This is an operation highly requisite to the keeping wine good; to its purification, strength, colour, brilliancy, richness, and flavour, and is performed by drawing off the wine and leaving the lees in the cask. A siphon should be used but if not, the cask should be tapped two or three days previously. It may be racked off into another cask, or into a vat or tub, and returned into the same cask again, after it has been well cleaned; and, if requisite, the cask may be slightly fumigated, immediately before the wine is returned into it. If the wine, on being tasted, is found weak, a little spirit is to be given to it, the cask filled up and bunged tight.
The racking off ought to be performed in temperate weather, and as soon as the wines appear clear, a second racking will make them perfectly brilliant, and if so they will want no fining.
144. FINING.
Many wines require fining before they are racked, and the operation of fining is not always necessary. Most wines, well made, do not want fining; this may be ascertained by drawing a little into a glass, from a peg-hole.
One of the best finings is as follows:—Take one pound of fresh marsh-mallow roots, washed clean, and cut into small pieces; macerate them in two quarts of soft water, for twenty-four hours, then gently boil the liquor down to three half pints, strain it, and when cold, mix with it half an ounce of pipe-clay or chalk, in powder, then pour the mucilage into the cask, and stir up the wine so as not to disturb the lees, and leave the vent-peg out for some days after.
Or, take boiled rice, two table-spoonsful, the white of one new egg, and half an ounce of burnt alum, in powder. Mix with a pint or more of the wine, then pour the mucilage into the cask, and stir the wine with a stout stick, but not to agitate the lees.
Or, dissolve, in a gentle heat, half an ounce of isinglass in a pint or more of the wine, then mix with it half an ounce of chalk, in powder; when the two are well incorporated, pour it into the cask, and stir the wine so as not to disturb the lees.
As soon as wines are clear and bright, after being fined down, they ought to be racked into a sweet and clean cask, the cask filled up and bunged tight.
145. BOTTLING AND CORKING.
Fine clear weather is best for bottling all sorts of wines, and much cleanliness is required. The first consideration, in bottling wines, is to examine and see if the wines are in a proper state. The wines should be fine and brilliant, or they will never brighten after.