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C. K. OGDEN 






A TREATISE ON WINES. 



GEORGE BELL & SONS 

LONDON: YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN 
NEW YORK : 66, FIFTH AVENUE, AND 
BOMBAY : 53, ESPLANADE ROAD 
CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTON, BELL & CO. 



A TREATISE 



ON 



WINES 



THEIR ORIGIN NATURE AND VARIETIES 

WITH PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS 

FOR VITICULTURE AND 

VINDICATION 



BY 

J. L. W. THUDICHUM, M.D. 



F.R.C.P. LOND. 



LONDON 
GEORGE BELL AND SONS 

1896 



First published December 1893. 

Reprinted in Bohris Scientific Library 1896. 



PREFACE. 

THE publishers of this treatise had intended to arrange a 
new issue of the work on wines of the late Mr. Cyrus 
Redding, 1 which had been so well received by the public 
that it went through several editions. But it was found on 
approximating the proposition to execution, that not only 
had time enlarged and altered many parts of the subject, 
but that as Mr. Redding's work had been written mainly for 
a political economical object, which had been fully attained 
by the legislation of 1860, its argument was exhausted and 
its cycle of life complete. Such a work could not practically 
be revived by rearrangement to meet the demands of the 
present time, and the publishers therefore desired me to 
compose a new and independent treatise of similar dimen- 
sions. In view of the exhaustive treatise 2 which I had 
published jointly with Dr. August Dupre*, and of the studies 
which I had instituted subsequently, and communicated in 
part in my Cantor Lectures, 3 delivered before the Society of 
Arts in 1873, I was glad to have an opportunity of treating 
the subject in an abridged and more accessible form, for the 

1 "A History and Description of Modern Wines." Third Edition. 
London, 1860. 

2 " A Treatise on the Origin, Nature, and Varieties of Wine, being 
a complete Manual of Viticulture and CEnology." London, 1872. 

3 " On Wines : their Production, Treatment, and Use." Six Lec- 
tures. Reprinted from the Journal of the Society. London, 1873. 



2000106 



vi PREFACE. 

cognizance of the public as well as the use of traders, of 
medical practitioners, and of that part of the inhabitants of 
naturally favoured colonies and other English-speaking 
countries, who have begun to look to viticulture as a 
legitimate and permanent branch of agronomy. The work is 
strictly scientific as far as it reaches, but by the exclusion of 
ultimate technical details concerning viticultural, or ceno- 
poetic, or chemical analytical processes, and of statistical 
accounts of production and trade, it is more adapted for 
reading than for decisive reference. Savants, traders and 
other specialists, who desire final information, should consult 
the treatise quoted above, which it may be confidently 
asserted rivals any treatise in any language, either as regards 
fulness and originality of information, or as concerns correct- 
ness and effect of technical elaboration. The present 
treatise, within the limits ordained for it, can make a similar 
claim to confidence, as no accessible means for imparting 
the utmost value to its contents have been left without con- 
sideration by the author. 

In the history of the culture of the most important 
nations wine takes a significant place, and is eminent over 
all other beverages, as well in its daily trivial as in its festive 
and solemn use. It rouses the higher faculties of thought, 
memory, and imagination, the poetical forms of all phases 
of the mind ; it increases the zest of life and its duration. 
Subordinate, but of similar significance in the given cases, 
are its powers to remove pain and cheer "and strengthen the 
heart in processes of recovery from fatigue, injury, or illness. 
Compared to the benefits which wine confers, the harm 
produced by its misuse is truly insignificant; even its sym- 
bolic role has protected its physiological mission, and ought 
to increase and secure that protection for all time to come. 

In the work of my late father, " Grapes and Wine in the 



PREFACE. Vll 

History of Culture," 1 will be found an almost poetical appre- 
ciation of this part of the history of civilization, clothed in 
diction reminding of Tacitus by brevity and significance. 
It presents one of the pleasing aspects of the process of 
culture, as it does not include the record of any conflict of 
opinions concerning the practice of past centuries. Sixty- 
seven authors of antiquity, arranged alphabetically from 
^Elian to Xenophon, contribute the materials for this appre- 
ciation, and sixty-seven modern writers, from Anton to 
Welles, treat the subject either expressly or passim, and thus 
accumulate an amount of ethical testimony for which we 
moderns have to be highly grateful. 

