supplied for Domestic Purposes, by Dr. Thomson; forming an Appendix to
an Analysis of the Mineral Waters of Tunbridge Wells, by Dr. Scudamore.
[15] It is absolutely essential that the tests should be pure.
[16] Philosophical Magazine, vol. xv. p. 252.
[17] Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. viii. p. 259.
[18] Sir G. Baker, Med. Trans. vol. i. p. 280.
[19] Lamb on Spring Water.
[20] Medical Trans. vol. i. p. 420.
[21] Van Swieten ad Boerhaave, Aphorisms, 1060. Comment.
[22] Medical Comment. Dec. 2, 1794.
[23] Lambe on Spring Water.
[24] See An Analysis of the Mineral Waters of Tunbridge Wells, by Dr.
Scudamore, p. 55.
The application of the sulphuretted hydrogen test requires some
precautions in those cases where other metals besides lead may be
expected; because silver, quicksilver, tin, copper, and several other
metals, are affected by it, as well as lead; but there is no chance of
these metals being met with in common water.--See _Chemical Tests_,
third edition, p. 207.
[25] Analysis of Tunbridge Wells Water, by Dr. Scudamore, p. 55.
[26] Nicholson's Journal, p. 33, 310.
_Adulteration of Wine._
It is sufficiently obvious, that few of those commodities, which are the
objects of commerce, are adulterated to a greater extent than wine. All
persons moderately conversant with the subject, are aware, that a
portion of alum is added to young and meagre red wines, for the purpose
of brightening their colour; that Brazil wood, or the husks of
elderberries and bilberries,[27] are employed to impart a deep rich
purple tint to red Port of a pale, faint colour; that gypsum is used to
render cloudy white wines transparent;[28] that an additional
astringency is imparted to immature red wines by means of oak-wood
sawdust,[29] and the husks of filberts; and that a mixture of spoiled
foreign and home-made wines is converted into the wretched compound
frequently sold in this town by the name of _genuine old Port_.
Various expedients are resorted to for the purpose of communicating
particular flavours to insipid wines. Thus a _nutty_ flavour is produced
by bitter almonds; factitious Port wine is flavoured with a tincture
drawn from the seeds of raisins; and the ingredients employed to form
the _bouquet_ of high-flavoured wines, are sweet-brier, oris-root,
clary, cherry laurel water, and elder-flowers.
The flavouring ingredients used by manufacturers, may all be purchased
by those dealers in wine who are initiated in the mysteries of the
trade; and even a manuscript recipe book for preparing them, and the
whole mystery of managing all sorts of wines, may be obtained on payment
of a considerable fee.
The sophistication of wine with substances not absolutely noxious to
health, is carried to an enormous extent in this metropolis. Many
thousand pipes of spoiled cyder are annually brought hither from the
country, for the purpose of being converted into factitious Port wine.
The art of manufacturing spurious wine is a regular trade of great
extent in this metropolis.
"There is, in this city, a certain fraternity of chemical operators, who
work underground in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, to conceal
their mysteries from the eyes and observation of mankind. These
subterraneous philosophers are daily employed in the transmutation of
liquors; and by the power of magical drugs and incantations, raising
under the streets of London the choicest products of the hills and
valleys of France. They can squeeze Bourdeaux out of the sloe, and draw
Champagne from an apple. Virgil, in that remarkable prophecy,
_Incultisque ruhens pendebit sentibus uva._
Virg. Ecl. iv. 29.
The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn.
seems to have hinted at this art, which can turn a plantation of
northern hedges into a vineyard. These adepts are known among one
another by the name of _Wine-brewers_; and, I am afraid, do great
injury, not only to her Majesty's customs, but to the bodies of many of
her good subjects."[30]
The following are a few of the recipes employed in the manufacture of
spurious wine:
To make _British Port Wine_.[31]--"Take of British grape wine, or
good cyder, 4 gallons; of the juice of red beet root two quarts;
brandy, two quarts; logwood 4 ounces; rhatany root, bruised, half a
pound: first infuse the logwood and rhatany root in brandy, and a
gallon of grape wine or cyder for one week; then strain off the
liquor, and mix it with the other ingredients; keep it in a cask
for a month, when it will be fit to bottle."
_British Champagne._--"Take of white sugar, 8 pounds; the whitest
brown sugar, 7 pounds, crystalline lemon acid, or tartaric acid, 1
ounce and a quarter, pure water, 8 gallons; white grape wine, two
quarts, or perry, 4 quarts; of French brandy, 3 pints."
