Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1891-12-26
NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES.
The High Percentage in tho Brealnge OF
Champagne Bottles.


The quality of the bottles for cham
pagne is an important matter Unless
their strength is very considerable
there is sure to be terrible waste by
breakage. Their price is sensible
item in the manufacturers budget, and,
curiously enough, it is found that cham
pagne bottles can not be used a second
time, as the pressure to which they ara
subjected seems, in some unexplained
fashion, to strain the glass so as to
make it unsafe for future use. Indeed.
it is stated that thrifty manufacturer
who once made the experiment of put
ting new wine in old bottles, to the
number of 5000, speedily found his cell
lars filed with broken glass and flooded
with wine, less than a scare of bottles
out of the whole remaining intact.
Sometimes solution of cane-sugar is
added before the wine is bottled, but
this depends on the character of the
particular vintage. The grape juice of
1874, for example, was naturally, in
point of sweetness, about equivalent to
that of an average year plus per cent.
of sugar, and in that case, and, in
deed, whenever the grapes are not
distinctly deficient in saccharine con-
stituents and therefore in effer-
vescence, no sugar would be added
until a later stage. After being bottled,
| the wine is at once corlsed, the corl1s
are secured with an ingenious contriv-
ance which dispeuses with wires, and
the bottles are usually kept in the
warehouses above ground, at a tenn
perature warm enough to encourage
effervescence, unless, indeed, the wine
contains sufficient carbonic acid gas to
make it possible to dispense with this
stage. Then they are sent down. to the
cellars, are stacked in horizonal posi-
ton, and are left to mature for period
VARYING from eight to ten months to
three or even four years. The loss from
breakage, though much less than it used
to be, is still very serious. The average
proportion of burst bottles is about
seven per cent, but in particular years,
and in particular cellars, it is sometimes
as little as two or three per cent, while,
on the other hand there is occasionally.
for no obvious reason, a regular cpl.
Gemic of breaknge, resulting in the
almost entire destruction of bin after
bin of wine. When the champagne is
considered ripe for the market the bot
ties are placed in specially constructed
racks, with their neclss inclining OBJ
iiquely downward, so that the sediment
may attach itself to the cork. With the
object of dislodging the deposit from
the glass to which it has clung, each
bottle is at this stage turned daily with
slight shake) to the extent of one
eighth of it's circumference, and though
this work is done with extraordinary
quiclsness, practice makes the manipu-
lation so accurate that every bottle
completes the circle in exactly eight
days; in other words 1t is just that time
before the top side of the bottle be
comes uppermost again This opera
ton continues for six or eight weeks, al
the end of which time all the sediment
has, as a rule, descended into the neck
, of the bottle, leaving the bulk Of the
, wine clear and bright L-Cornhill Maya
SiRe-