THE COOKERY OF WINE.
IN an unguarded moment I promised to include the above in this work,
and will do the best I can to fulfil the rash promise; but the utmost
result of this effort can only be a contribution to a subject which is
too profoundly mysterious to be fully grasped by any intellect that
is not sufficiently clairvoyant to penetrate paving-stones, and see
through them to the interiors of the closely-tiled cellars wherein the
mysteries are manipulated.
I will first define what I mean by the cookery of wine. Grape juice
in its unfermented state may be described as ‘raw wine,’ or this name
may be applied to the juice after fermentation. I apply it in the
latter sense, and shall use it as describing grape juice which has
been spontaneously and recently fermented without the addition of any
foreign materials, or altered by keeping, or heating, or any other
process beyond fermentation. All such processes and admixture which
affect any chemical changes on the raw material I shall describe as
cookery, and the result as cooked wine. When I refer to wine made from
other juice than that of the grape it will be named specifically.
At the outset a fallacy, very prevalent in this country, should be
controverted. The high prices charged for the cooked material sold to
Englishmen has led to absurdly exaggerated notions of the original
value of wine. I am quite safe in stating that the average market value
of rich wine in its raw state, in countries where the grape grows
luxuriantly, and where, in consequence, the average quality of the wine
is the best, does not exceed sixpence per gallon, or one penny per
bottle. I speak now of the newly-made wine. Allowing another sixpence
per gallon for barrelling and storage, the value of the commodity in
portable form becomes twopence per bottle. I am not speaking of thin,
poor wines, produced by a second or third pressing of the grapes, but
of the best and richest quality, and, of course, I do not include
the fancy wines—those produced in certain vineyards of celebrated
châteaux—that are superstitiously venerated by those easily-deluded
people who suppose themselves to be connoisseurs of choice wines. I
refer to ninety-nine per cent. of the _rich_ wines that actually come
into the market. Wines made from grapes grown in unfavourable climates
naturally cost more in proportion to the poorness of the yield.
As some of my readers may be inclined to question this estimate of
average cost, a few illustrative facts may be named. In Sicily and
Calabria I usually paid at the roadside or village ‘osterias’ an
equivalent to one halfpenny for a glass or tumbler holding nearly half
a pint of common wine, thin, but genuine. This was at the rate of less
than one shilling per gallon, or twopence per bottle, and included the
cost of barrelling, storage, and innkeeper’s profit on retailing. In
the luxuriant wine-growing regions of Spain, a traveller halting at a
railway refreshment station and buying one of the sausage sandwiches
that there prevail, is allowed to help himself to wine to drink on
the spot without charge, but if he fills his flask to carry away he
is subjected to an extra charge of one halfpenny. It is well known
to all concerned that at vintage-time of fairly good seasons, in all
countries where the grape grows freely, a good empty cask is worth more
than the new wine it contains when filled; that much wine is wasted
from lack of vessels, and anybody sending two good empty casks to a
vigneron can have one of them filled in exchange for the other. Those
who desire further illustrations and verification should ask their
friends—_outside of the trade_—who have travelled in Southern wine
countries, and know the language and something more of the country than
is to be learned by being simply transferred from one hotel to another
under the guidance of couriers, ciceroni, valets de place, &c.
Thus the five shillings paid for a bottle of rich port is made up of
one penny for the original wine, one penny more for cost of storage,
&c., about sixpence for duty and carriage to this country, and twopence
for bottling, making tenpence altogether; the remaining four shillings
and twopence is paid for cookery and wine-merchant’s profits.
Under cookery I include those changes which may be obtained by simply
exposing the wine to the action of the temperature of an ordinary
cellar, or the higher temperature of ‘Pasteuring,’ to be presently
described.
In the youthful days of chemistry the first of these methods of cookery
was the only one available, and wine was kept by wine-merchants with
purely commercial intent for a considerable number of years.
A little reflection will show that this simple and original cookery was
very expensive, sufficiently so to legitimately explain the rise in
market value from tenpence to five shillings or more per bottle.
Wine-merchants require a respectable profit on the capital they invest
in their business—at least ten per cent. per annum on the prime cost of
the wine laid down. Then there is the rental of cellars and offices,
the establishment expenses—such as wages, sampling, sending out,
advertising, losses by bad debts, &c.—to be added. The capital lying
dead in the cellar demands compound interest. At ten per cent. the
principal doubles in about seven and one-third years. Calling it seven
years, to allow very meagrely for establishment expenses, we get the
following result:
£ s. d.
When 7 years old the tenpenny wine is worth 0 1 8 per bottle.
” 14 ” ” ” 0 3 4 ”
” 21 ” ” ” 0 6 8 ”
” 28 ” ” ” 0 13 4 ”
” 35 ” ” ” 1 6 8 ”
Here, then, we have a fair commercial explanation of the high prices of
old-fashioned old wines; or of what I may _now_ call the traditional
value of wine.
Of course, this is less when a man lays down his own wine in his own
cellar, in obedience to the maxim, ‘Lay down good port in the days of
your youth, and when you are old your friends will not forsake you.’
He may be satisfied with a much smaller rate of interest than the
man engaged in business fairly demands. Still, when wine thus aged
was thrown into the market, it competed with commercially cellared
wine, and obtained remarkable prices, especially as it has a special
value for ‘blending’ purposes, _i.e._ for mixing with newer wines and
infecting them with its own senility.
