Mustiness. This may generally be removed by violently agitating the wine for some time with a little of the sweetest olive oil or almond oil. The cause of the bad taste is the presence of an essential oil, which the fixed oil seizes on, and rises with to the surface, when it may be skimmed off; or the liquor under it may be drawn off. A little coarsely powdered fresh-burnt charcoal, or even some slices of bread toasted black, will frequently have a like effect. A little bruised mustard seed is also occasionally used for the same purpose.
Perfuming. This is chiefly performed on British wines for family use. For its application to foreign wine, see Flavouring (above). Wines may be perfumed by the simple addition of any odorous substances previously well mixed with a little of the wine, or dissolved in a few fluid ounces of rectified spirit.
Racking. This should be performed in cool weather, and preferably early in the spring. A clean syphon, well managed, answers better for this purpose than a cock or faucet. The bottoms, or foul portion, may be strained through a wine-bag, and added to some other inferior wine.
Ripening. To promote the maturation or ripening of wine, various plans are adopted by the growers and dealers. One of the safest ways of hastening this, especially for strong wines, is not to rack them until they have stood 15 or 18 months upon the lees; or, whether ‘crude’ or ‘racked,’ keeping them at a temperature ranging between 50° and 60° Fahr., in a cellar free from draughts and not too dry. Another method is to remove the corks or bungs, and to substitute bladder tied or fastened air-tight over the openings. Bottled wine, treated in this way, ripens very quickly in a temperate situation. Some dealers add a little dilute sulphuric acid to the coarser wines for the same purpose; but a small quantity of concentrated acetic acid or tartaric acid would be preferable, since these acids are found in all wines. 4 or 5 drops of the former, added to a bottle of some kinds of new wine, immediately give it the appearance of being 2 or 3 years old.
Ropiness, viscidity; Graisse. This arises from the wine containing too little tannin or astringent matter to precipitate the gluten, albumen, or other azotised substance, occasioning the malady. Such wine cannot be clarified in the ordinary way, because it is incapable of causing the coagulation or precipitation of the finings. The remedy is to supply the principle in which it is deficient. M. François, of Nantes, prescribes the bruised berries of the mountain ash (1 lb. to the barrel)
for this purpose. A little catechu, kino, or, better still, rhatany, or the bruised footstalks of the grape, may also be conveniently and advantageously used in the same way. For pale white wines, which are the ones chiefly attacked by the malady, nothing equals a little pure tannin or tannic acid dissolved in proof spirit. See Viscous fermentation, Malt liquors, &c.
Roughening. See Flavouring (above).
Second fermentation; La-pousse. Inordinate fermentation, either primary or secondary, in wine or any other fermented liquor, may be readily checked by sulphuration, or by the addition of mustard seed or sulphite of lime. 1 oz. of brimstone, 3⁄4 to 1 lb. of bruised mustard seed, and about 4 to 8 oz. of sulphite of lime, are fully sufficient for a hogshead. This substance seldom fails of arresting the fermentation.—In addition to the above remedies, a little sulphuric acid is sometimes employed, and the use of black oxide of manganese, or chlorate of potash, has been proposed on theoretical grounds.
Souring. This is either occasioned by the wine having been imperfectly fermented, or from its having been kept in too warm a cellar, where it has been exposed to draughts of air or to continual vibrations, occasioned by the passage of loaded vehicles through the adjoining thoroughfare. The remedy commonly recommended in books for this purpose is to saturate the acid with chalk, milk of lime, or calcined oyster shells; but such additions, made in sufficient quantity to effect this object, destroy the character of the wine, and render it sickly and vapid. The best and only safe remedy is a little neutral tartrate of potash, cautiously added; or it may be mixed with a considerable portion of full-bodied new wine of its class, adding at the same time a little brandy, and in two or three weeks fining it down, when it should be either at once put into bottles, or consumed as soon as possible. See Deacetification and Detartarisation. (above).
Sparkling, creaming, and briskness. These properties are conveyed to wine by racking it into closed vessels before the fermentation is complete, and while there still remains a considerable portion of undecomposed sugar. Wine of this description, which has lost its briskness, may be restored by adding to each bottle a few grains of white lump sugar or sugar candy. This is the way in which champagne is treated in France. The bottles are afterwards inverted, by which means any sediment that forms falls into the necks, when the corks are partially withdrawn, and the sediment is immediately expelled by the elastic force of the compressed carbonic acid. If the wine remains muddy, a little solution of sugar and finings are added, and the bottles are again placed in a vertical position, and, after two or three months, the sediment is discharged, as before.