Decanting Basket.
Fig. 41.
Corkscrews.
Fig. 42.
Decanting Instrument.
The Operation may be Performed by carefully pouring the wine into the empty bottle through a small funnel, which is provided with a strainer. By means of a light placed below the bottle, the sediment can be watched, and as soon as it is about to run out with the wine, the operation must cease. The new bottle must be filled up with the same kind of wine and immediately corked. In decanting in this manner, the bubbling of the air passing into the bottle as the wine runs out, is very apt to disturb the lees. This may be prevented by using a small tube, slightly curved, which connects the air outside with the vacant space in the bottle. In order to prevent access of the air, however, an instrument is used consisting of two conical corks, connected by a small rubber tube. Each cork is pierced with two holes; the one placed in the bottle to be emptied, besides the hole which receives the rubber hose through which the wine runs, is provided with one through which a bent tube is placed to admit the air; the hose passes through the other cork and conducts the wine into the other bottle, and this cork has another hole for the escape of the air ([fig. 42]).
CHAPTER XVII.
CUTTING OR MIXING WINES.
Most French Wines Mixed.—Maigne, speaking of the wines of France, says, that of one hundred wines in the market, perhaps there are not ten which are not produced by mixing several different kinds. Without doubt, he says, we should as much as possible preserve the products of the vine as they are given to us; but there are a multitude of cases where it is absolutely impossible to render them drinkable without mixing, or as wine men say, without cutting them with other wines.