But why do I say that _now_ such values are traditional? Simply because
the progress of chemistry has shown us how the changes resulting from
years of cellarage may be effected by scientific cookery in a few
hours or days. We are indebted to Pasteur for the most legitimate—I
might say the only legitimate—method of doing this. The process is
accordingly called ‘Pasteuring.’ It consists in simply heating the
wine to the temperature of 60° C. = 140° Fahr., the temperature at
which, as will be remembered, the visible changes in the cookery of
animal food commences. It is worthy of note that this is also the exact
temperature at which diastase acts most powerfully in converting starch
into dextrin. Pasteuring is a process demanding considerable skill; no
portion of the wine during its cookery must be raised above 140°, yet
all must reach it; nor must it be exposed to the air.
The apparatus designed by Rossignol is one of the best suited for this
purpose. It is a large metallic vat or boiler with air-tight cover and
a false bottom, from which rises a trumpet-shaped tube through the
middle of the vat, and passing through an air-tight fitting in the
cover. The chamber formed by the false bottom is filled with water by
means of this tube, the object being to prevent the wine at the lower
part from being heated directly by the fire which is below the water
chamber. A thermometer is also inserted air-tight in the lid, with its
bulb half-way down the vat. To allow for expansion a tube is similarly
fitted into the lid. This is bent syphon-like, and its lower end dipped
into a flask containing wine or water, so that air or vapour may escape
and bubble through, but none enter. Even in drawing off from the vat
the wine is not allowed to flow through the air, but is conveyed by
a pipe which bends down, and dips to the bottom of the barrel. The
apparatus is bulky and expensive.
If heated with exposure to air, the wine acquires a flavour easily
recognised as the ‘_goût de cuit_,’ or flavour of cooking. When
Pasteur’s method is properly conducted the only changes effected
are those which would be otherwise produced by age. I have heard of
many failures made by English wine-merchants in their attempts at
Pasteuring, and am not at all surprised, seeing how secretly and
clumsily these attempts have been made.
The changes thus produced are somewhat obscure. One effect is probably
that which more decidedly occurs in the maturing of whisky and other
spirits distilled from grain, viz. the reduction of the proportion
of amylic alcohol or fusel oil, which, although less abundantly
produced in the fermentation of grape juice than in grain or potato
spirit, is formed in varying quantities. Caproic alcohol and caprylic
alcohol are also produced by the fermentation of grape juice or the
‘marc’ of grapes—_i.e._ the mixture of the whole juice and the skins.
These are acrid, ill-flavoured spirits, more conducive to headache
than the ethylic alcohol, which is proper spirit of good wine. Every
wine-drinker knows that the amount of headache obtainable from a given
quantity of wine, or a given outlay of cash, varies with the sample,
and this variation appears to be due to these supplementary alcohols or
ethers.
Another change appears to be the formation of ethers having choice
flavours and bouquets; _œnanthic ether_, or the ether of wine, is the
most important of these, and it is probably formed by the action of
the natural acid salts of the wine upon its alcohol. Johnston says:
‘So powerful is the odour of this substance, however, that few wines
contain more than one forty-thousandth part of their bulk of it. Yet
it is always present, can always be recognised by its smell, and is
one of the general characteristics of all grape wines.’ This ether is
stated to be the basis of _Hungarian wine oil_, which, according to
the same authority, has been sold for flavouring brandy at the rate of
sixty-nine dollars per pound. I am surprised that up to the present
time it has not been cheaply produced in large quantities. Chemical
problems that appear far more difficult have been practically solved.
The paternal tenderness with which wine is regarded, both by its
producers and consumers, is amusing. They speak of it as being ‘sick,’
describe its ‘diseases,’ and their remedies as though it were a
sentient being; and these diseases, like our own, are now attributed to
bacilli, bacteria, or other microbia.
Pasteur, who has worked out this question of the origin of diseases in
wine as he is so well known to have done in animals, recommends (in
papers read before the French Academy in May and August 1865), that
these microbia be ‘killed’ by filling the bottles close up to the cork,
which is thrust in just with sufficient firmness to allow the wine on
expanding to force it out a little, but not entirely, thus preventing
any air from entering the bottle. The bottles are then placed in a
chamber heated to temperatures ranging from 45° to 100° C. (113° to
212° Fahr.), where they remain for an hour or two. They are then set
aside, allowed to cool, and the cork driven in. It is said that this
treatment kills the microbia, gives to the wine an increased bouquet
and improved colour—in fact, ages it considerably. Both old and new
wines may be thus treated.
I simply state this on the authority of Pasteur, having made no direct
experiments or observations on these diseases, which he describes
as resulting in acetification, ropiness, bitterness, and decay or
decomposition.
There is, however, another kind of sickness which I have studied, both
experimentally and theoretically. I refer to the temporary sickness
which sometimes occurs to rich wines when they are moved from one
cellar to another, and to light wines when newly exported from their
native climate to our own. Genuine wines are the most subject to
such sickness;—the natural, unsophisticated wines, those that have
not been subjected to ‘fortification,’ to ‘vinage,’ to ‘plastering,’
‘sulphuring,’ &c.—processes of cookery to be presently described.
This sickness shows itself by the wine becoming turbid, or opalescent,
then throwing down either a crust or a loose, troublesome sediment.
Those of my readers who are sufficiently interested in this subject to
care to study it practically should make the following experiment:
Dissolve in distilled water, or, better, in water slightly acidulated
with hydrochloric acid, as much cream of tartar as will saturate it.