The technical literature, on the other hand, comprises 
some hundreds of volumes, of which I have scrutinized all 
that are of any importance or originality, and those in my 
possession occupy several yards of shelves. To a number 
of these works reference will be made in the text, e.g., to the 
works of Guyot, p. 195 ; of Bronner, ibid. ; to Dr. Batt's, Von 
Babo's and Metzger's publications. But it is incompatible 
with the proportions of this treatise that I should give a 
bibliography, still less an account of the contents of the 
works alluded to, much as I should like, and well able as I 
should be to perform the task. I therefore confine myself 
to a few short indications of the most prominent writings, in 
order to aid active minds who should like to institute 
independent inquiries. 

French cenological literature in general is voluminous, and 
includes many works of interest and importance. Amongst 
these are the " Universal Ampelography " of Count Odart, 

1 Thudichum, Dr. Georg, " Traube und Wein in der Kultur- 
gescluchte." Tubingen, 1881. Published after the death of the 
author as "the last graceful bequest of his always active Muse," by 
Professor Dr. F. von Thudichum, of Tubingen. 



viii PREFACE. 

the " Ampe"lographie Franchise" of Victor Rendu, works 
which mainly treat of the natural history and cultivation of 
vines. Amongst the best known works on the art of making 
wine are those of Count Chaptal, peer and minister under 
the Bourbon dynasty, who treated the subject from the 
chemical standpoint. The work of B. A. Lenoir consists of 
a first viticultural and a second osnopoetic part. The work 
of M. C. Ladrey (1857), like that of Chaptal, embodies 
mainly the application of chemical principles and is the best 
French work of the middle of our century ; it represents the 
practice of the Bourgogne, in a town of which, Dijon, the 
author was professor of chemistry : to it is appended a use- 
ful bibliography. The work of Maumene, " Sur le Travail 
des Vins," is also chemical, but treats also with great detail 
of the physical conditions called into play in the production 
of effervescent wines. The works of Pasteur led to great 
developments in the knowledge of the nature of the diseases 
of wine, which were recognized to be the result of the invasion 
of fungi, and of the means for their destruction by the skil- 
ful application of heat. The vineyards and wines of the 
Medoc were described at length by W. Franck, by 
D'Armailhac, and by Ch. Cocks, re-edited by E. Feret 
(1868). This latter contains many sketches of habitations 
called "chateaux," and thereby approaches to an illustrated 
traveller's guide, for which indeed Cocks had originally in- 
tended it ; other parts of France have not been so explicitly 
treated, and on some important areas, e.g., the Moselle valley 
of Alsace-Lorraine, the French vine-crowned muse has 
remained silent. 

Spain counts only few cenological publications; first 
amongst them is the work of Clemente, "On the Vines of 
Andalusia." Useful encyclopaedic works are those of Morales, 
who was formerly secretary to the Spanish Board of Agri- 



PREFACE. ix 

culture ; of Tablada, an author of merit, almost the only 
one who gives original information on Spanish wines in 
general. A work by Arago opens with an extensive descrip- 
tion of Spanish vines; to the cenological part is appended a 
discourse on cider and on beer. Of special monographs one 
by Barreto, a physician of Madrid, on the wines of Jerez 
deserves special notice. 

Of Portuguese works we have to notice a series of exhaus- 
tive " Reports on the Viticulture and Wines of Lusitania," 
published by its government in 1867, which fill a large octavo 
volume, but owing to the want of systematic arrangement and 
of indices are difficult to peruse. Another Portuguese official 
publication was ornamented with colour-printed plates 
representing the principal vines and their fruit in the elegant 
style of the modern French Duhamel, but the costly enter- 
prise was not completed. Amongst Portuguese monographs 
on special subjects, that of Oliveira, jun., " On the Phyl- 
loxera" (Porto, 1872), is meritorious and well illustrated. 

Concerning Italian wines the period of the Renaissance 
had more and better authors than the present time. An 
authoritative summary description of Italian wines was 
published in 1869 as a result of their exhibition in Paris. 

