To improve White Wines.
If the wine have an unpleasant taste, rack off one half; and to the remainder add a gallon of new milk, a handful of bay-salt, and as much rice; after which take a staff, beat them well together for half an hour, and fill up the cask, and when rolled well about, stillage it, and in a few days it will be much improved.
If the white wine is foul and has lost its colour, for a but or pipe take a gallon of new milk, put it into the cask, and stir it well about with a staff; and when it has settled, put in three ounces of isinglass made into a jelly, with a quarter of a pound of loaf sugar scraped fine, and stir it well about. On the day following, bung it up, and in a few days it will be fine and have a good colour.
TO IMPROVE WINE BY CHALK.
Add a little chalk to the must, when it is somewhat sour; for the acidity arising from citric and tartaric acids, there is thus formed a precipitate of citrate and tartrate of lime, while the must becomes sweeter, and yields a much finer wine. Too much chalk may render the wine insipid, since it is proper to leave a little excess of acid in the must. Concentrate the must by boiling, and add the proper quantity of chalk to the liquor, while it is still hot. Even acid wine may be benefited by the addition of chalk. Oyster-shells may be used with this view; and when calcined are a cleaner carbonate of lime than common chalk.
To Renovate Sick Wine.
Wines on the fret should be racked; if their own lees indicates decay they should be racked on the sound lees of another wine of similar, but stronger quality, to protract their decline; if this be done at an early period, it may renovate the sick wine; on these occasions, giving the sick wine a cooler place, will retard its progress to acidity; if convenient, such wines should be forced and bottled. Previous to bottling, or rather at the forcing, give it one, two, or three table-spoonsful of calcined gypsum finely pulverised. This will check its tendency to acidity, without exciting much intumescence, without injuring the colour of the red wine, and without retarding its coating to the bottle, which it rather promotes. The proper forcing for red wines are, the whites of ten or twelve eggs, beat up with one or two tea-spoonsful of salt per hogshead, and well worked into the wine with a forcing-rod; the gypsum should be first boiled in a little water. This is intended to check the acetous process. To retard the vinous, the French are in the habit of burning sulphur immediately under the cask, and possibly the sulphuric acid evolved by the combustion, may check its progress and prevent the necessity of an admixture.
To Mellow Wine.
Cover the orifices of the vessels containing it with bladders closely fastened instead of the usual materials, and an aqueous exhalation will pass through the bladder, leaving some fine crystallizations on the surface of the wine, which, when skimmed off, leaves the wine in a highly improved state of flavour. Remnants of wine covered in this manner, whether in bottles or casks, will not turn mouldy, as when stopped in the usual way, but will be improved instead of being deteriorated.
German method of restoring sour Wines.