The Chemistry of CookeryWilliams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
The Chemistry of Cookery
Williams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Cooking
The bouquet of wine is usually described as due to the presence
of ether, _œnanthic_ ether, which is naturally formed during the
fermentation of grape juice, and is itself a variable mixture of other
ethers, such as caprilic, caproic, &c. The oil of the seed of the grape
contributes to the bouquet. The fancy values of fancy wines are largely
due, or more properly speaking _were_ largely due, to peculiarities
of bouquet. These peculiar wines became costly because their supply
was limited, only a certain vineyard, in some cases of very small
area, producing the whole crop of the fancy article. The high price
once established, and the demand far exceeding the possibilities of
supply from the original source, other and resembling wines are now
sold under the name of the celebrated locality with the bouquet or _a_
bouquet artificially introduced. It has thus come about in the ordinary
course of business that the dearest wines of the choicest brands are
those which are the most likely to be sophisticated. The flavouring of
wine, the imparting of delicate bouquet, is a high art, and is costly.
It is only upon high-priced wines that such costly operations can be
practised. Simple ordinary grape-juice—as I have already stated—is
so cheap when and where its quality is the highest, _i.e._ in good
seasons and suitable climates, that adulteration with anything but
water renders the adulterated product more costly than the genuine.
When there is a good vintage it does not pay even to add sugar and
water to the marc or residue, and press this a second time. It is more
profitable to use it for making inferior brandy, or wine oil, _huile de
marc_, or even for fodder or manure.
This, however, only applies where the demand is for simple genuine
wine, a demand almost unknown in England, where connoisseurs abound who
pass their glasses horizontally under their noses, hold them up to the
light to look for beeswings and absurd transparency, knowingly examine
the brand on the cork, and otherwise offer themselves as willing dupes
to be pecuniarily immolated on the great high altar of the holy shrine
of costly humbug.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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