To helpe Wine that reboileth.

A very interesting piece on the refermentation of wine, and the lack of knowledge why...

If any sweete Wines happen to reboile in the hot part of the Summer (as I have often seen, and as manie Vinteners to their great losse have oftentimes felt) then Placentius willeth a little peece or cantle of Cheese to be put into the vessell, and presently a strange effect will follow. Hoc ex anchora famis & sitis. I believe that the corporation of Vintners would give twentie pound yearely to have this secrete warranted to bee true. For the best remedy which they have, is to draw the wine of from the lee into'other cleane caske, thereby perswading themselves to coole the wine, and to stay the boyling thereof. But after a while the inward fire oftentimes beginneth a fresh workmanship, and emunstrateth all their labour, I would esteeme him for a learned Vintner, and worthie to have the next auoydance of Bacchus his chaire, that could give me the true reason of this reboiling of wines. But because I have allotted so great a place of honour to him that can but shewe the reason onely thereof, therefor I will not presume nor professe to knowe the cause efficient, but I durft undertake to perfourme the remedie, if I thought my rewarde would not be somewhat like unto his, that within this few yeares taught diverse of the companie to draw out of a Hogges-head of wine lees, 10 gallons of clear wine at the least, which beeing trickt, or compassed, or at the least mingled with other wine, hath ever since by diverse Vintners beene retailed for wine, whereas before it was wholie solde for lees to the Aqua vitae men. And this is the reason why there hath never since been the like store of lees to make Aqua vitae of, as before the discoverie if this conceit, and that the lees of many Cellors which before were Liquid, are now become stiffe like paste, and may verie well be wrought up into the forme of bals. And if I be not deceived, the first practize thereof began in Paternoster row, and within these few years, but I feare by this time, it is a parcell of manie mens Creede that wil never be left wil the worlds end. Wel, the poore fellow got hardly a good sute of apparell amongst diverse of them to whom hee disclosed the secrete, although some one of them could tell which way presently to raise 30 or 40 .li. per annu' unto themselves. And therefor I see it is no offring of skill in these days to Vintners.

But the better course were to take a Taverne and get a Hollibush if France were more open, and a little more freed of the excessive impost, and so to draw wines as artificially as the best of them. For I can assure you I have almost the whole art as it is this day in use amongest the Vintners, written in a prettie volume entituled, Secreta dei pampinei. And if I durft here so boldly as I could, both truly & largely write of those iumbling sleights, that are to too often practized in our naturall wines by some of the Coopers of London, to the great benefite of the Marchant and Vintner, although themselves, poore foules, get nothing thereby but the hooping of the vessels, and now and then a Can of wine for their labours, a man would wonder from whence such great varietie of iugling should growe or spring, and howe there plaine fellows that nevre read their Grammer, nay scarely know their A, B, C, should be able to run through Ouids Metamorphosis as they doe at midnight. And yet I cannot altogither blame either the Cooper, or the Vintners man for practicing of these alterations, transmutations, and sometimes even real transubstantiations, of white wine into Claret, & old lags of Sacks or Malmesies, with malassoes into Muskadels.

For we are growne so nice in taste, that almost no wines unless they be more pleasant than they can be of the Grape will content us, nay no colour unlesse it be perfect, fine and bright, will satisfie our wanton eyes, whereupon (as I have been creedibly enfourmed by some that have seene the practize in Spaine) they are forced even there to enterlace now and then a lay of Lime with the Sacke grape in the expression thereby to bring their Sackes to bee of a more white colour into England then is naturall unto them, or then the Spaniardes themselves will brooke or endure, who will drinke no other Sackes them such as be of an Amber colour. This makes the Vintners to tricke or compasse all their natural wines if they bee a little hard, with Bastarde to make them sweeter, if they pricke a little they have a decoction of honie with a few Cloves to deceive the taste, if they be clowdie or not perfect fine, they give them either the white or the yellow, parrell, according to the naturall colour of the Wines, wherein they must use Egges, milke, Baysalt, & Conduit water well beaten and laboured together with a stubbed rodde, and then wrought soundlie together with a parrelling staffe, which parrell for the most part in one night (unless the Wines happen to have a flickering Lee) will cause them to fine, whereby you may presently drawe at certaine. But this is daungerous unless it be in a house well customed, for that the Wine may not lie too long upon his parell. And some Wines will not endure long after you have racked them from their parell. Note the wholesomnesse of these Lees to make Aqua Vitae withall. But when the Wines doe rope or beginne to faile or faint in themselves, either in substaunce or in colour, either by age, by the fault of Caske, soyle, salt water, or other accident, then manie tymes the Vintener is driven to his hard shiftes, and then hee helpeth himselfe with Allome, with Turnsole [tournisol, or litmus], Starch, and with manie other Drugges, and aromaticall ware which he fetcheth from the Apothecarie, the particulars whereof I coulde set downe and applie even as they have beene a long time (till within these fewe yeeres) practized in one of the most authentique Tavernes of my time. But my purpose is onely to put some in minde of their grosse night-woorkes which discover themselves by Candlelight at their Celler Windowes, whishing them to leave all unwholesome practizes for mans bodie, least they should  heereafter against my will force mee to publish them to the worlde, I shoulde drawe my Countrey men into such a liking of our Royston Grape, that in the ende they woulde for the most part content themselves with their English and naturall drinke, without raunging so farre for forreine Wines.

The Jewell House of Art and Nature, conteining diverse rare and profitable Inventions, together with sundry new experimentes in the Art of Husbandry, Distillation, and Moulding. By Hugh Platte. London: Peter Short, 1597. Access through Early English Books Online.