Many British authors have left us works of interest and 
value. One of the earliest was Sir Edward Barry, a 
physician at Bath, and afterwards state-physician to the 
Viceroy of Ireland. Dr. Henderson's " History of Wines " 
was published in 1824, that of Redding in 1836; the works 
of M'Culloch ("Commercial Dictionary") and of Busby 
(" Travels ") gave much useful information. Forrester, " On 
Port Wine," appeared in 1854, Tovey's work in 1862. The 
sale of the contents of the cellar of this scientific and 
accomplished wine merchant, which took place after his 
death, a few years ago, at Bristol, realised remarkably high 



X PREFACE. 

prices. The work of Mr. T. G. Shaw was distinguished 
by original information, and by the endeavour to lighten 
what he thought a heavy subject by the buoyancy of much 
poetry. Sheen's work also was a creditable performance, 
though, like most authors who attempt to treat didactic 
scientific subjects in what I may be allowed to call a belletristic 
manner, its writer rather diluted his essence by the intro- 
duction of anecdote for the diversion of the reader, as Shaw 
imported poetry. The late Dr. Druitt's writings were intended 
to popularize cheap wines, and in this direction they have 
had a certain amount of success, particularly by making the 
public better acquainted with the effervescent wines of the 
valley of the Loire. Sir J. Emerson Tennent's essay, "On 
Wine, Its Use and Taxation," 1855, was mainly directed 
against the reduction of the import tax on wine ; it was an 
able diplomatic and economical memorial, and much of its 
argument has been borne out by modern developments oi" 
the wine trade. 

Wines of Australia were for the first time scientifically 
described by the Rev. John I. Bleasdale, in one of the so- 
called "International Exhibition (Melbourne, 1872-73) 
Essays." 

Much useful information was at one time collected by the 
Parliamentary Committee on the Wine Duties, which is 
embodied in two volumes of Reports of Evidence. The 
annual reports of our consuls are also valuable sources of 
information, particularly on statistics of commerce and pro- 
duction. 

It is to be hoped that the political movement for the 
expansion of the wine trade which was begun in 1860 may 
be continued in the future, and obtain the hygienic results 
which its promoters endeavoured to secure. The art of 
making wine must include as an integral part the art and 



PREFACE. xi 

science of prwcnting its diseases, those remarkable parasi- 
tisms by the agency of which great volumes of originally 
excellent material are ceaselessly and irrecoverably spoiled 
and lost. When this art and science shall have found 
systematic application, the present insecurity of viticulturists 
and traders will disappear, and the public will be able to 
obtain excellent wines, such as at present are beyond the 
reach of most people. When wine on its field shall be as 
good and cheap and accessible as bread now universally is 
in this country, the striving of politicians and men of science 
will have been rewarded by the success, which will add 
another pillar to the great edifice of modern freedom and 
civilization. 



CONTENTS. 

SSCTION PAGE 

CHAPTER I. ORIGIN, GEOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY OF VINES. 

1 . Definition and Etymology of Wine I 

2. Origin and Descent of Vines 2 

3. Origin of Cultivated Vines 9 

4. Fossil Vines and Grapes 10 

5. Geographical Distribution of Vines on the Northern Hemisphere I 1 

6. Viticulture in England in Mediaeval Times 13 

CHAPTER II. CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF SOIL AND VINES. 

7. Mineral Constituents of the Vine and their Relation to those of 

the Soil 15 

8. Influence of the Soil on the Mineral Constituents of the Vine . 18 

9. Functions of Mineral Ingredients of the Vine 18 

10. Amount of Mineral Matter which Viticulture Abstracts from 

the Soil . '* 19 

11. Organic Ingredients and Chemical Development of the Vine . 20 

CHAPTER III. PRINCIPLES OF VITICULTURE, GENERAL 
AND SPECIAL. 

1 2. Soil favourable to Viticulture 23 

13. Manuring and Improvement of the Soil in Vineyards ... 24 

14. Methods of Propagating and Multiplying the Vine .... 24 

15. Propagation by means of Eyes, or Buds 25 

1 6. Propagation by means of Cut Canes 25 

17. Propagation by means of Layers or Slips 26 

18. Grafting of Vines 27 

19. General Principles of the Cultivation of the Vine 28 

CHAPTER IV. VINES AND VINTAGE. 

20. Varieties of Vines to be selected for Cultivation 33 

21. Selection of suitable Species of Vines for Wine-Making . . . 36 

22. Vintage and Vinification 38 

23. Time of Vintage 38 

24. Modes of Vintage 40 

25. Separation of Stalks 42 

26. Mashing and Crushing 43 



X ; V CONTENTS. 

SECTION PAGE 

CHAPTER V. PRESSING AND VINDICATION. 