This is best done by heating the water, agitating an excess of cream of
tartar in it, then allowing the water to cool, the excess of salt to
subside, and pouring off the clear solution. Now add to this solution,
while quite clear and bright, a little clear brandy, whisky, or other
spirit, and mix them by shaking. The solution will become ‘sick,’ like
the wine. Why is this?
It depends upon the fact that the bitartrate of potash, or cream of
tartar, is soluble to some extent in water, but almost insoluble
in alcohol. In a mixture of alcohol and water its solubility is
intermediate—the more alcohol the smaller the quantity that can be held
in solution (hydrochloric and most other acids, excepting tartaric,
increase its solubility in water). Thus, if we have a saturated
solution of this salt either in pure water or acidulated water, or
wine, the addition of alcohol throws some of it down in solid form, and
this makes the solution sick or turbid. When pure water or acidulated
water is used, as in the above-described experiment, crystals of the
salt are freely formed, and fall down readily; but with a complex
liquid like wine, containing saccharine and mucilaginous matter, the
precipitation takes place very slowly; the particles are excessively
minute, become entangled with the mucilage, &c., and thus remain
suspended for a long time, maintaining the turbidity accordingly.
Now, this bitartrate of potash is the characteristic natural salt
of the grape, and its unfermented juice is saturated with it. As
fermentation proceeds, and the sugar of the grape-juice is converted
into alcohol, the capacity of the juice for holding the salt in
solution diminishes, and it is gradually thrown down. But it does not
fall alone. It carries with it some of the colouring and extractive
matter of the grape-juice. This precipitate, in its crude state called
_argol_, or _roher Weinstein_, is the source from which we obtain the
tartaric acid of commerce, the cream of tartar, and other salts of
tartaric acid.
Now let us suppose that we have a natural, unsophisticated wine.
It is evident that it is saturated with the tartrate, since only
so much argol was thrown down during fermentation as it was unable
to retain. It is further evident that if such a wine has not been
exhaustively fermented, _i.e._ if it still contains some of the
original grape-sugar, and if any further fermentation of this sugar
takes place, the capacity of the mixture for holding the tartrate in
solution becomes diminished, and a further precipitation must occur.
This precipitation will come down very slowly, will consist not merely
of pure crystals of cream of tartar, but of minute particles carrying
with it some colouring matter, extractives, &c., and thus spoiling the
brilliancy of the wine, making it more or less turbid.
But this is not all. Boiling water dissolves ⅙th of its weight of cream
of tartar, cold water only 1/180th, and, at intermediate temperatures,
intermediate quantities. Therefore, if we lower the temperature of a
saturated solution, precipitation occurs. Hence, the sickening of wine
due to change of cellars or change of climate, even when no further
fermentation occurs. The lighter the wine, _i.e._ the less alcohol it
contains naturally, the more tartrate it contains, and the greater the
liability to this source of sickness.
This, then, is the temporary sickness to which I have referred. I
have proved the truth of this theory by filtering such sickened wine
through laboratory filtering paper, thereby rendering it transparent,
and obtaining on the paper all the guilty disturbing matter. I found
it to be a kind of argol, but containing a much larger proportion of
extractive and colouring matter, and a smaller proportion of tartrate
than the argol of commerce. I operated upon rich new Catalan wine.
This brings me at once to the source or origin of a sort of
wine-cookery by no means so legitimate as the Pasteuring already
described, as it frequently amounts to serious adulteration. The
wine-merchants are here the victims of their customers, who demand
an amount of transparency that is simply impossible as a permanent
condition of unsophisticated grape-wine. To anybody who has any
knowledge of the chemistry of wine, nothing can be more ludicrous
than the antics of the pretending connoisseur of wine who holds his
glass up to the light, shuts one eye (even at the stage before double
vision commences), and admires the brilliancy of the liquid, this very
brilliancy being, in nineteen samples out of twenty, the evidence of
adulteration, cookery, or sophistication of some kind. Genuine wine
made from pure grape-juice without chemical manipulation is a liquid
that is never reliably clear, for the reasons above stated. Partial
precipitation, sufficient to produce opalescence, is continually taking
place, and therefore the unnatural brilliancy demanded is obtained by
substituting the natural and wholesome tartrate by salts of mineral
acids, and even by the free mineral acid itself. At one time I deemed
this latter adulteration impossible, but have been convinced by direct
examination of samples of _high-priced_ (mark this, not _cheap_) dry
sherries that they contained free sulphuric and sulphurous acid.
The action of this free mineral acid on the wine will be understood
by what I have already explained concerning the solubility of the
bitartrate of potash. This solubility is greatly increased by a little
of such acid, and therefore the transparency of the wine is by such
addition rendered stable, unaffected by changes of temperature.
But what is the effect of such free mineral acid on the drinker of
the wine? If he is in any degree pre-disposed to gout, rheumatism,
stone, or any of the lithic acid diseases, his life is sacrificed,
with preceding tortures of the most horrible kind. It has been stated,
and probably with truth, that the late Emperor Napoleon III. drank dry
sherry, and was a martyr of this kind. I repeat emphatically that,
generally speaking, high-priced dry sherries are far worse than cheap
Marsala, both as regards the quantity they contain of sulphates and
free acid.
Anybody who doubts this may convince himself by simply purchasing a
little chloride of barium, dissolving it in distilled water, and adding
to the sample of wine to be tested a few drops of this solution.
Pure wine, containing its full supply of natural tartrate, will become
cloudy to a small extent, and gradually. A small precipitate will be
formed by the tartrate. The wine that contains either free sulphuric
acid or any of its compounds will yield _immediately_ a copious white
precipitate like chalk, but much more dense. This is sulphate of
baryta. The experiment may be made in a common wine-glass, but better
in a cylindrical test-tube, as, by using in this a fixed quantity in
each experiment, a rough notion of the relative quantity of sulphate
may be formed by the depth of the white layer after all has come down.
