WHY WHITE WINE IS MORE INTOXICATING THAN RED.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 939, 21 April 1879, Page 2

WHY WHITE WINE IS MORE INTOXICATING THAN RED.

The following letter .ippears in tlio Spectator, signed *' S. J. Clapper, Lausanne, Jan. 23.

Sir, —-111 tlie interesting article upon, alcohol in your impression of Jivmwvty 4, you touch upon the difference 111 tho action upon the nerves of red and white nine. A rather extended experience abroad enables me to coniirm the views expressed by my old schoolfellow, Mr. Hammcrton, as to white wine being much more intoxicating and injurious than red wine of tho same alcoholic strength. I believe tho tact to bo incontestable that in all white wine districts, including, of course, all cider-producing countries, drunkenness is much more prevalent than where red wine is grown. A lady whom I met in Brittany, in the summer of 1877, had a chateau on the Loire, whore she. spout six months of the year, living the other six months on an estate near Dinant. She assured me that the difference in tho matter of sobriety was most marked between the peasants on the Loire, whoso habitual beverage was rod wine, and the Normans and Bretons, who drink cider, to the exclusion of everything else, oven water. in the Pays de Yaud, the abundant supply of white wine id udauttcJ by all thoughtful inhabitants to be i great curse. Very few laboring liwi attain old age, their nervous systems breaking down entirely, through thoirip' temperate use of the product of the sniiling vineyards lining tho shores of Lako Leman. An hotel proprietor of great experience assured me that ho foul"! it better in every way to supply Ins servants and laborers with a cheap win# from France, than to let them dvink tho white wine of the country. This is a very simple reason for tho difference in the effects of red and white wine—tin former is very rich in tannin, which is absent in the latter. The tanniu qxot< cises an astringent influence, and closoa the pores of the stomach, thus preventing the alcohol from going straight to tho brain, as it does in tho oase of white wine, This may not bo scientifically expressed, but I believe it indicates with sufficient accuracy the cause of the intoxicating and injurious effect of even light white, wines.