The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-11-28
Experts in Wine.
tWine and Fruit Grower

There are no professional wine tasters in this country. Here every dealer is his own taster. In France there arc wine tasters, called brokers, who regularly test the wines in the cellars there and classlfy them according to their qualities. The dictum of these gentlemen is the law Of the trade.
 But although there is no class here who have such an occupation, or even an occupation allied to that of the gentlemen who sit around tables down town and look at, and smell of tea in little cups, there are good expert judges of wine among the dealers. To become an expert man must add years of experi ence to naturally fine sense of smell and taste. He must also be able to see well. There is certain routine through which experts pass in tasting wines, but kno Wledge of the routine will not make a man an expert by any means.
 When list of wines is to be submitted to dealer he will usuallys select thin glass goblets to hold the samples It is asserted by some that the taste ot the wine varies with the thickness of the glass. The glass should be perfectly pure, and the lines of the goblet parall' l. in goblet ii is impossible for the color of the stand upon which the goblet is placed to affect the color of the wine. The Frep ch use a silver saucer in testing the color of wine. In using the goblet we hold i, before 8 candle in a dark room to determine the brightness of the wine. Good wine of the proper age is called candle bright. If the wine is cloudy or druggy it is out of condition, but may be clarified. Then the goblet of wine is held between the eye and the window in daylight to determine the degree of color, whether it.ls faint or deep, and also the q iality of the color Thus, pure port wine, when held up to the light, shows a bronze-red color Tit be pink it indicates bad grapes or fusc,ne or adulterants of some kind. If claret show a blue color, or the color of black berry juice, objection is made to it There is one kind of grap., the Lenoir that makes very excellent claret ex :ept for this bluish color.
 Having found ,he color all right, the expert next smells of the wine. It is im- possible to describe the peculiar aromas of different wines, but by many compari- sons the nose becomes so we'll educated that some expers can tell very nearly the age of the wine submitted to them, the kind of grapes from which it was made, and whether it is a pure sample of one kind of vine or one wine blended with another.
 L,st of all the expert takes sip of the wine, retains it. a moment in his mouth to get the first taste and then sjects it and holds his mouth open a moment to get the afteI-taste, or what is technically called the farewell" The farewell taste is the crucial test. Wine may be bright, it may have the right quantity of color, it may have the smell desired, it m ay even have a rich, luscious taste when taken in the mouth, and yet the farewell be unpleasant. Wines may be doetored until the ordinary purchaser may think he has an ancient brand of the purest vintage, but they have never yet been blended or drugged SO nicely that the expert cannot tell that they are not pure, nor does an inferior wine exist that can not be properly classified by an expert.