CHAPTER XX.

ON WINES, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

Several treatises have been written on wine in most European countries. Lord Bacon, in the days of Elizabeth, did not disdain to give his attention to the subject; and his Italian contemporary, Andrea Bacci, the physician of the able Sextus the Fifth, has given us probably the best history of wine in that rare and curious book, “De Naturali Vinorum Historia.” About a century ago a Sir Edward Barry, then a physician at Bath, and afterwards state physician to the Viceroy of Ireland, published his “Observations, Historical, Critical, and Medical, on the Wines of the Ancients; and on the Analogy between them and Modern Wines.” In consequence of the interest excited by the topic, this work, now somewhat rare, acquired a certain repute, but it does not now stand in the estimation it did half a century ago. Much that Barry tells us of the ancient wines is borrowed from Bacci; and there is a great deal of useless disquisition mixed with some absurdity. The late Dr. Henderson, a good judge of wine, and who had some excellent wine in his cellar, published his “History of Ancient Wines” some seven or eight and thirty years ago, in which there is a great deal of interesting and useful information. This was followed by a “History and Description of Modern Wines,” commenced by Mr. Cyrus Redding in 1832, and published in 1833. The work was so useful and successful that a second edition was called for in 1835, and published in 1836.[30] From 1836 to the past year there has not been anything very remarkable published in England on the subject of wines. In the month of December last Mr. J. G. Shaw published a work entitled, “Wine, the Vine, and the Cellar,” and in January of the present year, Mr. Denman, also a wine merchant, published a work called the “Wine and its Fruit,” more especially in relation to the production of wine. Both of these works are well printed and illustrated, but they really add little to what was before known on the subject by any one who has made wine his study.

Barry tells us it was the reading of Hippocrates as a professional duty which first led him to the consideration of the subject of wines. Hippocrates described the various qualities of wines, and adapted vinous mixtures to different diseases and constitutions. By lessening the proportion of water usually mixed with wine, he made a powerful cordial; as, by increasing the water, he obtained a cooling diluent.

It is impossible to deny that wine, taken in moderation, tends to strengthen and excite the spirits, to cheer and comfort the languid, and to refresh the toil-worn and exhausted. The poets of Greece and Rome celebrate the praises of wine, and, as though the invention of the liquor were too transcendental to be human, attribute it to the gods--to Osiris, Saturn, and Bacchus. Anacreon calls the juice of the grape ambrosial; and Homer himself bestows on wine the epithet divine, πoτoν θείον.

Plato, while he would strictly restrain the use and severely censure excess in wine, maintains with more than his usually persuasive power, that nothing more excellent than the juice of the grape was ever granted by God to man. It appears from the ancient historians that the rules for the culture and preparation of wine and grapes descended from the Egyptians to the Greeks, who improved and perfected them, and that the Romans, in turn, became the scholars of the Greeks.

As the soil of Italy was favourable to the vine, vineyards soon spread through the country. Italy became distinguished by the name of _Œnotria_., and the inhabitants were called _Œnotrii viri_. An infinity of wines were produced from the various species of grapes. Virgil, who was as familiar with agriculture as he excelled in poetry, says it would be as easy to enumerate the sands of the sea-shore as the different species of wine.

Pliny carefully collected all that had been written before his time on the subject of the vine. He describes the various species of the _vitis_, and the mode and manner of making wines. He enumerates the principal wines of Asia, Greece, and Italy.

Cato, Marcus, Varro, and Columella have also written on the culture of the vine and wine-making; and it appears from the productions of these writers that they perfectly understood the racking off into fresh casks which had been previously impregnated with the vapour of sulphur. Out of these authors and Palladius, Mr. Redding admits that an excellent treatise might be formed on the grape and its products; though he states, and truly, that on the qualities and flavour of the ancient wines the moderns must be content to remain in ignorance.

We know, for instance, that the light and delicate Setine, was the favourite wine of Augustus; that it is commended by Martial, Juvenal, and Silius Italicus, who pronounces it to be worthily reserved for Bacchus himself, “ipsius mensis seposta Lyaci.” I am not, however, quite so sure as Dr. Barry that it was the wine so much recommended by St. Paul to Titus for strengthening the stomach. “It was grown,” says Henderson, “on the heights of Sezza,” and though nota strong wine, possessed sufficient firmness and permanence to undergo the operation of the _fumarium_; for Juvenal alludes to some which was so old that the smoke had obliterated the mark of the jar in which it was contained. The process which these wines underwent in the _fumarium_ gave to them a greater transparency and more early maturity. This method had been long known to the Greeks, their αποθηκη being equivalent to the Roman _fumarium_. The ancients were perfect adepts in these methods of forcing wines, and they used for the purpose plain and burnt salt, bitter almonds, the whites of eggs, and particularly isinglass. But when wines were more than usually foul, they added sand, or marble finely powdered. Salt water, also, was frequently used to depurate and preserve wine. This discovery is said to have been owing to a slave’s having drunk part of a cask of wine committed to his care and concealed the fraud with sea water; the wine thus falsified was found to be superior to the wine of the same growth contained in the other casks. The Romans were but children in the art of adulteration, when compared with the Greeks. Palladius gives several receipts which were used by the Greeks for improving the flavour, colour, and strength of their wines, and likewise to give to new the qualities of old wine; in one, a mixture of hepatic aloes had a considerable share. Cato favours us also with a curious receipt for making an artificial _Chian_ wine with the _Falernian_. He directs that the sea-water should be taken up at a great distance from the land, and that it should be kept in casks for some time before being used.

The _Cæcuban_ wine is described as a generous, strong-bodied wine, which would keep, but which would affect the head if taken in quantity: in a word, it was a heady liquor, which the modern French would call, as they do the _vin de Jurançon_, “_capiteux_.” Like most heady wines, too, it required long keeping ere it was ripe. It was one of the favourite wines of Horace, and was generally reserved for important festivals:--

“Antehac nefas depormere Cæcubum Cellis avitis.”

The far-famed _Falernian_ was grown about the bases of hills. Galen observes that were two sorts of _Falernian_, the dry and the sweetish. The latter was only produced when the wind continued in the south during the vintage. Martial dignifies _Falernian_ with the epithet immortal:--

“Addere quid cessas, puer, immortale Falernum?”

But, although the name of the _Falernian_ be familiar in our mouths as “household words,” nothing is known of its taste, flavour, or colour. It is, however, described as a strong wine, that would keep long, and so rough, that it required to be cellared a great number of years before it was sufficiently mellow.

The wines of the _Mons Falernus_, however, always preserved a superior character. Tibullus places them under the superintending care of Bacchus. Silius Italicus gives them a preference over the Asiatic and Greek wines; and Virgil, in bestowing smooth, flowing praises on the _vinum Rhæticum_, says, it must, nevertheless, yield the palm to the _Falernian_.

Among the lighter wines of the Roman territory, the _Sabinum_, _Nomentanum_, and _Venafrum_, were among the most popular. “The first,” says Henderson, “was a thin table wine, of a reddish colour, attaining its maturity in seven years. The _Nomentanum_, a delicate claret wine, is described as coming to perfection in five or six years.” Among the Sicilian wines, the _Mamertinum_, which came from the neighbourhood of Messina, and is said to have been first introduced at public entertainments by Julius Cæsar, was light and astringent.

The Greeks were fonder of wine than the Romans, and were supplied with a greater variety. Among the earliest of the Greek wines, of which we have any distinct account is the _Maronean_, “probably,” says Henderson, “the production of Ismaurus, near the mouth of the Hebrus, where Ulysses received the supply which he carried with him on his voyage to the land of the Cyclops. The _Maronean_ was a black, sweet wine, and from the manner in which Homer sings its virtues, the quality must have been indeed superior. The _Pramnian_ a red, but not a sweet wine, of equal antiquity. It was a potent and durable liquor, and must have somewhat resembled port. It was, however, in the luscious, sweet wines that the Greeks surpassed their neighbours. These wines were the products of the islands of the Ionian and the Ægean Seas, where the exquisite climate and a suitable soil gave to the fruit a peculiar flavour and excellence. Lesbos, Chios, and Thasos, seems, according to Henderson, to have contended for the superiority; but several of the other islands, such as Corcyra, Cyprus, Crete, Cnidos, and Rhodes, yielded wines which were much esteemed for their sweetness and delicacy. The Thasian and some of the Cretan wines were peculiarly fragrant. Athenæus calls the former οινος ανθοσμιος.”

The Greeks, _gourmets_ as they were, did not confine themselves to the indigenous growths. They were familiar with the produce of the African and Asiatic wines, of which several enjoyed a high reputation. They drank of the white wines of Mareotis and Taenia, in Lower Egypt; of the wine of Antylla, the produce of the vicinity of Alexandria; of the sweet wine of Lydia, in Asia Minor; of the Scybellites, so called from the place of its growth in Galatia, also in Asia Minor. The Greeks, like the Romans, drank all their wines, especially those of the stronger kind, very largely diluted with water, for their common drink. Plutarch has mentioned three different kinds of mixtures. The πεντε, or five, consisted of three parts of water and two of pure wine; and the τρια, or three, of two parts of water and one of wine; the fourth consisted of three parts of water, and one of wine.

Athenæus mentions a mixture called πεντε και δυο, which consisted of five parts of pure wine and two of water.

The recent Greek wines, which were meant for more immediate use, were kept in goat-skins. But, even in Homer’s time the Greeks were well acquainted with the art of preserving their best and stronger wines in wooden casks, or hogsheads (which he calls πιθοι), until they had attained a proper maturity.

As to the Gauls, it is certain that, six centuries before Christianity was introduced, they knew the use of wine; for, when the Phocæans came to found Marseilles, Petta, the daughter of a king of the country, presented, according to Athenæus, to Euxenes their chief, a cup filled with wine and water. But who first planted the vine in Gaul, and who first cultivated it there? It would be difficult to answer these questions. According to Justin and Strabo, it appears that the Phocæans were not only the first to introduce the vine among the Gauls, but the first to learn them to cut and cultivate it. Pliny, on the other hand, says it was a person named Elicoa, who, having made some money at Rome, and wishing to return to his country, carrying with him wine and dried fruits, sold them to the inhabitants, exhorting them to the conquest of the flowing, fruitful land that produced such liquor. Cicero tells us, that one of the most lucrative of commercial transactions among the Gauls was the exportation of their wine to Italy. Columella counts these wines among the number rendered necessary for consumption in Rome,--“Nobis e transmarinis provinciis advehitur frumentum, ne fame laboremus; et vindemias condimus ex insulus Cycladibus, ac regionibus Beticis Gallicisque.” Diodorus Siculus, however, maintains that it was the Italian wines that were consumed in Gaul, and states the Ultramontane dealers who carried them gained immense sums in this commerce. Possidonius, an author contemporary with Diodorus and Cicero, and who had travelled in Gaul, is cited by Athenæus to prove that it was only the richest of the nation that drank wine, which they imported from Italy or the territory of Marseilles.

There is some reason to believe that the vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the Antonines. In the beginning of the fourth century, the orator Eumenius speaks of the vines in the territory of Autun, which were decayed through age, and the first plantation of which was totally unknown. The Pagus Arebrignus is supposed by M. d’Anville to be the district of Beaune, celebrated now for a fine growth of Burgundy.

When the Romans had submitted that portion of Gaul to their arms which is called Provence, the Roman colonists in Dauphiné, Provence, and a part of Languedoc, extended vine-plantations. Soon they spread far and wide, and, in the time of Cæsar, many provinces were in possession of vines, as Strabo, Varro, and Cæsar himself, testify.

Among the excellent grapes peculiar to Gaul, Columella numbers those of the _Bituriges_; but, as this name was common both to the people of Berry and of the Bordelais, it is difficult to divine to which of the provinces the praise of the Latin author properly applies. The probability, however, is, that it refers to the Bordelais; for Ausonius, who lived in the fourth century of the Christian era, loudly boasts of the wine of Bordeaux.

The mode of training the vine in Gaul consisted in intertwining the branches amongst each other, which differed essentially from the Roman system. The ancient Gaulish practice subsists to this day in Provence, in Languedoc, in Bearn, and in the eastern portion of Dauphiné. The Gauls, who manured their fields with marl, used ashes as a compost for the roots of their vines.

Marseilles, says Pliny, produces a rich, thick wine, which has two flavours, and serves to mix with other wines. It is difficult, he continues, to pronounce on the merits of the wines of Narbonne, because the wine-makers, with a view to change their taste and colour, adulterate them, mix them with herbs and noxious drugs, even with aloes. These tricks were in Italy reduced to a trade, and the wine-doctors were called _Conditura vinorum_. But notwithstanding these faults, writes Athenæus, the wine of Marseilles was good, and possessed, above all, the quality of ripening other wines when mixed with them.

The Narbonnese were not the only adulterators. The Allobroges, a people of Dauphiné, had a particular pitch which they mixed with their wine. If we are to believe Dioscorides, the infusion of pitch was a necessary ingredient in the Gaulish wines; otherwise, says he, they would have soured, the climate not being warm enough to ripen the grape. The reason assigned by Dioscorides would prove either that the climate of Gaul was then really colder than it is now, or that the art of making wine was still in its infancy. Excellent wine is now made in provinces more northward than Dauphiné, and still better in the north of France, and the countries bathed by the waters of the Moselle and the Rhine. No doubt, innocent means may be employed in cold years, without any risk, to give to the wine a quality which it wants. For a long while the Champenois have been in the habit of smoking their casks with sulphur before using them. The Abbé Rozier, in a Memoir upon the best manner of making the wines of Provence, proposes, when the wine is austere or acid, to dilute honey in the must before it ferments. M. de Prefontaine, in the “Maison Rustique de Cayenne,” published in 1763, speaking of the grapes produced in that island, says that if they were to be used for the purpose of making wine, their natural tartness might be corrected by adding a little sugar. But this practice had been long previously secretly followed in that portion of the Bordelais traversed by the Dordogne, whose principal towns are Bergerac and St. Foi. At the commencement of the last century the wines of this province suddenly acquired such a renown, that there were proprietors who, in a few years, quadrupled the price. The neighbouring proprietors suspected there was something wrong, some secret they could not fathom. They watched for a long while, and at length discovered that immense quantities of sugar arrived in the night. This discovery at first led to nothing; but, in the end a cooper, who knew the secret, having been dismissed from an establishment in which he had been employed, revealed the secret in order to revenge himself. Only five or six families profited by the man’s treason. They took good care to keep the profit to themselves, till a M. Vaucocour published a letter, in which he disclosed the receipt, which consisted in reducing the sugar to a syrup, and then in aromatising it with peach-flowers or the like.