To determine this _accurately_, the wine, after applying the test,
should be filtered through proper filtering paper, and the precipitate
and paper burnt in a platinum or porcelain crucible and then weighed;
but this demands apparatus not always available, and some technical
skill. The simple demonstration of the copious precipitation is
instructive, and those of my readers who are practical chemists, but
have not yet applied this test to such wines, will be astonished, as I
was, at the amount of precipitation.
I may add that my first experience was upon a sample of dry sherry,
brought to me by a friend who bought his wine of a respectable
wine-merchant, and paid a high price for it, but found that it
disagreed with him; it contained an alarming quantity of free sulphuric
acid. Since that I have tested scores of samples, some of the finest in
the market, sent to me by a conscientious importer as the best he could
obtain, and these contained sulphate of potash instead of bitartrate.
My friend, the sherry-merchant, could not account for it, though he
was most anxious to do so. This was about three years ago. By dint of
inquiry and cross-examination of experts in the wine trade, I have,
I believe, discovered the origin of the sulphate of potash that is
contained in the samples that the British wine-merchant sells as he
buys, and conscientiously believes to be pure.
At first I hunted up all the information I could obtain from books
concerning the manufacture of sherry; learned that the grapes are
usually sprinkled with a little powdered sulphur as they are placed
in the vats prior to stamping. The quantity thus added, however, is
quite insufficient to account for the sulphur compounds in the samples
of wine I examined. Another source is described in the books—that
from sulphuring the casks. This process consists simply of burning
sulphur inside a partially-filled or empty cask, until the exhaustion
of free oxygen and its replacement by sulphurous acid renders further
combustion impossible. The cask is then filled with the wine. This
would add a little of sulphurous acid, but still not sufficient.
Then comes the ‘plastering,’ or intentional addition of gypsum (plaster
of Paris). This, if largely carried out, is sufficient to explain
the complete conversion of the natural tartrates into sulphates of
potash, and such plastering is admitted to be an adulteration or
sophistication. I obtained samples of sherry from a reliable source,
which I have no doubt the shipper honestly believed to have been
subjected to no such deliberate plastering; still,from these came down
an extravagantly excessive precipitate on the addition of chloride of
barium solution.
I afterwards learned that ‘Spanish earth’ was used in the fining. Why
Spanish earth in preference to isinglass or white of egg, which are
quite unobjectionable and very efficient? To this question I could
get no satisfactory answer directly, but learned vaguely that the
fining produced by the white of egg, though complete at the time, was
not permanent, while that effected by Spanish earth, containing much
sulphate of lime, is permanent. The brilliancy thus obtained is not
lost by age or variations of temperature, and the dry sherries thus
cooked are preferred by English wine-drinkers.
The sulphate of potash which, by the action of sulphate of lime, is
made to replace bitartrate, is so readily soluble that neither changes
of temperature nor increase of alcohol, due to further fermentation,
will throw it down; and thus the wine-maker and wine-merchant,
without any guilty intent, and ignorant of what he is really doing,
sophisticates the wine, alters its essential composition, and adds
an impurity in doing what he supposes to be a mere clarification or
removal of impurities.
I have heard of genuine sherries being returned as bad to the shipper
because they were genuine, and had been fined without sophistication.
My own experience of genuine wines in wine-growing countries teaches me
that such wines are rarely brilliant; and the variations of solubility
of the natural salt of the grape, which I have already explained, shows
why this is the case. If the drinkers of sherry and other white and
golden wines would cease to demand the conventional brilliancy, they
would soon be supplied with the genuine article, which really costs the
wine-merchant less than the cooked product they now insist upon having.
This foolish demand of his customers merely gives him a large amount of
unnecessary trouble and annoyance.
So far, the wine-merchant; but how about the consumer? Simply that
the substitution of a mineral acid—the sulphuric for a vegetable acid
(the tartaric)—supplies him with a precipitant of lithic acid in his
own body; that is, provides him with the source of gout, rheumatism,
gravel, stone, &c., with which _English_ wine-drinkers are proverbially
tortured.
I am the more urgent in propounding this view of the subject, because I
see plainly that not only the patients, but too commonly their medical
advisers, do not understand it. When I was in the midst of these
experiments I called upon a clerical neighbour, and found him in his
study with his foot on a pillow, and groaning with gout. A decanter of
pale, choice, very dry sherry was on the table. He poured out a glass
for me and another for himself. I tasted it, and then perpetrated the
unheard-of rudeness of denouncing the wine for which my host had paid
so high a price. He knew a little chemistry, and I accordingly went
home forthwith, brought back some chloride of barium, added it to his
choice sherry, and showed him a precipitate which made him shudder. He
drank no more dry sherry, and has had no serious relapse of gout.
In this case his medical adviser prohibited port and advised dry sherry.
The following from ‘The Brewer, Distiller, and Wine Manufacturer,’ by
John Gardner (Churchill’s ‘Technological Handbooks,’ 1883), supports my
view of the position of the wine-maker and wine-merchant. ‘Dupré and
Thudicum have shown by experiment that this practice of plastering, as
it is called, also reduces the yield of the liquid, as a considerable
part of the wine mechanically combines with the gypsum and is lost.’
