To improve Madeira which has been round to the Indies.
Madeira should be kept in a warmer place than port wine, and therefore requires a good body, and to be fed with brandy, but if deficient in flavour or mellowness, add to it a gallon or two of good Malmsey.
To fine Vidonia Wine.
When first imported, Vidonia has a harsh and acid taste; but if properly managed it more resembles Madeira wine than any other. To take off the harshness, fine it down, and then rack it off upon the lees of Madeira or white Port, fining it again with a light fining; and if 20 or 30 gallons of good Madeira wine be added, it will pass for Madeira. For the finings, dissolve two ounces of isinglass, and the whites and shells of six fresh eggs; beat them well up together with a whisk and add a gill of marble sand.
To fine Malmsey and other Wines.
Take 20 fresh eggs, beat the whites, yolks, and shells together, and manage it the same as other finings.—Calcavella, Sweet Mountain, Paxaretta, and Malaga, should be managed and fined in the same manner as Lisbon.—Tent, Muscadine, Sack, and Bastard, should be managed the same as Malmsey, and fined with 16 or 20 fresh eggs, and a quart or three pints of skim-milk. Old Hock, and Vin de Grave, are thin, but pleasant wines, and should be fed with a little good brandy, and fined, if necessary, with the whites and shells of six or eight eggs.
To fine Port Wine.
Take the whites and shells of eight fresh eggs, beat them in a wooden can or pail, with a whisk, till it becomes a thick froth; then add a little wine to it, and whisk it again. If the pipe is full take out four or five gallons of the wine to make room for the finings. If the weather be warmish, add a pint of fresh-water sand to the finings. Stir it well about; after which put in the finings, stirring it for five minutes; put in the can of wine, leaving the bung out for a few hours, that the froth may fall: then bung it up, and in eight or ten days it will be fine and fit for bottling.
To make and apply Finings.
Put the finings into a can or pail, with a little of the liquor about to be fined, whisk them altogether till they are perfectly mixed, and then nearly fill the can with the liquor, whisking it well about again; after which, if the cask be full, take out four or five gallons to make room; then take the staff, and give it a good stirring; next whisk the finings up, and put them in; afterwards stir it with the staff for five minutes. Then drive the bung in, and bore a hole with a gimblet, that it may have vent for three or four days, after which drive in a vent peg.