The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-02-27
NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES.

The Nigh Percentage In the Breakage o.
Champagne Bottles.
The quality of the bottles for cham
payne 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
payne bottles can not be used a second
time, as the pressure to which they are
subjected seems, in some unexplained
fashion, to strain the glass so as to
make ii 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 8. 200, speedily found his cell
lars filled 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 tc
that of an average year plus 8 per cent.
of sugar, and in that case, and, in.
deed. whenever the grapes are not
distinctly deficient 10 saccharine con.
stituents, and therefore in effer.
vescence. no sugar would be added
until later stage. After being bottled,
the wine is at once corked, the corks
are secured with an ingenious contriv-
ance which dispeuses with wires, and
the bottles are usually kept in the
warehouses above ground, at q 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 horizonaI posi-
ton, and are left to mature for a period
varying from eight to ten months ia
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 Ms two or three per cent while,
on the.other hand. there is occasionally.
for no obvious reason, q regular cpl
demic of breakage. resulting in the
almost entire destruction of bin after
bin of wine. When the champagne il
considered ripe for the market the bot.
ties are placed in specially constructed
racks, with their neGks inclining OBJ
liquely downward, % that the sediment
may attach itself to the cork With the
object of dislodging the deposit from
the glass to which it has chung, each
bottle Is at this stage turned daily with
. slight shal1e) to the extent Of one.
eighth of its circumference, and though
this work is done with extraordinary
quickness, practice makes the manipu.
lation 50 accurate that every bottle
completes the circle in exactly eight
days; in other words it is just that time
before the top side. of the bottle be.
comes uppermost again. This opera
ton continues for six or eight weeks, at
ths end of which time ala the sediment
has, as . rule, descended into the neck
of the bottle, leaving the bulk Of the
wine clear and bright -cornhill Maya
Siue,