WINE WITHOUT GRAPES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10957, 27 April 1907, Page 6 (Supplement)

WINE WITHOUT GRAPES.

ACID AND GLYCERINE USED AS SUBSTITUTES. BERLIN, March 10. A Bavarian wine dealer named Kern has been sentenced m the Frauental Criminal Court to two months' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of £500, for systematic adulteration of his wine. It was shown that m one year re manufactured by means of chemicals 55,000 gallons of wine without a single drop oi grape juice. • \ Dr Koesicke, the agrarian leader, has made some startling revelations of the poisonous concoctions which arc being sold as Rhine aud Moselle wine. One chemical manufacturer, who«e name is made public by Dr Rocsicke, is proved to have supplied no less than °67 wine merchants with injurious chemical preparations used to adulterate wines. An annual average of 100 wine merchants are convicted for illegally doctoring wines m Germany, and during 1905 70,000. gallons of wine were condemned by State inspectors to be poured down the drains as unfit for public consumption. ■ - ■ - In one case, the inspector found 10 per cent, of pure wine and 90 per cent, of chemical concoctions. One wine merchant was- proved to have used within a period of seven -years'. 'no Jess than 300 tons of ' glycerine, 120 tons of tartaric acid, sixteen tons of potash, and eleven "tons of citric acid.