The Marseillais had, in the olden time, another method. This was to boil and smoke their wines in order to thicken them, and to give them the appearance and flavour of old wines:--

“Improba Massiliæ quidquid fumaria cogunt, Accipit ætatem quisquis ab igne cadus.”

The Romans were also in the habit of smoking their wines. The proof is recorded in Horace:--

“Amphoræ fumum bibere institutæ.”

Tibullus also alludes to it:--

“Nunc mihi fumosos veteris proferte Falernos Consulis.”

Baccius, in his work, “De Naturali Vinorum Historia,” speaking of the wines in Alsace, says that they were kept exposed to the smoke in hot chambers, where they became so thick that they were no longer drinkable, unless they were beaten with twigs or diluted with hot water. The following are his words:--“Super fumo diu et in æstuariis retenta, eam acquirunt vetustate crassitiem, ut potari per se non possint, nisi diu agitata immissis scopis aut origis dissolvantur, vel eliquata per aquam calidam fiant potui idonea: quo usu legimus crassa fuisse antiquis vina, quæ similiter per aquam calidam essent dissolvenda.”

Since the discoveries made at Herculaneum and Pompeii, there have been found among the ruins one of the vases which served for the operation of which I speak, and in which the wine had entirely dried. A similar vase or urn has been discovered in the territory of Vienne, in which the inspissated juice of the wine had crystallized.

Whatever were the processes employed in Gaul for the preparation of wine, many of its vineyards had acquired reputation, and had, moreover, become a source of wealth. This rising spring of riches was soon dried up by the tyrants who reigned over the country. The year of the Christian era 92 having been unpropitious to corn and favourable to the vine, a general scarcity followed. Domitian, who was then emperor, concluded that the cause of this was, that the vines were too numerous, and corn not sufficiently sown. Proceeding on this false assumption, he published an edict, by which he ordered that in the greatest part of the provinces of the empire half of the vines should be rooted out, and that in the others they should be entirely destroyed. Towards the year 282, Probus abrogated it. After having, by his victories, restored peace to the empire, the wise and valiant emperor, says Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Vopiscus, and Eusebius, restored to the provinces the liberty of replanting the vine. The Gauls commenced the task with alacrity. The Roman legions spread abroad in Gaul were employed in these plantations, for it was the wise policy of Rome, when her soldiers were not engaged in war, to occupy them in useful public labours. Soon were the greater number of the hills of Gaul covered with vines; and these were not, as in the times of the two first Cæsars, bounded by the north of the Cevennes; for almost each province, on the contrary, had its vineyards.

In the Salique law, as well as in the law of the Visigoths, penalties are decreed against those who shall destroy a cutting of the vine, or who shall steal grapes. The protection which the government accorded to this species of property caused it to be regarded as sacred. Chilperic having decreed that each vine-proprietor should annually furnish him with an _amphora_ of wine for his table, there was, says Aimoin, a revolt in Limousin, and the officer whose duty it was to receive this odious tribute was massacred. So great had the passion for the vine become that the French kings turned a portion of their private domains into vineyards. Each of their palaces had its vineries, with wine-presses and all the utensils necessary for the vintage. From the Capitularies of Charlemagne we learn that the monarch entered into this species of administration in the minutest detail. When, after the death of Louis the Débonnaire, the three sons of that prince, laying down their arms, agreed on the division of his estates, Charles the Bald had Western France; Lothaire, Eastern France and Italy; and Louis, that portion which was situated in Germany beyond the Rhine. But as this latter had no vineyards, the Saxon Chronicle and the Chronicle of the monk Sigebert remark that there were joined to his division some towns or villages beyond the river which produced wine. The Louvre itself, like the other royal palaces of France, inclosed vineyards within its precincts. That such vineyards were considerable appears from the fact that in 1160 Louis le Jeune could annually assign out of their produce six _muids_ of wine to the curate of St. Nicholas.

Among the “Fabliaux of the Thirteenth Century,” published by Le Grand, there is one entitled “La Bataille des Vins,” in which the author supposes that the King, Philip Augustus, causes to be brought to his table all known wines, national as well as foreign, in order to examine which are worthy of admission. The monarch is in this piece represented as a confirmed _gourmet_, and lover of good wine. From an account of the revenues of this king, left us by Brussel, we learn that in the matter of wines Philip loved variety, and wished to have a copious cellar, for he possessed vineyards at Bourges, at Soissons, at Compiegne, at Lân, at Beauvais, at Auxerre, Corbeil, Betesi, Orleans, Moret, Poissi, Gien, Anet, Chalevanc, Verberies, Fontainbleau, Rurecourt, Milli, Bois Commun, Samoi, and Auvers. Breton, in his Latin poem on Philip, counts the wines of Gascony and La Rochelle among the articles of commerce which Flanders took of France. The wines of Guyenne were not only sold in Flanders, but in much greater quantity in England. The same political considerations which induced us to close our ports twenty years ago to French wines unless on the payment of a very considerable import duty, caused us then to open them to the wines of a province subject to English authority. Matthew Paris, speaking of the discontent and bitterness which prevailed in Gascony in 1251 against Henry III., states that public opinion was so exasperated, that these provinces would have revolted had they not need of England for the sale of their wine. A fact related by Froissart will give us an idea of the extent of the trade at that time. “In 1372,” says this historian, “there arrived from England, at Bordeaux, 209 sail of merchantmen, which came for wine.” Champier, who wrote about a century and a half after Froissart, remarks, that from his time England scarcely consumed any other wine or corn than that of France, and that, when this commerce was interrupted by war, England experienced a species of famine. “So that,” said he, “France may boast of having in her hands power of producing famine or abundance in England.”

Although the other French provinces had not such advantageous outlets for their commerce as Guyenne, the vine was, nevertheless, cultivated with an equal success. This may be seen by the “Fabliaux” cited, in which the French wines dispute the preference with foreign. These effects were solely brought about by the national industry; the government did nothing to recompense or favour it, and when it did concern itself about the French wine-trade its interference was injurious. The kingdom having experienced a scarcity, in consequence of the bad harvest of 1566, Charles IX. wrongly attributed the cause to the too great abundance of vines, and, like Domitian, proscribed them. An _ordonnance_ published by him directed that in each canton, or district, the vines should only occupy a third of the ground; the other two-thirds were to be converted into arable or pasture lands. In 1577 Henry III. modified the _ordonnance_ of the king his brother, recommending to all the officers charged with the government of his provinces to see that the arable land was not left uncultivated to give place to an excessive plantation of the vine.

The edict published under the reign of Louis XV. was not so foolish as the preceding one. Many intendants of provinces having represented that the vines occupied an undue space of lands fitted for corn or pasturage; that it caused the dearness of wood; that it multiplied the quantity of wine to such an excess that the value and reputation were in a number of places destroyed; the king, in 1731, forbade any new plantation of vines, and directed that vineyards which had ceased to be cultivated for two years should no longer be continued.

It often happened that proprietors of wines, not being able to get rid of their article, preferred to sell it in retail. In this contingency they suspended to the threshold of their door a broom, a crown of ivy, or something similar. Those who wished to purchase carried a pot with them, and thence came the expression, _vendre à pot_. Some caused their wine to be announced by the public crier.

It will appear from what I have written that the attention paid to vine-dressing and the cultivation of the vine was the result of a perfect knowledge of husbandry.

I have already said that the wines of the ancients were racked and fined, but there seems to have been as much adulteration 1800 years ago as at the present moment. Adulterations are repeatedly mentioned in the classic writers. After the wine was made and underwent the secondary fermentation, it was placed in pitched skins, or in earthen vessels, denominated _amphoræ_, containing twenty-seven _old_ English gallons.

That the ancients understood the process of maturing wines perfectly is evident from all the writers on the subject. After the wine was made and put into the vat, where it underwent the secondary fermentation, it was placed in pitched skins, closed with a lid of baked earth, and hermetically sealed.[31]

It were a curious task to trace how long domestic customs and utensils survive forms of polity and government. In glancing at such a subject, I merely remark that the _amphoræ_ have outlived the Roman emperors, the republic, nay even the Roman nation and people, and all their magnificent institutions. It is impossible now to pass forty-eight hours in the neighbourhood of Asti Montepulciano, Montefiascone, or any of the wine districts of Italy, without being struck with the identity to the _amphoræ_ of those earthen vessels with two handles, holding from about eighteen to twenty quarts of our measure, which one sees in every cellar, and almost in every street. Suetonius tells us of a man who aspired to the quæstorship, and drank the contents of a whole _amphora_ at a repast given by the Emperor Tiberius, “Ob epotam in convivo propinante se vini amphoram;” but, though there may be men in Scotland, or Scotchmen in England, who could carry away so much liquor and be none the worse for it, the capacity of any Englishman to do as much may be doubted.

The use of casks or wine hogsheads were unknown to the Greeks and Romans.[32] They could therefore only transport their wines in earthen vessels or skins, which in the older English authors are queerly and alliteratively called “borachio bottles.” The earthen vessels presented the inconvenience of being fragile, whilst the skins were subject to bursting, to become insecure, &c. My late excellent and learned friend Dr. Henderson states, and truly, that the Romans occasionally employed glass. They undoubtedly did so; but the accomplished historian of wines is wrong when he affirms that they brought the manufacture of glass to a great degree of perfection; for nothing, on the contrary, can be more common than those specimens of glass found in Pompeii, and those drinking-cups and lachrymatories, various specimens of which may be seen in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. That glass, however, was used at table in those days appears certain from a passage in which he speaks of those glass magnums or jugs, as being large and closed with a species of plaster or Roman cement. “Adlatæ sunt amphoræ vitreæ diligenter gypsatæ.” He elsewhere says, “Amphoras copiosas gypsatas ne effluat vinum.”

All the Latin authors agree that the ingenious invention of casks is due to the Gauls, who established themselves along the banks of the Po; but we are entirely ignorant if the Greeks knew the cooper’s art before they left their native country, or if they invented casks and hogsheads after their transmigration beyond the Alps. Notwithstanding the incontestable superiority of casks over skins, these latter continued to be still used. That they were much in vogue would appear from one of the capitularies of Charlemagne, in which, glancing at the prevalence of skins, he forbids his people to use any other vessels than good barrels (_bonos barridos_) hooped with iron.

At the Roman entertainments there was a particular part of the convivial room set apart for the reception of the wines. Here the various vessels and drinking-cups were ranged on a table called αβαξ, or _abacus_. This was generally of marble, in the form of a long square, not unlike the modern sideboard. From the account which Philo Judæus gives of the number of vessels placed on it, it must have been very large. Pliny, speaking of the rich spoils exhibited by Pompey in the triumph he obtained for his victories over the pirates, says that the number of drinking vessels adorned with jewels was sufficient to furnish nine _abaci_: “Triumpho quem de piratis Asia, Ponto, egit, transtulit lectos tridiniares tres; vasa ex auro et gemmis abacorum novem.”[33] Cicero charges Verres with having plundered the _abaci_, “Ab hoc iste abaci vasa omnia ut exposita fuerant abstulit,” and Dr. Barry, in giving this quotation, misquotes it, “In abacis erant abstulit.” These articles of luxury, according to Livy, were imported from Asia first as luxuries, but soon, like all other superfluous wants, they became necessaries. The ancients had, like the moderns, servants like our butlers, specially charged with the care of the wine. The office necessarily required judgment and experience. The head butler is called by Pollux οἰνοπτης. His business was to inspect the wines before and after they had been prepared, and mixed in another apartment. When they were placed on the _abacus_, he stood there as a modern butler or _maître d’hôtel_ does at our side-boards, and gave his orders to the underlings and slaves. The next in office under the butler was the pinceran or οἰνοχοος, which we should render as the pourer out of wine, or cup-bearer, the word being used in this sense both by Homer and Xenophon. This man received all his directions from the butler, and by him and his _acolytes_ the wines were regularly prepared and distributed to the guests. Of these inferior ministering agents there were many, and of different degrees. It was a part of the luxury of the times to be waited on by beautiful boys, purchased at high prices, who served the master and the superior guests; but the inferior ones and those of meaner condition were served by African slaves of coarse appearance, woolly-headed, and of most unsavoury odour. Notwithstanding the number of servants and slaves, many mistakes unavoidably happened in the mixture of wine. Nor is this wonderful when it is considered that the host and his guests called for wine variously diluted either with hot or cold water, and occasionally for whatever strong wine was agreeable to them. Cicero, describing a supper, alludes to the symposium of Xenophon, where the wines were prepared by hot water and afterwards cooled in snow: “Et pocula sicut in symposio Xenophontis minuta atque rorantia et refrigeratio in æstate, et vicissim aut sol, aut ignis hibernus.” Of the quantity of wine drank on these occasions we have no very certain account. Pliny says that Democritus wrote a volume to prove that no one ought to exceed the fourth or sixth glass; but instances have been given of persons who have drunk a _congius_ or gallon in one draught.