When an adulteration—justly so-called—is practised, the object is
to enable the perpetrator to obtain an increased profit on selling
the commodity at a given price. In this case an opposite result is
obtained. The gypsum, or Spanish earth, is used in considerable
quantity, and leaves a bulky residuum, which carries away some of the
wine with it, and thus increases the cost to the seller of the saleable
result.
Having referred so often to dry wines, I should explain the chemistry
of this so-called dryness. The fermentation of wine is the result
of a vegetable growth, that of the yeast, a microscopic fungus
(_Penicillium glaucum_). The must, or juice of the grape, obtains the
germ spontaneously—probably from the atmosphere. Two distinct effects
are produced by this fermentation or growth of fungus: first, the sugar
of the must is converted into alcohol; second, more or less of the
albuminous or nitrogenous matter of the must is consumed as food by
the fungus. If uninterrupted, this fermentation goes on either until
the supply of sufficient sugar is stopped, or until the supply of
sufficient albuminous matter is stopped. The relative proportions of
these determine which of the two shall be first exhausted.
If the sugar is exhausted before the nitrogenous food of the fungus,
a dry wine is produced; if the nitrogenous food is first consumed,
the remaining unfermented sugar produces a sweet wine. If the sugar
is greatly in excess, a _vin de liqueur_ is the result, such as the
Frontignac, Lunel, Rivesaltes, &c., made from the muscat grape.
The varieties of grape are very numerous. Rusby, in his ‘Visit to the
Vineyards of Spain and France,’ gives a list of 570 varieties, and, as
far back as 1827, Cavalow enumerated more than 1,500 different wines in
France alone.
From the above it will be understood that, _cæteris paribus_, the
poorer the grape the drier the wine; or that a given variety of grape
will yield a drier wine if grown where it ripens imperfectly, than if
grown in a warmer climate. But the quantity of wine obtainable from a
given acreage in the cooler climate is less than where the sun is more
effective, and thus the _naturally_ dry wines cost more to produce than
the _naturally_ sweet wines.
The reader will understand, from what has already been stated
concerning the origin of the difference between natural sweet wines and
natural dry wines, that the conversion of either one into the other
is not a difficult problem. Wine is a fashionable beverage in this
country, and fashions fluctuate. These fluctuations are not accompanied
with a corresponding variation in the chemical composition of any
particular class of grapes, but somehow the wine produced therefrom
obeys the laws of supply and demand. For some years past the demand for
dry sherry has dominated in this country, though, as I am informed, the
weathercock of fashion is now on the turn.
One mode of satisfying this demand for dry wine is, of course, to make
it from a grape which has little sugar and much albuminous matter,
but in a given district this is not always possible. Another is to
gather the grapes before they are fully ripened, but this involves a
sacrifice in the yield of alcohol, and probably of flavour. Another
method, obvious enough to the chemist, is to add as much albuminous
or nitrogenous material as shall continue to feed the yeast fungus
until all, or nearly all, the sugar in the grape shall be converted
into alcohol, thus supplying strength and dryness (or salinity)
simultaneously. Should these be excessive, the remedy is simple and
cheap wherever water abounds. It should be noted that the quantity of
sugar naturally contained in the ripe grape varies from 10 to 30 per
cent.—a very large range. The quantity of alcohol varies proportionally
when the must is fermented to dryness. According to Pavy, ‘there are
dry sherries to be met with that are free from sugar,’ while in other
wines the quantity of remaining sugar amounts to as much as 20 per cent.
White of egg and gelatin are the most easily available and innocent
forms of nitrogenous material that may be used for sustaining or
renewing the fermentation of wines that are to be artificially dried.
My inquiries in the trade lead me to conclude that this is not
understood as well as it should be. Both white of egg and gelatin (in
the form of isinglass or otherwise) are freely used for fining, and
it is well enough known that wines that have been freely subjected to
such fining keep better and become drier with age, but I have never
yet met a wine-merchant who understood why, nor any sound explanation
of the fact in the trade literature. When thus added to the wine
already fermented, the effect is doubtless due to the promotion of a
slow, secondary fermentation. The bulk of the gelatin or albumen is
carried down with the sediment, but some remains in solution. There may
be some doubt as to the albumen thus remaining, but none concerning
the gelatin, which is freely soluble both in water and alcohol. The
truly scientific mode of applying this principle would be to add the
nitrogenous material to the must.
I dwell thus upon this because, if fashion insists so imperatively
upon dryness as to compel artificial drying, this method is the least
objectionable, being a close imitation of natural drying, almost
identical; while there are other methods of inducing fictitious dryness
that are mischievous adulterations.
Generally described, these consist in producing an imitation of the
natural salinity of the dry wine by the addition of factitious salts
and fortifying with alcohol. The sugar remains, but is disguised
thereby. It was a wine thus treated that first brought the subject
of the sulphates, already referred to, under my notice. It contained
a considerable quantity of sugar, but was not perceptibly sweet. It
was very strong and decidedly acid; contained free sulphuric acid and
alum, which, as all who have tasted it know, gives a peculiar sense of
dryness to the palate.
The sulphuring, plastering, and use of Spanish earth increase the
dryness of a given wine by adding mineral acid and mineral salts. In
a paper recently read before the French Academy by L. Magnier de la
Source (‘Comptes Rendus,’ vol. xcviii. page 110), the author states
that ‘plastering modifies the chemical characters of the colouring
matter of the wine, and not only does the calcium sulphate decompose
the potassium hydrogen tartrate (cream of tartar), with formation of
calcium tartrate, potassium sulphate, and free tartaric acid, but it
also decomposes the neutral organic compounds of potassium which exist
in the juice of the grape.’ I quote from abstract in ‘Journal of the
Chemical Society’ of May 1884.
