White wine

“ The Count notes that white wines from white grapes being deficient in strength, and apt to grow yellow and degenerate before the next return of summer, had gone out of repute, except for some medicinal prescriptions, whilst ‘the grey Wine, which has so bright an Eye and resembles the Complexion of Crystal, is produced by the blackest Grapes.’ ‘The Wine of a black Grape may be tinged with any Colour we think proper; those who desire to have it perfectly White have recourse to the following Method. The People employed in the Vintage begin their Labours at an early Hour in the Morning ”

“ When white wine is being made from black grapes for sparkling Saumur, the grapes are conveyed in these baskets to the underground pressoirs in the neighbouring villages before their skins get at all broken, in order that the wine may be as pale as possible in colour. ”

“ Flashed rushing silver, vines and vines and vines
Of purple vintage swollen with cool wines;
Pale pleasant wines and fragrant as late June,
Their delicate tang drawn from the wine-white moon.
And from the clouds o'er this sweet world there dripped
An odorous music, strangely feverish-lipped,
That swung and swooned and panted in mad sighs;
Investing at each throb the air with eyes,
And forms of sensuous spirits, limpid white,
Clad on with raiment as of starry night ”

“ As at the feast in Galilee, so with us may our Master be, to change the water into wine, the whole of Winkel brook to-day, the whole of Winkel brook for aye! The wine is clear and pure, the white and red together flow, as sure as youthful hearts that onward go, in honour bound and love. From light of sun and moon, the wine has caught its fire, between the earth and sky—as grow our souls and bodies from on high, and from below. ”

“ If wine is to withdraw its most poetic countenance, the sun of the white dinner-cloth, a deity to be invoked by two or three, all fervent, hushing their talk, degusting tenderly, and storing reminiscences—for a bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect—if wine is to desert us, go thy ways, old Jack! ”

“ In the Case of Dry Wines, whose sugar has all been transformed, the same attentions are to be bestowed as in the case of new red wines, and the rules laid down are referred to. (See Red Wine.)
Mellow White Wines, that is, those which retain a portion of their sweetness after the tumultuous fermentation, particularly if they do not carry 15 per cent. of alcohol, require the greatest amount of care in order to preserve their mellowness in aging; for if left to themselves they will again enter into fermentation, and become dry. ”

“ Hygienic effects of Red and of White Wine.—Dr. Guyot says that white wines generally are diffusible stimulants of the nervous system; if they are light, they act rapidly upon the human organism, and excite all its functions. ”

“ The serving of wine at luncheon is rapidly going out of fashion. A hostess belonging to the older generation sometimes offers her guests Rhine wine—a light, white wine—or, if there are men present, sherry or claret. In this case a wine-glass is set beside the water-goblet at the right of each place, and a decanter is placed on the sideboard. Wine-cup, fruit-punch, and similar beverages are served from a glass pitcher, lemonade cups or small tumblers being substituted for wine-glasses. ”

“ Wines naturally have, for a certain time, an earthy flavor and greenness which are unpleasant, which disappear by mixing. This is why ordinary wines of a moderate price, which have been mixed, are preferred by a great number of consumers to others which are higher in price but left in a state of nature. For example, a new, very dark-colored wine of good growth is not an agreeable drink; but if an old white wine of an inferior growth, but of good taste and constitution be added, it will be drank with pleasure. ”

“ WINE JUDGED BY THE SIGHT.—Wine pleases the eye by its clearness and colour: and be it ruby, rose, amber, or white, it ought always to have perfect clearness and freshness of colour. Neither of these latter tones will be out of harmony in a really good wine, even in extreme old age. If you will not take upon yourself to decide whether a wine is good when it is attractive to the sight, you can always say that it is not good or at least that it is not in the best condition, when its transparency and shades of colour are questionable. ”

