Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/689

 WINE in bottles of like material. Homer names two wines as highly celebrated in his time among the Greeks : the Pramnian, from grapes growt near Smyrna, and a wine from Ismarus in Thrace, which he describes as " luscious, pure, a drink for gods." At a later period, Les- bos, Chios, Cyprus, and other localities in and about Greece, but especially the slopes of Mt. Tmolus in Lydia, furnished choice wines. Oi Roman wines, the earliest noted was the Cae- cuban, from near the site of the modern Fundi ; and next, the Setinian, from the hills of Setia, above the Pontine marshes. The Falernian, however, so named from the dis- trict on the banks of the Volturnus in which it was produced, became the most celebrated of all the Roman wines; this was deemed fit for use only after the 10th year ; its color was a very light amber, and its strength is inti- mated by the fact stated by Pliny, that it was the only wine known to him which upon the touch of a flame took fire. The Romans at this period regarded the wines of Italy as the finest in the world, the district most produc- tive of them being the volcanic region of Cam- pania, including Fundi and Sorrento. The wines of Germany and Gaul had not at this time attained to any celebrity abroad, though Gallia Narbonensis was already notorious for the manufacture of spurious compounds in imi- tation of wine ; while to Spain Pliny credits rather abundance than choiceness of vintages', and the wines of Africa he pronounces gen- erally acid and thin. In the reign of the By- zantine emperor Constantino VII. a compila- tion was made, in the "Geoponics," of all that had been written upon the vine from the 1st to the 4th century of our era. Scarce- ly one of the localities famous in Pliny's time for their superior wines produces at the pres- ent day a wine that is deservedly celebrated. The grape and wine making have in some de- gree extended to almost every portion of the earth in which the vine will flourish, inclu- ding the islands of the Atlantic, Mexico, Aus- tralia, and parts of the United States and South America. (See GEAPE, and, for certain subjects directly related to the production of wine, ALCOHOL, BRANDT, DISTILLATION, FEE- MENTATION, TARTARIO ACID, and YEAST.) The composition of grape juice varies not only with the variety of the vine, but among other cir- cumstances also with the climate, the soil, the nature of the manures employed, the aspect and exposure of the vineyard, the character of the seasons, and the stage of partial or com- plete ripeness at which the gathering takes place. Besides water, which necessarily forms a large percentage of the juice, Mulder finds as its constituents sugar, gelatine or pectin, gum, fatty matter, wax, albumen, gluten, and tartaric acid, both free and combined with potash, soda, and lime ; while generally, or in certain cases, small quantities also are present of racemic, malic, and perhaps citric acid, alumina, oxides of manganese and iron, sulphates of potash 665 and soda, phosphate of lime and magnesia, and probably silica. Among peculiar constituents present in the skins are tanuic acid and col- oring matters; in the seeds, a fatty oil which can be separately extracted. The entire solid matters of the juice, the larger portion being sugar, may mount up in very ripe grapes to tO per cent. ; but most commonly the propor- tion is much less than this. The sugar is found to range from 13 to 30 per cent, of the weight of the juice. The vinous or alcoholic fermentation, that which is always first to oc- cur in the grape juice, requires the presence of grape sugar dissolved in the water of the juice, as it naturally is; of a ferment, or substance capable of originating molecular change in the sugar ; and of oxygen. (See FERMENTATION.) The beginning of fermentation in the grape juice, within a short period after it has been expressed, is shown by the rise through it of small bubbles of carbonic acid ; and while the liquid becomes more turbid, as the bubbles ascend in greater quantity they form a froth upon its surface. Meanwhile the sugar of the juice diminishes, and alcohol takes its place ; and the liquid gradually becomes more clear. Often this process continues for some months, the liquid being at intervals drawn off to free it of so much sediment as has fallen ; when fermentation is completed, or in some instances a little before, it is transferred to casks to be stored, or at once exported. It has been found that the amount of ferment material is nearly or quite the same in the juice of all grapes, while it is well known that the quantities of sugar and of acids vary greatly. In those varieties of the grape in which (and this is the case particularly with those grown in the warmer climates) the sugar is present in very large proportions, the supply of ferment is ex- hausted before the sugar is all changed; and the portion of sugar thus left in the wine ren- ders it sweet, as in the wines commonly known as sweet or " fruity," or as tins de liqueur (not artificial). Of such wines, Tokay, Frontignan, Constantia, and Malmsey are examples. The excess of sugar in a wine also acts commonly to preserve it against the acetous fermentation ; so that muscadine wine has been kept for 200 years, and Tokay at the age of a century is in its perfection. But in grapes in which, as is common in the cooler vine-growing latitudes, the proportion of sugar is small, this may be wholly decomposed and replaced by alcohol by the time the ferment is exhausted, or even be- fore. The wines then produced are character- ized by the alcohol, acids, and flavor without sweetness, and are called ''dry." Sherry is one of the best examples of this sort. In cases n which the sugar is exhausted before the fer- ment, the practice of adding to the fermenting must another portion which has been greatly concentrated by boiling is often resorted to 'or the purpose of supplying the deficiency; and a wine otherwise dry and acid may thus >e converted into one that is sweet. But in