Take whites of eggs beat up to a froth, and mix in the same manner as
in white wines.
_Another Method._
Put the shavings of green beech into the vessel, having first taken
off all the rind, and boil them for an hour in water to extract their
rankness, and afterwards dry them in the sun, or in an oven. A bushel
serves for a tun of wine; and being mashed, they serve again and
again.
Mortimer recommends to gather the grapes when very dry, pick them
from the stalks, press them, and let the juice stand twenty-four
hours in a covered vat. Afterwards to draw it off from the gross
lees, then put it up in a cask, and to add a pint or quart of strong
red or white port to every gallon of juice, and let the whole work,
bunging it up close, and letting it stand till January; then bottling
it in dry weather.
Bradley chooses to have the liquor when pressed, stand with the
husks and stalks in the vat, to ferment for fifteen days.
_To fine a hogshead of Claret._
Take the whites and shells of six fresh eggs, and proceed as with
port finings. Claret requires to be kept warm in saw-dust when
bottled.
_To fine Sherry._
Take an ounce and a half of isinglass, beat it with a hammer till
it can be pulled into small pieces, then put it into three pints of
cider or perry, and let it remain twenty-four hours, till it becomes
a jelly. After which mix it with a quart or two of wine, and whisk it
well with the whites and shells of six fresh eggs. Take four or five
gallons out to make room for the finings, and stir the wine well.
Then nearly fill the can of finings with wine, whisk it well, and put
it in the butt, stirring it well for about five minutes; afterwards
fill it up, and put the bung in loose. In two days bung it up, and in
eight or ten it will be fit for bottling.
_To fine pale Sherry._
Put three pints of skim-milk with the whites of eight eggs, beat well
together in a can; then put in finings, in the same manner as for
common sherry. If the sherry be thin and poor, feed them with good
brandy, as other wines.
_To fine Madeira._
Take three ounces of isinglass, and dissolve it, but if old wine two
ounces will be enough, also one quart of skim-milk, and half a pint
of marble sand: whisk these in a can with some wine. If the pipe is
full, take out a canful, and stir the pipe well; then put in the can
of finings, and stir that with a staff for five minutes; after which,
put the other can of wine into it, and let it have vent for three
days. Then close it up, and in ten days or a fortnight it will be
fine and fit for bottling and stowing with saw-dust in a warm place.
_To improve Madeira which has been round to the Indies._
Madeira should be kept in a warmer place than port wine, and
therefore requires a good body, and to be fed with brandy, but if
deficient in flavour or mellowness, add to it a gallon or two of good
Malmsey.
_To fine Vidonia Wine._
When first imported, Vidonia has a harsh and acid taste; but if
properly managed it more resembles Madeira wine than any other. To
take off the harshness, fine it down, and then rack it off upon the
lees of Madeira or white Port, fining it again with a light fining;
and if 20 or 30 gallons of good Madeira wine be added, it will pass
for Madeira. For the finings, dissolve two ounces of isinglass, and
the whites and shells of six fresh eggs; beat them well up together
with a whisk and add a gill of marble sand.
_To fine Malmsey and other Wines._
Take 20 fresh eggs, beat the whites, yolks, and shells together, and
manage it the same as other finings.—Calcavella, Sweet Mountain,
Paxaretta, and Malaga, should be managed and fined in the same manner
as Lisbon.—Tent, Muscadine, Sack, and Bastard, should be managed the
same as Malmsey, and fined with 16 or 20 fresh eggs, and a quart or
three pints of skim-milk. Old Hock, and Vin de Grave, are thin, but
pleasant wines, and should be fed with a little good brandy, and
fined, if necessary, with the whites and shells of six or eight eggs.
_To fine Port Wine._
Take the whites and shells of eight fresh eggs, beat them in a wooden
can or pail, with a whisk, till it becomes a thick froth; then add a
little wine to it, and whisk it again. If the pipe is full take out
four or five gallons of the wine to make room for the finings. If the
weather be warmish, add a pint of fresh-water sand to the finings.
Stir it well about; after which put in the finings, stirring it for
five minutes; put in the can of wine, leaving the bung out for a few
hours, that the froth may fall: then bung it up, and in eight or ten
days it will be fine and fit for bottling.
_To make and apply Finings._
Put the finings into a can or pail, with a little of the liquor
about to be fined, whisk them altogether till they are perfectly
mixed, and then nearly fill the can with the liquor, whisking it
well about again; after which, if the cask be full, take out four or
five gallons to make room; then take the staff, and give it a good
stirring; next whisk the finings up, and put them in; afterwards stir
it with the staff for five minutes. Then drive the bung in, and bore
a hole with a gimblet, that it may have vent for three or four days,
after which drive in a vent peg.
