Even if the wine was perfectly fine and clear, when drawn off, it will go through a second fermentation as soon as warm weather sets it—say in May or June. If the wine is clear and fine, however, the fermentation will be less violent, than if it is not so clear, as the lees, which the wine has never entirely deposited; act as they ferment. It is not safe or judicious, therefore, to bottle the wine before this second fermentation is over. As soon as the wine has become perfectly clear and fine again—generally in August or September—it can be bottled. For bottling wine we need: 1st. clean bottles. 2d. good corks, which must first be scalded with hot water, to soften them, and draw out all impurities, and then soaked in cold water. 3d. a small funnel. 4th. a small faucet. 5th. a cork-press, of iron or wood. 6th. a light wooden mallet to drive in the corks.
After the faucet has been inserted in the cask, fill your bottles so that there will be about an inch of room between the cork and the wine. Let them stand about five minutes before you drive in the cork, which should always be of rather full size, and made to fit by compressing it with the press at one end. Then drive in the cork with the mallet, and lay the bottles, either in sand on the cellar floor, or on a rack made for that purpose. They should be laid so that the wine covers the cork, to exclude all air.
The greater bulk of the wine, however, if yet on hand; can be kept in casks. All the wine to be kept thus, should be racked once in about six months, and the casks kept well filled. Most of our native wines, however, are generally sold after the second racking in March, and a great many even as soon as clear—in January.
DISEASES OF THE WINE AND THEIR REMEDIES.
These will seldom occur, if the wine has been properly treated. Cases may arise, however, when it will become necessary to rack the wine, or fine it by artificial means.
TREATMENT OF FLAT AND TURBID WINE.
The cause of this is generally a want of Tannin. If the wine has a peculiar, flat, soft taste, and looks cloudy, this is generally the case. Draw the wine into another cask, which has been well sulphured, and add some pulverized tannin, which can be had in every drug store. The tannin may be dissolved in water—about an ounce to every two hundred gallons of wine—and the wine well stirred, by inserting a stick at the bung. Should it not have become clear after about three weeks, it should be fined. This can be done, by adding about an ounce of powdered gum-arabic to each forty gallons, and stirring the wine well when it has been poured in. Or, take some wine out of the casks—add to each forty gallons which it contains the whites of ten eggs, whipped to foam with the wine taken out—pour in the mixture again—stir up well, and bung up tight. After a week the wine will generally be clear, and should then be drawn off.