In the French ‘Journal of Pharmaceutical Chemistry,’ vol. vi. pp.
118-123 (1882), is a paper, by P. Carles, in which the chemical and
hygienic results of plastering are discussed. His general conclusion
is, that the use of gypsum in clearing wines ‘renders them hurtful
as beverages;’ that the gypsum acts ‘on the potassium bitartrate in
the juice of the grape, forming calcium tartrate, tartaric acid, and
potassium sulphate, a large proportion of the last two bodies remaining
in the wine.’ Unplastered wines contain about two grammes of _free
acid_ per litre; after plastering, they contain ‘double or treble that
amount, and even more.’
A German chemist, Griessmayer, and more recently another, Kaiser, have
also studied this subject, and arrive at similar conclusions. Kaiser
analysed wines which were plastered by adding gypsum to the must, that
is to the juice before fermentation, and also samples in which the
gypsum was added to the ‘finished wine,’ _i.e._ for fining, so-called.
He found that ‘in the finished wine, by the addition of gypsum, the
tartaric acid is replaced by sulphuric acid, and there is a perceptible
increase in the calcium; the other constituents remain unaltered.’
His conclusion is that the plastering of wine should be called
adulteration, and treated accordingly, on the ground that the article
in question is thereby deprived of its characteristic constituents,
and others, not normally present, are introduced. This refers more
especially to the plastering or gypsum fining of finished wines.
(Biedermann’s ‘Centralblatt,’ 1881, pp. 632, 633.)
In the paper above named, by P. Carles, we are told that ‘owing to the
injurious nature of the impurities of plastered wines, endeavours have
been made to free them from these by a method called “deplastering,”
but the remedy proves worse than the defect.’ The samples analysed by
Carles contained barium salts, barium chloride having been used to
remove the sulphuric acid. In some cases excess of the barium salt was
found in the wine, and in others barium sulphate was held in suspension.
Closely following the abstract of this paper, in the ‘Journal of
the Chemical Society,’ is another from the French ‘Journal of
Pharmaceutical Chemistry,’ vol. v. pp. 581-3, to which I now refer,
by the way, for the instruction of claret-drinkers, who may not be
aware of the fact that the phylloxera destroyed all the claret grapes
in certain districts of France, without stopping the manufacture or
diminishing the export of claret itself. In this paper, by J. Lefort,
we are told, as a matter of course, that ‘owing to the ravages of the
phylloxera among the vines, substitutes for grape-juice are being
introduced for the manufacture of wines; of these, the author specially
condemns the use of beet-root sugar, since, during its fermentation,
besides ethyl alcohol and aldehyde, it yields propyl, butyl, and amyl
alcohols, which have been shown by Dujardin and Audigé to act as
poisons in very small quantities.’
In connection with this subject I may add that the French Government
carefully protects its own citizens by rigid inspection and analysis of
the wines offered for sale to French wine-drinkers; but does not feel
bound to expend its funds and energies in hampering commerce by severe
examination of the wines that are exported to ‘John Bull et son Île,’
especially as John Bull is known to have a robust constitution. Thus,
vast quantities of brilliantly coloured liquid, flavoured with orris
root, which would not be allowed to pass the barriers of Paris, but
must go somewhere, is drunk in England at a cost of four times as much
as the Frenchman pays for genuine grape-wine. The coloured concoction
being brighter, skilfully cooked, and duly labelled to imitate the
products of real or imaginary celebrated vineyards, is preferred by the
English _gourmet_ to anything that can be made from simple grape-juice.
I should add that a character somewhat similar to that of natural
dryness is obtained by mixing with the grape-juice wine a secondary
product, obtained by adding water to the _marc_ (_i.e._ the residue
of skins, &c., that remains after pressing out the must or juice);
a minimum of sugar is dissolved in the water, and this liquor is
fermented. The skins and seeds contain much tannic acid or astringent
matter, and this roughness imposes upon many wine-drinkers, provided
the price charged for the wine thus cheapened be sufficiently high.
Some years ago, while resident in Birmingham, an enterprising
manufacturing druggist consulted me on a practical difficulty which
he was unable to solve. He had succeeded in producing a very fine
claret (Château Digbeth, let us call it) by duly fortifying with silent
spirit a solution of cream of tartar, and flavouring this with a small
quantity of orris root. Tasted in the dark it was all that could be
desired for introducing a new industry to Birmingham; but the wine
was white, and every colouring material that he had tried producing
the required tint marred the flavour and bouquet of the pure Château
Digbeth. He might have used one of the magenta dyes, but as these were
prepared by boiling aniline over dry arsenic acid, and my Birmingham
friend was burdened with a conscience, he refrained from thus applying
one of the recent triumphs of chemical science.
This was previous to the invasion of France by the phylloxera. During
the early period of that visitation, French enterprise being more
powerfully stimulated and less scrupulous than that of Birmingham, made
use of the aniline dyes for colouring spurious claret to such an extent
that the French Government interfered, and a special test paper named
Œnokrine was invented by MM. Lainville and Roy, and sold in Paris for
the purpose of detecting falsely-coloured wines.
The mode of using the Œnokrine is as follows: ‘A slip of the paper is
steeped in pure wine for about five seconds, briskly shaken, in order
to remove excess of liquid, and then placed on a sheet of white paper
to serve as a standard. A second slip of the test-paper is then steeped
in the suspected wine in the same manner, and laid beside the former.
