Cassell's dictionary of cookery

In this case, instead of decanting it, he will stir up the lees, so as to renew the fermenting process, taking care also to increase the temperature at the same time. At whatever time the wine has been decanted, it is to be fined in the usual way with isinglass. Sometimes it is found expedient to decant it a second time into a fresh cask, and again to repeat the operation of fining. All these removals should be made in clear, dry, and, if possible, cold weather. In any case the wine must be bottled during the month of March! The wines thus produced will generally be brisk, and similar in their qualities (flavour excepted) to the wines of Champagne, with the strength of the best Sillery, if the larger proportions of sugar have been used, but resembling the inferior kinds with the smaller allowance. Inattention, or circumstances which cannot always be controlled, will sometimes cause it to be sweet and still, at other times to be dry. In the former case it may be manufactured the following season, by adding to it that proportion of juice from fresh fruit which the operator's judgment may dictate, and renewing the fermentation and subsequent treatment as before. In the latter case, as its briskness can never be restored, it must be treated as dry wine, by decanting into a sulphured cask, when it must be fined and bottled in the usual manner. Such dry wines are occasionally disagreeable to the taste in the first or second year, but are much improved by keeping, nor ought they to be drunk under five or six years." Wine Jelly for an Invalid (see Jelly, Wine, for an Invalid). Wine Jelly, Madeira.— This jelly is made just like calf's-foot jelly. When the jelly is nearly clarified, pour into the same stewpan a bottle of madeira. As the operation of clarifying takes away the strength of the wine, you must add half a bottle of brandy to it. You must observe that this jelly will keep for several days, and that accordingly what you have left, and what is sent down from table, will be sufficient to supply you with another entremet some other day. This is a common jelly, which cooks frequently serve ; therefore, in order to avoid monotony, you must ornament it with another jelly, which make as follows: — Take four spoonfuls of the wine jelly, break the yolks of four eggs into a stewpan, beat the eggs with the jelly, and lay it on the fire to thicken ; then strain it through a sieve, lay it on ice in a basin, and use it for the same purpose, to decorate as in the recipe Winter Jelly, Mosaic. It sometimes happens that the jellies made of calf's feet wiU break when you turn them upside down into a dish. To prevent this accident, throw in a pinch of isinglass when you are going to clarify the jelly. It gives it a greater substance. This jelly is a monotonous one, but the sagacity of the cook will in some respects alter this character, for he will sometimes give this jelly plain, sometimes with grapes in it, and sometimes put it in a cylinder mould. When you have turned the jelly, have some of the same in ice, take a stewpan cover, chop some of the jelly very fine, and put it sometimes aU round, sometimes in the middle, and try by your intelligence to supply the deficiency of the art whenever you can.