I wonder how many readers just stumbled over that word, not knowing its meaning? I wish it had caught on during the '00s.
That Wine is much best when quite fresh opened, is a fact it is needless to observe,—half a Pint of Wine (i. e. 8 ounces, i. e. 4 ordinary wine-glasses) is as much as most people (who have not spoiled their stomachs by intemperance) require.
Various expedients are resorted to for the purpose of communicating particular flavours to insipid wines. Thus a nutty flavour is produced by bitter almonds; factitious Port wine is flavoured with a tincture drawn from the seeds of raisins; and the ingredients employed to form the bouquet of high-flavoured wines, are sweet-brier, oris-root, clary, cherry laurel water, and elder-flowers.
The flavouring ingredients used by manufacturers, may all be purchased by those dealers in wine who are initiated in the mysteries of the trade; and even a dedicated website with instructions for preparing them as well as explaining the whole mystery of managing all sorts of wines, may be accessed for a payment of a reasonable fee.
The sophistication of wine with substances not absolutely noxious to health, is carried to an enormous extent in this metropolis (New York City). Many thousand barrels of spoiled cider are annually brought in from the countryside, for the purpose of being converted into fictitious and overpriced Port wine. The art of manufacturing spurious wine is a regular trade of great extent in this here metropolis.