Transcription

[Page 49]

of all acidity, which however so far from making it dry seems to render it mellower than any other wine in existence.  I used to drink it all day long in large draughts and when and never found it got into my head or even beat me.  It is the very perfection of wine.  Now that the roads are better & Englishmen have bought it with [indecipherable], it is found in all the large cities, & by & bye when they can afford casks for it instead of skins, it will I think be acknowledged as the wine of the world, even as the peseta[?] dwindles, is the panacea[?] of the world.  The Valdepenas notwithstanding its wine is grown in a soil where I could detect no stones a dark red soil like our red iron bark land, which I could see from the neighbouring [indecipherable] will be as full of lime as of iron.  The soil of Xeres is supersaturated with lime in many places looking almost as white as death.  I went over the Bodegas of Gougaley[?] & Co., the largest there except Domecq's, but learned nothing which you may not see in every book written on Spain.  These enormous Bodegas some above ground contain an atmosphere of their own in the season.  The doors & windows are closed by day & opened by night.  The temperature is thus kept down to 60° & the story told of Amontillado is thus far true.  It is the type of the best wine brought to them.  The inferior is corrected by doctoring into the different Sherries which one meets with.  It is classified when first brought in for sale.  I found them using a particular [indecipherable] for clarifying (it is only used at the first, subsequently isinglass & eggs are used).  I have brought home some of it with me & am going to have it analysed.  I will send you the result.   The manager, a letter from whom I sent on, assured me that they have for [indecipherable] about the fermentation.  They let it run out & the wine [indecipherable] turns sour.  I think I have mentioned that I never tasted sour wine in or thin wine in Spain.  Before I leave the subsoil of wine I may tell you that I have promised Guertier who is a kind wise intelligent old gentleman to visit him in September through the vintage.  He is rather delighted at the [indecipherable] which he says will 

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