FASHIONS IN DRINKING

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4043, 4 May 1938, Page 3

FASHIONS IN DRINKING

OLD BRANDY WAS A FAVOURITE TIPPLE. SOME LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS. At a London restaurant, Mr Frederick Hennessy, of the famous firm of James Hennessy and Co., which has been associated with the manufacture of brandy for more than a century, gave some interesting information about brandy and its manufacture to a select gathering. He explained that the cob-webbed bottle of brandy brought up from the cellar to indicate the great age of the spirit deceives only the unsophisticated, for brandy, unlike wine, does not improve with bottling, and after it has once reached its prime, it dqos not improve with age. Unless it is bottled when it reaches its prime it deteriorates. To illustrate this point Mr Hennessy produced brandies of 1811 and 1848 drawn from the wood, which had lost their prime. Samples of brandy shipped from France to England in 1900 and 1904, after having been bottled for more than 30 years, were shown to possess characteristics similar to brandy 45 years old, which had been bottled only a few weeks. A brandy of 1864 vintage, which had not been bottled, was presented as a specimen of brandy at its best. In “The Complete Wine Book,” published in 1935, the joint authors, Mr Frank Schoonmaker and Mr Tom Marvel, lay stress on the fact that after brandy reaches its prime it does not improve with age. “Enough Napoleon brandy’ has been sold to credulous individuals in the last two decades to intoxicate all the armies of Napoleon, and enough brandy purporting to have formed part of Napoleon’s private stock in the Palace of Fontainebleau, to fill the Fontainebleau fish ponds,” they state. “The simple facts are these: Brandy never improves, and often deteriorates in bottle; if any brandy laid down by the Emperor exists to-day it is certainly less good, and not worth a penny more than on the day it was laid down. For brandy, unlike wine, contains no living organisms. Raw and undrinkable when made, it becomes, when stored in oak casks first smooth, then distinguished, and eventually, if properly cared for, great. Once bottled it ceases nominally to grow old. Cob-webbed bottles are an insult to a

connoisseur of brandy, and a person who lays down Armagnac or Cognac pays the interest on his money to no purpose.” These experts add that brandy, like all other liquors, is injured by protracted contact with air, and therefore should not be purchased in extra large bottles. Half, or even quarter, bottles are to be preferred. HOW TO SPOIL WINE. The man who is impressed by the cob-webs on a bottle of brandy, is also impressed by the practice adopted by some high class restaurants of serving an old wine in a cradle or Bergundy basket. The cradle is shaped to hold the bottle in the same horizontal position as it occupied for years in the cellar, and, in theory, it is supposed to prevent the sediment and impurities thrown off by the wine in the process of years, from mixing with the previous liquid. “All wines should be absolutely clear, ‘candlebright’ and free from sediment,” writes Mr H. Warner Allen in his book, “The Romance of Wine.” "Throughout their lives nearly all wines go on ridding themselves of impurities, which sink down on the side of the bottle. What has been thrown out must never find its way back into the liquid, for it can only do harm. For this reason, wines need tranquil cellars and careful handling. The non-chalant shaking administered to the bottle by many a careless waiter is a vinous crime.” But wine served in a cradle has already been mishandled before it reaches the table. It was probably brought up from the cellar in an upright position or under the arm of the waiter. It was certainly placed upright while the cork was drawn, and during that process the sediment slipped down out of its place, and was again disturbed when the bottle was placed in the cradle in a horizontal position. And, unless the wine is poured out of the bottle in a single motion without being tilted back as one glass after another is filled, the sediment is again disturbed The fact that the sediment in a bottle of wine is swirled about when the wine is poured into glasses, thereby mixing impurities with the wine, unless the operation is performed by an expert, is responsible for the unen ding controversy among connoisseurs, whether wine should, or should not, be decanted before being served. In France, the home of numerous t fine wines, and connoisseurs, wine is gen erally served from the bottle; in Eng land it is generally served, except in restaurants, from decanters. Mr. H Warner Allen points out that to pour wine from a bottle without impairing it by a careless movement, requires skill and experience. It is safer and easier to decant the wine before serving it. A bottle of wine before being decanted stood upright for at least 24 hours after being taken from the cellar, so that the sediment sinks to the bottom. The cork should be* drawn without shaking the wine, and the liquid should be poured into the decanter against the light, so that the sediment becomes visible as soon as it reaches the neck of the bottle.

None of the wine containing the sediment should be allowed to enter the decanter.