There are many who think that the cooling of wine by snow is a modern invention; but that this system was perfectly known to the Greeks and Romans, as I before observed, is sufficiently evident. The vessels which contained the wine mixed with boiled water were immersed in the snow, and such wine is particularly distinguished by Martial. This invention is ascribed by Pliny to Nero, who prided himself more on this improvement in luxury than Augustus did in encouraging the fine arts.

It was a common practice at the convivial meetings of the Greeks and Romans to drink, not only to the healths of distinguished individuals, but to the absent friends and mistresses of the guests. The greater or less number of cups afforded an indication of the respect in which the person whose health was toasted was held. The numerous coincidences which exist between the convivial customs of past ages and the present are thus succinctly summed up by Dr. Henderson:--“If we compare the ceremonies and usages of the Romans with the convivial customs of the present day, we cannot but be struck with the numerous coincidences which subsist between them. The arrangements of our dinners, the succession and composition of the different courses, the manner of filling our glasses, of pledging our friends, and of drinking particular healths, are all evidently copied from the Greeks and Romans.[34] With another modern nation, however, which has been thought to resemble the ancient Greeks in character, the analogy is still more complete. Thus, at all entertainments among the French, the ordinary wine is used with a large admixture of water, generally in the proportion of one to three, except immediately after soup, when it is drunk pure. The finer kinds are circulated in the intervals between the courses, or towards the end of the repast, and hence are termed _vins d’entremets_; but with particular dishes certain wines are served, as chablis with oysters, and sillery after roast meat. The _coup-d’avant_ of vermuth has been already noticed as corresponding with the draught of _mulsum_; and the _coup du milieu_, which consists of some _liqueur_, ‘quod fluentem nauseam coerceat,’ may be regarded as identical with the cup of sweet wine handed round in the middle of a Grecian feast. With dessert the luscious sweet wines are always introduced.”

The doctor makes a slight mistake in regarding the _coup du milieu_ as identical with the cup of Greek sweet wine. The _coup_, which was drunk immediately after the roast, consisted, and still consists, of a bitter or spirituous, or sometimes a bitter and spirituous cordial (and not of a sweet wine), taken as a stomachic. It is swallowed, according to the “Manuel des Amphitryons,” to give tone to the fibres of the stomach, and “pour accélérer le mouvement péristaltique qui produit la digestion.” The Swiss extract of wormwood, Jamaica rum, or very old cognac, is used for the purpose. It is to the city of Bordeaux, so dear to _gourmands_ and _gourmets_, that this invention is due. It is a trait of genius, says the author of the “Almanach des Gourmands,” which enables one to make a second dinner, and which doubles the power and capacity of the weakest stomachs. Between the roast and the _entremets_--_i.e._, towards the middle of the dinner, you see at Bordeaux the doors of the dining-room open, when a girl about eighteen, tall, fair, and well-proportioned, her features beaming with an air of engaging alluringness, appears. Her sleeves are turned up to the very shoulders, and she holds in one hand a mahogany frame, in which are ranged as many small glasses as there are guests; and in the other a crystal decanter filled with Jamaica rum, or wormwood, or vermuth, though this latter beverage more properly belongs to the _coup-d’avant_. Thus armed the Hebe makes the round of the table, and pours out to each guest a glass of the bitter nectar it is her business to distribute. The effect of the _coup du milieu_ is stated to be almost magical in renewing the appetite, but on what principle it produces this result physicians must determine. The _coup-d’avant_ is little practised in Paris, though greatly used in Russia, Sweden, and the north of Germany. It consists of a large glass of vermuth, or of simple brandy, which is presented to each of the guests by way of appetiser. Physicians differ in opinion as to the virtues of the _coup-d’avant_: it is said rather to dispose the stomach to digestion; but, be this as it may, the Russian stomachs, where the _coup-d’avant_ is so much practised, are far more vigorous than the English or French. It may be that from the effects of the climate some such stimulant is required. The _coup-d’après_ consists, as Dr. Henderson states, of half a glass of pure wine taken immediately after the soup. This is considered so salutary a practice, that it is proverbially said to take a crown out of the pocket of the physician. The wine offered for the _coup-d’après_ in France is generally a good Beaune or Macon; whilst in England it is commonly sherry or Madeira. In any event it should be a good sound wine; for the palate, at that early stage of a dinner, is most sensible to taste and flavour.

As to the wine-cellars of the ancients, we know little certain. Vitruvius directs that they should have a northern aspect, that the doors and windows should be placed in the same direction, that the doors should be small and seldom opened, and then to renew, not to alter, the temperature of the air. Care was also taken that the cellar should not be near a dung-heap, nor roots of trees, nor vegetables, nor anything fetid; and it was also as far removed as possible from the vicinage of baths, ovens, sewers, cisterns, and reservoirs. Women were also strictly forbidden to enter within the cellar walls. Barry would have it that the Greeks and Romans had extended vaults under ground, but against this theory Henderson cites Pancirollus, who is of opinion that the ancients were not in the practice of having repositories of wine under ground like our modern cellars. That their repositories for wine must have been extensive there is no doubt, for it is stated that Hortensius bequeathed to his heirs 10,000 _cadi_ of wine, about 410 tons of our measure. From the rules of the ancients, and the principles laid down, Barry properly points out certain defects in our modern wine-cellars in the following passages:--

“The size of the cellar ought to be in proportion to the quantity of wine for which it is designed; and it is more easy to defend a small cellar from the admission of a greater quantity of the external air, and to renew it occasionally, than one of a larger size. The situation ought to be low and dry; therefore, not on any great declivity, where the undercurrents from the superior ground must always keep it moist, and infect the air with its putrid exhalations; this communication, however, may be prevented by intermediate trenches.

“A small anti-cellar built before all large cellars would be a considerable defence and improvement to them, in which a quantity of wine sufficient for a few days may be kept, and the necessity prevented of more frequently opening the large cellar, and admitting the external air, which must always in some degree alter the temperature of it, and in sudden or continued great heats or frosts, may be particularly injurious to the wine.

“It is usual to cover the bottles in the bins with sawdust, to which I should prefer dry sand, the density of which is much greater. I saw a remarkable instance of the benefit arising from an intermediate defence of this kind. A hogshead of claret, which had been lately bottled, was heaped up in a corner of a merchant’s common large cellar, with a view of removing it soon to the wine-cellar. In the meantime a load of salt, from the want of a more convenient place, was thrown on the bottles, and remained there several months before it was removed. This wine was afterwards found to be much superior to the wine of the same growth, which had been imported and bottled about the same time, and had been immediately placed in the wine-cellar. The large quantity of salt formed a compact vault over the bottles, which entirely defended the wine from the influence of the air, though greatly exposed to it; and probably the coldness of the salt contributed to this improvement.

“The ancients certainly more effectually preserved their wine in larger earthen vessels, pitched externally, than we can in our bottles, as they are more capable, from their superior density and capacity, of resisting the frequent changes in the air; and it is a common observation, that the wine received into bottles which contain two quarts proves better than that which has been kept in single quarts.”

Of the truth of this latter remark there can be no doubt, as any who have tasted a pint and a quart bottle of wine out of the same hogshead will freely admit.

It is no doubt true that many of the usages adopted by the ancients for preserving and mellowing their wines have fallen into disrepute; but their rules for the site and construction of a wine-cellar--some of which I have quoted--their observations on the proper time for tasting and racking wines, are still sanctioned by modern practice.

Wine of a middle age was then, according to Pliny, as indeed it now is, to be preferred, as being the most wholesome and grateful; but then in ancient times it was the fashion, as it is in our own day, to place the greatest value on what was rarest. Thus extravagant sums were given for wines not drinkable, or in a state of decomposition. Who does not know that within the past forty years twelve guineas a dozen was given for Mr. Pattle’s sherry, and half as much for some sherry once the property of the late Sir John Leach, Vice-Chancellor.

Though the ancients often drank very freely, yet no one was obliged to drink on compulsion. The doors were never locked, as they were fifty years ago in Ireland, five and fifty years ago in Scotland, or little more than half a century ago in England. Large cups and more generous wines were frequently brought in, but no one was obliged to drink or to stay. If the guest did not drink on he departed, according to the old convivial rule, “Aut bibe, aut abi.” Some of the wisest sages of antiquity were as great sponges as some of the modern Scots. For instance, Socrates, whether he lived abstemiously or drank copiously, was equally unexcited, equally unaltered; and the very same remark might be made on a remarkable man lately deceased. Cyrus, among other reasons which he urges why he should gain the crown in preference to his elder brother, insists on his being able to drink a larger quantity of wine without being inebriated; for Artaxerxes was not only occasionally subject to getting “right royal,” _vulgo vocato_, drunk, but also to the infirmity of losing his temper to boot. Athenæus mentions that Darius desired no greater encomium should be engraved on his tomb than that he was able to drink a great quantity of wine without being inebriated.

In his third book the Father of Medicine gives a description of the general qualities and strength of the Greek wines, and of the peculiar medical virtues which they possessed. He likewise points out in what diseases, and in what quantities, they are to be used, so as to render them salutary and innoxious. It is remarkable that Hippocrates rarely directs water alone, but almost invariably orders its exhibition with wine, or combined with honey and vinegar. Water was no doubt the basis of all his cooling drinks; but there was always added to it a moderate proportion of the weak white wines, to render it more effectually diluting. To the infirm and valetudinarian, wine is a necessary comfort beyond all price. When a patient has been long habituated to the use of it, a change in diet cannot be suffered without danger.

There is a remarkable instance of this afforded in the case of the celebrated physician Cornaro, who always revived just after the vintage, when he left off the old and decaying wines of the last vintage, and commenced drinking the new. The passage is in the account which he gives of the rules by which he repaired his constitution, injured as it was by excesses, till the period when he was forty years old. By the _régime_ he prescribed to himself, it is well known he preserved his health and spirits to the age of 100. The efficacy of his system depended on his taking a certain quantity of solids and fluids every day. The fluid consisted entirely of wine, but he gradually diminished the quantity of each as he advanced in years. During this period he enjoyed an equal state of health, except that sometimes, before the vintage returned and the new wine was made, he quickly became so weak and languid that his physicians declared he could not possibly continue to survive many days in that declining state. “But on the return of the vintage,” says he, “and on taking the same quantity of new wine, I very quickly recovered my usual strength and spirits.” The same effect is observed, to compare animals with men, among the mules of Jamaica. When the new sugar-canes are being gathered in, the most exhausted animal, fed on the fresh sugar-canes, gains a revival of strength.

The Romans were in the habit of pitching their wine, nor can it be doubted that the Gauls also followed their example in this respect, with a view to render them more saleable in the Italian markets. The Allobroges had a peculiar pitch, with which they smeared their puncheons, after the manner of the wine-growers of Latium. Many etymologists suggest that the French word _poinçon_, adopted in many of the French provinces to signify a puncheon common to them, is derived from the _vas piceum_, of which it is an abbreviation.[35] These, however, are but conjectures, and why should we resort to conjectures in the face of formal proof? Such were the two charters of Charles the Bald in favour of the monasteries of St. Denis and St. Germain des Près. By the first (A.D. 862), the emperor makes an annual grant to the abbey of ten silver livres, for the purchase of the necessary pitch for casks; by the second he grants to the other convent twenty pounds of soap and of pitch, “ad vasa vinaria componenda.” The soap, of which a grant is here made with the pitch, leads me to infer that there were persons who, not content with laying a coat of pitch on their casks, composed a peculiar mastic in mixing the soap and some other substance with the pitch, after the manner of the Romans.

Strabo, in giving a description of Latium (the modern Lombardy), and an idea of the abundance of its vines, says that the puncheons were taller than the houses. It is probable that the Gauls established in these parts, or their descendants, seeing that the ordinary casks were insufficient, or that there was not cellar-room for them, invented those monster puncheons of which the geographer speaks, and which were long ago, and are now, in common use in Germany. But the French, for the most part, in lieu of these not very solid vessels, preferred to construct their wine-tubs or vats, in brick or in stone. De Serres states that, even so late as 1600, many persons thus constructed their vats. It is true, he says, the wine took a longer time to ferment in these receptacles than in wooden tubs; but they were most easily cleaned, contracted no bad taste, lasted longer, and required little or no outlay to keep them in repair. But though these cisterns might be serviceable to the proprietor as a repository for his wine, he was obliged, when he sold it, to have recourse to casks or skins. The skins, notwithstanding the many inconveniences they presented, were long used for that purpose. I have before stated that Charlemagne forbade them in the cellars of his palace. Pierre de Blois, declaiming, in the twelfth century, against the luxury of the chevaliers, represents them as leading horses laden with skins of wine, and all the “creature comforts” that announce gluttony and drunkenness:--“Non ferro, sed vino; non lanceis, sed caseis; non ensibus, sed utribus; non hastis, sed verubus onerantur.”

At the repast which Philippe de Valois gave to the kings of Scotland, of Majorca, and of Bohemia, there was on the royal dresser (_le dressour royal_) no plate of gold or silver, but only a leathern bottle, in which was the wine of the princes and kings who sat at the festal board. In order to understand this passage, which is extracted from a very old work, it is necessary to mention that, in the time of Philip, there were no bottles, nor were they known for many years afterwards. Wine, at this epoch, in the royal establishment as elsewhere, was drunk from the cask. If many sorts were given at an entertainment, as often happened on occasions of great ceremony--in that event many casks were tapped, and the remains of all belonged to the grand _bouteiller_. Travellers on horseback, who were apprehensive of not finding wine on the road, carried with them a species of leathern bottle attached to the saddle. In the “Life of St. Maur” we read that, travelling to visit one of the farms of his monastery, he saw suddenly arrive Ansgaire, archdeacon of the church of Angers. The holy abbé wished to refresh him. Unfortunately, there was no other wine at the farmer’s than the little which remained attached to the saddle-bow of St. Maur, “in uno parvissimo vasculo quod ad sellam pendere consuerit.” But the holy man, says the historian, supplied the deficiency by a miracle, and multiplied this remains of the liquor so exceedingly, that it sufficed to quench the thirst of seventy-eight persons who were there present.