"Put the sugar in the water, skimming it occasionally for two
hours, then pour it into a tub and dissolve in it the acid; before
it is cold, add some yeast and ferment. Put it into a clean cask
and add the other ingredients. The cask is then to be well bunged,
and kept in a cool place for two or three months; then bottle it
and keep it cool for a month longer, when it will be fit for use.
If it should not be perfectly clear after standing in the cask two
or three months, it should be rendered so by the use of isinglass.
By adding 1 lb. of fresh or preserved strawberries, and 2 ounces of
powdered cochineal, the PINK _Champagne may be made_."
_Southampton Port._[32]--"Take cyder, 36 gallons; elder wine, 11
gallons; brandy, 5 gallons; damson wine, 11 gallons; mix."
The particular and separate department in this factitious wine trade,
called _crusting_, consists in lining the interior surface of empty
wine-bottles, in part, with a red crust of super-tartrate of potash, by
suffering a saturated hot solution of this salt, coloured red with a
decoction of Brazil-wood, to crystallize within them; and after this
simulation of maturity is perfected, they are filled with the compound
called Port wine.
Other artisans are regularly employed in staining the lower extremities
of bottle-corks with a fine red colour, to appear, on being drawn, as if
they had been long in contact with the wine.
The preparation of an astringent extract, to produce, from spoiled
home-made and foreign wines, a "genuine old Port," by mere admixture; or
to impart to a weak wine a rough austere taste, a fine colour, and a
peculiar flavour; forms one branch of the business of particular
wine-coopers: while the mellowing and restoring of spoiled white wines,
is the sole occupation of men who are called _refiners of wine_.
We have stated that a crystalline crust is formed on the interior
surface of bottles, for the purpose of misleading the unwary into a
belief that the wine contained in them is of a certain age. A
correspondent operation is performed on the wooden cask; the whole
interior of which is stained artificially with a crystalline crust of
super-tartrate of potash, artfully affixed in a manner precisely similar
to that before stated. Thus the wine-merchant, after bottling off a
pipe of wine, is enabled to impose on the understanding of his
customers, by taking to pieces the cask, and exhibiting the beautiful
dark coloured and fine crystalline crust, as an indubitable proof of the
age of the wine; a practice by no means uncommon, to flatter the vanity
of those who pride themselves in their acute discrimination of wines.
These and many other sophistications, which have long been practised
with impunity, are considered as legitimate by those who pride
themselves for their skill in the art of _managing_, or, according to
the familiar phrase, _doctoring_ wines. The plea alleged in exculpation
of them, is, that, though deceptive, they are harmless: but even
admitting this as a palliation, yet they form only one department of an
art which includes other processes of a tendency absolutely criminal.
Several well-authenticated facts have convinced me that the adulteration
of wine with substances deleterious to health, is certainly practised
oftener than is, perhaps, suspected; and it would be easy to give some
instances of very serious effects having arisen from wines contaminated
with deleterious substances, were this a subject on which I meant to
speak. The following statement is copied from the Monthly Magazine for
March 1811, p. 188.
"On the 17th of January, the passengers by the Highflyer coach, from the
north, dined, as usual, at Newark. A bottle of Port wine was ordered; on
tasting which, one of the passengers observed that it had an unpleasant
flavour, and begged that it might be changed. The waiter took away the
bottle, poured into a fresh decanter half the wine which had been
objected to, and filled it up from another bottle. This he took into the
room, and the greater part was drank by the passengers, who, after the
coach had set out towards Grantham, were seized with extreme sickness;
one gentleman in particular, who had taken more of the wine than the
others, it was thought would have died, but has since recovered. The
half of the bottle of wine sent out of the passengers' room, was put
aside for the purpose of mixing negus. In the evening, Mr. Bland, of
Newark, went into the hotel, and drank a glass or two of wine and water.
He returned home at his usual hour, and went to bed; in the middle of
the night he was taken so ill, as to induce Mrs. Bland to send for his
brother, an apothecary in the town; but before that gentleman arrived,
he was dead. An inquest was held, and the jury, after the fullest
enquiry, and the examination of the surgeons by whom the body was
opened, returned a verdict of--_Died by Poison._"
The most dangerous adulteration of wine is by some preparations of lead,
which possess the property of stopping the progress of acescence of
wine, and also of rendering white wines, when muddy, transparent. I have
good reason to state that lead is certainly employed for this purpose.
