These fiscal
supervisors and inspectors will have to carry their investigation
into all details in order to repress and prevent fraud; and what
fraud? The legislator will have defined it either incorrectly or
not at all; it is at this point that the task becomes appalling.
There is no fraud in selling wine of the poorest quality, but
there is fraud in passing off one quality for another; then you
are obliged to differentiate the qualities of wines, and
consequently to guarantee them. Is it fraudulent to mix wines?
Chaptal, in his treatise on the art of making wine, advises this
as eminently useful; on the other hand, experience proves that
certain wines, in some way antagonistic to each other or
incompatible, produce by their mixture a disagreeable and
unhealthy drink. Then you are obliged to say what wines can be
usefully mixed, and what cannot. Is it fraudulent to aromatize,
alcoholize, and water wines? Chaptal recommends this also;
and everybody knows that this drugging produces sometimes
advantageous results, sometimes pernicious and detestable
effects.
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