bourhood of Coblentz.

SPECIFIC DIFFERENCES, AND COMPONENT PARTS OF WINE.

Every body knows that no product of the arts varies so much as wine;
that different countries, and sometimes the different provinces of the
same country, produce different wines. These differences, no doubt, must
be attributed chiefly to the climate in which the vineyard is
situated--to its culture--the quantity of sugar contained in the grape
juice--the manufacture of the wine; or the mode of suffering its
fermentation to be accomplished. If the grapes be gathered unripe, the
wine abounds with acid; but if the fruit be gathered ripe, the wine will
be rich. When the proportion of sugar in the grape is sufficient, and
the fermentation complete, the wine is perfect and generous. If the
quantity of sugar be too large, part of it remains undecomposed, as the
fermentation is languid, and the wine is sweet and luscious; if, on the
contrary, it contains, even when full ripe, only a small portion of
sugar, the wine is thin and weak; and if it be bottled before the
fermentation be completed, part of the sugar remains undecomposed, the
fermentation will go on slowly in the bottle, and, on drawing the cork,
the wine sparkles in the glass; as, for example, Champagne. Such wines
are not sufficiently mature. When the must is separated from the husk of
the red grape before it is fermented, the wine has little or no colour:
these are called _white_ wines. If, on the contrary, the husks are
allowed to remain in the must while the fermentation is going on, the
alcohol dissolves the colouring matter of the husks, and the wine is
coloured: such are called _red_ wines. Hence white wines are often
prepared from red grapes, the liquor being drawn off before it has
acquired the red colour; for the skin of the grape only gives the
colour. Besides in these principal circumstances, wines vary much in
flavour.

All wines contain one common and identical principle, from which their
similar effects are produced; namely, _brandy_ or _alcohol_. It is
especially by the different proportions of brandy contained in wines,
that they differ most from one another. When wine is distilled, the
alcohol readily separates. The spirit thus obtained is well known under
the name of _brandy_.

All wines contain also a free acid; hence they turn blue tincture of
cabbage, red. The acid found in the greatest abundance in grape wines,
is tartaric acid. Every wine contains likewise a portion