In the thirteenth century the vessels of which I have been speaking were called _bouchaus_, _boutiaux_, _bouties_, or _boutilles_. When the gentry of that day wished to make a long journey, or were on their way to the wars, they took bottles with them of considerable capacity. It appears, by an early charter, that when the Bishop of Amiens marched thus in the _arrière ban_, the tanners of the city were obliged to furnish him with two good and sufficient leather bottles, one holding a _muid_ and the other twenty-four _sétiers_ of wine. The butchers were, on their part, bound to furnish the grease to cover these bottles. If cover means to cork, as the sense would seem to indicate, it was certainly a strange process to seal a canteen destined for the keeping and transport of wine. These _boutiaux_, or _boutilles_, took the name of _bouteilles_, or bottles. This name was afterwards applied to the decanters which were subsequently used. On the first indication of madness presented by Charles VI., on his journey to Brittany, the officers of his household, who had preceded him, served him with drink; and being suspected of having poisoned him, the Duke of Burgundy, who accompanied them, caused them to undergo an interrogatory: but they protested their innocence, says Froissart, and offered to prove it, as there remained in the bottles a portion of the wine of which the king had drunk. There can be no doubt that the bottles here spoken of were made of leather.

It now remains for me to touch on those wines which have enjoyed the greatest reputation, from the conquest of the Franks to the present time. The earlier writers offer little on this subject. Gregory of Tours speaks of the wines of Maçon, Orleans, Cahors, and Dijon. The wines of Auvergne are spoken of in a “Life of St. Germain,” written in verse by Heric, who lived under Charles the Bald; and there is mention of those of Rheims and of the River Marne, in a letter of Pandulus, Bishop of Lan, to Hircanar. Baldric, or Baudri, author of a Latin poem which Mabillon has cited in the “Benedictine Annals,” says that Henry I. greatly esteemed the wine of Rébréchien (_area Bacchi_), near Orleans, and that when he went to the army he took a provision with him to animate his courage. There is a letter of Louis le Jeune, written from the Holy Land to Suger and to the Comte de Vermandois, regents of the kingdom in his absence, by which he directs them to give to his intimate friend, Arnould, Bishop of Lisieux, sixty _modii_ of his excellent wine of Orleans. “Dilecto et præcordiali amico, Lexoviensi Episcopo, sexaginta Aurelianenses modios de meo optimo vino Aurelianensi dare non reanatis.” It is probable that this wine of Orleans was the wine called Rébréchien. It is said that the greater number of the Orleanais are one-eyed, lame, and hump-backed, which is attributed by some, most inconsequentially, to the wine of Orleans.

A _fabliau_ of the twelfth century has come down to us which gives us a list of the best reputed wines of that day. Among the wines of the provinces the poet vaunts those of the Gatinias, d’Auxois, d’Anjou, and of Provence. Over the list of the particularly celebrated wines we will not now travel. Suffice it to say, that Burgundy was then renowned for its wine of Auxerre, Beaune, Beauvoisins, Flavigni, and Vermanton; Champagne for its Chabli (not Chablis, the Burgundy wine of the department of the Yonne), Epernai, Rheims, Hauvilliers, Sczanne, Tonnerre.

This production represents the Beaune wine of a yellow colour, inclining to the shade of an ox’s horn. It is very difficult to have a precise idea of such a colour. When the popes in the thirteenth century transported their pontificial chair to Avignon, the table of their holinesses, and of all their principal officers, were furnished with wine from the monastery of Cluni. This was probably a wine of Beaune; for Petrarch, writing in 1366 to Urban V. to engage him to come to Rome, and combatting the different reasons which retained the cardinals beyond the mountains, says, “I have heard it sometimes alleged that there was no Beaune wine in Italy. When, in 1510, the ambassadors sent by the Emperor Maximilian to Louis XII., travelled across France to find the prince at Tours, where he was, the queen, on their passage through Blois, sent them fresh sea-fish, with three barrels of old wine of Beaune and Orleans.”

There is a great deal of fashion and caprice in the rise and fall of wines. The reputation of different vintages may be compared to the characters of certain men. To rise above the crowd, it does not alone suffice to be possessed of real merit. Sometimes favourable circumstances or a happy chance is needed, which is more often sought than found. It has happened to us all to have drunk in a remote spot delicious wines, which only needed the recommendation of a consummate _gourmet_ to obtain instantaneous vogue. It may also occasionally chance that a vineyard which, for a long time had but an indifferent reputation, may, by the industry of a new proprietor, by peculiar processes of making the wine, or by a better cultivation of the grape, become more perfect than it had been before. There are hundreds of examples of this, of which one may be cited. Who does not know that the wine of Romanée, so famed for more than a century (the estate on which it grows has since been purchased by the Prince of Conti), owes its celebrity to a Sieur de Cromanbourg, a German officer in the service of France, who, having married the heiress of this vineyard, rendered it at length one of the first in Burgundy. In each century some of the wines of the preceding fall in repute, and new vintages arise to take their place. Eustace des Champs (who died about 1420), in the numerous poetical MSS. which he has left, cites the vines of Burgundy, Gascony, La Rochelle, Chabli, St. Pourcain, Beaune, and Orleans, which had been already cited by authors anterior to him; but he also mentions the names of many new wines,--“Aï, Aussone, Cumières, Dameri, Germoles, Givri, Gonesse, Iranci, Mantes, Pinos, Tournus, Troy, and Verlus.” It was said more than seventy years ago that the wine of France which best bears transport is the wine of Mantes; and, in continuation of this fact, a French traveller of the sixteenth century is cited, who carried some of this wine to Persia without its being in the least injured. If this fact be true, it is not unexampled nor peculiar to the wine of Mantes.

It appears that, in the fifteenth century, Burgundy and Champagne disputed the palm among the wines of France. If Burgundy had its Beaune, Champagne had its Aï. These two wines were counted among the best in France. “This last,” says Patin, “is the wine that Baudius called _Vinum Dei_ at the house of De Thou.” Paumier, in his “Treatise on Wine,” written in 1588, says it was the ordinary beverage of kings and princes. It is certainly true that Leo X., Charles V., Francis I., and Henry VIII. had each a vineyard in Champagne; and St. Evremond alludes to the circumstance in a letter to the Duke d’Olonne. Burgundy was, at this period, considered the wholesomest, the most cordial, and the most generous of wines. Erasmus, being tormented with nephritic pains, which he attributed to the harsh and bitter wines of the Rhine, took to drinking burgundy exclusively, and soon became perfectly restored. “Sic enim subito recreatus est stomachus,” says he, “ut mihi viderer renatus in alium hominem.” He has left us, in one of his letters, the praise of a liquor to which he was indebted for health. “Happy province!” he exclaims: “well may Burgundy be called the mother of man, suckling him with such milk!” He who first taught the art of making this wine ought to be considered, not merely as having gratified us with a new liquor, but as having given to us new life.

Champier makes a remark, which is truer now than it was in the sixteenth century, namely, that there was no country on earth which had such excellent, or a variety of such admirable wines, as France. He counts among this number the wine of Arbois and the muscat of Languedoc; and tells us that, in Arbois and Hainault, there was a demand for Beaune wine, but that the remaining portion of Flanders preferred the wines of Orleans. Beaujeau vaunts the wines of La Crau; and Rabelais those of Auxerre, Mirevaux, Migraine, Canteperdrix, and Frontignan. At the repast which the King of France gave, in 1602, to the Swiss ambassadors, Canteperdrix wine was served. Madame de Noyer (in her “Lettres Historiques et Galantes”) says that this may well be called the wine of the gods, since it was sent to Rome for the private drinking of the holy father. There is no such wine as Canteperdrix known, in the present day, by that special designation. It is now called the _vin de Beaucaire_, and is a red wine of Languedoc. As to the wine of Arbois, it was the favourite beverage of Henry IV., as we learn from an anecdote related in Sully. When the Duke of Mayenne had laid down his arms, and treated with Henry IV., the king, in order to fix the fidelity of his vassal, gave him two bottles of Arbois wine. “Car,” said the lively, good-hearted monarch, “je pense, mon cousin, que vous ne le haïssez pas.” When Sully, being created duke and peer, gave a grand repast on the day of his reception, the king surprised him by appearing among the number of the guests. “But,” says the duke, “as he was hungry, and they were dilatory in serving the dinner, he ate, in the interval, some oysters, which he washed down with wine of Arbois.” And a good preparation for a dinner it was.

Paumier, a Norman physician, has written a treatise on wines, in which he counts four different colours,--white, red, blackish, and _œil de perdrix_, _i.e._, reddish. He says that France then produced no red wine which was sweet, excepting in the Bordelais, in which district there were red and black wines of great sweetness. His description of the wines of Gascony is, that they were hot, vinous, easy of digestion, and of a red or partridge-eyed colour. This description, in two particulars holds good to the letter to the present day. These wines are still vinous and easy of digestion, but they are not hot, nor are they generally of a partridge-colour until they are old, and in a state bordering on decomposition. The doctor further states that the wines of Château Thierry were agreeable, but so dangerous, that the greater part of the inhabitants were afflicted with the gout from their tender infancy, and died before they attained the ordinary age.

Château Thierry is on the borders of Champagne, and, whatever may have been the case in the time of Paumier, in the sixteenth century, it is certainly not true in the nineteenth that the inhabitants have the gout from their earliest years, or that they die so prematurely. But their wine is still good. “The red wine of the Clos de St. Thierry, a league from Rheims, is of a quality between burgundy and champagne, and is very highly esteemed by the _connoissieur_.” The idea of having the gout prematurely is preposterous. The gout is a disease scarcely known in Champagne; and, if it be very common in England, as must be admitted, after occasional excesses, it does not arise from the drinking of champagne solely, to which it is most frequently attributed, but from the mixture of a variety of wines, champagne among the number.

Baccius, in his treatise “De Viniis,” printed at Rome in 1596, has a chapter on the wines of France. He praises the wines of Arles, Beziers, Bordeaux, Frontignan, Gaillac, and St. Laurent. Nor does he omit the wines of Avignon, which arrived in small barrels, hooped with iron; the white wines which sparkle out of the glass, and which please the smell as much as the taste (probably he means champagne); and the wines of Paris, which yield the palm to none in the kingdom. What Paumier says of the wines of Paris will appear, at present, very strange. The contempt with which the wines of the neighbourhood of the metropolis of France are at present treated will appear the more extraordinary when it is known that they enjoyed, for fourteen centuries previously, the highest reputation.

Liebaut praises, in a bad poem, written in 1605, the wines of Ruel and Surenne; and the Abbé de Marolles those of Surenne, Argenteuil, and St. Cloud; “which,” says he, “are pure, and not unwholesome.” Paumier is endless in his praises of the wines of Paris, which have not the inconvenience of drying up the blood, like those of Gascony; do not fly to the head, like those of Château Thierry and Orleans; and do not occasion obstructions and humours, like those of Bordeaux. According to him, burgundy, when it has lost its roughness, and is in its best state, may be alone compared to the wine of the environs of Paris. Patin, writing in 1669, says, “Long live the bread of Gonesse, with the good wine of Paris, Burgundy, and Champagne!” Chaulieu, in a piece of poetry written in 1702, represents his friend, the Marquis de la Fare, as going often to Surenne to drink the wine:--

“Et l’on m’ecrit qu’ à Surênne, Au cabaret on a vu La Fare et la bon Silène, Qui pour en avoir trop bu, Retrouvoient la porte à peine, D’un lieu qu’ils ont tant connu.”

These wines are now all forgotten, and, with the exception of the _vin de Condrieux_, exist no longer. Who could have imagined this a century ago? and how “has it come to pass?” May it not have been, as Le Grand d’Aussy suggests, that the proprietors, blinded by the bait of a sure and speedy sale, which the proximity of the capital afforded, were guilty of the imprudence of neglecting the proper cultivation of the vines, or chose plants of an inferior quality. It was remarked, more than two centuries ago, that the reputation of the Orleans wines was owing to the manner of making them. It appears that the inhabitants of Orleans, like wise and sensible men, confined themselves to that object alone, making it their only occupation. Over the minutest details they exercised supervision and control; whereas the Lyonnais and the Parisians purchased a wine estate, rather as a showy bauble than as a matter of commerce, and completely surrendered the management to paid agents. “Whence comes it,” says Liebaut, “that you rarely hear a native of Orleans or a Bourguignon complain of his vines, whilst the complaints of a Parisian are iteratively urged?” The reason is that one occupies himself personally in the matter, whilst the other trusts to an ignorant or knavish vine-dresser.

To Francis I., and the grandees of his court, Champier attributes the discredit into which the wines of the neighbourhood of Paris had commenced to fall. “These personages,” says he, “having had their taste blunted by good cheer, found the Parisian wines poor and weak. They, therefore, fell on the strong and vigorous wines of the south of France, which they obtained at considerable cost.”

The Auvernat wine of Orleans, so praised by the Abbé de Marolles, is thus severely treated by Boileau,--

“Un laquais effronté m’apporte un rouge bord D’un Auvernat fumeux, qui mêlé de lignage; Se vendoit chez creuet pour vin de l’hermitage; Et qui rouge et vermeil, mais fade et doucereux, N’avoit rien qu’on goût plat, et qu’un déboire affreux.”

The first time I find mention of a _vin de Grave_ is towards the year 1550. If we are to judge from the testimony of Madame de Sévigné, it was indifferently esteemed in her day. In speaking of M. de Lavardin, who is stated by St. Evremont to have been Bishop of Metz, she says, “C’est un gros mérite qui ressemble au vin de Grave.” The district of Graves yields from 1000 to 1500 tuns, generally of a lively and brilliant colour, with more body than the vines of Medoc, but less _bouquet_, raciness, and fineness. The _Graves_ are so termed from the nature of the soil which produces them. Formerly the appellation was confined to the white sorts; but it now comprehends the red as well as white wines which grow on the gravelly lands to the south-east and south-west of Bordeaux. The Haut-Brion ranks highest amongst the red wines, and approaches in quality to some of the better sorts of Burgundy; but it wants the fine perfume by which the Medoc wines are distinguished.

