Le Viandier de Taillevent - Translation - Wine Remedies

[Part II]

Here follow some remedies and
experiments touching the
making of wines and other
things

Firstly:

161. To improve and redden must or new wine for early sale.

For a hogshead of wine of Paris measure, take 3 deniers weight of milled saffron soaked in the same must. Take a potful of honey which holds 2 deniers, 16 deniers of wine, boil in a pan, stir very well, and let cool. This done, take a bowlful of wheat flour, soak these three things together, [and put them in the barrel]. It will soon be fine and good for drinking and selling.

162. To keep wine from becoming ropy and being troubled.

To a hogshead of wine, add a bowlful of red wine pips dried and then boiled. Take white wine dregs, dry them, burn them to ashes, and put a bowlful of ashes in the barrel without stirring anything.

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163. To cure ropiness in all wines.

Take a bowlful of red wine pips (dried and milled only), a bowlful of fat of the appearance or colour of the wine, a denier of pastry leaven, a half pound of alum, two bells of ginger and a bit of gritty ashes. Put all these 6 things, well ground and beaten, in the barrel. Stir well with a short stick (split at the end into four) so that the scum gushes out. The stick should be only a foot inside the barrel. Tap the bung in.

164. To cure wine turned ropy.

For a Paris hogshead, boil a potful of wheat until it has burst, drain it, and put it to cool. Take some well beaten egg whites, skim them, and put everything in the barrel. Stir with a short stick (split into 4 at the end) which does not reach the dregs, so that they are not disturbed. Hang a pound of ground bastard lovage in a cloth sachet by a thread in the bunghole of the barrel.

165. To cure wine turned ropy or which smells fusty, musky or spoiled.

Beat two denier's worth of ginger and two denier's worth of turmeric together well, boil this powder in 2 quarts of wine, skim it well, put it hot into the barrel, and stir it well right to the bottom. Stopper it well and let it rest until it has settled.

166. To cure wine turned sour.

For a hogshead of wine, boil a pint of the same wine, soak half an ounce of milled berry [bay? juniper?] in the hot wine, put it in the barrel without stirring it a little or a lot, and tap the bung in.

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167. To cure wine turned fusty.

For a hogshead, take [some wine], ten ounces of sugar and half an ounce of milled berry [bay? juniper?], soak everything together, and put it in the barrel without stirring. Alternatively, put live coals in the tun, stopper it very well, and leave it for three days in this state.

168. For wine which has the vigour broken.

Mix a bowlful of tannin and a fistful of peas together, put them in the barrel, and tap the bung in without stirring.

169. To clarify red wine in winter.

For a hogshead, take half a pound of new almonds, soak them in the same wine, and put them in the barrel without stirring. To remove redness from red wine in summer, take two fistfuls of wild mulberry leaves per hogshead, put them in the barrel without stirring, and tap the bung in.

170. To clarify red wine.

Put into the tun 40 egg whites beaten and well skimmed, plus a fistful of salt and two ounces of milled pepper soaked together in the same wine. Stir everything together, dregs and all, tap the bung in, and let it rest.

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