1872 Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (Mixellany)

Decanting. 41 will be desirable, for ready reference to quantity and date, &c, to have each bin labelled for this pur- pose. A slip of parchment is to be preferred to paper, which is apt to get damp. If the cellar will admit of the accommodation, wine is best decanted there, the crust (or sediment) is thereby much less liable to be disturbed than by a longer move. The brilliancy and flavour, more- over, of the wine is frequently impaired by the agitation it undergoes during transit. Sometimes by that, or hasty and careless decanting, wine is often much injured, both in flavour and appearance, and the improvement, that it has perhaps taken years to effect, completely spoiled. In decanting Port, always keep the chalk-mark uppermost, and use cambric in the strainer, so as to check the bees-wing, or second crust, which only forms some time after the first has formed; it is tarter, and freer from astringent matter than that deposited in the first crust. The other crust must on no account be allowed to pass. Other wines, especially Madeira, require great care in decanting. It is also desirable for the decanter to be quite as warm as the wine that enters it. All sparkling wines should be binned in the coolest part of the cellar—the cork kept downward.