Wine

Vinum

Vinum Album

White wine. A pale, amber-colored or straw-colored alcoholic liquid, made by fermenting the unmodified juice of the grape, freed from seeds, stems, and skins. . . . White wine should contain not less than ten per cent nor more than twelve per cent by weight of absolute alcohol.

Vinum Rubrum

Red wine. An alcoholic liquid, made by fermenting the juice of fresh colored grapes in presence of their skins, A deep red liquid, having a pleasant odor, free from yeastiness, and a fruity, moderately astringent taste without excessive sweetness or acidity.

The U. S. Pharmacopoeia for 1890 recommends that when wines, white or red, are prescribed, the domestic product, in the absence of special instruction, be employed.

Sparkling Wines. (Champagne, sparkling catawba, etc.)—These are wines which have been bottled before the stage of fermentation has been completed, hence they are lively, or sparkling, in consequence of being charged with carbonic acid. A considerable portion of the grape-sugar has not been converted into alcohol; they are sweet wines, therefore, and the quantity of absolute alcohol which they contain is relatively low (eight to twelve per cent). Sparkling hock is a lighter wine than champagne, and contains less sugar. Sparkling catawba more nearly resembles hock than champagne.

A sophistication now much practiced consists in adding to still wines carbonic-acid gas, by pressure, in the same manner that carbonic-acid water is manufactured.

Dry Acid Wines

The best specimens of this group are the German Rhine and Moselle wines, California hock, and Ohio and Kelly-Island catawba. The German varieties are very numerous, and are remarkable for their flavor, for the completeness of the fermentation (absence of sugar), and for their permanence. The most important of the varieties are the following: Dürkheimer, Ungsteiner, Hoch-heimer, Deidesheimer, Förster, Rudesheimer, Johannisberger, Lieb-frauenmilch, etc. The French wines are, as a rule, rather acid. The best known are the clarets, but these are more properly classed with the red wines.

Sweet Wines

In this group are contained burgundy, still champagne, muscatel, malaga, Hungarian tokay, and angelica, madeira, etc. The alcoholic strength of these wines, unless fortified, is relatively low, because the sugar has not been consumed by the fermentation.

Light Red Wines

The French clarets, the red Rhine wines, the American Ives's seedling, and Concord and Hungarian, are members of this group. They contain a large proportion of the coloring-matter of the grape, and considerable tannic acid.

Heavy Red Wines

Port is the principal representative of this group, but it is not a natural wine; during the process of manufacture spirit is added, and its alcoholic strength is raised to thirty or forty per cent. California port when fortified, as it probably frequently is, should be classed in this division.

Dry Spirituous Wines

The most important member of this group is sherry.

Composition and Properties

The composition of wine is extremely complex. The constituents ascertainable by chemical analysis do not represent all of the peculiar qualities which render various wines desirable. Bouquet and flavor can not be determined by the most expert chemist, and elude all other means of investigation but the tongue and nose of the "wine-taster."

A wine is a solution of alcohol in water, mixed with various constituents of the grape. The proportion of alcohol ranges from six to forty per cent—the largest quantity being found in the artificial wines, such as port and sherry. The proportion of sugar varies greatly— from three to twenty-five per cent. The acids are fixed (tartaric) and volatile (acetic). The relation between these several constituents is nearly as follows: Port contains about fifty-three parts by weight of alcohol to one part of acid, and twelve parts of sugar to one part of acid. The average of sherry is thirty-nine of alcohol and 1·5 of sugar to one of acid. In the sweet wines, the average is about thirty parts of sugar to one part of acid and fifteen parts of alcohol. In the acid wines, the average proportion of alcohol to acid is as eighteen to one, while the sugar is almost absent, and in some of the best is entirely so. Those are dry wines which are free from sugar. Besides tartaric and acetic acids, wines contain, in much smaller quantity, malic, tannic, and carbonic acids. Wines containing less than three hundred grains of acid to the gallon are wanting in flavor; on the other hand, an excess of acid over five hundred grains to the gallon is too sour to be agreeable. The coloring-matter of wine varies greatly, and the distinction between "white" and "red" depends on the quantity present in these different varieties. The red wines are more astringent, due to the larger proportion of tannin which they contain, and they are also rougher to the taste.

Wine contains a great many mineral constituents; tartrates of potas-sa and lime, chlorides of sodium, potassium, and calcium, and sulphates of potassa and lime. The percentage of ash ranges from 0·18 to 0·40.

Note

The wine-consumers of the United States have been so long habituated to the wines of foreign source, that they have been unable to overcome the prejudices against the wines of native production. The vineyards of California, of the interior lakes, and of various parts of the Middle States now produce wines so thoroughly good, that a revision of the present standards of taste is demanded alike in the interests of consumers and producers. A sound taste and patriotism coincide in claiming the highest excellence for our native wine

The peculiar odor of wine (bouquet) is due to aenanthic acid, and aenanthic ether, produced by a reaction of the acid on the alcohol.

According to Fresenius, the quality of a wine is so much the better the less it contains of free acid, the more it contains of sugar, and the greater its quantity of extract; and, further, its quality is not decidedly influenced by the quantity of alcohol, and can not be determined by its specific gravity.

A certain quantity of free acid is necessary, but it should not be greater than can be masked by the alcohol, sugar, and extractive matter. The flavor and odor of wine are produced by ethers formed by the action of the free acid on the alcohol; hence the importance of this acid constituent.

Dr. Druitt, in his "Report on Cheap Wines," has very well summed up the qualities of good wine in the following conclusions:

" 1. The wine should have an absolute unity, or taste as one whole.

" 2. Wine should contain a certain amount of alcohol.

" 3. Wine should be slightly sour.

" 4. Sweetness is characteristic of a certain class of wines, while certain other wines are dry, or free from sugar.

" 5. Wines should have a taste free from mawkishness, and indicative of instability.

" 6. Roughness or astringency is a most important property, and belongs to most red wines. In moderation it is relished, as sourness is, by a healthy, manly palate, just as the cold souse is welcome to the skin. In excess it leaves a permanent harshness on the tongue.

" 7. The wine must have body. This is the impression produced by the totality of the soluble constituents of wine—the extractive, that which gives taste to the tongue, and which, as wine grows older, is deposited along with the cream of tartar forming the crust.

" 8. Bouquet is that quality of wine which salutes the nose. Flavor is that part of the aromatic constituent which gratifies the throat.

" 9. The wine must satisfy. A man must feel that he has taken something which consoles and sustains. Some liquids, as cider and thin wines, leave rather a craving, empty, hungry feeling after them."