the moment of drawing off; it preserves its color; its
savor does not change to any appreciable degree; it takes
on no particular bouquet; it is always new wine. During
this time, the rest of the same wine, preserved in a cask
and subject to the ordinary manipulations, becomes old
in the complex sense which one ordinarily gives to this
word. What differences are there then between the two
wines? One only: under its envelope of glass the
former has not been subject to the action of the oxygen
of the air which filters constantly and slowly through
the barrel staves, and which, combining with the wine,
determines its ripening.

Without taking any particular precautions to avoid
excess of air, let us repeat the experiment which I
have just described, leaving the bottle half empty and
closed with its stopper. While the wine in the previous
experiment remained young, that in the new bottle
clouds and gives an amorphous deposit which increases
little by little and finally adheres to the walls. It is the
red coloring matter which has separated from the wine.
At the same time, the oxygen left in the bottle dis-
appears, and the wine changes, loses its original savor,
becomes old, and takes on in a high degree the taste
of rancio, ¹ if it is red, of madeira if it is white. It may
even fade away and disappear altogether, if there is
too little of it in proportion to the oxygen.

The essential act in the aging of wine is, therefore, its
slow combination with oxygen. When the absorption
of oxygen is too rapid, the wine becomes vapid, but this
is a passing phenomenon, and it is often sufficient to
let the wine alone for this taste to disappear, as soon
as the oxygen absorbed in a gaseous state has served
in the wine for the oxidations which have consumed it.

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