Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/193

 may escape easily, and mingle with, or dissolve themselves in it. It follows, also, from this principle, that when must is deposited in a close vessel, the carbonic acid, finding inseparable obstacles to its volatilization, is constrained to remain in the liquid, in which it is in part dissolved, and in making continual effort against it and its component parts, it slackens, and almost completely extinguishes the fermentation.

Thus, that the fermentation may establish itself, and follow out its periods in a prompt and regular manner, there must be a free communication hetween the fermenting mass, and the atmospheric air, which then serves as a vehicle for the principles disengaged in the process, and no obstacle is opposed to the swelling and subsiding of the maas.

If wine, fermented in close vessels, is frequently more generous and more agreeable to the taste, it is, because that part of the alcohol and aroma are retained, which in open fermentation is dissipated by the heat, and drawn out in a state of dissolution by the carbonic acid.

The free access of the air of the atmosphere hurries the fermentation, and occasions a great loss of the alcoholic and aromatic principles; while, on the other hand, the obstruction of this access slackens it, threatens explosion, or rupture