The _vins de Grave_ are an excellent table wine, and very proper to be taken with oysters, if Chablis cannot be obtained. But little mention is made of the Hermitage wine till the seventeenth century. But if its reputation was tardy, it was at least brilliant. As soon as it became known at the court, it was placed in the first rank of wines. “The king,” wrote Patin, in 1666, “has made a present to the King of England of 200 _muids_ of very good wine of Champagne, Burgundy, and Hermitage.” Boileau, soon afterwards, speaks of it as a wine of first quality. The best white Hermitage I ever drank was a parcel purchased at the sale of the late Marquis of Londonderry’s wines in St. James’s Square, after the death of Emily, Marchioness of Londonderry, in 1828. It was really exquisite,--a perfect _liqueur_ in its way.

“Hermitage wine is divided into five classes. It is styled by the French the richest coloured in their great variety of wines, but it differs much with the seasons as to quality. Red Hermitage will not keep more than twenty years without altering. The price of the first class is often as high as 550 francs the piece of 210 litres. The other growths or classes sell from 450 down to 300, and even as low as 250 francs the piece. When the season is bad, and the wine of moderate quality, the wine of the first growth will not bring more than 250, and of the last, 120 francs.

“Red Hermitage, when it is of the first quality, is not bottled for exportation until it has been four or five years in the cask, in which, as well as in bottles, it is generally sold at that age. The price, in the former case is high, even if the quality be moderate.

“The white Hermitage is made of white grapes only, and divided into three growths. This is the finest white wine France produces. Its colour should be straw-yellow; its odour is like that of no other known wine. It is of a rich taste, between that of the dry and luscious wines. It is often in a state of fermentation for two years, but it is never delivered to the consumer, if it can be avoided, until fermentation is complete. The quantity of real white Hermitage does not exceed 120 pieces annually.”

The reputation acquired by the Burgundy wines was due to an accidental circumstance. Louis XIV. having fallen ill, the physicians advised him the _vin de Nuits_ as the most pectoral and proper to re-establish his health; and thence the reputation which this class of wine has ever since enjoyed. The memoir of the Intendant of Burgundy tells us that the wines of Tonnerre were, in 1698, very much sought after by the Flemish. The _vin de Tonnerre_ is fine, full-flavoured wine, of great body, and very suitable to a damp, cold climate. It is not unlike first-rate old port, but far superior in _bouquet_ and fragrancy. The finest ever drank by me was at the château of the Marquis de Louvois, at Ancy-le-France, and had been grown on his own estate.

The Abbé de Marolles, in his translation of Martial, gives a list of the wines for which Burgundy was renowned in his day, and here they are. The wines of Auxerre, Beaune, Coulanges, Joigny, Irancé, Vermanton, and Tonnerre, “which some people prefer,” says he, “to all other wine” (“que quelques-uns préférent à tous les autres”).

The wine of Tonnerre is certainly particularly calculated for the cold and foggy climate of Burgundy, or for any portion of England. Henderson thus alludes to the _vin de Tonnerre_:--“The department of the Yonne furnishes several excellent red wines, of which those of Tonnerre and Auxerre have been long celebrated.”

Redding is more copious and careful in his remarks on the Burgundies. “The wines of Tonnerre,” says he, “of the finest kind fetch ninety francs the hectolitre on an average; and the other wines in gradation from sixty to thirty-five. The wine of Olivotte, one of the best, has good flavour, is fine, and of excellent colour, but it lacks the true _bouquet_, unless in very favourable years. The communes which furnish the best wines are Tonnerre, Epineuil, Dannemonie, for the finer red wines.”

The country round Tonnerre has many distinguished vineyards; as those of Pitoy, de Perrière, and Des Preaux. Near these localities is situated the famous vineyard called Des Olivottes, already spoken of, which produces wines of a good colour, much body, and particularly spirituous. They are at the same time fine and delicate, and possess aromatic flavour and _bouquet_. Among the white wines of Burgundy is the Chablis, so universally used with oysters, both in France and on the Continent generally. The best classes of Chablis, produced at four leagues from Auxerre, rank among the second classes of white Burgundy. Chablis is not always to be procured good in England, more especially in the provinces; but such as desire a light, pleasant wine with their oysters, may swallow a tumbler of Chablis or Sauterne, or _vin de Pouilly_, or a large glass of good Bucellas, a wine possessing the fragrancy and _bouquet_ of the Rhenish, with the warm, aromatic, and cordial flavour of the best Spanish and Portuguese wines. Bucellas is produced at about six leagues from Lisbon; it is preferred to the dry wine of Setuval, and is stronger than Barsac. It is, however, like all delicate wines, irretrievably injured by an admixture of brandy. Care should therefore be taken to procure it from a trustworthy source.

To return to the _vins de Bourgogne_. It would take a volume to describe the different species of Burgundy. It is the vinous product most noted in France for its exquisite flavour, _bouquet_, and delicacy; but Burgundy is nevertheless a wine which least bears transport even on land, whilst transport by sea is too often fatal to its fragrance and flavour. Within the last thirty years I have imported three parcels, one of which was completely spoiled. The two others (one I procured through the good offices of my late friend the celebrated Mauguin, deputy for Burgundy) arrived soundly and uninjured; but the merchants had taken care to envelope the bottles in a thick paper, very much like cotton wadding, and to encase the wine in two casks, the inner hogshead being smeared over with a composition formed of plaster of Paris and other ingredients of which I am ignorant. Burgundy is also frequently exported, more especially to Russia and America, enveloped in salt. The Burgundy wines are divided into numerous classes. In the quantity yielded, as well as in the quality, these classes differ hugely.

“That of the first class,” says Redding, “is small in quantity, and, if any other wine be mingled with it, is certain to be injured irreparably. From hence it may be judged how little the common wine of Portugal can claim to be classed high in the list of superior wines, when from six to ten gallons of brandy are added to each pipe. The difference in the effect of wine that intoxicates from the presence of a large admixture of alcohol, and that which exhilarates from its native qualities alone, is very singular. The pure wine, by the accurate blending of the constituent parts, even where there has been a habit of free indulgence, never leaves those distressing effects upon the constitution which are caused by drinking wine and unblended alcohol.”

The author of the “Topographie des Vignobles” says that the vineyards of Burgundy cover 103,000 hectares; the produce, on the average, being 2,550,000 hectolitres of wine, 70,000 of which are consumed in the country. The vineyards have increased very much since the Revolution, many landowners having converted into vineyards low and marshy lands; others having introduced manures, or carried new earth upon the old to increase the crop; others, again, have substituted young for the old plants, and even common plants for the fine and superior growths of the vine. This has caused a degeneracy in the wines in the opinion of the purchaser; but, notwithstanding the increase in low and common wines, the number of good vineyards have, in the opinion of good judges, likewise increased. But little has been written in England on the subject of vineyards since the time of Arthur Young, whose work on France was published at Bury St. Edmund’s in 1794, seventy years ago. The most modern journal giving an account of the Burgundy vineyards that I have met with is the journal of Mr. James Busby, published originally in New South Wales, and reprinted by Smith, Elder, and Co. several years ago.

It is no common thing, according to the best authorities, for a hogshead of red Burgundy wine to fetch from 1250 to 1500 francs; but the white wine is never said to rise above 600 francs the hogshead.

Touching the _Clos Vougeot_ in particular, however, M. Joubert remarks--and he represents at Paris the houses of Barton and Guestier of Bordeaux, of Ruinart, _père et fils_, at Rheims, of Charles Marcy of Nuits, and of Deinhart and Jordan of Coblentz--that this famous vintage is year by year deteriorating. Formerly, says M. Joubert, this wine possessed the greatest renown of any wine in France, but it is not so now. It is no longer the production of _artistes_, but purely and simply an affair of trade. So long as the vineyard was the property of the monks (we owe to the monasteries the finest vineyards of France), the _Clos Vougeot_ was made with infinite care, and carefully preserved till age had developed its full perfections. The Messrs. Tourton and Ravel had continued to practise these good traditions, but M. Joubert seems to insinuate that since their time fraud and falsification abound in the preparation of the wine. This remark was probably addressed to the late notorious Ouvrard, who, in the year 1832 or 1833, took a large house at the corner of Langham Place, for the purpose of making known these wines. But notwithstanding these frauds, Burgundy produces in good years admirable wines, in the most exact signification of the term, possessing an incomparable colour and _bouquet_. A worthy Benedictine named Perignon, according to the author of the “Spectacle de la Nature,” presided at the making of the wines of the Abbaye of Hauvilliers; and Pluche says, by the invention of new processes, Père Perignon procured for these wines a reputation which they never enjoyed before.

As though the vinous wealth of Burgundy were not already sufficiently extensive, the wine proprietors have introduced within the last dozen years a sparkling Burgundy; as Deinhart and Jordan, at Coblentz, have sought to introduce a sparkling Moselle; but these new inventions, though applauded by greenhorns, are not patronised by those wiser and older wine drinkers who have been accustomed to Nuits, Volnay, Beaune, Pomard, and Chambertin. The Nuits wine is seldom fit for drinking till the third or fourth year after the vintage, but is said by Henderson to bear the carriage well; and there can be no doubt that, when old, it acquires a high flavour. Salins, who wrote in 1704 the “Defense du vin de Bourgogne contre le vin de Champagne,” says, the inestimable advantage which Burgundy possesses over its rival is that of furnishing successively cases of wine for all seasons of the year. “In the first place,” says he, “there are the wines of Pomard, Beaune, and Volnay; then the white wine of Meulsant; and lastly the Nuits qui n’a pas son pareil et ne peut être assez prisé.”

It is the district of Nuits which produces the Burgundy called St. George and the Meursault wines. Here, also, the curious wine called Mont Rachet is made of three distinct kinds of grape grown on the same aspect, with no difference that can be discovered in soil; and yet, says Redding, one species is so good as to bring three times the price of the others. The wine produced at Volnay, a village situated about three miles from Beaune, was in Barry’s time, who wrote in 1775, exactly eighty-nine years ago, the finest and most volatile wine in Burgundy.

In the year of a good vintage, there is no better wine of _entremets_ than Beaune. It is of a fine red colour, has no noxious qualities, does not heat the blood like other _crus_ of Burgundy, will keep a long time without spoiling, and will bear water carriage. I have drunk excellent Beaune in the remotest corners of Hungary and Transylvania, in the heart of Poland, nay, even in the midst of Russian snows. It is a favourite wine both at Petersburg and Moscow, where great quantities are consumed, mingled with ice and water in the summer months. In order to drink Beaune in perfection, it should not, however, be more than four or five years old.

Pomard is a delicious wine, having body and colour; and, if first-rate, a light and grateful aroma. I have now some more than thirty years old, obtained pure direct from the grower, through the instrumentality and good offices of M. Mauguin, who succeeded the Marquis de Chauvelin, as deputy for the Côté d’Or. A finer wine was never tasted.

Chambertin, it is well known to everyone, was the favourite wine of Napoleon before he arrived at St. Helena. After that period he drank Bordeaux, probably because he thought Burgundy would have been injured by the sea voyage. Chambertin is produced, according to M. Jullien, two leagues and a half from Dijon, occupies twenty-five hectares, and produces yearly from 130 to 150 pieces of excellent wine, which gives a most perfect _bouquet_ and aromatic flavour, what the French wine merchants call _sève_ and _moelleux_. It has a fuller body and colour than the Romanée, with an aroma nearly as fragrant. The Richebourg Tache and St. George approach, according to Henderson, the Chambertin in their more essential qualities. Chambertin is said to be one of the Burgundy wines which best bears exportation. This, and almost all other Burgundy wines should, however, be drunk in moderation, for they are apt to give a feverish heat to the blood. Herein the true _gourmet_ should follow the advice so happily given by Panard:--

“Se piquer d’être grand buveur Est un abus que je déplore: Fuyons ce titre peu flatteur; C’est un honneur qui déshonore. Quand on boit trop on s’assoupit, Et l’on tombe en délire: Buvons pour avoir de l’esprit, Et non pour le détruire.”

The wine which ranks the highest in estimation of all the Burgundy wines is the Romanée Conti. The produce is exceedingly scant, as the vineyard is limited to five acres. As the quantity is so small, this wine is rarely exported. It sells even on the spot from six to eight francs the bottle. Henderson says it is seldom met with in a genuine state, and that there is reason to believe that the produce of the vineyard of Romanée St. Vivant (so called from the monastery of that name), which is more abundant and of a similar, though inferior quality, is often sold for it. It may be here remarked, that when the monks possessed the superior Burgundy vineyards, they wisely made it a rule to sell the wines only in bottle. Tourton and Ravel of Paris, who purchased the vineyard of Clos Vougeot during the Revolution at a million of francs, or about £500 the English acre, followed this example; but it appears the marked distinction of qualities that existed in the time of the monks has not been kept up, and that it will be long before the ancient character can be regained.

The vinous products of Saone and Loire do not equal the _premiers crus_ of the Côté d’Or, but several of them nearly approach the wines of this far-famed district; and they are in general what French wine-growers call _plus solides_, _i.e._, they are less injured in the transport and less exposed to sudden changes, ruinous to the merchant and most unsatisfactory to the consumer. Chalons and Mâcon possess wines of high merit. Under the name of Mâcon wines are comprehended not only the growths of the Mâconnais, but also the wines of the Beaujolais, forming part of the department of the Rhone. Those of Romanèche and of Thorins, in the vicinity of Mâcon, in particular, are esteemed for their delicacy, and sprightliness, and agreeable flavour; that of Chenas, in the canton of Beaujeu, on the other hand, is a more spirituous and fuller wine, and will bear keeping three or four years in the wood. Of these wines the best are grown, according to Henderson, on a granitic soil. Formerly the plant called _chanay_, which produces a very small grape, and yields an excellent wine, was in general cultivation here; but the cupidity of the farmers had led to the substitution of the Bourguignon grape, in which, as usual, quality is exchanged for quantity.