“Wine that is poured from a bottle should be drunk slowly,” states Mr. H. Warner Allen. “It has only had a gulp of air, and should be given time to breathe. Wine that has been decanted has been fully exposed to air, which works up all the fine spirits of its essence.” The opponents of decanting contend that pouring a fine wine into a decanter destroys its best qualities. All the particles are brought into contact with the air; they take up oxygen in the same way as the haemoglobin of the blood, and the taste and perfume of the wine are completely changed. Mr. Allen considers that the waiter who brings a customer a bottle of wine that has been ordered, and asks, “Shall I take the chill off, sir?” should be treated with the utmost severity of the law, as a murderer of wine. “He is afire with a Hun-like appetite for destruction, burning to plunge the bottle into a bucket of boiling water, shattering in a second all that artistic structure of balanced sweetness, acidity and alcohol, built up by years of patience and good fortune, rending to fragments the delicate mist of blended fragrances which should arise from the glass when wine is poured.” “No one has satisfactorily explained,” continues Mr Allen, “what there is in the constitution of white wines which makes them demand a lower temperature than red. Yet every wine drinker instinctively feeis that a white wine should bring to the mouth a definite sensation of coldness.” HOW TO DRINK WINE. It is the connoisseur’s nose, not his mouth, which finally determines his judgment of the wine he is drinking. Of course the palate plays an important, if subordinate part. Indeed, the connoisseur is inclined to believe, like Brillat-Sa varin, that “smell and taste form only one sense, of which the mouth is the laboratory, and the nose the chimney.” “If modern physiology has demonstrated that taste and smell are indeed two senses,” state the joint authors of “The Complete Wine Book,” “it has shown also that the sense of taste, when not aided by that of smell, is a veritable half-wit among senses, able only to recognise what is sour, what is bitter, what is salt and what is sweet. Since portable wines are, with eight or ten notable exceptions not sweet, and sour only within certain very strict limits; never bitter and never salt, we may expect from our sense of taste no very great valuations of fine. wine. The mouth can by means of what we call its sense of touch record more or less accurately the tannin content, and the body (or. lack of body) of a wine; it can recognise the sweetness of a sauterne, and the fresh, clean acidity of Moselle; only the nose will make fitting obeisance of a magisterial Burgundy, or remark the humble origin of a sound but essentially plebian ordinaire.” “Virtually everything a wine taster doe’s is based upon this fact, the supremacy of the nose. Thus one will see him pour a little, very little, of what is to be tested, into a tall tulipshaped glass, warm it lovingly for a moment witli the palm of liis hands, take the stem between thumb and finger, and with a few quick twists impart a rotary motion to the wine, swilling with it as much as possible of the interior surface of the glass. The reasons for all this procedure, which may appear ridiculous to a person who has never tried it, are in reality very simple. Wine coming in contact with the air, gives off through evaporation its volatile essence, its characteristic perfume, its bouquet The faint body heat imparted by the palm of the hand to the glass, naturally aids in this process; naturally, too, the greater the surface covered with wine the greater the evaporation, and the more distinct the bou quet. Having gone to all this trouble one should obviously push one’s nose well into'tliS glass and inhale deeply; this may not be altogether lady-like, but it is a gesture that will be appreciated by any wine loving host. “But the final proof of a wine, like that of a pudding, is in the swallowing. Only when the mouth has presented all the evidence available, and the wine’s full aroma has risen from the mouth, and the throat into the nasal passages, does the nose pro nounce a definite verdict. Only while the wine is in the mouth can one determine whether or not it possesses those elusive qualities which ensure it .a long life and a lusty old age, whether or not it possesses body, a quality hard to define. All thin and watery wines lack body, a certain weighty fulness which all great wines, red or white, possess in a marked degree. “In the mouth no less than in the glass, wine coming in contact with air gives off its volatile perfume. The entire technique of drinking fine wines has for its scientific foundation this fact. The wine taster proceeds as follows: He takes a small quantity of wine into his mouth, “hews” it thoroughly, and then attempts as far as is possible to reproduce in his mouth the rotary swilling motion of the wine which a few minutes before he had accomplished so deftly in the glass. This done, he swallows part of what is in his mouth, proceeds to draw in between pursed lips, a great lungful of air, holds his breath for a moment, finally breathes out through his nose. An inexperienced person attempting to imitate this feat of virtuosity too closely, is practically certain to be rewarded by sundry gurgle?, and occasional eruptions. The important things to remember are—first

that wine should be held for a fbw seconds at least in the mouth; second that it should be washed round a little, so as to coat the inside of the mouth, and then mostly swallowed: third that immediately thereafter one should draw in air through the mouth and breathe out through the nose.”