The effect is very rapid; and there appears to be no other method known,
of rapidly recovering ropy wines. Wine merchants persuade themselves
that the minute quantity of lead employed for that purpose is perfectly
harmless, and that no atom of lead remains in the wine. Chemical
analysis proves the contrary; and the practice of clarifying spoiled
white wines by means of lead, must be pronounced as highly deleterious.
Lead, in whatever state it be taken into the stomach, occasions terrible
diseases; and wine, adulterated with the minutest quantity of it,
becomes a slow poison. The merchant or dealer who practises this
dangerous sophistication, adds the crime of murder to that of fraud, and
deliberately scatters the seeds of disease and death among those
consumers who contribute to his emolument. If to debase the current
coin of the realm be denounced as a capital offence, what punishment
should be awarded against a practice which converts into poison a liquor
used for sacred purposes.
Dr. Watson[33] relates, that the method of adulterating wine with lead,
was at one time a common practice in Paris.
Dr. Warren[34] states an instance of thirty-two persons having become
severely ill, after drinking white wine that had been adulterated with
lead. One of them died, and one became paralytic.
In Graham's Treatise on Wine-Making,[35] under the article of _Secrets_,
belonging to the mysteries of vintners, p. 31, lead is recommended to
prevent wine from becoming acid. The following lines are copied from Mr.
Graham's work:
"_To hinder Wine from turning._
"Put a pound of melted lead, in fair water, into your cask, pretty
warm, and stop it close."
"_To soften Grey Wine._
"Put in a little vinegar wherein litharge has been well steeped, and
boil some honey, to draw out the wax. Strain it through a cloth, and
put a quart of it into a tierce of wine, and this will mend it."
* * * * *
The ancients knew that lead rendered harsh wines milder, and preserved
it from acidity, without being aware that it was pernicious: it was
therefore long used with confidence; and when its effects were
discovered, they were not ascribed to that metal, but to some other
cause.[36] When the Greek and Roman wine merchants wished to try whether
their wine was spoiled, they immersed in it a plate of lead;[37] if the
colour of the lead were corroded, they concluded that their wine was
spoiled. Wine may become accidentally impregnated with lead.
It is well known that bottles in which wine has been kept, are usually
cleaned by means of shot, which by its rolling motion detaches the
super-tartrate of potash from the sides of the bottles. This practice,
which is generally pursued by wine-merchants, may give rise to serious
consequences, as will become evident from the following case:[38]
"A gentleman who had never in his life experienced a day's illness, and
who was constantly in the habit of drinking half a bottle of Madeira
wine after his dinner, was taken ill, three hours after dinner, with a
severe pain in the stomach and violent bowel colic, which gradually
yielded within twelve hours to the remedies prescribed by his medical
adviser. The day following he drank the remainder of the same bottle of
wine which was left the preceding day, and within two hours afterwards
he was again seized with the most violent colliquative pains, headach,
shiverings, and great pain over the whole body. His apothecary becoming
suspicious that the wine he had drank might be the cause of the
disease, ordered the bottle from which the wine had been decanted to be
brought to him, with a view that he might examine the dregs, if any were
left. The bottle happening to slip out of the hand of the servant,
disclosed a row of shot wedged forcibly into the angular bent-up
circumference of it. On examining the beads of shot, they crumbled into
dust, the outer crust (defended by a coat of black lead with which the
shot is glazed) being alone left unacted on, whilst the remainder of the
metal was dissolved. The wine, therefore, had become contaminated with
_lead and arsenic_, the shot being a compound of these metals, which no
doubt had produced the mischief."
TEST FOR DETECTING THE DELETERIOUS ADULTERATIONS OF WINE.
A ready re-agent for detecting the presence of lead, or any other
deleterious metal in wine, is known by the name of the _wine test_. It
consists of water saturated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, acidulated
with muriatic acid. By adding one part of it, to two of wine, or any
other liquid suspected to contain lead, a dark coloured or black
precipitate will fall down, which does not disappear by an addition of
muriatic acid; and this precipitate, dried and fused before the blowpipe
on a piece of charcoal, yields a globule of metallic lead. This test
does not precipitate iron; the muriatic acid retains iron in solution
when combined with sulphuretted hydrogen; and any acid in the wine has
no effect in precipitating any of the sulphur of the test liquor. Or a
still more efficacious method is, to pass a current of sulphuretted
hydrogen gas through the wine, in the manner described, p. 70, having
previously acidulated the wine with muriatic acid.
