filling the mouth, and passing without irritating the throat, giving a gentle heat to the stomach and not getting too quickly into the head.
It is necessary to know what is meant by the flavour of wine. and what by bouquet, terms often confounded. Tho flavour, called by the French are, indicates the vinous power and aromatic savour which are felt in the act of swallowing the wine, embalming the mouth, and con tinuing to be felt after the passage of the liquor. It seems to consist of the impression made by the alcohol and the aromatic particles which are liberated and volatilised as soon as the wine receives the warmth of the mouth and stomach. The the differs from the bouquet, inasmuch as the latter declares itself the moment the wine is exposed to the air ; it is no criterion of the Vi7301113 force or quantity of alcohol present (being in fact greatest in the weak winesi, and influences the organ of smell rather than of taste. In the red wines of Medoc and the Graves, the sire and bouquet exist only in the old wines: these qualities cannot be known, but only conjectured in the new wines; and experience has alone taught the brokers, that when wines of particular growths present themselves without harshness (rerdeur), with colour, body, and vino sity, they will, when old, acquire a balsamic flavour (are) and mellow ness (,16i/tees), besides the colour and body; they will also keep well, which constitutes the perfection of wine. To give bouquet to the wine, two drachma of orris (the rhizome of the Iris florentina) in powder are put into a fine bag of muslin, and hung for about fifteen days in the cask. Many persons, to make the wine appear older and higher flavoured, and at the same time to prevent injuring its quality, employ raspberry brandy. The bouquet which by these means is given to the common or ordinary wines never replaces perfectly the natural flavour of the choice wines of Medoc and Graves. It is very easy to distinguish the fictitious bouquet by even moderate experience in tasting wine. The bouquet is altogether a new product, and is in no way dependent on the perfume of the grape from which the wine is made. Red wines scarcely ever retain a trace of the odour of the grapes; the white mureadine wines do in some degree, especially Frei'. tignan. It has been recommended to suspend some of the ripest and most odoriferous bunches of the grapes in the cask after the first fermentation has subsided, in order to heighten the perfume of the wine, a practice long pursued in the vini ruspati of the Italians, and ring rapes of tho French. But if the cenanthic acid and ananthic ether, on which the bouquet depends, be the consequence of a true process of putrefaction (somewhat similar to what occurs in musk, by which the odour is evolved), by a mutual interchange of the elements of gluten and sugar, this process cannot accomplish the object, and only runs the risk of exciting a hurtful fermentation. The best account of
the bouquet of wine is given by Liebig, who, with Pelouze, discovered renanthic ether :— " It is well known that wine and fermented liquors generally contain, in addition to alcohol, other substances which could not be detected before their fermentation, and which must have been formed, therefore, during that process. The smell and taste which distinguish wine from all other fermented liquids are known to depend upon an ether of a volatile and highly combustible acid, which is of an oily nature, and to which the name of moanthic ether has been given ... The substances in wine to which its taste and smell are owing, are generated during the fermentation of the juice of such grapes as contain a certain quantity of tartaric acid ; they are not found in wines which are free from all acid, or which contain a different organic acid, such as acetic acid. The wines of warm climates possess no odour ; wines grown in France have it in a marked degree; but in the wines from the Rhine the perfume is most intense. The kinds of grapes on the Rhine which ripen very Late, and scarcely ever com pletely, such as the Riesling and Orleans, have the strongest perfume or bouquet, and contain proportionally a larger quantity of tartaric acid. The earlier grapes, such as the Rulander and others, contain a large proportion of alcohol, and are similar to Spanish wines in their flavour, but they possess no bouquet .... The acid of wines, and their characteristic perfumes, have some connection, for they are always found together ; and it can scarcely be doubted that the presence of the former exercises a certain influence on the formation of the latter. Whatever opinion may be held regarding the origin of the volatile odoriferous substances obtained in the fermentation of wine, it is quite certain that the characteristic smell of wine is owing to an ether of an organic acid, resembling one of the fatty acids ... On the Rhine, an artificial bouquet is often given to wine for fraudu lent purposes, by the addition of several species of the sage'and rue to the fermenting liquid ; but the perfume thus obtained differs from the genuine aroma by its inferior durability, it being gradually dis sipated " (Liebig's ' Organic Chemistry.') The fermentation is more prompt and lively in proportion to the quantity of must ; hence the best wine is made when a large quantity of must is operated on. In some cases, when the season is cold and the grapes are imperfectly ripened, it is necessary to promote the fermentation by artificial means ; either adding some boiling must, or withdrawing some of the excess of water by adding baked gypsum. The fermentation is best carried on in covered vats : since in open ones not only the carbonic acid gas escapes. by which the wine is rendered flatter, but much of the alcohol and aroma arc lost, and the wine rendered weak. The length of time that the fermentation is continued in the large vats depends on the kind of wine intended to be made. The temperature also influences its progress and the results.