64 Wine-making. 



BUSHBERG CATALOGUE. 



Wine -making. 



the casks must, however, be emptied again before 

 the water gets cold they are then filled with fresh 

 water daily during several days, then again a few gal- 

 lons of hot water, in which common salt (two ounces 

 to each gallon) has been dissolved, are to ba poured 

 into the empty cask, the bung firmly put in, and the 

 cask rolled or turned until every part has been in 

 contact with the hot salt water. After this operation 

 (considered unnecessary by some) the cask is treated in 

 like manner with two to four gallons of fermenting or 

 boiling hot young wine. This is called making new 

 casks wine-green. Another process much in use, is to 

 put in the cask a hot lime- wash . made of unslaked 

 lime and hot water, forming a kind of milk ; the cask 

 is turned about, so that its entire inside becomes 

 coated with the mixture ; after which the cask is 

 washed with clean water, and finally rinsed with hot 

 wine, as before. If this last operation is not conven- 

 ient, pour in a pint of pure alcohol, or brandy, and 

 ignite it, leaving the bung slightly open. The fumes 

 of the burning brandy will free the wood from its un- 

 pleasant taste, which would otherwise taint the wine. 

 In large modern wine-houses steam is used to great 

 advantage in this important operation. 



When a wine-cask is emptied, and not at once refilled 

 with other wine, it should be cleaned, and when dry 

 a small piece of sulphur (about 1 inch square) should 

 be burnt in the cask, which is then to be closed tightly 

 by the bung ; when it is again to be used, it must be 

 examined as to tightness, by pouring water into it, 

 and, if leaking, is to be made tight by filling it with 

 water and driving the hoops until it ceases to leak. 

 It must also be examined as to the purity of its air, 

 which can be tested by a small piece of burning sul- 

 phur strip or paper. If extinguished when brought 

 into the cask, this indicates the impurity of its air, 

 from which it may be freed by the common small bel- 

 lows, and by then washing it thoroughly, as above in- 

 dicated. Old casks and barrels which are to be used for 

 wine must be watered and treated in like manner as 

 new casks to be made wine-green ; but never use a 

 mouldy or sour cask; better burn it up than to at- 

 tempt its cure. 



WHITE WINES. 



The white wine grapes and as a rule, no black or 

 blue grapes should be used for white wine are to be 

 mashed, as soon as they are hauled to the press-house. 

 This is best done in a grape-mill, placed above the fer- 

 menting vat. The vat is covered with a board or cloth, 

 as soon as filled, and the mashed grapes are there 

 allowed to ferment from 24 to 48 hours. The juice which 

 may then run off through the faucet inserted in the 

 spigot hole near the lower end of the vat, is put into 

 a well prepared, clean cask ; then the entire balance 

 of the mashed grapes is pressed, and the juice which 

 comes off from the press is added to that obtained 

 without pressing. 



The cask into which the juice has thus been put 

 should not be completely filled, nor the bung hole 

 closed, as long as violent fermentation lasts. Dur- 

 ing that time the (carbonic acid) gas which rises and 

 fills that space, prevents any access of air, and the old 

 method of closing the bung-hole by a grape leaf, over 

 which a small sand-bag is placed, is still preferable to 

 any complicated syphon. Care must be taken that the 



sand-bags remain clean, for if soaked by the must or 

 by wine, vinegar would form in them ; some, there* 

 fore, use a cork stopper, holding a doubly bent glass- 

 or rubber-pipe leading into a small glass jar, half- 

 filled with water, through which the gas escapes with- 

 out admiting the outer atmosphere. A funnel-shaped 

 bowl with an air tube or chimney in the centre, cover- 

 ed by an inverted cup or tumbler, which forces the 

 escaping gas to pass through the water in the bowl, 

 combines the same advantages and is less apt to break 

 or get out of order. When the principal fermentation 

 has ceased, or is no more perceptible, the cask should 

 be filled up with similar young white wine, and then 

 closed with a tight fitting wooden bung. Mohr re- 

 commends a cork bung perforated by a glass tube 

 filled with cotton, whereby the atmospheric air would 

 be admitted without any germs of fungi. Babo re- 

 commends an ordinary wooden bung, perforated by a 

 few small air holes, so arranged that an india-rubber 

 ring will close it against the air, yet permit the escape 

 of any carbonic-gas by the elasticity of the ring. 



White wine can also be made from black or blue 

 grapes, as the coloring matter is merely in the skin 

 and is dissolved only during fermentation ; conse- 

 quently, by pressing the grapes at once, as soon as 

 mashed (or even without first mashing), and before 

 fermentation commences, thus separating part of the 

 juice of the husks, a white or light-colored wine is ob- 

 tained. The pressings, still containing a greal deal of 

 juice, are then thrown into the fermenting-vat, some 

 sugar-water is added to replace the portion of the juice 

 heretofore withdrawn by a light pressing, and, after 

 fermenting for several days, they are pressed again, and 

 a red wine is produced from the same grapes. While 

 we do not recommend this method, and consider both 

 the white wine and red wine thus made as inferior to 

 what could have been produced from the same grapes 

 had their juice been allowed to ferment altogether on 

 the husks, it certainly does not deserve that vituper- 

 ation which has been heaped on our producers, who, 

 in view of the failure of the Catawba and other white- 

 wine grapes, resorted to that method with the Con- 

 cord. Hereafter it will scarcely be practiced by any, 

 since there are a number of productive white-wine 

 grapes planted, and especially since grape-juice is 

 cheaper than sugar-water. 



After the main or violent fermentation the must 

 will have become clear young wine, provided that 

 fermentation has been uninterrupted and complete ; 

 having become clear, in - December or January, it is 

 drawn off, from its sediment into clean, properly pre- 

 pared wine casks. By this drawing off the young wine 

 again becomes cloudy, only to become clearer in March 

 or April following, when it is again drawn off before 

 its second fermentation. As soon as it is apparent 

 that, with the rise of temperature, in May, this second 

 fermentation approaches, the bungs must be opened, 

 some wine drawn off from the full casks to make room 

 for the inevitable expansion, and the sandbag or other 

 apparatus is placed on the bung-holes until the term- 

 ination of this second fermentation, when the yeast 

 and other impurities will have been precipitated and 

 settled, and the finished wine must be drawn off again 

 into clean, well-prepared casks. The proper and fre- 

 quent drawing off is one of the most essential opera- 



