The Chemistry of Cookery

those changes which may be obtained by simply exposing the wine to the action of the temperature of an ordinary cellar, or the higher temperature of ‘Pasteuring,’ to be presently described. In the youthful days of chemistry the first of these methods of cookery was the only one available, and wine was kept by wine-merchants with purely commercial intent for a considerable number of years. A little reflection will show that this simple and original cookery was very expensive, sufficiently so to legitimately explain the rise in market value from tenpence to five shillings or more per bottle. Wine-merchants require a respectable profit on the capital they invest in their business—at least ten per cent. per annum on the prime cost of the wine laid down. Then there is the rental of cellars and offices, the establishment expenses—such as wages, sampling, sending out, advertising, losses by bad debts, &c.—to be added. The capital lying dead in the cellar demands compound interest. At ten per cent. the principal doubles in about seven and one-third years. Calling it seven years, to allow very meagrely for establishment expenses, we get the following result: £ s. d. When 7 years old the tenpenny wine is worth 0 1 8 per bottle. ” 14 ” ” ” 0 3 4 ” ” 21 ” ” ” 0 6 8 ” ” 28 ” ” ” 0 13 4 ” ” 35 ” ” ” 1 6 8 ” Here, then, we have a fair commercial explanation of the high prices of old-fashioned old wines; or of what I may _now_ call the traditional value of wine. Of course, this is less when a man lays down his own wine in his own cellar, in obedience to the maxim, ‘Lay down good port in the days of your youth, and when you are old your friends will not forsake you.’ He may be satisfied with a much smaller rate of interest than the man engaged in business fairly demands. Still, when wine thus aged was thrown into the market, it competed with commercially cellared wine, and