It is asserted that 1/100,000 of magenta is sufficient to give the
paper a violet shade, whilst a larger quantity produces a carmine red.
With genuine red wine the colour produced is a greyish blue, which
becomes lead-coloured on drying.’ I copy the above from the ‘Quarterly
Journal of Science’ of April 1877. The editor adds that the inventors
of this paper have discovered a method of removing the magenta from
wines without injuring their quality, ‘a fact of some importance, if it
be true that several hundred thousand hectolitres of wine sophisticated
with magenta are in the hands of the wine-merchants’ (a hectolitre is =
22 gallons).
Another simple test that was recommended at the time was to immerse
a small wisp of raw silk[19] in the suspected wine, keeping it there
at a boiling heat for a few minutes. Aniline colours dye the silk
permanently; the natural colour of the grape is easily washed out. I
find on referring to the ‘Chemical News,’ the ‘Journal of the Chemical
Society,’ the ‘Comptes Rendus,’ and other scientific periodicals of
the period of the phylloxera plague, such a multitude of methods for
testing false colouring materials that I give up in despair my original
intention of describing them in detail. It would demand far more space
than the subject deserves. I will, however, just name a few of the
more harmless colouring adulterants that are stated to have been used,
and for which special tests have been devised by French and German
chemists:
Beet-root, peach-wood, elderberries, mulberries, log-wood,
privet-berries, litmus, ammoniacal cochineal, Fernambucca-wood,
phytolacca, burnt sugar, extract of rhatany, bilberries; ‘jerupiga’ or
‘geropiga,’ a compound of elder juice, brown sugar, grape juice, and
crude Portuguese brandy’ (for choice tawny port); ‘tincture of saffron,
turmeric, or safflower’ (for golden sherry); red poppies, mallow
flowers, &c.
Those of my readers who have done anything in practical chemistry
are well acquainted with blue and red litmus, and the general fact
that such vegetable colours change from blue to red when exposed to
an acid, and return to blue when the acid is overcome by an alkali.
The colouring matter of the grape is one of these. Mulder and Maumené
have given it the name of _œnocyan_ or _wine-blue_, as its colour,
when neutral, is blue; the red colour of genuine wines is due to the
presence of tartaric and acetic acid acting upon the wine-blue. There
are a few purple wines, their colour being due to unusual absence of
acid. The original vintage which gave celebrity to port wine is an
example of this.
The bouquet of wine is usually described as due to the presence
of ether, _œnanthic_ ether, which is naturally formed during the
fermentation of grape juice, and is itself a variable mixture of other
ethers, such as caprilic, caproic, &c. The oil of the seed of the grape
contributes to the bouquet. The fancy values of fancy wines are largely
due, or more properly speaking _were_ largely due, to peculiarities
of bouquet. These peculiar wines became costly because their supply
was limited, only a certain vineyard, in some cases of very small
area, producing the whole crop of the fancy article. The high price
once established, and the demand far exceeding the possibilities of
supply from the original source, other and resembling wines are now
sold under the name of the celebrated locality with the bouquet or _a_
bouquet artificially introduced. It has thus come about in the ordinary
course of business that the dearest wines of the choicest brands are
those which are the most likely to be sophisticated. The flavouring of
wine, the imparting of delicate bouquet, is a high art, and is costly.
It is only upon high-priced wines that such costly operations can be
practised. Simple ordinary grape-juice—as I have already stated—is
so cheap when and where its quality is the highest, _i.e._ in good
seasons and suitable climates, that adulteration with anything but
water renders the adulterated product more costly than the genuine.
When there is a good vintage it does not pay even to add sugar and
water to the marc or residue, and press this a second time. It is more
profitable to use it for making inferior brandy, or wine oil, _huile de
marc_, or even for fodder or manure.
This, however, only applies where the demand is for simple genuine
wine, a demand almost unknown in England, where connoisseurs abound who
pass their glasses horizontally under their noses, hold them up to the
light to look for beeswings and absurd transparency, knowingly examine
the brand on the cork, and otherwise offer themselves as willing dupes
to be pecuniarily immolated on the great high altar of the holy shrine
of costly humbug.
Some years ago I was at Frankfort, on my way to the Tyrol and Venice,
and there saw, at a few paces before me, an unquestionable Englishman,
with an ill-slung knapsack. I spoke to him, earned his gratitude at
once by showing him how to dispense with that knapsack abomination,
the breast-strap. We chummed, and put up at a genuine German hostelry
of my selection, the Gasthaus zum Schwanen. Here we supped with a
multitude of natives, to the great amusement of my new friend, who
had hitherto halted at hotels devised for Englishmen. The handmaiden
served us with wine in tumblers, and we both pronounced it excellent.
My new friend was enthusiastic; the bouquet was superior to anything
he had ever met with before, and if it could only be fined—it was
not by any means bright—it would be invaluable. He then took me into
his confidence. He was in the wine trade, assisting in his father’s
business; the ‘governor’ had told him to look out in the course of his
travels, as there were obscure vineyards here and there producing very
choice wines that might be contracted for at very low prices. This was
one of them; here was good business. If I would help him to learn all
about it, presentation cases of wine should be poured upon me for ever
after.
I accordingly asked the handmaiden, ‘Was für Wein?’ &c. Her answer
was, ‘Apfel-Wein.’ She was frightened at my burst of laughter, and the
young wine-merchant also imagined that he had made acquaintance with a
lunatic, until I translated the answer, and told him that we had been
drinking cider. We called for more, and _then_ recognised the ‘curious’
bouquet at once.
