TO MANAGE AND IMPROVE RED PORT WINE WHEN POOR AND THIN.
If your wines be sound, but wanting in body, colour, and flavour, draw out thirty or forty gallons, and return the same quantity of young and rich wines, such its are generally brought to this country for that purpose; to a can of which put a quart of colouring, with a bottle of wine or brandy, in which half an ounce of powdered cochineal has been previously mixed. Whisk it well together, and put it in your cask, stirring it well about with a staff; and if not bright in about a week or ten days, you may fine it for use; previous to which, put in at different times a gallon of good brandy. If Port wines are short of body, put a gallon or two of brandy into each pipe, as you see necessary. If the wines be in your own stock, put it in by a quart or two at a time, as it feeds the wine better in this way than putting it in all at once; but, if your wines are in a bonded cellar, procure a funnel that will go down to the bottom of the cask, that the brandy may be completely incorporated with the wine. When your Port is thus made fine and pleasant, bottle it off, taking care to pack it in a temperate place with saw-dust or dry sand, after which it will not be proper to drink for at least two months. When laying your wines down in bottles you should never use new deal saw-dust, as that causes it to fret too much, and often communicates a strong turpentine smell through the corks to the wine.—Ibid.