It may not be uninteresting to state that the Mâcon wines are praised by no less an authority than Gregory of Tours; and mention is also made of them in the “Comédie des Côteaux ou les Friands Marquis,” published in the year 1665. They are, without any doubt, the wholesomest wines that come from Burgundy, and may be drunk with impunity at all seasons of the year; but a great portion of the ordinary Mâcon consumed at Paris is adulterated. When, however, this wine is obtained genuine, it is equal to mothers’ milk. I remember as a boy dining with an old gentleman of large fortune in the Chaussée d’Antin, who had been one of the Mousquetaires Rouges, and who gave me goblet after goblet of this pure Mâcon.

“Where, my dear sir, did you obtain this excellent wine?” I asked.

“Ah, _mon cher_!” said my old friend, “that was a present to me from Créuzé de Lesser, when he was Prefect at Autun. I doubt that my neighbour Tourton, who lives at the corner of the Rue de Provence, or that Jovet or Vilcoq of Antun could match it!”

Mâcon wine may be generally imported into England without risk of being injured in flavour. There is one observation which might be made on the wines of Burgundy before this part of the subject is closed, and the observation equally applies to all wines which have, like the Burgundies, a very fine _bouquet_ and aromatic flavour. Such wines should never be iced. Icing, or even a too cold cellar, causes them to lose that inappreciable and fugacious flavour which is developed by a moderate degree of heat. Burgundies should be taken out of the cellar an hour or two before dinner and placed in the dining-room, within the wake of a temperate fire.

I go farther than most persons, and maintain that most red wines should not be iced. It may be answered, that “there is no wine more iced than Claret in all the Indian presidencies;” but this Claret so iced is not the pure juice of the grape. It is a loaded wine made for the market, which every genuine lover of Claret should abhor. It was the custom in the first society of Bordeaux, and always at the prefecture, in the days of Baron d’Haussey, afterwards Minister of Marine to Charles X., to serve Claret with a tepid napkin round the claret-jug or decanter into which the wine was poured, or round the green glass bottle itself, if, as indeed it more frequently happened, the wine was not decanted. This gentle heat brings out advantageously the flavour and aroma of the wine.

As to the period of the dinner when Burgundy should be introduced, all I would say is this, that it should not be served later than the roast. A glass of Pomard, Nuits, or Chambertin, may be very well taken after the first mouthful of a good haunch of South Down or a _filet de bœuf à la Poivrade_ is swallowed. Neither should I object to a repetition of the dose (whatever Lord Brougham, who contends for Claret after game, may say to the contrary) after swallowing a slice of woodcock, partridge, or that excellent bird, so justly bepraised, the golden plover; but to reserve Burgundy for the _entremets_, _sucrés_, or dessert, is a piece of rampant snobbishness worthy of a _nouveau riche_.

The water-drinkers may laugh at me for having written at such length on such subjects, but I answer in the lines of François de Neufchateau:--

“Mais la sobrieté Dans ses travers sera-t-elle plus sage? Pour fuir l’abus doit-on bannir l’usage? Ah, je connais la pauvre humanité Tout est jolie; et bien mieux que personne Un buveur d’eau quelquefois déraisonne.”

I now come to Champagne wine. The quarrel which existed in the time of Louis XIV. between the Burgundy doctor and the Champenois, concerning the respective merits and defects of the wines of their different provinces, has been before alluded to. The Bourguignon maintained that Burgundy merited a preference over the wine of Rheims, for that these latter over-excited the nerves, produced dangerous maladies, such as the gout; and, in a word, that Fagon, first physician to Louis XIV., forbade their use to that monarch. The citizens of Rheims deemed themselves in duty bound to resent this insult, and the faculty of medicine of the town was charged with the task. The faculty, of course, maintained that the wines of Aï, Pierri, Versenai, Silleri, Hauvilliers, Tassi, Montbré, and St. Thierri, bore off the bell in the “top-loftiest manner,” as Sam Slick would say, from Burgundy; that they possessed a more limpid colour, a sweeter perfume, more body, and greater durability. The Bourguignon rejoined, that the courts of England, Germany, and Denmark, drank no other beverage than Burgundy; “and as to Champagne,” says he, “it owes its renown to the two ministers, Colbert and Le Tellier, who, as wine-proprietors, vaunted their own vineyards in the neighbourhood of Rheims.”

This was, however, a mistake. Colbert was, indeed, a Champenois, but neither he nor Le Tellier gave renown to the wines of Champagne. The vineyards of Champagne had been celebrated for centuries before they were born; and Francis I., Leo X., Charles V., and Henry VIII., had each of them a vineyard at Aï, with a resident superintendent. The other objections of the Bourguignon have more show of reason. “Champagne is a wine,” says he, “which is neither strong, nor full-bodied, nor generous. It is weak, insipid, and watery, liable to change colour, incapable of bearing exportation, or a long journey; whereas Volnay was drunk in Poland at the coronation of Sobieski, and Beaune was served at Venice by Comandante Morosini at the entertainment which he gave the senators after the conquest of the Morea, when it was considered one of the first wines of Europe.”

The champion of Champagne answered with an extract from a letter of St. Evremond to the Duke d’Olonne:--“Fussiez vous a deux cens lieues de Paris, n’épargnez aucune dépense, pour avoir des vins de Champagne. Ceux de Bourgogne ont perdu leur credit auprès des gens qui ont le goût délicat; et à peine conservent ils un reste de réputation chez les marchands.”

This vinous battle continued till 1741, when another question was started, viz. “Le vin de Champagne est il aussi salutaire qu’agréable?” It was _à propos_ of this question that the Sieur Navier maintained twenty years later, in the schools of Rheims, that Champagne might be usefully employed in putrid fevers. But notwithstanding these _pros_ and _cons_, the world went on pretty much as usual. Those who relished Champagne drank it, and those who preferred Burgundy swallowed their modicum of their favourite tipple without the least regard to the literary combatants. So it will ever be.

The department of Marne, in the opinion of most women, and of all boys, is the real and genuine vinous glory of France. I admit that if you find a Champagne of a really first-rate _cru_; limpid, neither too sweet, nor too sparkling, nor too spirituous; but brisk with body, vinous, and retaining these amiable qualities so as fully to develope them in the _arrière bouche_--that then you obtain a rare wine, and not to be despised. But how seldom, how very rarely indeed, is such a wine to be had!

In consequence of the tricks played with Champagne wines, the generality of the vintages possess not that perfect, piquant, and fine flavour which heretofore characterized them. How can it be otherwise? A gentleman with whom Mr. Busby travelled told him he could buy very good sound Champagne at Châlons for two francs a bottle, and was then going to purchase one hundred bottles at that price. Millions of bottles of _champagne mousseux_ are, however, yearly sold in the Champagne country at two and three francs the bottle, and this shocking swipes is too dear by half. Champagne should only be purchased with the greatest precautions.

“By Champagne wine,” says Henderson, “is usually understood a sparkling or frothing liquor, or a wine subjected to an imperfect fermentation, and containing a quantity of carbonic acid gas that has been generated during the insensible fermentation in bottle, and is disengaged on removing the pressure by which it was retained in solution. This notion is not altogether correct; for the district under review furnishes many excellent wines, both red and white, which do not effervesce. It is true, indeed, that most of the white, or River Marne wines, are brisk; and in general, they are of superior quality, and more highly esteemed than the red or mountain wines. They are distinguished by their delicate flavour and aroma, and the agreeable pungency and slightly acidulous taste which they derive from the carbonic acid. Their exhilarating virtues are familiar to every one.

“It must be remembered, however, that the briskest wines are not always the best. They are, of course, the most defective in true vinous quality, and the small portion of alcohol which they contain immediately escapes from the froth as it rises on the surface, carrying with it the aroma, and leaving the liquor that remains in the glass nearly vapid; for it has been shown by Humboldt, that when the froth is collected under a bell-glass, surrounded with ice, the alcohol becomes condensed on the sides of the vessel by the operation of the cold. Hence the still, or the creaming, or slightly sparkling Champagne wines (_crêmants_, or _demi-mousseux_) are more highly valued by connoisseurs, and fetch greater prices than the full-frothing wines (_grand-mousseux_). By icing these wines before they are used, the tendency to effervesce is in some degree repressed, or only allowed to operate to such an extent as may be compatible with the more perfect flavour that we desire to find in them; but when they are kept cool this precaution is unnecessary.

“Among the white wines of Champagne, the first rank is usually assigned to those of Sillery, under which name is comprehended the produce of the vineyards of Verzenay, Mailly, Raument, &c. It is a dry, still liquor, of a light amber colour, with considerable body and flavour, somewhat analogous to that of the first growths of the Rhine, and, being one of the best fermented Champagne wines, may be drunk with the greatest safety. Having been originally brought into vogue by the peculiar care bestowed on the manufacture of it by the Maréchale d’Estrées, it was long known by the name _vin de la Maréchale_. It has always been in much request in England, probably on account of its superior strength and durable quality. It is usually drunk iced.”

The rich dry Sillery is kept longer in the cask than the other wines, and the fermentation not being checked, it is esteemed more wholesome. The still wines of Epernay are inferior to those of Rheims; but the other kinds, according to Redding, approached very nearly to those of Aï in delicacy of _bouquet_. The price to the merchant on the spot, according to the same authority, is about 2_s._ 3_d._ a bottle, and in scarce years 2_s._ 6_d._ In an article in the “Encyclopædia Metropolitana,” it is said that those wines must be kept three years in bottle to attain perfection, and will continue excellent for ten, twenty, and even thirty years or more, if they are of prime quality. This, under favour and with submission, is a grave mistake. Champagne, with the exception of first-rate qualities, is not a _vin de garde_, and requires to be looked after every year. If there be the least sediment or deposit, it is the custom in all the great wine-vaults in Champagne to filter the wine into fresh bottles. The Champagne wines are short-lived; but if the quality of the liquor be of the very best, the wine does not acquire perfection till it has been three years in bottle. Supposing it to be of the very primest quality, the cream of Champagne certainly may last for fifteen or twenty years, and still acquire perfection. Some there are, indeed, who say that delicious Champagne has been tasted forty years old. I never tasted any above thirteen years old, and that was many years ago, at the house of Mr. Marsh, author of “The Clubs of London,” then living in the Rue de Bourbon, Faubourg St. Germain. A friend, however, who is a good judge of Champagne, and fond of a good glass of it--and, what is better than all, a good fellow,--says he has tasted excellent twenty years old, and I defer to his authority, now that the old Irish peer, Allen (the fondest and most inveterate of Champagne-drinkers I ever encountered, whether peer or plebeian), is not producible, or, at least, not forthcoming to give his evidence, though called on his subpœna.

It should be stated, that the wine-growers in Champagne prepare their merchandise for the various tastes and caprices of different nations. Thus, the Champagne for the Russians is a very different wine from the Champagne for the Germans; which, again, differs from the wine _confectionné_ for the English market. The Americans are said to put up with anything which foams and sparkles in a “tarnation toplofty fashion.” In Jaquesson’s cellars at Châlons sur Marne, you see bins for all the principal towns of the world,--London, Vienna, Paris, Petersburg, Madrid, &c.

Champagne, unlike Burgundy or Claret, is a wine always improved by ice. The chief characteristic of the best Champagne is its exquisite delicacy of flavour. The strength of the bottles for the sparkling wines, and their uniform thickness, are most carefully ascertained. A bottle with the least imperfection or malformation is put aside for the red wines.

It were useless to particularise every variety of wine produced in Champagne. Some of the classes are so bad that they will not bear exportation. The wine most esteemed after the Sillery is the Aï; but it is nearly equalled by the wine of Mareuil. The wine of Pierry is drier, but will keep longer than those of Aï, and nearly equals them in quality. The wines of Dizz follow next, and lastly Epernay, part of whose wines is inferior, and part equal to those of Aï.

The author of the “Topographie des Vignobles” thus speaks of the high price of the _Vins Mousseux_:--“The high price of the _Vins Mousseux_,” says Jullien, “comes not only from the quality of the wines chosen to make them, and the infinite pains required before they are finished, but also from the considerable losses to which the proprietors and dealers are exposed in this kind of speculation, and the strange phenomena which determine or destroy the _qualité mousseuse_. As to losses, the owners count in general upon fifteen or twenty bottles broken in a hundred; sometimes even thirty or forty. To this must be added the diminution which takes place as the wine is separated from its deposits by decanting,--an operation which is performed at least twice.”

These certainly are curious and unexplainable phenomena; but explainable or not, one thing is certain, that if gentlemen wish to obtain first-rate Champagne, whether still or sparkling, they must go to a respectable wine-merchant, and pay a good price, whether at home or abroad. In dealing with Moët, or Ruinart, or any other accredited agent, they cannot fail to find a superior article; but they should avoid the cheap Champagnes with as much care as they would avoid the feculent water flowing out of Fleet Ditch into the Thames. Mr. Redding, in a valuable little book of his called “Every Man his own Butler,” says, “Some people fancy they get better Champagne by going to the docks and choosing for themselves.” But that this is not so will be very apparent, when it is stated that hundreds of thousands of bottles of Champagne are imported, which, glass, wine, and all, are not worth the duty.

