WINE 



1147 



extinguished on plunging it into the cask, it is a proof of the cask being unsound, and 

 unfit for receiving the wine ; in which case it should be well cleansed, first with lime- 

 water, then with very dilute sulphuric acid, and lastly with boiling water. 



Wine-cellars ought to be dry at bottom, floored with flags, have windows opening 

 to the north, bo so much sunk below the level of the adjoining ground as to possess 

 a nearly uniform temperature in summer and winter ; and be at such a distance from 

 a frequented highway or street as not to suffer vibration from the motion of carriages. 



Wines should be racked off in cool weather ; the end of February being the fittest 

 time for light wines. Strong wines are not racked off till they have stood a year or 

 eighteen months upon the lees, to promote their slow or insensible fermentation. A 

 syphon well managed serves better than a faucet to draw off wine clear from the 

 sediment. White wines, before being bottled, should be fined with isinglass ; red 

 wines are usually fined with white-of-egg beat up into a froth, and mixed with two 

 or three times their bulk of water. But some strong wines, which are a little harsh 

 from excess of tannin, are fined with a little sheep or bullock's blood. Occasionally 

 a small quantity of sweet glue is used for this purpose. 



For further information, see ' Chemistry of Wine,' by Gr. J. Mulder, edited by H. 

 Bence Jones, M.D. F.E.S. ; and Watts's ' Dictionary of Chemistry.' Also A ' Treatise 

 on Wine,' by Thudicum and Dupre, London, 1872. This is the most comprehensive 

 work on the subject in the English language. 



The following Maladies of Wines are certain accidental deteriorations, to which 

 remedies should be speedily applied : 



La-Pousse ('pushing out of the cask'), is a name given to a violent fermentative 

 movement, which occasionally supervenes after the wine has been run off into the 

 casks. If these have been tightly closed, the interior pressure may increase to such 

 a degree as to burst the hoops, or cause the seams of the staves or ends to open. One 

 remedy is, to transfer the wine into a cask previously fumigated with burning sulphur ; 

 another is, to add to it about 1000th part of sulphite of lime ; and a third, and perhaps 

 the safest, is to introduce ^ Ib. of mustard-seed into each barrel. At any rate the 

 wines should be fined whenever the movements are allayed, to remove the floating 

 ferment which has been the cause of the mischief. 



Turning Sour. The production of too much acid in a wine is a proof of its con- 

 taining originally too little alcohol, of its being exposed too largely to the air, or to 

 vibration, or to .too high a temperature in the cellar. The best thing to be done in 

 this case is, to mix it with its bulk of a stronger wine in a less advanced state, to fine 

 the mixture, to bottle it, and to consume it as soon as possible, for it will never prove 

 a good keeping wine. 



TABLE I. 