27. Wine-Presses f|id Pressing 44 

28. Fermentation of the Wine- Must 48 

29. Various Modes of Correcting the Composition of Must before 

Fermentation 50 

30. Plastering of Wine and Must 52 

31. Probable Object of the Practice of Plastering 53 

CHAPTER VI. CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF WINE. 

32. Ethylic Alcohol 54 

33. Alcohols homologous to Ethylic or Common Alcohol ... 56 

34. Aldehydes 56 

35. Acids formed from Alcohols in Wine 56 

36. Compound Ethers 57 

CHAPTER VII. ANALYSIS OF WINES. 

37. Mode of ascertaining the Strength of Wine by the Specific 

Gravity of the Distillate from it 57 

38. Distillation 58 

39. Quantation of Alcohol in Wines by Indirect Means .... 59 

40. State in which Alcohol is contained in Wine 61 

CHAPTER VIII. ACIDS IN WINE. 

41. Varieties of Acids in Wine 63 

42. Chemical Estimation of the Quantity of Acids in Wine . . 69 

43. Estimation of Tartaric Acid and Bitartrate of Potash in Wine 70 

CHAPTER IX. ETHERS OR BOUQUET OF WINES. 

44. Varieties of Ethers in W 7 ines 72 

45. OZnanthic Ether 73 

46. Tartaric Ether 74 

47. Quantation of Ethers in Wine 74 

48. Theory of the Limitation of Ethers in Wine 75 

49. Smell, Bouquet or Aroma of Wine 77 

CHAPTER X. SUGARS IN GRAPES AND WINE. 

50. Varieties of Sugar occurring in Grapes and Wine .... 79 

51. Grape-Sugar, Dextrose, or right-turning Glucose .... 80 

52. Fruit-Sugar, Levulose or left-turning Glucose 81 

53. Invert Sugar 82 

54. Inosite or Phaseomannite 82 

55. Testing Wines for Sugar 83 

CHAPTER XI. COLOURING, ASTRINGENT, EXTRACTIVE AND 
MINERAL CONSTITUENTS OF WINE. 

56. Glycerol 86 

57. Colouring Matters 87 

58. Ammonia 91 

59. Albuminous Matters 91 



CONTENTS. XV 

SECTION PAGE 

60. Tannin . 92 

61. Extractives 93 

62. Mineral Constituents 94 

63. Total Solid Constituents of Wine 95 

CHAPTER XII. WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 

64. Divisions of the Gironde 96 

65. Vines Cultivated in the Medoc 98 

66. Modes of Cultivating the Vine in the Medoc 101 

67. Vintage in the Medoc 104 

68. Various Qualities of the Wines of the Medoc 107 

69. Classified Growths ... 108 

70. Consumption of Medoc Wines . . 112 

71. The Graves 114 

72. Red \Vines of the Graves 116 

73. White \Vines of the Graves or Sauternes District . . . . 116 

74. Vintage 117 

75. Description of the Wines 120 

/6. \Vines of the Hill-sides or C6tes of the Gironde 121 

CHAPTER XIII. WINES OF ROUSSILLON AND LANGUEDOC. 

77. Wines of Roussillon 125 

78. Mode of Production of Muscat Sweet Wine 129 

79. Mode of Production of Malvoisie and Maccabeo Wines . . 129 

80. Vineyard of Perpignan 130 

81. Summary of the Wines of Roussillon 130 

82. \Vines of Languedoc, or the Midi of France. Topography 

and Soil 131 

83. Vines Cultivated in Languedoc 132 

84. Distinguished Growths of the Departments of the Aude and 

Gard 134 

85. Remarkable Growths of the Herault 136 

86. Remarkable Muscat Wines 136 

87. Manufacture of Spirit distilled from Wine, called " Trois- 

six" and "Eau-de-Vie," at Montpellier 137 

88. Markets for the Sale of Spirits 137 

89. Designations of Spirits of various Degrees of Strength . . . 138 

CHAPTER XIV. WINES OF THE EAST OF FRANCE. 

90. Wines of the East of France . x 139 

91. C6te du Rhdne 140 

92. Chateau-neuf-du-Papc 141 

93. Vineyard of St. Peray, Ardeche . . 142 

94. Vineyards of the Ermitage 143 

95. Vineyards of the Beaujolais, Maconnais, and the Chalon 

Cote 145 

96. The Beaujolais 145 

97. Vines, Vintage, and Classification of the Wines of the 

Beaujolais 146 



xvi CONTENTS. 

