The art of living in Australia

The cellar must neither be too damp nor too dry. Any excess of dampness would rot the casks and give a musty taste to the wine ; while, on the contrary, in too dry a cellar the staves of the casks would shrink and cause leakage. The cellar is usually kept somewhat dark. The openings for the admission of air and light should be provided with shutters, so that the atmosphere and temperature may be under control. The floor of the cellar should be paved or cemented, be well levelled, and cleanliness throughout should be strictly and strenuously maintained. But the following remarks of Signer Bragato as to what a cellar ought not to be will perhaps be more instructive, and besides they contain a vast amount of information on the subject. In referring to some of the cellars he came across during his tour of inspection through one of the Victorian districts, he writes : — " The majority of the buildings used as cellars are nothing less than "wooden sheds, with galvanized iron roofs. Here the air has a free circulation day and night, and the cellerman is thus rendered powerless to control the temperature, which very often, from 100"' in day time, goes down to 54'' or less during the night. The appliances required for winemaking are all round badly preserved, and are covered with mouldiness and dust. The floor of the buildings is not paved or cemented, and it consists of earth, so that it has the power of absorbing the wine that gets spilt and becomes the source of pernicious germs, which will spread all over the cellar and in the air, to be finally deposited in the must and in the wine, causing irreparable loss in the quality of the wine. There are a few good cellars, but these, also, are badly kept and badly used. " The casks are neglected, and the coat of tartar is scrupulously left in the cask, with the erroneous idea that it tends to preserve the wine. All the empty casks I have smelt in the cellars inspected are impregnated "with bad odours, which are not detected by the majority of the owners, in consequence of having accustomed their olfactory organs to the predominant odour of mouldiness in their cellars, and so they are unable to detect if the odour of their casks is healthy or not. " With the bad cellars which the vignerons have at their disposal, combined with the neglect of the casks and other appliances, and the little care in the preservation of the wine, it is only natural that a large quantity of the wine produced is spoiled, and condemned to the stiU to be converted into inferior brandy of bad taste and colour, which is often used to fortify the wines, with the result of rendering them unfit for consumption. " Amongst the wines I have tested, I found some really very good ones, presenting all the characteristics required in a fine wine. But if there are good wines, tliere are also very bad ones, and these, I am sorry to say, represent the bulk in every cellar I visited. Some of the wines are cloudy, sweetish, with a good deal of asperity. Others present tartaric, lactic, and acetic fermentations." After some further comments on various other matters, the same gentleman concludes his report with the following : — " Finally, I may say that by what I have seen I cannot help expressing the opinion that Australia is capable of producing really fine wines,