220 GRAPE CULTURE AND WINE-MAKING. 



Woody, Mouldy, and Bitter Taste. 



If the taste should not prevail to a great extent, it will be found 

 satisfactory to draw the wine off into a new cask, and to sulphur- 

 ize it well, or to suspend medlar-fruits by a thread in the cask. 

 Fine wines, however, are better clarified by the white of an egg, 

 and then drawn off after a month. In case the taste be very no- 

 ticeable, fresh W-burned charcoal, well washed, is best stirred into 

 the wine, which should be afterward drawn off. In white wines, 

 a mixture with lime-water destroys also the bitter and woody 

 taste. 



This taste may likewise be disguised by suspending such ma- 

 terials as powdered peach-stones, bitter almonds, w41d sage, elder- 

 flowers, sassafras, raspberry-sirup, cinnamon, tied up in a bag in 

 the cask. 



Wines of an acid taste are mixed with a good old one, or with 

 wine-yeast or pure brandy, and afterward cleared. Powdered 

 charcoal may also serve. The casks themselves may be purified 

 of their sour taste by being washed well out with lime-water or 

 the ley of ashes. Against the woody taste Mr. Lajuinais recom- 

 mends to scrape off the inner sides of the casks and put oil of ol- 

 ives on them. 



Cloudiness and Muddiness. 



"Wine is not clear as long as the yeast matter has not yet set- 

 tled down, and it gets cloudy when these mix with it again. In 

 sweet wines that have not fully fermented they remain very long, 

 and must be removed in an artificial way. 



This is done by clarifying. In a very simple way this may be 

 achieved by putting boiled beech-wood shavings into a cask, 

 drawi^ig the wine into this, and off again after a little while, with 

 the addition of a little salt, which induces the separation of the 

 yeast matter. Some time after, the wine must be drawn off again 

 into a new cask and sulphurized. 



In case, however, wines remain cloudy that should have per- 

 fected their fermentation, this is a sign that they have not done 

 so. Sugar may then be added, and means be employed which 

 favor the fermentation ; for instance, warmth : a mixture of w\arm 

 must, an addition of red-hot stones, shaking the casks, or stirring 

 up the yeast, and an addition of chalk or lime if too much acid 

 should be contained. 



If wines kept in a badly-constructed cellar get troubled by fre- 

 quent shakings of the casks and influences of the air, they must 

 be repeatedly drawn off from the yeast, cleared, and sulphurized. 



Red wines are generally cleared, when getting cloudy, by a mix- 

 ture of rain-water, a handful of salt, and the whites of eight eggs. 



The spoiling of cloudy (muddy) wines may be prevented by an 

 addition of sugar or boiled must. 



