JOHANN CARL LEUCIIS ON WINE-MAKING. 211 



great quantity of spirit evaporates cacli time, and it thereby gets 

 weaker, especially if clone on warm days. To prevent this as 

 much as possible, the opening ought always to be done on cool 

 days, when the north wind blows, never during a south wind. To 

 prevent the combination with the outer air, various methods are 

 recommended, some of which we will here describe. 



The drawing off is usually performed as follows: A hole is 

 bored into the cask at a certain height from the bottom, where it is 

 supposed that the wine may no longer be clear ; through this hole 

 the wine runs out by means of a tube or pipe. In order to let 

 the air enter the cask, the bung is opened, or a small hole bored 

 through one of the staves. When the clear wine is all out, the 

 cask is lifted up until the thick or muddy portion runs out. This 

 is then filled into another cask. 



A better method is that with a leather pipe, four to six feet 

 long, one end of which holds a tube. This is placed tightly into 

 the bung-hole of the cask to be filled, the other end being attach- 

 ed to the fiuicet of the cask to be emptied, which must stand high- 

 er. The wine runs through this pipe to the other cask until it is 

 half filled. Now the attendant must blow into the upper cask 

 through a bellows having a leather cap over its mouth to prevent 

 the air from re-entering it, and drive the remaining wine out of 

 it through the pipe. 



The mode of drawing the wine off by means of a siphon has 

 the advantage that the connection with the outer air may be al- 

 most wholly avoided. The siphon is filled with wine, and the 

 short arm is placed in the cask to be emptied, the long one into 

 that to be filled. The contents of the first barrel then pass into 

 the second. The use of the pump for drawing off wine is mostl}'' 

 confined to Champagnes. 



UILTON'8 lnstecmekt. 



Preferable to this is, however, the method of drawing off by a 

 " Hilton's Instrument," which offers the advantage of its being 

 quickly done, without allowing the wine to communicate with 

 the air. A shows a cask filled with wine. B is a cask into which 

 this wine is to be transferred. C and D are faucets screwed into 



