1860 A Treatise on the Manufacture , Imitation, Adulteration and Reduction of Foreign Wines, Brandies, .

36

WINE.

\Vhen a wine contains too little alcohol, or has been exposed too largely to the air, or to vibrations, or to too high a ten1perature in the cellar, it becomes soilr. Mix it immediately with its bulk of stronger wine in a less ad– vanced state, fine it, bottle it, and consume it, for it will never prove a good-keeping wine. This disten1per in wines gave rise to the prac– tice of adding litharge as a sweetener; the oxide of lead formed, with ·the acetic acid, ace– tate of lead, which, being sweet, corrected the sourness of the wine, but at the same time was productive of the most serious consequences to those who drank it. This gross abuse has been entirely abandoned. Ropiness or viscidity renders wine unfit for drinking, and is owing, as was ascertained by M. Francois, to an azotized matter analogous to gliadine, (gluten;) the white wines, which con– tain the least tannin, being most subject to this 1nalady. This can be prevented by pure tannic acid, or powdered nut-galls. The tannin 111ay