1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

142

In the Fort Wine Country.

was acquainted witli. I firmly believe that none of the wine made under the foregoing conditions is dyed with colouring matter obtained from the skins of elderberries. "Were the latter used,the wine,instead of being of a rich crimson colour,vaiyiug in depth according to the degree of ripeness of the grapes, would be ofa heavy purple tint. Itis only after being drawn off into large tonels, and when its second fermentation has ceased through the cold weather setting in,that it acquires the rich purple hue common to young Port wine. It is quite possible thatsome small farmers deepen the colour of their wine in bad years—in good years it has ample colour of its own—^by steeping in it a bag filled with dried elderberries; butIdo notbelieve they find a market for their produce among any one of the respect able firms who ship nineteen-twentieths of the Port wine con sumed in England,although dyeing wine with elderberry extract is quite a harmless proceeding compared to dyeing it with poisonous fuchsine. In the same way that sherries requiring to be prematurely shipped have colour and character imparted to them by vino de color and softness and roundness by an admixture of vino dulce, so are certain Port wines indebted for a portion of their colour and fruitiness to the addition of what is known as geropiga, composed generally of two-thirds of uufermented grape juice and of one-third of spirit, or of partially-fermented mosto and spirit, occasionally deepened in colour by steeping the skins of dried elderberries in it. Of course, high-class Ports are never made by these or similar means. Wines thus manipulated are scarcely to be commended; stiU they are not deleterious in the usual sense of the term—not a tithe as hurtful as the spirits commonly sold in public-houses or any one of the scores of liqueurs in common use. It has been often asserted that logwood is used to impart colouring matter to Port wine; and the authors of a bulky Treatise upon Wine,both of whom profess to be scientific men, endorsed this preposterous assertion with their authority. One of them, however, subsequently made a public recantation.