Flatness. This is removed by the addition of a little new brisk wine of the same kind; or by rousing in 2 or 3 lbs. of honey; or by adding 5 or 6 lbs. of bruised sultana raisins, and 3 or 4 quarts of good brandy, per hogshead. By this treatment the wine will usually be recovered in about a fortnight, except in very cold weather. Should it be wanted sooner, a table-spoonful or two of yeast may be added, and the cask removed to a warmer situation.
Flavouring. Various ingredients are added to inferior wines, to give them the flavour of others more expensive, and to British wines, to make them resemble those imported. Substances are also added in a similar manner to communicate the aroma of the high-flavoured grape wines. Among the first are bitter almonds, almond cake, or the essential oil of almonds, or, preferably, its alcoholic solution, which are used to impart a ‘sherry’ or ‘nutty’ taste to weak-flavoured wines, as poor sherry, white cape, and malt, raisin, parsnip, and other similar British wines; rhatany, kino, oak sawdust and bark, alum, &c., to convey astringency, and—tincture of the seeds of raisins, to impart a ‘port wine’ flavour. Among the substances employed to communicate the bouquet of the finer wines, may be mentioned—orris root, eau de fleurs d’oranges, neroli, essence de petit grain, ambergris, vanilla, violet petals, essence of cedrat, sweet briar, clary, and elder flowers, quinces, cherry-laurel water, &c. By the skilful, though fraudulent use of the above flavouring substances and perfumes, the experienced
wine-brewer manages to produce, in the dark cellars of London, from white cape, currant, gooseberry, raisin, rhubarb, parsnip, and malt wine, very excellent imitations of foreign wine, and which pass current among the majority of English wine-drinkers as the choicest productions of the grape, “genuine as imported.”—A grain or two of ambergris, well rubbed down with sugar and added to a hogshead of claret, gives it a flavour and bouquet much esteemed by some connoisseurs.
Fretting-in. See Sweating-in (below).
Improving. This is the cant term of the wine trade, under which all the adulteration and ‘doctoring’ of wine is carried on. A poor sherry is improved by the addition of a little almond flavour, honey, and spirit; a port deficient in body and astringency, by the addition of some red tartar (dissolved in boiling water), some rhatany, kino, or catechu, and a little honey or foots, and brandy. See Mixing (below).
Insensible Fermentation. See Maturation (below).
Insipidity. See Flatness (above).
Maturation. The natural maturation or ‘ripening’ of wine and beer by age depends upon the slow conversion of the sugar which escaped decomposition in the ‘gyle tun,’ or fermenting vessel, into alcohol. This conversion proceeds most perfectly in vessels which entirely exclude the air, as in the case of wine in bottles; as when air is present, and the temperature sufficiently high, it is accompanied by slow acetification. This is the case of wine in casks, the porosity of the wood allowing the very gradual permeation of the air. Hence the superiority of bottled wine over draught wine, or that which has matured in wood. Good wine, or well-fermented beer, is vastly improved by age when properly preserved; but inferior liquor, or even superior liquor, when preserved in improper vessels or situations, becomes acidulous, from the conversion of its alcohol into vinegar. Tartness or acidity is consequently very generally, though wrongly, regarded by the ignorant as a sign of age in liquor. The peculiar change by which fermented liquors become mature or ripe by age is termed the ‘insensible fermentation.’ It is the alcoholic fermentation impeded by the presence of the already formed spirit in the liquor, and by the lowness of the temperature. See Ripening (below).
Mixing. Few wines are sold without admixture. It is found that the intoxicating properties of wine are increased by mixing them with other wines of a different age and growth. In many cases the flavour is at the same time improved. Thus, a thin port is improved by the addition of a similar wine having a full body, or by a little Malaga, Teneriffe, or rich sherry; and an inferior old sherry may be improved by admixture with a little full-bodied wine of the last vintage. In
this consists the great art of ‘cellar management,’ and to such an extent is this carried, both abroad and in England, that it may be confidently asserted that few wines ever reach the consumer in an unmixed or natural state.