The bottling of the effervescing Champagne wines begins in March, and the fermentation in May. The latter continues all the summer, but is particularly strong in June, during the flowering of the vine; and in August, when the fruit begins to ripen. At these times, the greatest loss in the bursting of bottles takes place, and it is not safe to pass through a cellar without being guarded with a mask of iron wire. It occasionally happens that the workmen who neglect this precaution are sometimes severely, sometimes dangerously, wounded. Among the wines prepared to effervesce--or, to use the technical phrase, for _la mousse_--there are some which only partake of a slight fermentation. These are the _crêmants_ wines, which drive out the cork with less force, and sparkle in the glass. Their _mousse_ is frothy, and, like the

“Snow-ball on the river, A moment white, then gone for ever.”

They are said to have the advantage over the _Vins grand mousseux_, in preserving more vinous qualities and being less sharp. Their price is also higher, for they are sought for by connoisseurs, and cannot be obtained in great quantity. The best red Champagne wines are produced upon the north side of the declivities of the Marne, which are called the _Montagnes de Rheims_.

The Champagne wine-merchants use the greatest precaution in packing their wines for exportation. The sides of the baskets or cases are lined with pasteboard, and each bottle is enveloped in a sheet of blue or grey paper. Champagne _mousseux_, exported to the Indies or America, is preserved from the excessive heat by being packed in salt. At the bottom of the case there is a layer of straw, and then a layer of salt, upon which the first row of bottles is placed. Jullien, in his “Manuel du Sommelier,” states that the finest Burgundies thus packed have preserved all their qualities on a voyage to India, and experienced but fourteen degrees of heat in passing under the equator.

I come at length to Claret, and with Francesco Redi, exclaim,--

“Benedetto, Quel claretto!”

Blessed, indeed, be Bordeaux, the ground that bare it; for it is king of all wines, past, present, and to come! Of this opinion, too, was Lémery, physician to Louis XIV., who thus speaks of it:--“Claret,” says he, “of all others, is generally the best wine for all constitutions; and the reason is, because it contains a sufficient quantity of tartarous parts, that make it less heady and more stomachical than white wine. As for pale wine; it is a middling sort, between the red and white; the same is made of grapes of the same colour, or else by mixing white wine with a little red.”

The Bordeaux wines are generally divided into _vins de Médoc_, _des Graves_, _des Palus_, _des Côtes_, _de Terre forte_, and _vins d’entre deux Mers_; but so much do they differ by the taste, colour, _bouquet_, durability, and a thousand imperceptible shades, that it would be difficult to give an exact list of the varied and magnificent productions of the Gironde. Commercial men have, however, established two recognised classes, which appear to be tacitly admitted by all parties, and which may serve as a guide to the purchaser. In the first class are ranked Château Margeaux, Château Lafitte, Latour, Haut Brion. The product of these four vintages may be rated at from 400 to 450 _tonneaux_, the value of which represents a capital of 2400 to 3000 francs per _tonneau_. When age has developed the qualities of these wines, more particularly in a good vintage, the value is at least doubled. For the last twenty years the Haut Brion seems to be on the wane in public favour, and it sells at a lesser price than one of its three rivals.

The second class of Bordeaux wines is composed of the Rauzan, Braune, Mouton, Léoville, Gruau, La Rose, Pichon, Longueville, Durfort, Degorse, Destournelle; producing 850 _tonneaux_, which ranges at from 2000 to 2100 francs the _tonneau_.

The third class comprises within its ranks the Kirwan, Château d’Issau, Poujets, many _clos_ of Cantenac, and of Margeaux, Mulescot, Ferrière, Giscours, &c. These vineyards produce about 1100 _tonneaux_, of the value of from 1700 to 1800 francs the _tonneau_.

The fourth class has two divisions: first, the Saint Julien, Béchevelle, Saint Pierre, &c.; producing about 650 _tonneaux_, worth about from 1200 to 1500 each. In the second division are ranged the great properties of Pauillac and Saint Estèphe, with some others, producing about 1000 _tonneaux_, at from 1000 to 1200 francs the _tonneau_.

The difference which exists between these four or five superior qualities of wine, and the wines made by small proprietors, which are sold at from 300 to 450 francs the _tonneau_, results less from the quality of the grape and the nature of the soil than from circumstances incident to the want of capital, and from the desire of obtaining quantity at the expense of quality. There can be no doubt whatever that the large capitalist purchases a better wine than the small one, though the small capitalist has it in his power to produce as good a bottle of wine on his own table as his richer neighbour. But, when he caters for the public, it is more profitable by different mixtures to produce 100 _tonneaux_ of middling quality than fifty of superior wine, even though the latter be sold at a considerably higher price than the former. In the cellars at Bordeaux there is great management of the wine. It is always kept in a vault or cellar pretty nearly of the same temperature, and is fed, once every two or three weeks, if intended for the English or foreign market, with a pint or two of the best brandy. The wine is frequently tasted to know what state it is in, and the brandy is used accordingly. Care must, however, be taken never to put in much at a time, especially for wines intended for immediate sale, as such a mode of proceeding would destroy the flavour of the wine, and cause it to taste fiery. If a little be put in at a time, it is said to incorporate quickly with the wine, and to feed and mellow it. Among the London wine merchants the custom is, if the Claret be faint and has lost its colour, to rack it into a fresh hogshead upon the lees of good Claret. It is then bunged up, pulling the bung downwards for two or three days that the lees may run through it, after which its bung is laid up till it be fine. If the colour be not then perfect, it is racked off again into a hogshead that has been nearly drawn off, then an ounce of cochineal is added, shaken up in a bottle of wine, and put it into the hogshead; and by this method the wine is said to acquire both a good colour and body. Sometimes a pound of turnsole is put into a gallon or two of wine, and the cask rolled about, and then the wine-doctors tell you your beverage will have a perfect colour. The greenhorns may think this is pure invention; but, lest I should be thought “to draw on my fancy for facts,” I extract the following receipts from the work of John Davies, who, having practised them on the lieges of Leeds for a long while, at length came up to the metropolis, and published his work “On the Managing, Colouring, and Flavouring of Foreign Wines and Spirits,”--a work which subsequently went through many editions. The following are his receipts _verbatim et literatim_:--

“METHOD OF COLOURING CLARET.--Take as many as you please of damsons or black sloes, and strew them with some of the deepest-coloured wine you can get, and as much sugar as will make it into a syrup. A pint of this will colour a hogshead of Claret. It is also good for red Port wines, and may be kept ready for use in glass bottles.

“A REMEDY FOR CLARET THAT DRINKS FOUL.--Rack off your Claret from the dregs on some fresh lees of its own kind, and then take a dozen of new pippins, pare them, and take away the cores or hearts, then put them in your hogsheads, and, if that is not sufficient, take a handful of the oak of Jerusalem and bruise it, then put it into your wine, and stir it very well. This not only takes away the foulness, but also gives it a good scent.”

The great commerce of Bordeaux is in its wine, but it is much diminished since the loss of St. Domingo. A considerable export of wines, not so loaded as they formerly were, has recently taken place to the East Indies; and no doubt the opening of the China trade will also somewhat tend to improve the condition and state of the Gironde wine-grower. But what most desire to see, would be a freer exchange of the vinous wealth of France with England. It is in every sense desirable that our population, instead of drinking that thick and heady Port, consumed by the Eldons and Stowells of a past generation, and some old dons and tutors of Oxford, a few old barristers, and a great mass of attorneys of the present generation, should drink the ordinary red Bordeaux wines; or, if they will have white wines, those Sauternes and Graves whose prices sometimes rise so high as 3000 francs the _tonneau_. There is not a pleasanter or more healthful wine than good Sauterne. It is, of course, difficult to get pure Sauterne in taverns or hotels; but to such as have not establishments in town, a trial of the Sauterne at Bellamy’s, at the House of Commons, would be advisable. The following account of Jullien is very interesting:--

“The inferior wines of Bordeaux,” says the author of the “Topographic des Vignobles,” are exported to America and the interior of France; those of the first quality to India, Russia, and England.

“The difference in price between the first and inferior wines is very great. Those of the best vineyards sell generally the first year at from 2000 to 3000 francs the _tonneau_, and rise to 5000 or 6000, and even higher, in a very favourable vintage. On the contrary, the _vins communs_ fetch only from 100 to 120 francs, and seldom rise to more than 200 or 300.

“The wine of first quality, at its point of maturity, ought to have a beautiful colour, much firmness, a very agreeable _bouquet_, and a flavour which embalms the mouth, strength without intoxicating, and body without harshness. The Bordeaux wines are, contrary to the generality of French wines, improved by a sea voyage; and wines of the second and third quality, after a voyage, have equalled those of the first.

“The English houses at Bordeaux, immediately after the vintage, purchase a large quantity of the wines of all the best vineyards, in order that they may undergo _la travaille à l’anglaise_. This operation consists in putting into fermentation part of the wines during the following summer; by mixing in each barrel from thirteen to eighteen pots of Alicant or Benicarlo, or the wines of the Hermitage, Cahors, Languedoc, and others; one pot of white wine called Muet (wine whose fermentation had been stopped by the fumes of sulphur), and one bottle of spirits of wine. The wine is drawn off in December, and then laid up in the _chars_ (cellars) for some years. By this operation the wines are rendered more spirituous and very strong, they acquire a good flavour, but are intoxicating. The price, likewise, is increased.

“The age of wine at Bordeaux is counted _par feuilles_; that is, the number of times the vine has been in leaf since the vintage. The years which the wines require to be kept vary, but those of _vins de Graves_ do not reach perfection before the fifth or sixth.”

This is a recent account; but it will be well to hear what old Barry, who wrote ninety years ago, says on the same subject. After having perused his account it will appear that we, at the commencement of the twentieth century, are but practising, with variations, the tricks which our ancestors played centuries ago.

“The French wine-merchants,” says Barry, “encouraged by the great demands for these Claret wines, first began to mix their inferior wines with the Spanish; and, though there was a severe law forbidding this practice, yet it was connived at, as it increased the value and demand for them. This encouraged some persons from hence and Ireland to reside there as _factors_, with a view, at first, of acquiring the profit arising from the large commissions which before had always been consigned to the French wine-merchants. But these factors soon became wine-merchants likewise, among whom it was usual to employ their _tasters_, after the vintage was over, to examine the new wines; and, when they had been properly informed, purchased such a quantity as was sufficient to answer the demands they expected. These were soon after mixed and prepared with the Spanish wines, which added more strength and flavour to them. Thus the price of them was gradually raised much higher than the wines of these growths had been formerly estimated.

What Barry says about factors is perfectly true; but a very old Bordeaux wine-merchant and wine-grower informed me, nearly forty years since, that the factors of seventy years ago were principally Irish and Scotch, and that there were at that period many Irish and Scotch among the proprietors of vineyards. “There were,” said he, “Gernons, Byrnes, Cruises, Cassins, M’Donnells, Maxwells, Stewarts, M’Laurins, among the factors; and among the proprietors of vineyards Cockburns, M’Kinnons, Kirwans, Frenches, Dalys, Walshes, Bogles, Archers, and O’Connors.” This may have accounted for the superiority which Dublin and Edinburgh obtained more than half a century ago over the London market in respect of Claret,--a superiority which was attested by the great run made for these wines on the house of Sneyd, French, and Barton; Cockburn and Co.; Cranston and Co.; Stewart and Co.; Roche and Co.; Sir John Ferns and Co.; Sir Anthony Perrier and Co.; Brook and Co.; Wilson and Co., and many others.

The excellence of the Bordeaux wines was celebrated even in the days of Ausonius, and they have uniformly maintained their repute. They are, without any manner of doubt, the most perfect wines that France produces. They keep perfectly, are improved by sea carriage, and may be freely exported to any part of the world. The original fermentation being usually very complete, they are less disposed to acidity, and are more wholesome than the wines of Burgundy. A great proportion of the wine, however, which is drunk as Claret, is but _vin ordinaire_, or the secondary wine of the country, for the prime growths fall far short of the demand which prevails for these wines all over the world. In Bordeaux the very best growths are scarce, and cannot be purchased at less than from six to seven francs a bottle. “During the twenty years that I have been living at Bordeaux,” says one of Rozière’s correspondents, “I have not tasted three times any wine of the first quality; yet I am in the way of knowing it and getting it when it is to be had. The wines of the year 1784 were so superior to those of other years, that I have never met with anything like them.”

Whence comes the word Claret? From the French adjective _clairet_, which in the feminine, is _clairette_. In the masculine it is only used of what is called a _vin rouge paillet_, _vinum rubellum sanguineum_. In this sense a man is said to be _entre le blanc et le clairet_, _i.e._, that he is _entre deux vins_. Hypocras was formerly called Claret, and is still so called in Germany. Old Cowel, in his “Interpreter,” says, “This denomination originates from _claretum_, a liquor made anciently of wine and honey, clarified by decoction, which the Germans, French, and English call _hippocras_, and it is for this reason that the red wines of France were called Claret.”

In Pegg’s “Cury” there is an account of the rolls of provisions, with their prices, in the time of Henry VIII., and we there find at the dinner given at the marriage of Gervys Clifton and Mary Nevil, the price of three hogsheads of wine (one white, one red, one claret), was set down at 5_l._ 5_s._

The department of the Rhone produces the Côte Rôti at a vineyard about seven leagues from Lyons. This a wine which possesses body, spirit, flavour, and perfume. If allowed to remain in the cask for five or six years, it improves wonderfully. It may then be bottled, and will improve in bottle for twenty years. The Côte Rôti is a wine much drunk in Switzerland and Franche Comté. It is grown at Ampuis, and ranks as one of the best wines of France. It is, when young, slightly bitter and rather heady, but is much improved by a voyage. The flavour somewhat resembles red Hermitage, and if it were generally imported into England, it would be preferred to Port by all who have a sound palate and liver.

Tain, four leagues from Valence, possesses the famous Hermitage vineyard. Hermitage is divided into five classes. It is not bottled for exportation till it has been four or five years in the cask. The price of the wine is high, even if the quality be moderate. I am in possession of some obtained twenty years ago as a favour, at 96_s._ a dozen, from the Prince Charles de Broglie, and with freight, carriage, interest of money, &c., it now stands me in at least seven guineas the dozen.

