Cassell's dictionary of cookery

In the manufactirre of home-made wines, care therefore should be taken not to use too small a proportion of fruit compared with the sugai- employed ; for it is in this circumstance chiefly which renders the fermentative process in- complete, and thus imparts that sweet and mawkish taste to our domestic wines which renders them intolerable to many people, and even perhaps to all, without the addition of brandy. The strength of the wine is alwaj's proportional to the quantity of sugar employed, provided that sugar has been completely decomposed ; the most saccharine juices, there- fore, afford the strongest wine; or, in the practice which is necessary in making wine from native fruits, that fluid will produce the strongest wine to which the greatest quantity of sugar has been added previously to fermen- tation, care being always taken to increase the quantity of leaven in such a ratio as to insure the complete decomposition of the sugar, without which the produce gains in sweetness only vidthout acquiring additional strength. But even with this precaution there is a limit to the quantity of sugar that can be employed, and this limit is ob\aously the proportion of water which is required to insure the fei-mcnt- ing process. The fermentation must continue the longer if it is desired that the produce shall be a dry wine, and for a less time if it is wished to produce a sweet wine. But if, on the contrary, it is the wish of the operator to presei'\'e the flavour or bouquet of the wine, it is necessary that the period of the fermentation should be shortened. The case will be precisely the samtr if it is an object to have a brisk wine, as the carbonic acid, on which this quality exclusively depends, wiU be dissipated iiTccoverably by an undue protraction of the fermenting process. — Ace urn . Wines, Keeping of. — Wine is put into bottles for the sake of keeping it, and the placing these bottles in some safe and con- venient place called a cellar is technically called cellaring. Some wanes are not much improved by bottling at all, and these one may (b'ink direct from the cask. In wine countries it is not uncommon to drink the wine directly from the cask as we do beer. This is more especially done with the weaker and cheaper wuies, and wine is occasionally thus consumed in this country. "Wine from the wood is sold in some of our wine shops. Inferior red wdnes, sherries, and marsala, are said to improve more whilst on tap in the cask than when bottled. Weak wines cannot be kept long in the cask without a danger of the oxygen of the air converting their hydrated oxide of ethyle (alcohol) into the hydrated tri-oxide of acetyle (vinegar), which is a result very much to be avoided by those who attach importance to the flavour or strength of their wines. Wine in casks gets altered by the evaporation of the water and the alcohol into the aii', and also by the absorption of one or the other by the wood. These changes cannot happen when the wim- is put into glass bottles. Wine can thus be kept longer in bottles without change than in wo«d. There is a notion that wine gets strongei- WIN ( 1143 ) WIN