merica; and the third growth principally to Holland and Hamburgh.
In order to strengthen the natural body of claret wine, and to render it
capable of bearing the transition of the sea, the first and second
growths are allowed from ten to fifteen gallons of good Alicant wine to
every hogshead, with one quart of stum.[8] The casks are then filled up
and bunged down. They are then ranged three tier high from one end of
the cellar to the other, each tier about eighteen inches, with two
stanchions of stout pine plank, firmly placed between the heads of each
hogshead, from one end of the cellar to the other, until they have
reached, and are supported by, the end walls of the building. This
precaution is necessary to guard against the force of fermentation,
which is often so strong as to burst out the heads of the hogsheads,
notwithstanding the precautions taken to secure them in the situation
during the summer heats. The wine cooper, who has the charge of these
wines, regularly visits them twice a day, morning and evening, in order
to see the condition of the casks, and when he finds the fermentation
too strong, he gives vent, and thus prevents the bursting of the casks.
The third, or inferior growth, is exactly treated in same way, with the
single exception of having Benicarlo wine substituted for Alicant in
preparing them for their second fermentation, as cheaper and better
suited to their quality; both these wines are of Spanish growth, and
brought to Bordeaux by the canal of Languedoc: they are naturally of a
much stronger body than native claret. Thus mixed and fermented, the
claret becomes fortified, and rendered capable of bearing the transition
of seas and climates. About the latter end of September, or beginning of
October, the fermentation of these wines begins to slacken, and they
gradually become fine; in this state they are racked off into fresh
hogsheads carefully cleansed, and a match of sulphur burned in each
before filling. After this operation, they are suffered to remain
undisturbed (save that they are occasionally ullaged,) till about to be
shipped, when they are racked off a second time, and fined down with the
white of ten eggs to each hogshead; these whites are well beat up
together with a small handful of white salt; after this fining, when
rested, the hogsheads are filled up again with pure wine, and then
carefully bunged down with wooden bungs, surrounded with clean linen to
prevent leaking; in this st