The manufacture of bouquets has made great progress of late, and they
are much cheaper than formerly. Their chief source is coal-tar, the
refuse from gas-works. That most easily produced is the essence of
bitter almonds, which supplies a ‘nutty’ flavour and bouquet. Anybody
may make it by simply adding benzol (the most volatile portion of the
coal-tar), in small portions at a time, to warm, fuming nitric acid.
On cooling and diluting the mixture, a yellow oil, which solidifies
at a little above the freezing point of water, is formed. It may be
purified by washing first with water, and then with a weak solution of
carbonate of soda to remove the excess of acid. It is now largely used
in cookery as essence of bitter almonds. Its old perfumery name was
Essence of Mirbane.
By more elaborate operations on the coal-tar product, a number of other
essences and bouquets of curiously imitative character are produced.
One of the most familiar of these is the essence of jargonelle pears,
which flavours the ‘pear drops’ of the confectioner so cunningly;
another is raspberry flavour, by the aid of which a mixture of
fig-seeds and apple-pulp, duly coloured, may be converted into a
raspberry jam that would deceive our Prime Minister. I do not say that
it now is so used (though I believe it has been), for the simple reason
that wholesale jam-makers now grow their own fruit so cheaply that the
genuine article costs no more than the sham. Raspberries can be grown
and gathered at a cost of about twopence per pound.
With wine at 60_s._ to 100_s._ per dozen the case is different. The
price leaves an ample margin for the conversion of ‘Italian reds,’
Catalans, and other sound ordinary wines into any fancy brands that
may happen to be in fashion. Such being the case, the mere fact that
certain emperors or potentates have bought up the whole produce of the
château that is named on the labels does not interfere with the market
supply, which is strictly regulated by the demand.[20]
Visiting a friend in the trade, he offered me a glass of the wine that
he drank himself when at home, and supplied to his own family. He asked
my opinion of it. I replied that I thought it was genuine grape-juice,
resembling that which I had been accustomed to drink at country inns in
the Côte d’Or (Burgundy) and in Italy. He told me that he imported it
directly from a district near to that I first named, and could supply
it at 12_s._ per dozen with a fair profit. Afterwards, when calling at
his place of business in the West-end, he told me that one of his best
customers had just been tasting the various samples of dinner claret
then remaining on the table, some of them expensive, and that he had
chosen the same as I had, but what was my friend to do? Had he quoted
12_s._ per dozen, he would have lost one of his best customers, and
sacrificed his reputation as a high-class wine-merchant; therefore he
quoted 54_s._, and both buyer and seller were perfectly satisfied: the
wine-merchant made a large profit, and the customer obtained what he
demanded—a good wine at a ‘respectable price.’ He could not insult his
friends by putting cheap 12_s._ trash on _his_ table.
Here arises an ethical question. Was the wine-merchant justified in
making this charge under the circumstances; or, otherwise stated,
who was to blame for the crookedness of the transaction? I say the
customer; my verdict is, ‘Sarve him right!’
In reference to wines, and still more to cigars, and some other useless
luxuries, the typical Englishman is a victim to a prevalent commercial
superstition. He blindly assumes that price must necessarily represent
quality, and therefore shuts his eyes and opens his mouth to swallow
anything with complete satisfaction, provided that he pays a good
price for it at a respectable establishment, _i.e._ one where only
high-priced articles are sold.
If any reader thinks I speak too strongly, let him ascertain the market
price per lb. of the best Havanna tobacco leaves where they are grown,
also the cost of twisting them into cigar shape (a skilful workwoman
can make a thousand in a day), then add to the sum of these the cost of
packing, carriage, and duty. He will be rather astonished at the result
of this arithmetical problem.
If these things were necessaries of life, or contributed in any degree
or manner to human welfare, I should protest indignantly; but seeing
what they are and what they do, I rather rejoice at the limitation of
consumption effected by their fancy prices.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] In repeating these experiments I find that the best form of silk
is that which the Coventry dyers technically call ‘boiled silk,’ _i.e._
raw silk boiled in potash to remove its resinous varnish. In this state
the aniline dyes attach themselves to the fibre very readily and firmly.
[20] The following is from _Knowledge_ of August 15, 1884. It is
editorial, not mine, though I have heard these ‘Spirit Flavours’ spoken
of by experts as ordinary merchandise. The Hungarian wine oil is one of
them: ‘I have just obtained what is expressively known as “a wrinkle”
from a wholesale price-list of a distiller which has fallen (no matter
how) into my hands. That it was never intended to be seen by any
mortal eyes outside of “the trade” goes without saying. In this highly
instructive document I find, under the head of “Spirit Flavours,”
“the attention of consumers in Australia and India” (we needn’t say
anything about England) “is particularly called to these very useful
and excellent flavours. One pound of either of these essences to
fifty gallons of plain spirit” (let us suppose potato spirit) “will
make immediately a fine brandy or old tom, &c., without the use of a
still.—See _Lancet_ report.” This is followed by a list of prices of
these “flavours,” and then follows a similar one of “Wine Aromas.”
A cheerful look-out all this presents, upon my word! The confiding
traveller calls at his inn for some old brandy, and they make it in
the bar while he is waiting. He orders a pint of claret or port, and
straightway he is served with some that has been two and a half minutes
in bottle! After the perusal of this price-list, I have come to the
conclusion that in the case of no articles of consumption whatever is
the motto _Caveat emptor_ more needful to be attended to than in that
of (so called) wines and spirits.’