4SCTION PAGB 

98. The Maconnais. General Division of District and Soil . . 146 

99. Predominating Vines 147 

100. Mode of Cultivation, Vintage and Treatment of Red Wines . 148 

101. White Grape-Vines, and Character of their Wine .... 148 

102. C6te of Chalon-sur-Saone 149 

CHAPTER XV. WINES OF BURGUNDY. 

103. General Observations on the Wines of Burgundy . . . . 150 

104. Viticultural Districts of Burgundy 151 

105. Varieties of Vines planted in Burgundy 152 

106. Mode of Cultivation 153 

107. Vintage . ^ 155 

1 08. Vatting and Fermentation *. 157 

CHAPTER XVI. WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 

109. Wines of the Champagne 160 

no. Wine-producing Part of the Champagne 162 

in. Cultivation of the Vine in the Champagne 166 

112. Value of the Vineyards 166 

113. Varieties of Vines grown in the Champagne 167 

114. Vintage in the Champagne 169 

115. Pressing, Fermentation, Cellaring, and Fining of the Wine . 171 

116. Drawing into Bottles, or Tirage 174 

117. Clearing of the Bottles of Yeast, or Disgorging 175 

1 1 8. Liqueuring, Corking, and Finishing 175 

119. Qualities of Champagne and Quantities produced .... 177 

1 20. Historical Note on the Discovery of Champagne .... 178 

121. Production and Variation of the Mousse 179 

CHAPTER XVII. WINES OF THE VALLEYS OF THE LOIRE AND 
CHARENTE. 

122. Wines and Vines of the Valley of the Loire iSl 

123. Mode of Cultivation 182 

124. Wines and Brandies of the Charente 183 

125. Varieties of Vines producing the Eau-de- Vie of Cognac . . 183 

126. Mode of producing the Eau-de- Vie of Cognac 184 

CHAPTER XVIII. WINES OF THE UPPER RH;NE AND 
MAINE VALLEY. 

127. Wines of Alsatia 186 

128. Wines ofjthe Palatinate, or Rhenish Bavaria 188 

129. Mode of Cultivating the Vine 189 

130. Prevailing Vines 190 

131. Wines of Rhenish Hesse 191 

132. Wines of Franconia, or the Upper Maine 197 

133. Wines of Baden, Wurtemberg, and Hesse, North of the 

Maine 194 



CONTENTS. xvii 

SECTION PAGE 

CHAPTER XIX. WINES OF THE RHEINGAU, OF THE LOWER 
MAINE, AND OF THE MOSELLF. 

134. Wines of the Rheingau. Historical Note 196 

135. Topographical and Geological Note 196 

136. Varieties of Vines cultivated in the Rheingau 197 

137. The Steinberg 198 

1 38. Marcobrunn and Johannisberg 200 

139. Vineyards of Rudesheim 202 

140. Wines of the Lower Maine, or Hochheim 202 

141. Wines of the Moselle 203 

142. Cultivated Vines and mode of Training 204 

143. Peculiarities of Moselle Wines 204 

CHAPTER XX. WINES OF AUSTRIA. 

144. Wines of Austria 205 

145. Red Wine of Voslau, near Vienna 206 

146. Wines and Grapes of the Tyrol 207 

147. The Tyrolinger, or " Black Hambro " Vine of the Tyrol . 208 

148. The Grape-cure at Meran 209 

149. Wines of Styria . . 210 

150. Viticulturists of Styria 211 

151. Varieties of Vines Cultivated 212 

152. Vinification, Pressing, and Quality of Wine 213 

153. Wines of Croatia 214 

154. Wines of Dalmatia 215 

155. Varieties of Vines and their Cultivation 216 

156. Wines of Istria 217 

157. Wines of Gortz 217 

158. Wines of Bohemia . 218 

CHAPTER XXL WINES OF HUNGARY. 

159. General Observations 218 

1 60. Viticultural Districts of Hungary . 219 

161. Varieties of Soil on which Vines grow in Hungary . . . 220 

162. Varieties of Vines and Mode of Cultivation 220 

163. Vintage and Vinification 222 

164. Classification of Hungarian Wines 223 

\6$. Wines of the Banat, Woiwodina, and Syrmia 225 

CHAPTER XXII. WINES OF SPAIN. 

