Constitution of Home-made Wines
Besides grapes, the most valuable of the articles of which wine is made, there are a considerable number of fruits from which a vinous liquor is obtained. Of such, we have in this country the gooseberry, the currant, the elderberry, the cherry, &c. which ferment well, and affords what are called home-made wines.
They differ chiefly from foreign wines in containing a much larger quantity of acid. Dr. Macculloch42 has remarked that the acid in home-made wines is principally the malic acid; while in grape wines it is the tartaric acid.
The great deficiency in these wines, independent of the flavour, which chiefly originates, not from the juice, but from the seeds and husks of the fruits, is the excess of acid, which is but imperfectly concealed by the addition of sugar. This is owing, chiefly, as Dr. Macculloch remarks, to the tartaric acid existing in the grape juice in the state of super-tartrate of potash, which is in part decomposed during the fermentation, and the rest becomes gradually precipitated; whilst the malic acid exists in the currant and gooseberry juice in the form of malate of potash; which salt does not appear to suffer a decomposition during the fermentation of the wine; and, by its greater solubility, is retained in the wine. Hence Dr. Macculloch recommends the addition of super-tartrate of potash, in the manufacture of British wines. They also contain a much larger proportion of mucilage than wines made from grapes. The juice of the gooseberry contains some portion of tartaric acid; hence it is better suited for the production of what is called English Champagne, than any other fruit of this country.
Footnotes
27 Dried bilberries are imported from Germany, under the fallacious name of berry-dye.
28 The gypsum had the property of clarifying wines, was known to the ancients. “The Greeks and Romans put gypsum in their new wines, stirred it often round, then let it stand for some time; and when it had settled, decanted the clear liquor. (Geopon, lib. vii. p. 483, 494.) They knew that the wine acquired, by this addition, a certain sharpness, which it afterwards lost; but that the good effects of the gypsum were lasting.”
29 Sawdust for this purpose is chiefly supplied by the ship-builders, and forms a regular article of commerce of the brewers’ druggists.
30 Tatler, vol. viii. p. 110, edit. 1797. 8vo.
31 Dr. Reece’s Gazette of Health, No. 7.
32 Supplement to the Pharmacopœias, p. 245.
33 Chemical Essays, vol. viii. p. 369.
34 Medical Trans. vol. ii. p. 80.
35 This book, which has run through many editions, may be supposed to have done some mischief.—In the Vintner’s Guide, 4th edit. 1770, p. 67, a lump of sugar of lead, of the size of a walnut, and a table-spoonful of sal enixum, are directed to be added to a tierce (forty-two gallons) of muddy wine, to cure it of its muddiness.
36 Beckman’s History of Inventions, vol. i. p. 398.
37 Pliny, lib. xiv. cap. 20.
38 Philosophical Magazine, 1819, No. 257, p. 229.
39 Journ. Pharm. iv. 56 (Feb. 1818.) and Thomson’s Annals, Sept. 1818, p. 232.
40 Of a Specific Gravity. 825.
41 Philosophical Trans. 1811, p. 345; 1813, p. 87; Journal of Science and the Arts, No. viii. p. 290.
42 Macculloch on Wine. This is by far the best treatise published in this country on the Manufacture of Home-made Wines.