_To convert White Wine into Red._
Put four ounces of turnesole rags into an earthen vessel, and pour
upon them a pint of boiling water; cover the vessel close, and leave
it to cool; strain off the liquor, which will be of a fine deep red
inclining to purple. A small portion of this colours a large quantity
of wine. This tincture may either be made in brandy, or mixed with
it, or else made into a syrup, with sugar, for keeping.
In those countries which do not produce the tinging grape which
affords a blood-red juice, wherewith the wines of France are often
stained, in defect of this, the juice of elderberries is used, and
sometimes logwood is used at Oporto.
_To force down the Finings of all White Wines, Arracks, and
Small Spirits._
Put a few quarts of skimmed milk into the cask.
_To render Red Wine White._
If a few quarts of well-skimmed milk be put to a hogshead of red
wine, it will soon precipitate the greater part of the colour, and
leave the whole nearly white; and this is of known use in the turning
red wines, when pricked, into white; in which a small degree of
acidity is not so much perceived.
Milk is, from this quality of discharging colour from wines, of
use also to the wine-coopers, for the whitening of wines that have
acquired a brown colour from the cask, or from having been hastily
boiled before fermenting; for the addition of a little skimmed milk,
in these cases, precipitates the brown colour, and leaves the wines
almost limped, or of what they call a water whiteness, which is much
coveted abroad in wines as well as in brandies.
_To preserve new Wine against Thunder._
Thunder will turn and often change wines. Cellars that are paved,
and the walls of stone, are preferable to boarded floors. Before a
tempest of thunder, it will be advisable to lay a plate of iron on
the wine-vessels.
_To make Wine settle well._
Take a pint of wheat, and boil it in a quart of water, till it burst
and become soft; then squeeze it through a linen cloth, and put a
pint of the liquor into a hogshead of unsettled white wine; stir it
well about, and it will become fine.
_To make a Match for sweetening Casks._
Melt some brimstone, and dip into it a piece of coarse linen cloth;
of which, when cold, take a piece of about an inch broad and five
inches long, and set fire to it, putting it into the bung-hole, with
one end fastened under the bung, which must be driven in very tight:
let it remain a few hours before removing it out.
_To make Oyster Powder._
Get some fresh oyster-shells, wash them and scrape off the yellow
part from the outside; lay them on a clear fire till they become red
hot; then lay them to cool, and take off the softest part, powder it,
and sift it through a fine sieve; after which use it immediately, or
keep it in bottles well corked up, and laid in a dry place.
_To make a Filtering Bag._
This bag is made of a yard of either linen or flannel, not too fine
or close, and sloping, so as to have the bottom of it run to a point,
and the top as broad as the cloth will allow. It must be well sewed
up the side, and the upper part of it folded round a wooden hoop, and
well fastened to it; then tie the hoop in three or four places with
a cord to support it; and when used, put a can or pail under it to
receive the liquor, filling the bag with the sediments; after it has
ceased to run, wash out the bag in three or four clear waters, then
hang it up to dry in an airy place, that it may not get musty. A wine
dealer should always have two bags by him, one for red, and the other
for white wines.
_To bottle Wine._
When wine is made fine and pleasant, it may be bottled, taking care
afterwards to pack it in a temperate place with saw-dust or leather.
After which it will not be fit to drink for at least two months.
Never use new deal saw-dust, as that causes the wine to fret, and
often communicates a strong turpentine smell through the corks to the
wine.
_To Detect Adulterated Wine._
Heat equal parts of oyster-shells and sulphur together, and keep them
in a white heat for fifteen minutes, and when cold, mix them with an
equal quantity of cream of tartar; put this mixture into a strong
bottle with common water to boil for one hour, and then decant into
ounce phials, and add 20 drops of muriatic acid to each; this liquor
precipitates the least quantity of lead, copper, &c. from wines in a
very sensible black precipitate.
_To Detect Alum in Wine._
Wine merchants add alum to red wine, to communicate to it a rough
taste and deeper colour; but this mixture produces on the system the
most serious effects. For the discovery of the fraud in question,
adopt the following means:—The wine is to be discoloured by means of
a concentrated solution of chlorine; the mixture is to be evaporated
until reduced to nearly the fourth of its original volume; the liquor
is to be filtered; it then possesses the following properties when
it contains alum:—1st. It has a sweetish astringent taste; 2d. it
furnishes a white precipitate (sulphate of barytes) with nitrate
of barytes, insoluble in water and in nitric acid; 3d. caustic
potass rise to a yellowish white precipitate of alumine, soluble
in an excess of potass; 4th. the sub-carbonate of soda produces a
yellowish white precipitate (sub-carbonate of alumine) decomposable
by fire into carbonic acid gas, alumine, easily recognisable by its
characters.