Occupations > British wine-maker, and domestic brewer

UNRIPE GOOSEBERRIES.
57
cannot be too much care taken in the choosing
corks, lest the wine spoil in some of the bottles,
when the corks are defective; therefore, great
care should be taken in the choosing them, when
you would draw off fine wines into bottles, whether
it be for keeping or to be sent abroad. When
bottles are used that have been made use of before,
they should be washed with leaden shot and a
little water, to fetch off the filth that shall remain
on the bottom of the bottles; but it is much better
in the room of them to use small nails, because
they perfectly take off all that which sticks to the
glass. When all the bottles that suffice to empty
one cask are filled, they tie the mouth of the
bottle over to the neck with a strong pack-thread;
and if it be a fine wine, they commonly seal it
with Spanish wax, that the wine may not be
changed, nor the bottles, by the domestics; and
some persons have their coats of arms made on the
bottles, which does not enhance the price above
thirty sols per cent. When all the bottles are
well stopped, tied down, and sealed, they ought
to be set either in a vault or cellar upon sand,
two or three fingers deep, and laid sideways,
leaning against one another; when they are set
upright, they form a white flower upon the wine
at the top, in the small empty space that is be¬
tween the top of the mouth of the bottle and the
wine; for the bottles ought never to be filled up