1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

67

facturer, for the extremest care is required to regulate the quantity of carbonic acid gas, so that there shall be neither too little nor too much. For if there be too little, the wine will be flat ; and if there be too much, the bottles will burst by thousands. An instru- ment, called a glucometer, or saccharometer, is used to measure the amount of saccharine matter in the wine at this point ; and if the necessary standard be not reached, the deficiency is supplied by the purest sugar candy. To the ordinary palate, at this stage it differs in no respect from still white wine, of somewhat tart flavour, and is now drawn off into other casks to undergo the next treatment in the process ; viz., the fining, to make it bright, and remove what is known to connoisseurs of wine as '* ropiness." The wine is now ready for bottling, and the danger to be avoided is the bursting of the bottles, for the pressure of the gas is tremendous ; hence it is that the champagne bottle is the most solid and massive in use. The bottling takes place, as a rule, about eight months after the grapes have been first pressed, and the pre- cautions against breakage are of the most minute description. The instant any symptoms of bursting display themselves, the wine has to be removed to a cooler temperature ; but even with every precaution, the loss sustained by the bursting of bottles is often very serious indeed, sometimes to an almost ruinous extent. The risk of breakage is generally almost past by the end of October, and the bottles are then kept for a period ranging from eighteen months to three years, according to the custom of the establishment. in the cellars