“ The white is in nature the thinnest, diuretic, and heating, and being digestible it inflames the head, for it is a wine that has a tendency upwards. A dark-coloured wine, which is not of a sweet nature, is very nutritious and astringent. Sweet wines, whether of a white or tawny colour, are very nutritious; for they lubricate the passage, and thickening the humours, prove less troublesome to the head. The nature of sweet wines is to remain for a time in the præcordia, and to prove expectorant, as Diocles and Praxagoras tell. ”

“ The inherited French taste of the greater portion of the population, and the education by contact of the American element, makes claret the universal table wine. The climate, too, renders this wine particularly palatable, and during the long heated term it is seldom absent from the table of even the most economical. At the restaurant it is the exception to see a person dining without a bottle of vin ordinaire, while for breakfast, during hot weather, white wines of the lighter kinds are much used. ”

“ The white port is grown in vineyards which are not quite so favoured as regards position as the red port growths. White port is made from white grapes, and a peculiarity of its manufacture is that the must is frequently fermented in the presence of the skins, which is most unusual in the case of white wines. This gives a certain stringency to white port, which is characteristic of the wine. ”

“ Rosemary Flowers, Lavender, and Spikenard, of each a handful; Thyme, Chamomile Flowers, Sage of Virtue, Pennyroyal, and Marjoram, of each a handful; infuse in White Wine twenty-four hours; then put the whole into an alembic; sprinkle it with good White Wine, and throw on it a powder, composed of an ounce and a half of choice Cloves, Gum Benjamin, and Storax, strained, each two drachms. The distilled Water is to be kept in a bottle well stopped. ”

“ They are lightly crushed at first. It is something of a discovery that the earliest product of grapes of every hue is white wine. The red wine gets its hue from the coloring matter in the skins, which are utilized in a subsequent ruder squeezing. ”

“ The composition of the blend is, of course, one of the secrets of the art. The French wine-maker mixes the juice of black grapes with that of white grapes in the proportion of three to one. The American wine-maker does about the same. He takes juice of the black Concord and Isabella grapes and mixes it with that of the red Catawba, Iona, and Delaware grapes. The great point is to get the right amount of saccharine matter, so as to cause neither too much nor too little effervescence: if too much, the bottles break afterward; if too little, the wine becomes dull, flat, and insipid. ”

“ The vintaging of the white grapes takes place about a fortnight later than the black grapes, and is commonly a compound operation, the best and ripest bunches being first of all gathered just as the berries begin to get shrivelled and show symptoms of approaching rottenness. It is these selected grapes that yield the best wine. The second gathering, which follows shortly after the first, includes all the grapes remaining on the vines, and yields a wine perceptibly inferior in quality. ”

“ In his curious treatise, the full title of which is ‘A Delicate Diet for Daintie Mouthde Droonkards; wherein the fowle abuse of common carousing and quaffing with heartie draughtes, is honestly admonished,’ he vigorously inveighs against the popular drinks: ‘We must have March Beere, dooble-dooble Beere, Dagger-Ale, Bragget, Renish wine, White-wine, French wine, Gascoyne wine, Sack, Hollocke, Canaria wine, Vino Greco, Vinum amabile, and al the wines that may be gotten. Yea, wine of itselfe is not sufficient ”

“ The white nourishes less still. Wine of a yellow colour is the best of all. That which is old is more heating and desiccant than the new. Such, in the main, are the properties of wine. But wine in general resuscitates the natural heat within us, and therefore it improves digestion, and forms good blood. And being of a penetrating nature, it diffuses the nourishment all over the body, and therefore it recruits those who are emaciated by disease, for it gives them an appetite for food. It attenuates phlegm, clears away the bile by urine, and imparts a good colour. ”

“ The wine contains a great deal of body; when improved by age, it tastes like Malaga wine. Besides the blue grape, they raise sometimes also a white one, tasting like Muscadine grapes, but I have not seen any wine made of it. Their manner of cultivating the grape is very simple; they cover them with earth in the winter, keep the vineyards clear from weeds, hoe and prune them at the right season, but do not stake them. ”