The wine test sometimes employed is prepared in the following
manner:--Mix equal parts of finely powdered sulphur and of slacked
quick-lime, and expose it to a red heat for twenty minutes. To
thirty-six grains of this sulphuret of lime, add twenty-six grains of
super-tartrate of potassa; put the mixture into an ounce bottle, and
fill up the bottle with water that has been previously boiled, and
suffered to cool. The liquor, after having been repeatedly shaken, and
allowed to become clear, by the subsidence of the undissolved matter,
may then be poured into another phial, into which about twenty drops of
muriatic acid have been previously put. It is then ready for use. This
test, when mingled with wine containing lead or copper, turns the wine
of a dark-brown or black colour. But the mere application of
sulphuretted hydrogen gas to wine, acidulated by muriatic acid, is a far
more preferable mode of detecting lead in wine.
M. Vogel[39] has lately recommended acetate of lead as a test for
detecting extraneous colours in red wine. He remarks, that none of the
substances that can be employed for colouring wine, such as the berries
of the Vaccinium Mirtillus (bilberries), elderberries, and Campeach
wood, produce with genuine red wine, a greenish grey precipitate, which
is the colour that is procured by this test by means of genuine red
wines.
Wine coloured with the juice of the bilberries, or elderberries, or
Campeach wood, produces, with acetate of lead, a deep blue precipitate;
and Brazil-wood, red saunders, and the red beet, produce a colour which
is precipitated red by acetate of lead. Wine coloured by beet root is
also rendered colourless by lime water; but the weakest acid brings back
the colour. As the colouring matter of red wines resides in the skin of
the grape, M. Vogel prepared a quantity of skins, and reduced them to
powder. In this state he found that they communicated to alcohol a deep
red colour: a paper stained with this colour was rendered red by acids
and green by alkalies.
M. Vogel made a quantity of red wine from black grapes, for the purpose
of his experiments; and this produced the genuine greyish green
precipitate with acetate of lead. He also found the same coloured
precipitate in two specimens of red wine, the genuineness of which could
not be suspected; the one from Chateau-Marguaux, and the other from the
neighbourhood of Coblentz.
SPECIFIC DIFFERENCES, AND COMPONENT PARTS OF WINE.
Every body knows that no product of the arts varies so much as wine;
that different countries, and sometimes the different provinces of the
same country, produce different wines. These differences, no doubt, must
be attributed chiefly to the climate in which the vineyard is
situated--to its culture--the quantity of sugar contained in the grape
juice--the manufacture of the wine; or the mode of suffering its
fermentation to be accomplished. If the grapes be gathered unripe, the
wine abounds with acid; but if the fruit be gathered ripe, the wine will
be rich. When the proportion of sugar in the grape is sufficient, and
the fermentation complete, the wine is perfect and generous. If the
quantity of sugar be too large, part of it remains undecomposed, as the
fermentation is languid, and the wine is sweet and luscious; if, on the
contrary, it contains, even when full ripe, only a small portion of
sugar, the wine is thin and weak; and if it be bottled before the
fermentation be completed, part of the sugar remains undecomposed, the
fermentation will go on slowly in the bottle, and, on drawing the cork,
the wine sparkles in the glass; as, for example, Champagne. Such wines
are not sufficiently mature. When the must is separated from the husk of
the red grape before it is fermented, the wine has little or no colour:
these are called _white_ wines. If, on the contrary, the husks are
allowed to remain in the must while the fermentation is going on, the
alcohol dissolves the colouring matter of the husks, and the wine is
coloured: such are called _red_ wines. Hence white wines are often
prepared from red grapes, the liquor being drawn off before it has
acquired the red colour; for the skin of the grape only gives the
colour. Besides in these principal circumstances, wines vary much in
flavour.
All wines contain one common and identical principle, from which their
similar effects are produced; namely, _brandy_ or _alcohol_. It is
especially by the different proportions of brandy contained in wines,
that they differ most from one another. When wine is distilled, the
alcohol readily separates. The spirit thus obtained is well known under
the name of _brandy_.
All wines contain also a free acid; hence they turn blue tincture of
cabbage, red. The acid found in the greatest abundance in grape wines,
is tartaric acid. Every wine contains likewise a portion of
super-tartrate of potash, and extractive matter, derived from the juice
of the grape. These substances deposit slowly in the vessel in which
they are kept. To this is owing the improvement of wine from age. Those
wines which effervesce or froth, when poured into a glass, contain also
carbonic acid, to which their briskness is owing. The peculiar flavour
and odour of different kinds of wines probably depend upon the presence
of a _volatile oil_, so small in quantity that it cannot be separated.
EASY METHOD OF ASCERTAINING THE QUANTITY OF BRANDY CONTAINED IN VARIOUS
SORTS OF WINE.