The white Hermitage is made of white grapes only, and is divided into three growths. It is an exquisite and most delicious beverage, and may be pronounced to be the finest white wine France produces. White Hermitage is said to keep a century. I tasted some bought at the sale of the late Marquess of Londonderry’s wines in St. James’s Square, which must be at least sixty years old, and a more delicious wine was never produced at table. The only difference between it and white Hermitage of five years old is that the tint and colour are of a deep amber, but in dryness, richness, and aroma, it is unrivalled.

In 1836, a few bottles of this wine, which had been in the late Marquess of Wellesley’s cellars since 1807, was purchased by me; but, although a fine wine, it was not to compare with the Hermitage of the late Lord Londonderry, better known as Lord Castlereagh.

The grape from which the red Hermitage is made is supposed to have come originally from Persia.[36] The vineyard was, it is said, planted by a hermit of Bessas for his amusement.

Richard and Sons are among the first wine-merchants and bankers at Tournon, a town on the opposite side of the Rhone to Tain, and joined to it by a suspension-bridge. They export large quantities of the finest growth of Hermitage to Bordeaux to mix with the first growths of Claret. The largest wine-press in France belongs to this firm. By one charge of it the proprietors can obtain forty casks of wine, of about fifty gallons each.

One of the principal proprietors of the Hermitage vineyards is a gentleman of Irish descent, a Mr. Machon. The soil on which the Hermitage grows is highly calcareous, and it is to this peculiarity, as well perhaps as to the selection of the plants, that the wine owes its superiority. The labour bestowed in the vineyards is said to be unremitting.

The cost of wine cultivation in France is immense, and it seldom happens that more than four or five per cent., and frequently not more than two or three, are returned to the landowner.

The German wines, as a general description, may be pronounced generous and finely flavoured, rich in _bouquet_, and the least acid among the northern wines. They are, however, drier than the wines of France. That they are what the French call _vins de garde_, or wines that will keep, is plainly apparent from the fact that the better qualities have been found perfect at eighty and even at a hundred years old. The Moselle wines are among the least acid of the German, or indeed of the wines of any country. The German jurist Hontheim says the best Moselle wines make men cheerful; when drunk in quantity and old, good; the heat leaving the body and head without inconvenience and disorder. Rüdesheim, six leagues from Mayence, is said to produce the best wines in Germany, having more body, strength, and _bouquet_, than those on the left bank of the Rhine. An auhm of 1811 sells for 55_l._ On the Johannisberg wines it would be unnecessary to dilate here. Barry, seventy years ago, in speaking of the Hock wines, adduced, as a circumstance that contributed to their advancement, the fact that there was an annual addition of a due proportion of the recent and new wine of the same growth to the old wine. In his day the best old Hock sold at the price of 50_l._ the auhm. The Rhine wines of most strength are the Marcobrunner, Rüdesheimer, and Nierstiner. The Johannisberger, Geissenheim, and Hockheim have the most perfect delicacy and aroma. The wines of Bischeim, Asmanshausen, and Laubenheim, are also light and agreeable. The German proverb says, “Rhein wein, fein wein, Necker wein, lecre wein, Franken wein, tranken wein, Mosel wein, unnosel wein.” But the wines of all wines are the Julius Hospitalis Steinwein of 1811, and the Cabinet Leinstenwein of 1822. I remember in 1828 and 1829 drinking fine specimens of both at the Three Moors at Augsburg (a capital hotel), and noting down that the price of the Steinwein was four florins, twenty-four kreutzers, and of the Leinstenwein five florins, forty-eight kreutzers; the one amounting nearly to 8_s._ and the other fully to 9_s._ of our money. They are both exquisite wines, but are said to produce strangury. Switzerland grows little good wine. The Neufchâtel would, perhaps, most please an English palate; it is equal to the third quality of Burgundy, and has some resemblance to Port without much body.

On the Spanish wines I must be brief. Under the influence of the sun of a warm climate, they contain more alcohol, and are altogether differently prepared. The grapes are suffered to become quite ripe, and part of the must is concentrated by boiling it in large cauldrons for forty-four hours. The Spanish wines, however, with the exception of those of Xeres and Malaga, are greatly neglected in the manufacture. Manzinilla, the country wine of the district of Xeres de la Frontena, is a light, pleasant beverage, not destitute of mellowness and flavour. It is far preferable in every respect to those loaded, coloured compounds which pass for Sherries in London taverns.

The extent of the cellars of Gordon and Co., of Cadiz, is immense. The length of the largest 306 feet, and the breadth 222 feet. The ordinary stock of wine is said to be 4000 butts, which is kept in casks of various sizes, containing from one to four butts. The wine merchants of Xeres never exhaust their stock of finest and oldest wine. A cask of wine, said to be fifty years old, may contain a portion of the vintages of thirty or forty seasons. The better class of wine merchants at Xeres never ship wine for England till it is two years old. The higher qualities of Sherry are made up of wine the bulk of which is from three to five years old; and this is mixed in the older wines. From the gradual mixture, therefore, of the wines of various ages, no wine can be less a natural wine than Sherry. The Amontillado is a dry kind of Sherry, abounding in a dry, nutty flavour. It is very light in colour, and is often used to restore the colour of Sherries of too deep a brown. It sells much dearer than other Sherry wines. The Malaga Sherry very much resembles the wine of Xeres, and large quantities are exported to foreign countries as genuine Sherry. 200_l._ have been paid for a first-rate cask of Malaga.

On the Portuguese wine called Port I shall not waste many words. When dry and old it is a good winter wine for old people, if they restrict themselves to a glass or two.

A good glass of genuine Madeira which has gone the rounds, is good after soup, but the wine is no longer fashionable.

The only Italian wines worth drinking are the Montefiascone, Montepulciano, and Vino d’Asti. Many of these wines are too harsh, and some of them are too thick and sweet for a French or English palate.

Some of the wines of Hungary are very tolerable. The Tokay wine is exquisite. Even the Maslas, which is a diluted Tokay, is a splendid wine; soft, oily, and stomachic. A glass of it may be had any day after dinner, at about 10_d._ or 1_s._ English, in the Speise Saal of the Schwann, at Vienna, where I in my youth consumed many a bottle of Tokay. The Vermuth is a stomachic mixture, too much bepraised by those who have never tasted it; indeed, as much overpraised as the _Crême d’Absinthe_. All the Greek wines are also over-rated. There are tuns of them not worth the amount of a farrier’s yearly bill for shoeing a dog; or if you wish the Gallic phrase, “ne valent pas les quatres fers d’un chien.”

The Constantia wine of the Cape, though much liked by Frenchmen of seventy and upwards, and Frenchwomen above forty, never can be generally a favourite with Englishmen. There are some few Russian wines. At Kaffa, in the Crimea, they produce a Champagne very nearly as good as either the growth of the Borough or Lambeth.

Of New South Wales wines a word or two. I learned with much pleasure that the French, and all other wines, are now tried in that colony; and that the climate is particularly well suited to the growth of the vine. The preparation and keeping of the wine must, however, be much more attended to than heretofore. At the Cape, too, the English wine-growers have gone on very progressively from year to year in ameliorating their Pontacs. The best white Capes fetch, since their flinty character is diminishing, prices as high as Sherries of middling qualities. Such prices were, however, encouraged perhaps by the import duties on colonial wine being only half the amount levied on foreign grown. As these Cape wines are now so pure as to mix well with Xeres wines, the conscientious London dealer, of course, largely availed himself of a colonial-grown article to mix with Sherry wines for English country consumption.

Two works have recently been published on wine, in which may be found chapters dedicated to the wines of Southern Africa, Greece, the Western Archipelago, and to the wines of Columbia, Australia, &c. But notwithstanding these efforts to introduce new vintages from Italy, Greece, Hungary, Australia, and Southern Africa, elderly and middle-aged men of the present generation are certain still to adhere to the old wines which their fathers and grandfathers consumed for the last half-century. It may, I think, even be doubted whether the use of any new vintages can become general (supposing them to be as good or better than the old) before the end of the present century or A.D. 1900, from which coming epoch we are still removed by an interval of seven and thirty years. It would, therefore, be the idlest of idle follies in me to recommend to any host to fill his cellar with new vintages of which his guests knew nothing, and which they might not relish. The aim of a host, now as heretofore, should be to have choice wines and _liqueurs_, all excellent of their kind. Persons of moderate fortune should look to the excellence of the quality of the wines, rather than to the variety of their stock. With good bins of Sherry, Madeira, Port, Claret (white and red), Champagne, Hock, and Burgundy, any gentleman is in a position to entertain his guests worthily. Larger quantities of Sherry, Port, Madeira, and first-rate Claret, may be laid in than of lighter wines, for of these latter the consumption will be necessarily less.

At most London dinners in the season, Champagne, Sauterne, Barsac, Rhenish and Moselle wines are produced; but of the four latter wines scarcely more than a bottle of each is used, though three or four bottles of Champagne may be consumed, in a party of twelve. But, notwithstanding that there is a more considerable consumption of Champagne than of other light wines, it is not advisable that any private gentleman should have a large stock of this wine in his cellar, as after a twelvemonth it is apt to get ropy, and to require fresh bottling. But of the _vins de garde_, such as Madeira, Sherry, Port, first-rate Claret, and Burgundy, a host may profitably cellar as large a quantity as his fortune will allow. Of one thing, however, every purchaser should convince himself before he purchases a single bottle, and that is, that it is impossible to have good wine at a low price. The finest vintages of wine are always scarce and dear; and the finest vintages must, like other and inferior vintages, be matured before they are fit to drink. A considerable efflux of time is necessary for this, so that there is interest on the original cost of the wine, as well as the interest on its keep, to be added to the prime or original cost. This is so if the wine be imported direct from the wine-grower; but if it be obtained from the merchant or dealer in this country, his profit, as well as the skill, labour, and industry he has applied, must all be additional items in the price. The idea of low-priced wine is therefore a mere myth; and, whether at the sales of private gentlemen’s stock or otherwise, good wine generally fetches its full value in London. It is said that, at the sales of deceased gentlemen in Dublin and Edinburgh, few wines, unless some exceedingly rare specimens, fetch above 60_s._ per dozen; but in London it is very common, at private sales, for Port and Sherry to fetch double as much as this.

The best way for any gentleman desiring to stock a cellar, is to go to a first-rate wine merchant of position and character. Such a man will deal honestly, and give his customer a good article, though he may charge what is called in the trade a long price for it. If gentlemen have personal friends or connections at Cadiz in whom they can confide to send them wine in the piece, they may lay in Amontillado, Montilla, or Manzinilla, at 10_s._ or 12_s._ a dozen less than they can obtain them of the wine merchants in England. Anything like a first-rate Amontillado sells among English wine merchants at from 72_s._ to 84_s._ the dozen, while Manzinilla and Montilla range at from 60_s._ to 70_s._

Fabulous prices are given for old Ports and East India Sherries and Madeiras, at the sales of well-known _connoisseurs_ in wine. Many East India Sherries have sold for nine and ten guineas a dozen, and much of the late Mr. Justice Talfourd’s Port went for eleven and twelve guineas a dozen. Though the wine was excellent, this was unquestionably a fancy price. There is no need to give so large a sum for old and first-rate Port. Any man of ordinary acumen and intelligence, in addressing himself to a first-rate wine house in London may have excellent, if not first-rate, Port at from three to four guineas a dozen, and considerably cheaper if he buys it in the wood.

First-rate Clarets have been rising in price during the last five or six years; but even in London first-rate Clarets ought to be and are procurable at from four to five guineas a dozen, and the best sparkling Champagne at about the same price, or a shade lower. Sillery Champagne of the very highest quality is sold by wine merchants at 6_l._ the dozen. Burgundies of the highest qualities are rare, and difficult to find good; but excellent Beaune and Chablis can be obtained at two guineas the dozen in London, and considerably cheaper if imported direct.

As to the dietetic qualities of the wine, I would remark that those wines which contain a sufficient quantity of alcohol, and which have undergone a complete fermentation, stimulate and accelerate digestion. Among these are Madeira, Sherry, Port, Rhone, and Rousillon wines. The most salutary wines are those which contain a moderate quantity of alcohol, as old Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne. The modern practice of taking a great variety of wines at table cannot be commended. It is decidedly injurious to health and digestion, more especially when sweet succeed to slightly acidulated wines, or wines of much body to very light wines.

I should say that the best red Burgundy was the Romanée Conti, and the best white the Montrachet. But good vintages of Pomard, Volnay, Nuits, and Chambertin, are excellent. Burgundy, however, is a wine of which only a small quantity should be drunk, as it is very heating.

Among the Champagne wines the most esteemed growths are those of Aï, Sillery, and Epernay; and among the Rousillon and Rhine wines, red and white Hermitage, Côte Rôti, and St. Peray.

The best growths of Bordeaux red wines are Lafitte, La Tour, Château Margaux, and Haut Brion. Among the second class of red wines the best are the Monton, the Rauzan, and the Léoville; and among the third class are the Kirwan, the Château d’Issan, and Lagrange.

A glass of Chablis, Barsac, Sauterne, or Bucellas, may be taken after the oysters, while a glass of old Madeira or Sherry follows the soup. In the middle of the first course, in France, they serve Champagne or sparkling Burgundy; and toward the end of the first course, the finer kinds of Claret, white and red. With the roast comes Burgundy and Hermitage, and these wines, as well as Bordeaux, may be served with game. With the dessert it is the custom in France to offer Malmsey and Malaga; but these wines are rarely produced in England, though white and red Constantia, and Frontignan are frequently produced.

In the last sixteen years the consumption of Champagne has doubled in England. In 1831, the quantity of French wine imported amounted, in round numbers, to 254,000 gallons, whereas in 1861 it amounted to 2,227,000 gallons.