Grocers' Goods / A Family Guide to the Purchase of Flour, Sugar, Tea, Coffee, Spices, Canned Goods, Cigars, Wines, and All Other Articles Usually Found in American Grocery Stores

by Frederick B. Goddard

Alcohol and Acids in Wine.

The quantity of alcohol in natural wine from grapes, varies between 5 and 12 per cent.; the quantity of free acid from 3 to 7 per cent. If more of the latter be present, the wine tastes excessively sour, and is less easily digested; but some acid in wine is essential, and contributes much to its flavor and virtues. Besides the natural acids which exist in the juice of the grape, cheap and inferior wines often contain, also, the hurtful acids of spoiling, showing the approach to vinegar.