Duo Carolus

Harry Gillespie Moore, retired automotive engineer, prefers milk to wine. But when he went abroad in the twenties he made a beeline for the French and German champagne cellars. In 1932 Mr. Moore returned to California, and last week he told Sacramento reporters that after six years of experiment he had perfected a modern method of making champagne from oranges. To the juice of oranges and grapefruit he adds distilled water, dextrose and yeast. The mixture is then slowly drawn through a series of five glass-lined, airtight, chromium-fitted 200-gal. tanks. By the time the juice reaches the last tank, 75% of the sugar has been converted into alcohol. This takes ten days.

Real champagne is bottled before fermentation is complete and the fermentation which continues inside the bottle is responsible for the sparkle of the wine. The skilled winemaker is faced with the problem of removing sediment from a bottle of wine without losing the sparkle. This is usually done by turning the bottle upside down, collecting the sediment on the face of the cork, freezing the wine in the neck of each bottle, removing the cork and the top lump of dirty ice. Mr. Moore performs this essential process mechanically. He drives two corks, connected by a three-inch chromium bar, into the bottle. He then places the bottle on a rack, turns it upside down. The sediment collects on the bottom of the cork in the neck. When the dirty cork is pulled out, it leaves the clean cork in its place.

The sparkling citrus wine which Mr. Moore and his collaborator, Edward L. Gonyer, call Duo Carolus (freely translated, two dollars), is claimed by its makers to be almost indistinguishable from champagne. A connoisseur like Julian Street would probably not agree, but it takes only 60 days to make, in comparison with the four to six years necessary for real champagne. Duo Carolus costs $2 a fifth gallon as against $6.50 to $8 for a good bottle of imported grape champagne. Messrs. Moore and Gonyer plan to make 150,000 bottles a year.

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