The strength of all wines depends upon the quantity of alcohol or brandy
which they contain. Mr. Brande, and Gay-Lussac, have proved, by very
decisive experiments, that all wines contain brandy or alcohol ready
formed. The following is the process discovered by Mr. Brande, for
ascertaining the quantity of spirit, or brandy, contained in different
sorts of wine.
EXPERIMENT.
Add to eight parts, by measure, of the wine to be examined, one part of
a concentrated solution of sub-acetate of lead: a dense insoluble
precipitate will ensue; which is a combination of the test liquor with
the colouring, extractive, and acid matter of the wine. Shake the
mixture for a few minutes, pour the whole upon a filtre, and collect the
filtered fluid. It contains the brandy or spirit, and water of the wine,
together with a portion of the sub-acetate of lead. Add, in small
quantities at a time, to this fluid, warm, dry, and pure sub-carbonate
of potash (_not salt of tartar, or sub-carbonate of potash of
commerce_), which has previously been freed from water by heat, till the
last portion added remains undissolved. The brandy or spirit contained
in the fluid will become separated; for the sub-carbonate of potash
abstracts from it the whole of the water with which it was combined; the
brandy or spirit of wine forming a distinct stratum, which floats upon
the aqueous solution of the alkaline salt. If the experiment be made in
a glass tube, from one-half inch to two inches in diameter, and
graduated into 100 equal parts, the _per centage_ of spirit, in a given
quantity of wine, may be read off by mere inspection. In this manner the
strength of any wine may be examined.
_Tabular View, exhibiting the Per Centage of Brandy or Alcohol[40]
contained in various kinds of Wines, and other fermented Liquors._[41]
Proportion of Spirit
per Cent.
by measure.
Lissa 26,47
Ditto 24,35
Average 25,41
Raisin Wine 26,40
Ditto 25,77
Ditto 23,30
Average 25,12
Marcella 26,03
Ditto 25,05
Average 25,09
Madeira 24,42
Ditto 23,93
Ditto (Sercial) 21,40
Ditto 19,24
Average 22,27
Port 25,83
Ditto 24,29
Ditto 23,71
Ditto 23,39
Ditto 22,30
Ditto 21,40
Ditto 19,96
Average 22,96
Sherry 19,81
Ditto 19,83
Ditto 18,79
Ditto 18,25
Average 19,17
Teneriffe 19,79
Colares 19,75
Lachryma Christi 19,70
Constantia (White) 19,75
Ditto (Red) 18,92
Lisbon 18,94
Malaga (1666) 18,94
Bucellas 18,49
Red Madeira 22,30
Ditto 18,40
Average 20,35
Cape Muschat 18,25
Cape Madeira 22,94
Ditto 20,50
Ditto 18,11
Average 20,51
Grape Wine 18,11
Calcavella 19,20
Ditto 18,10
Average 18,65
Vidonia 19,25
Alba Flora 17,26
Malaga 17,26
Hermitage (White) 17,43
Roussillon 19,00
Ditto 17,20
Average 18,13
Claret 17,11
Ditto 16,32
Ditto 14,08
Ditto 12,91
Average 15,10
Malmsey Madeira 16,40
Lunel 15,52
Sheraaz 15,52
Syracuse 15,28
Sauterne 14,22
Burgundy 16,60
Ditto 15,22
Ditto 14,53
Ditto 11,95
Average 14,57
Hock 14,37
Ditto 13,00
Ditto (old in cask) 8,68
Average 12,08
Nice 14,62
Barsac 13,86
Tent 13,30
Champagne (Still) 13,80
Ditto (Sparkling) 12,80
Ditto (Red) 12,56
Ditto (ditto) 11,30
Average 12,61
Red Hermitage 12,32
Vin de Grave 13,94
Ditto 12,80
Average 13,37
Frontignac 12,79
Cote Rotie 12,32
Gooseberry Wine 11,84
Currant Wine 20,55
Orange Wine aver. 11,26
Tokay 9,88
Elder Wine 9,87
Cyder highest aver. 9,87
Ditto lowest ditto 5,21
Perry average 7,26
Mead 7,32
Ale (Burton) 8,88
Ditto (Edinburgh) 6,20
Ditto (Dorchester) 5,50
Average 6,87
Brown Stout 6,80
London Porter aver. 4,20
Do. Small Beer, do. 1,28
Brandy 53,39
Rum 53,68
Gin 51,60
Scotch Whiskey 54,32
Irish ditto 53,99
CONSTITUTION OF HOME-MADE WINES.