“ In very bad years, when their wines become vinegar, they are sold for six florins the piece, and made into brandy. They yield one-tenth brandy.
White Champagne is deemed good in proportion as it is silky and still. Many circumstances derange the scale of wines. The proprietor of the best vineyard, in the best year, having bad weather come upon him while he is gathering his grapes, makes a bad wine, while his neighbor, holding a more indifferent vineyard, which happens to be ingathering while the weather is good, makes a better. The M. de Casotte at Pierrij formerly was the first house. ”

“ The most popular wines are red and white clarets, the better qualities of which are excellent, but many other kinds are made. The country wine is by no means as cheap as it ought to [230] be owing to the high protection. ”

“ The chief red vines of the champagne district are the Plant-doré, Franc-Pineau and the Plant vert doré. The Plant gris, or Meunier, yields grapes of a somewhat inferior quality. The chief white vine is the Pineau, also known as Chardonay. The best qualities of wine are made almost exclusively from the black grapes. For this reason it is necessary that the process of collection, separation and pressing should proceed as quickly as possible at vintage time in order that the juice may not, through incipient fermentation, dissolve any of the colouring matter from the skins. ”

“ To-day, however, the growers find it more profitable to make white instead of red wine from their crops of black grapes, the former commanding a good price for conversion into vin mousseux, from being in the opinion of some manufacturers especially valuable for binding a cuvée together. The Vertus growths rank among the second-class Champagne crus. ”

“ Thus it is in no way surprising that wine is taken up more rapidly than water, owing to its appropriateness of quality, and, further, that the white clear kind of wine is absorbed more rapidly owing to its thinness, while black turbid wine is checked on the way and retarded because of its thickness. ”

“ It is true that one method makes a red wine, a different one makes a white [Pg viii] wine, that grapes of one degree of ripeness and the corresponding practice in vinification produces a sweet wine, and another a dry wine, but the author is convinced that the method and practice which will produce the best result in a given case in one locality will also produce the best result in any other. ”

“ The following are a few of the recipes employed in the manufacture of spurious wine:
To make British Port Wine. [31] —"Take of British grape wine, or good cyder, 4 gallons; of the juice of red beet root two quarts; brandy, two quarts; logwood 4 ounces; rhatany root, bruised, half a pound: first infuse the logwood and rhatany root in brandy, and a gallon of grape wine or cyder for one week; then strain off the liquor, and mix it with the other ingredients; keep it in a cask for a month, when it will be fit to bottle."
British Champagne.—"Take of white sugar, 8 pounds ”

“ White Wines, especially Sherry and Madeira, being more perfectly fermented, and thoroughly fined before they are bottled—if kept in a cellar of uniform temperature, are not so rapidly deteriorated by Age. ”

“ He was upwards of eight feet high, could tire down a horse at the gallop on foot, could break its leg by a blow of his hand, could overthrow thirty wrestlers without drawing breath, and maintained this prodigious force by eating forty pounds of meat, and drinking an amphora and a half, or twelve quarts, of wine. ”

“ The glory of the moment bubbled through his veins like strong wine, stirring within him a riot of sensations. Like one who has sustained the shock of explosion, his faculties were §still fluttering vagrants, and his personality a blank vessel for strange tenancy. ”

“ To walk amid these upright, branching casks of purple wine, which retain and diffuse a sunset glow, tasting each one with your eye, instead of counting the pipes on a London dock, what a privilege! For Nature's vintage is not confined to the vine. Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if our own plants had no juice in them more than the singers. Indeed, this has been called by some the American Grape, and, though a native of America, its juices are used in some foreign countries to improve the color of the wine ”

“ The process is universal in France, with the exception of the cases of the sparkling wines of the Rhone and Champagne, the grapes for which are squeezed by mechanical means, not by the human foot. Now, very venerable and decidedly picturesque as is the process of wine-treading, it is unquestionably rather a filthy one; and the spectacle of great, brown, horny feet, not a whit too clean, splashing and sprawling in the bubbling juice, conveys, at first sight, a qualmy species of feeling, which, however, seems only to be entertained by those to whom the sight is new. ”