Every man his own butler / By the author of the 'History and description of modern wines' [i.e. Cyrus Redding].

  • Cyrus Redding
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Every man his own butler / By the author of the 'History and description of modern wines' [i.e. Cyrus Redding]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    fermentation. That it should be thus awakened with renewed energy, is a mystery of nature which naturalists have vainly tried to explore. It might be supposed that having passed out of the natural state, the sympathy, or rather affinity of the sub- stances composing the wine, for the unknown source of vegetable vitality or spring-time resusci- tation, would have been lost. The subtle fluid which Sir Isaac Newton supposed to pervade all nature, and which, it is probable, is some modifi- cation of the electric, acting with more intensity in one part of the year than another, as the solar heat increases, may direct by some fixed unknown law of creation, the curious predisposition which is the cause of this phenomenon. It may be re- sisted by several substances, as will presently be shown, particularly by sulphuric acid and sulphate of lime; but how these specifically act in pro- ducing their effect it is impossible to say. The formation of the carbonic acid gas is quickly discernible on the surface of the wine in the cask, to which it rises in bubbles. When the lees are disturbed during this state, especially if the wine be old, it is apt to contract a taint: in new wines this is not so likely to happen. Air getting into the cask and causing the evaporation of the alco-