1872 Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (Mixellany)

28 Wines. medicinal properties from some drugs which require spirit for their solution. Some idea may be con- ceived of the vast amount of wine stored in Xeres, when in the warehouse or bodegas of M. Domecq alone is on an average stored 15,000 butts of wine, each butt averaging 108 gallons, bottling from 50 to 52 dozen to the butt. These bodegas are large warehouses, very lofty and well ventilated, and are filled with tiers of 4 butts of wine (soleras). A visit to a bodega, especially if accompanied by the capitaz (or head man), will be found worthy of remembrance as one of an agreeable nature, espe- cially so if his explanations are rendered more intelligible by a bumper drawn from the most ancient "Madre" butt, which invariably contains wine that is the accumulated produce of some 50 vintages. The wine-merchants of Xeres never export their stock of the oldest and finest wines, and in accordance with the price at which they are valued so the wines are compounded. Thus a butt of wine said to be 30 or 40 years old will contain a portion of the vintage of several seasons; for, as the wine is drawn from the butt, it is replenished by a contribution from the next in point of age and fineness, and so on through the bodegas. The workmen, inclusive of the capitaz employed, are