The Chemistry of Wine #224678

Although the liquor which Noah prepared from the juice of the grape has been made the subject of numberless examinations, the announcement of a new investigation of it can hardly astonish any one; for, in the first place, there are certain matters in every kind of wine, of which neither the quantity nor the quality are yet determined; and until these are investigated, the examination of wine will not be completed. Moreover, the almost unlimited variety which is peculiar to wine, and depends entirely upon variations in the constituents of the wine, has never been traced back to its cause; and further, many methods of determining even the most ordinary vinous ingredients are still imperfect, and must be replaced by others. Lastly, there are many adulterations practised upon wine, which keep pace with the extension of chemical knowledge, and which have been as yet by no means sufficiently explained.