12G 



6. Of Mustiness. 



Many causes may give rise to this serious accident. An ill-con- 

 ditioned cask, a rotten egg used in the fining, an immense quantity 

 of insects crushed with the fruit, or spoiled grapes that have got into 

 the vat, will give the best wine a musty taste, and take away its 

 bouquet. 



Racking off into a well-conditioned, sulphured cask, and throwing 

 in a handful of cracked peach-pits, shells and kernels both, sometimes 

 remedies the evil when taken at the commencement. Some ad- 

 vise that beech-wood charcoal should be put into the cask ; others 

 to cut dead ripe medlars into quarters, string them and let them ma- 

 Hcerate in the wine for a month ; or to take a slice of toasted bread or 

 a handful of toasted wheat, put it in a bag and hang it in at the bung, 

 for three or four days. But if the alteration is decisive, it is useless to 

 deceive yourself; for it will be next to impossible to re-establish the 

 wine, even by a mixture with other wines. It even makes a bad 

 brandy, and the vinegar from it is hardly passable. 



7. Of Freezing. 



h 



When the wine, as will sometimes happen in a cellar not suffi- 

 ciently tight, or during transportation in winter, is caught by the frost, 

 it must be immediately racked off, carefully avoiding to break or 

 disturb the ice, and so bring it away with the liquor. This ice will 

 make the wme weak and flat ; though the water of which it is com- 

 posed was one of the constituent parts of the wine, yet, by freezing 

 it has been rendered insipid and raw. But with due precaution, 

 though there will be a loss in quantity, the wine will be sensibly bet- 

 tered, when separated from the aqueous part which disposes light 

 wines to sour ; the liquor is more alcoholic, and if new, loses much of 

 its harshness. For this reason many vine-growers expsose their casks 

 to hard frost. 



But if the vessels are overlooked and a thaw should strike them, the 

 \ consequence is that the liquor is turbid, pale, and sometimes of a hvid 

 colour. This is remedied in part by racking into sulphured barrels, 

 and adding a little more than a gill of alcohol to every cask eontaining 

 nOb ot.tles. then bunging air-tight : und if the wine is settled in a few 



