268 GRAPE CUiyrUKE AND 



among them, if you have several to fill, if you want to make 

 a uniform wine. Some prefer to have the first run by itself, 

 and fill the pressed wine into a separate cask. The first will 

 of course make the most delicate wine, while the last will be 

 more harsh and rough, from the tannin and acid extracted 

 from the skins and seeds. But this tannin is generally needed 

 to clear the wine and make it durable, and if pressed as soon 

 as indicated, there will not be an excess of it. The bunghole 

 may then be covered by a fresh grape leaf, to keep insects or 

 dust from entering, and the bung, or a small sack with clean 

 sand laid on, to keep it there until the wine has become quiet. 

 To fill up, some must of the same kind should be filled into a 

 smaller cask ; and when violent fermentation is over, say in 

 five or six days, they can be filled up to the bunghole. As 

 soon as fermentation is over, which you can tell by holding 

 your ear above the bunghole, by the absence of the hissing 

 and seething noise w r hich accompanies fermentation, the bung 

 can be put in, at first lightly, and after a few days, it can be 

 drove in tight. 



A great improvement on the solid bungs for the manage- 

 ment of young wines is the perforated bung. For this, good 

 spruce, maple or ash bungs are used, made about four inches 

 long, tapering gradually. A hole with a half inch or three- 

 eighths augur is then bored through them the whole length, 

 and filled with cotton steeped in salicylic acid, pressed to- 

 gether solidly. This gives enough vent to the young wine, 

 yet will act as a filter to the air when the wine becomes quiet 

 and fermentation ceases. They can also be used for casks 

 and barrels that are kept "on tap" as the phrase is, for a short 

 time; and though I do not advise their use for an unlimited 

 length of time, yet they are a better preservative than solid 

 bungs, which can hardly be closed enough to prevent all access 

 of air. In this case the air is freed from all impurities, and 

 will not vitiate the wine. To young wines, it prevents the ac- 



