1919 Home made beverages

Wines and Wine Making

The amount of extractive matter in wines varies as greatly as from 1 to 20%. This difference occurs even in wines of a similar character and from the same district. Thus in Rhine wines it ranges from 10.6 to 4.2%, in the Palatinate wines from 10.7 to 1.9%, in Bohemian wines the mean is 2.26%, in the wines of Austria 2.64%, and in those of Hungary 2.62%. It is highest in sweet wines. In many adulterated wines, as the extractive matter is either very small or sometimes altogether absent, it has been proposed to employ the estimation of its amount in a wine as a test of its genuineness or the reverse. Light wines owe their color, varying from pale yellow to brown, possibly to oxidized extractive matter or to the cask. The color of red wine is due to the action of its free tartaric acid on a blue substance residing in the skin of the grape. This body, which is known to wine makers as wine blue, and which bears a great resemblance to litmus, in turning red when acted upon by acids, was named asmocyan or ocenocyamin by Mulder or Maumene\ It is insoluble in water, alcohol, ether, olive oil and oil of turpentine, but is dissolved by alcohol containing small quantities of tartaric or acetic acid. Glycerine was found to be a normal constituent of wine by Pasteur in 1859. As the wine matures the glycerine disappears. In Austrian wines Pohl found 2.6% of glycerine. In some wines it reaches 3%, but in most it seldom exceeds 1%. In old wines it exists only in very small quantity. — Take of the fruit, 4 to 6 lb.; clear soft water, 1 gal.; sugar, 3 to 5 lb.; cream of tartar (dissolved in boiling water), 1J^ oz.; brandy, 2 to 3%; flavoring as required. If the full proportions of fruit and sugar are used, the product will be good without the brandy, but better with it (if you have it on hand); 13^ lb. raisins may be substituted for each pound of sugar. In the above manner are made the following wines: 157 Imitation Wines 1. — From ripe saccharine fruits.