Volume 73: Macarthur family memoranda and accounts relating to wine, 1838-1930: No. 032
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pg 32
[Brandy?] must be made to save it from a second and [infurious?] fermentation, or it must be distilled. So long as a brisk effervescence continues at the [bung?] there is no danger - The fermentation ought always to [rise?] gra-dually and to fall still more gradually - For Sweet wines the saccharine principle must be cautiously added, always however before the brisk fermentation ceases. It in that case becomes converted into grape sugar, and if pure, is precisely in effect as if the grapes had been made richer by drying up the watery parts of their juice - If added late, when there is only a very slight effervescence left, the sweet remains cane sugar, and the result is a very different and not so good a wine as if it had been added at the right moment. At the close of the fermentation the Spec. Grav. ought not be over 1010° - 1012°, and better if not above 1006° or 1008°, perhaps even lower, that is after all the spirit has been added.
In practice we have found that not [less?] than 8 [per?] [cent?] of proof spirit is [≈?] requisite, to guard against a second and infurious fermentation when wines and [indecipherable] sweet, [indecipherable] it is of importance that it should be gradually added during the fermentation, that it may be worked in - Chemically combined, and not merely [mixed?]
When the fermentation has been successful all wines clear themselves early-
If they do not, they must be carefully watched - The first general [racking?] ought to take place in cold clear wea-ther if possible, and by mid- winter.
On each cask should be marked either its original Spec. Grav. or what it has been brought to by additions. -
A. [indecipherable] Sugar ----
B. Spirit