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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