166. Vineyards of Jerez de la Frontera 226 

167. Climate of Jerez 231 

1 68. Extent and Position of the Vineyards 231 

169. The Balbaina Districts 232 

170. New Plantations, Young Vineyards, Majuelos .... 234 

1 7 1. Annual Labours in Vineyards 236 

172. Productiveness of Vineyards 240 

173. Prices of Vineyards 240 

b 



xviii CONTENTS. 

SECTION PACK 

174. Principal Vines most commonly Cultivated and their 

Distribution in the Pagos 243 

175. Pruning of the Vines 247 

176. Rarer Varieties of Vines 250 

177. Vintage The Lagar Pressing the Grapes Pisa .... 252 

178. Further Description of Pagos, their Soils and Vines . . . 258 

179. Further Description of Jerez Vines 259 

180. Classification of Grapes, in the order of their Quality for 

Making Wine 262 

181. Eastern, Southern, and Western Group of Pagos .... 263 

182. Moscatels 269 

183. Density of Jerez Mostos 270 

184. Sulphuring Azufrado 272 

185. Temperatures of Fermenting Musts 274 

186. Stages of Wine, and Qualities 276 

187. The Criadera. The Solera 277 

1 88. Colours of Sherries Arrope, Color or Vino de Color, Dulce 279 

189. Evaporation of Wine from Casks. Flor 283 

190. Scuddiness, Viscosity, Nube and other Diseases of Wine . 285 

191. Finings 286 

192. Tinajas. Casks 287 

193. Bodegas and Want of Cellars 289 

194. Notes on the History of Viticulture and of the Trade in Wine 

at Jerez 293 

195. Vineyards of San Lucar de Barrameda 295 

196. The Algaida and its Indigenous Vines 297 

197. Vineyards of Rota. Tintilla de Rota 299 

198. Wines of the Val de Penas 301 

199. Wines of Catalonia 302 

200. Wines of Valencia, Benicarlo, Alicante 302 

201. Wines of Granada, Malaga 303 

202. Wines of Aragon and other provinces of Spain, Majorca, 
Minorca 304 

CHAPTER XXIII. WINES OF PORTUGAL. 

203. Vineyards of the Alto Douro 306 

204. Vines of the Province Entre Douro e Minho 307 

205. Soil of the Alto Douro District 308 

206. Topographical Notes 309 

207. Modes of Planting and Training the Vine 310 

208. Vintage and Modes of Vinification 311 

209. The Lagar, the Press, Treading the Grapes, Fermentation . 312 

210. Remarks on this Mode of Vinification 313 

211. Elderberry and Logwood 314 

212. White Varieties of Wines produced in the Alto Douro . . 315 

213. Transport of Alto Douro Wines 316 

214. Change in the Taste of the Public as regards Port . . . . 319 

215. Wine Country of the Bairrada 320 



CONTENTS. XIX 

SECTION PAGR 

2 1 6. The Vineyards around and near Lisbon. Vineyards of Collares 322 

217. Vineyard of Bucellas 323 

218. Wines of Torres Vedras Lavradio 324 

219. General Features of Portuguese Wine-Making 324 

CHAPTER XXIV. WINES OF THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS, MADEIRA, 
THE CANARIES, AND THE AZORES. 

220. Wines of Madeira 329 

221. Varieties of Vines and their Cultivation 329 

222. Wines of the Canaries and the Azores 331 

CHAPTER XXV. WINES OF ITALY AND OF THE BALKAN 
PENINSULA. 

223. General Observations on Italian Wines 332 

224. Wines of Piedmont and the Island of Sardinia 333 

225. Wines of Tuscany 333 

226. Wines of Lombardy, Venetia, Central and Southern Italy . 334 

227. Wines of Sicily 335 

228. Wines of the Balkan Peninsula 336 

229. Wines of Greece 336 

230. Vines cultivated in Greece 337 

231. Vinification 338 

232. Islands of the Greek Archipelago, Santorin, Ionian Islands, 

Candia, Rhodes, Cyprus 339 

CHAPTER XXVI. WINES OF ASIA. 

233. Wines of Caucasia 341 

234. Wines of Persia. Shiraz and its Vines 342 

CHAPTER XXVII. WINES OF AFRICA. 

