982 5 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Aprin, 1898. 
some inconvenience. The object of the sulphur or acid is to destroy any 
germs’that may have entered the empty cask, which would find a very 
favourable medium for reproduction in the warm, still sweet, wine or must. 
When racking, use a pump if possible, and avoid too much exposure to the 
air; fill the casks as full as possible, and bung lightly to allow the escape of 
the carbonic acid. 
Red wine, as above explained, contains much less albuminous matters, and 
can be allowed to follow its after fermentation without racking until clear. 
OUILLAGE. 
Considerable difference of opinion exists amongst wine experts as to the 
advisability or not of filling up the casks during fermentation—an operation 
called by the French “ ouillage.” Some writers advise it, whilst others 
emphatically condemn it, but an examination of the arguments for and against 
the practice, as well as a considerable personal experience of the matter, has 
led the writer to side with the latter. Its object is to prevent the entry and 
reproduction of the germs of acetification, which would have a larger surface of 
wine to act upon than if the cask were kept filled. But so long as carbonic 
acid gas is being generated and expelled from the bung, there is small chance 
of their entry. As soon as fermentation becomes silent the wine should be 
racked and the casks kept filled. 
But against the risk incurred by not filling up the casks, must be weighed 
the far greater danger of infecting the whole wine with dangerous germs 
which may exist unnoticed in the wine used for the purpose, for it is usual to 
set aside a small cask for “ ouillage,’ and, should this wine contain germs of 
lactic fermentation (a fact that might be easily overlooked by a careless 
yigneron or his assistant), all the wine with which it is mixed will be exposed 
to the same danger, and it isa danger that is recognised by the advocates of 
the practice who unite in insisting on great care in the choice of the wine to 
be used. Now, all vignerons are not sufficiently expert to be able to distinguish 
lactic or other dangerous fermentation in its early stages, and some may be too 
careless in their examination of the wine used. Another objection to the 
practice is, that the casks may be filled up with wine at a different stage of 
fermentation which might interrupt or modify the march of fermentation of 
their contents—a risk to be avoided. For these reasons the writer is of 
opinion that the risks attending ouillage before the first racking are greater 
than those incurred by not adopting it. 
Many French vignerons use a plug of medicated cotton wool in the bung, 
which cleanses the air that passes of any germs, the plug being put in after 
the tumultuous fermentation is over. ‘The system of fixing a bent tube in the. 
bung with one end dipping in water is also guod, if care is taken that it be not 
left in after carbonic acid ceases to be generated ; otherwise you run the risk 
of a vacuum being formed and the water being drawn into thecask. As a 
rule when gas ceases to form it is time for the first racking. 
LACTIC FERMENTATION. 
During the period of the after fermentation, the vigneron should fre- 
quently examine every cask of new wine to observe if the fermentation is 
pursuing a regular course. This is judged by the taste, but more by the smell 
and colour. Sound wine will have a pleasant, fruity smell due to cnanthic 
and tartaric ethers, but should lactic or butyric fermentation set up, as will 
_ sometimes happen towards the close of the vinous fermentation, the expert 
_ vigneron can‘at once detect the fact from the acidity and by the peculiar and 
somewhat disagreeable odour of the ether developed by these acids—in some 
cases it gives an idea of unsound cider, but the smell varies with varieties of 
wines. Any vigneron in doubt as to whether a particular cask of wine has 
passed into lactic fermentation, should send a sample to the Viticulturist at 
the Agricultural Department to be reported upon. 
