Other Methods.—Maigne says that if the wine is only affected at the surface from leaving ullage in the cask, the bad air should be expelled by using a hand-bellows; when a piece of sulphur match will burn in the cask, the air has been purified. Then take a loaf of bread, warm as it comes from the oven, and place it upon the bung in such a way as to close it. When the loaf has become cold, remove it, rack the wine into a well sulphured cask, being careful to provide the faucet with a strainer of crape or similar fabric, so as to keep the flowers from becoming mixed with the wine. It will be observed that the bread absorbs a good deal of the acid, and the operation should be repeated as often as necessary.
Another plan is to take the meats of 60 walnuts for 100 gallons of wine, break each into four pieces, and roast them as you would coffee; throw them, still hot, into the cask, after having drawn out a few quarts of wine. Fine the wine, and rack when clear, and if the acidity is very bad, repeat the operation.
A half pound of roasted wheat will produce the same effect.
He also gives the following method for using marble dust.
| Take of | |||
| White marble, | 12 | lbs. | |
| Sugar, | 18 | lbs. | |
| Animal charcoal, washed with boiling water, | 6 | ozs. | |
Take of this from 3 to 6 lbs. to 100 gallons of wine, according to the degree of acidity; dissolve it in two or three gallons of the wine and pour into the cask. Shake it well, and continue the agitation from time to time, for twenty-four or thirty-six hours, till the wine has lost its acidity, taking care to leave the bung open to allow the escape of the carbonic acid which is generated. At the end of the time, add of cream of tartar one-half as much as the dose employed; shake again, from time to time, and at the end of five or six hours, draw the wine off and fine it. If, at the end of the first twenty-four hours, the wine is still acid, add a little more of the powder before putting in the cream of tartar.
In answer to the objections that the charcoal removes the color and bouquet of the wine, and that the acetate of potassium formed injures the wine, he says that the charcoal would not hurt a white wine, and would have but little effect upon a red wine; and as to the bouquet, that wines which have become sour have none, and that the acetate of potassium has no perceptible effect upon the health.
Instead of the preceding powder, the following may be employed:
| White marble, | in fine powder, | 12 | lbs. | |
| Animal charcoal |  | for ordinary wine, | 4 | ozs. |
| for fine wine, | 2 | ozs. | ||
| Sugar, | 1 | lb. | ||
From 5 to 7 lbs. of this are used for 100 gallons of wine, and one-half the quantity of cream of tartar in fine powder is then added, in the manner above mentioned.