The wine is then siphoned once again from its sediment, and another dose of meta added at the same rate of ¼ teaspoon per 5 gallons.
If the wine is brilliantly clear, one container of it may then be siphoned into wine bottles, corked or capped, and is ready for immediate use. Despite the common impression, most wine does not gain greatly by aging once it is stable. It continues to evolve, but not necessarily for the better.
The rest of the wine is held until after the return of warm weather to make sure there will be no resumption of fermentation, which would blow corks if the wine was bottled. By mid-May that hazard will have passed, and the wine is ready for its final siphoning, its final dose of the same quantity of meta, and bottling.
_Fining._ If in January the wine is not brilliantly clear, it should be “fined”. This consists of dissolving in a small amount of hot water and mixing in, at the time of siphoning, ordinary household gelatin at the rate of ¼ ounce (2 teaspoonsful) per 5 gallons. This will turn the wine milky when mixed in and will slowly settle, dragging all impurities and suspended matter with it. In two weeks to a month the process of “fining” will be complete. The wine is then ready to be siphoned from the fining sediment and treated as above.
As we have seen, red wine is fermented “on the skins” in order to extract the coloring matter and other ingredients lodged in the skins. In making white wine, the grapes are crushed and the fresh juice immediately separated by pressing so that it may ferment apart from the skins.
This fresh juice is checked for its sugar content and acidity, as in preparing to ferment red wine, and the proper corrections are made immediately after pressing. Likewise, a yeast “starter” is added.
The fermentation takes place in the same 5-gallon glass containers that are later used for storage. But as fermenters they are filled only two-thirds full as a precaution against any overflow or unmanageable formation of bubbles.
When the primary fermentation has run its course, the several partly-filled bottles are simply consolidated—filled full and equipped with bubblers. Subsequent siphoning from sediment, chilling, and dosing with meta are carried out as with red wine.