Pricked wines may be improved, if not recovered, by being racked off into a cask that has contained the same kind of wine. The cask should be first matched or sulphured; and, to every ten gallons of wine, put two ounces of oyster-shell powder, and half an ounce of bay-salt; stir it, and leave it a few days to fine; after which, rack it into another cask, also matched.
Burn dry walnuts over a charcoal fire, and when they are well lit, throw them into the wine, and bung up; in forty-eight hours they will correct the acidity. One walnut will suffice for every gallon of wine.
If bottled wine be ropy, shake it for twenty minutes, uncork it, and pour off the froth or scum, when the rest of the wine will be drinkable.
1236. Casking.—The casks should be washed with hot salt and water, then with hot water, and lastly with a portion of the fermented liquor made to boil.
After the liquor is removed into the cask, it will slowly ferment, and some will evaporate. The cask should, however, be kept filled near the bung-hole, else the scum cannot be thrown out.
When the fret subsides, close the bung-hole, and bore a hole for a peg, to be withdrawn occasionally, else the cask may burst.
In the following Spring, determine whether you bottle or keep in wood another year; but wines that have been properly fermented, and promise well, will be improved by remaining in the cask another year. Then, if the wine wants rich flavor, add to twenty gallons, five pounds of sugar-candy.
1237. Bottling.—Brisk wines should be bottled on the approach of Spring.