CHAPTER IX. 



OF THE MAmGEMENT OF THE WINE IK CASKS. 



The wine works in the casks from the first day that it is transferred 

 to them. If the ferment in the vat was regular and continued, the 

 new commotion will be almost insensible, and vice versa. It is the 

 carbonic acid gas which excites this agitation ; it tends incessantly 

 to escape, it swells the size of the liquid and makes it froth out at 

 the bung. The casks, therefore, should not be entirely filled ; a 

 space of two inches should be left and the bung be driven in close 

 enough to prevent the air from penetrating ; the spigot-hole beside 

 the bung should now and then be opened to allow the gas to escape , 

 but this must not be done too often nor too freely, as it risks souring 

 the wine. Instead of bunging tight, and opening the spigot-hole some 

 vine-dressers cover the bung-hole with folds of cloth covered with a 

 coat of sand j others with Vine leaves held down by a piece of tile . 

 When this ferment is over, and the liquid sinks back, the casks shonld 

 be filled up and bunged tight ; the bung wrapped with hemp or tow, 

 or old linen, which must be fresh and clean, as a film gathers on the 

 bung that may be hurtful to the wine. 



In some districts they fill up every day during the first month, every 

 four days the second month, and after that every eight days until 

 the racking oflf. This is the method used with the Hermitage wines, 

 around Bordeaux ; they fill up after the first week ; a month after they 

 bung the casks lightly, and fill up every week, gradually tightening 

 the bung. In other places they fill up regularly every ten days during 

 the first months, then once a month until the racking off. And in some 

 they do it every two months, if the cellars are passably dry, and every 

 three months if they are damp. The filling-up should be done in co«l 

 dry weather, and the wine employed never be of a quality inferior to 

 that in the cask. The cellar should be visited at least once a day, so 

 as to remedy on the spot any accident that may have taken place, 

 through wormeaten spots in the staves, by the diaking ot the casks in 



