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Home › Wines, Champagne and Doctoring › To Restore Sour Wine with Potash
To Restore Sour Wine with Potash
3 weeks, and then immediately bottled, and consumed as soon as possible, for it will never prove a good keeping wine.
To restore Pricked or Decaying Wine.
If the wine is only thick, add 2 pints of milk to every 30 gals. of wine and stir 10 minutes. But if the wine has an inferior taste, or is partly or entirely spoiled, treat it as follows:
Put the 30 gals. wine into a clean cask, then take 2 pints spirit of wine, 95 per cent, 3 oz. common salt, 1 lb. white sugar.
Dissolve the salt and sugar in gal. of the wine, and add the spirit. Then pour the whole gradually into the wine, being careful to stir it continually with a stick during the operation. After the mixture is all poured in the wine, stir the whole for 10 minutes longer. Then add 2 pints of milk and continue stirring 10 minutes more. After some days the wine will be completely clarified and restored. "Pricked" wine signifies wine which has been slightly soured.
To remedy Excessive Acidity in German Wine.
You simply add a little chalk. This mode of correcting the sourness of wine is perfectly harmless, whereas the pernicious practice of using white and vitrified lead for this purpose cannot be too much condemned. Lead in any form is a poison.
To restore Sour Wine with Potash.
To 25 gals. wine, add 4 oz. of potash dissolved in a little water, and stir well with a stick for 10 minutes. 172 "SWEATING IN " AND "FRETTING IN" WINES.
How to treat Wines beginning to Decompose Many persons are unaware of the difference between a wine that is beginning to decompose (called in French the Poux), and that in which the acetous fermentation has commenced.
The Poux appears at the bottom of the barrel while acetification begins at the top.
For the first stage of the Poux the wine becomes thick and has a peculiar taste termed flat.
For the second stage the wine becomes still more troubled, and has the taste of stagnant water.
Finally in the last stage, when the decomposition has reached its maximum, the wine becomes greyish and appears like muddy water. If some of the wine is put into a champagne glass and a pinch of tartaric acid is added, a red color will be produced which will not be the case if the wine is in the state of acetous fermentation.
THE BEST REMEDY FOR THE POUX IS AS FOLLOWS:
As soon as discovered add tartaric acid in the proportion of 14 ounces to every 20 gals. of the wine and let it rest for a few days, when if the wine has not regained its natural color a little more tartaric acid must be added. "Sweating In" and "Fretting In" Wine.
The technical terms "sweating in" and "fretting in," are applied to the partial production of a second fermentation, for the purpose of mellowing down the flavor of foreign ingredients (chiefly brandy) added to wine. For this purpose 4 or 5 lbs. of sugar or honey, with a little crude tartar (dissolved), are commonly added per hogs head; and when the wine is wanted in haste, a spoonfu