235. Wines of the Cape of Good Hope. Vines ; Mode of 

Cultivation 345 

236. Qualities of Cape Wines and Importation into England . . 346 

237. Principal Viticultural Districts and Estates in the Cape Colony 347 

238. The Constantias 348 

239. Wines of Madagascar 348 

240. Wines of Morocco 349 

241. W 7 ines of Algeria 349 

242. Wines of the Nile Valley 349 

CHAPTER XXVIII. WINES OF AMERICA. 

243. General Observations 350 

244. Indigenous Vines of North America 350 

245. Vines Cultivated in North America 353 

246. Rise of Viticulture in America 354 

CHAPTER XXIX. WINES OF AUSTRALASIA. 

247. General Observations . 355 



XX CONTENTS. 

SECTION PACE 

CHAPTER XXX. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON WINKS. 

248. Rating of the Wines of the World 356 

249. Active Ingredients of Wines 361 

250. Use of Chemical Analysis of Wine 364 

251. Use of Wine to the Healthy and Sick in Youth or Age . . 367 

CHAPTER XXXI. DISEASES OF VINES AND OF WINES. 

252. Diseases of Vines and their Treatment 370 

253. Diseases of Wines, their Prevention and Cure 377 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 

CHAPTER I. 
ORIGIN, GEOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY OF VINES. 

i. DEFINITION AND ETYMOLOGY OF WINE. 

WINE is a beverage obtained from the juice of grapes 
by fermentation, composed of alcohol, ethers, acids, 
water, and peculiar agreeably-smelling ingredients, which 
some term aroma, others, with more reason, bouquet. 
Fermented beverages are obtained from many other materials 
besides grape juice, such are the sap of different palms, the 
Mexican pulqiie^ from the stem of an agave, the sap of the 
maple, birch, the Homeric lotos, 1 and all kinds of sugar-con- 
taining fruit and berries, honey, corn, rice, vegetable roots, 
including manioc. 2 Such drinks have also been termed 
wine, but generally distinguished by prefixing the name of 
the vegetable from which their main character was derived, 
e.g., gooseberry-wine. 3 The name wine comes from the 
Indo-German orient ; in Hebrew it occurs asjatn, in Ethio- 
pian as warn, in Greek as oinos, not improbably pronounced 
woinos in Homeric times, 4 Georgian Caucasian ghwins, 
Latin, vinum ; this last name is repeated in the Romanic 
languages with only a modification of the terminal syllable. 
From these names, which are only a selection out of many, 




pointed to 
delusions of intoxication. (Plutarch, " Sympos." vii. 10.) 



2 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

it has been concluded, and with no small degree of certainty, 
that viticulture and the preparation of wine have been intro- 
duced to western nations from the orient. The Greek mythos 
of the migration from India to Hellas of the wine-god 
Dionysos point to the same conclusion. 

2. ORIGIN AND DESCENT OF VINES. 
The vine is older than all history, and indeed older than 
humanity itself, as is evident from the occurrence of its 
fruit and leaves in deposits formed during geologically 
so-called tertiary times, which are far anterior to any trace of 
human existence. It grows in a so-called wild or unculti- 
vated state in many parts of the old and new world, in the 
valley of the Rhine, of the Danube, as well as that of the 
Orontes in central Asia, and that of the Amoor at its eastern 
end, in Italy, Sicily, and Portugal, in central and northern 
America. Many wild vines bear no fruit at all, others bear 
uneatable and useless fruit, others again, sour or sweet and 
eatable berries. 1 The assumption therefore that cultivated 
vines were derived from one particular species, the vitis 
Tint/era, and that wild vines were degenerated offsprings of 
this native of Asia is not tenable. Candolle, 2 who has made 
such a deep study of the origin and distribution of plants, 
particularly those which are cultivated by man, does not 
think it practical to derive a distinction between vines from 
the fact of their being " cultivated " or " spontaneous," but he 
declares Armenia to be the land in which the species 
originated. 3 As a reason for this opinion he adduces the 
fact that in Armenia the most gigantic vines, with stems of 
the thickness of the human body and the height and expanse 
of large trees, produce without cultivation grapes of good 
taste. 4 But vines of similar size are known to have grown 
in Campania, on the Caspian Sea, in Cashmir, on the 
Lebanon, where in the last century there were yet vines 

1 Meyen, " Grundr. d. Pflanzengeographie." 

y Alph. de Candolle, "Geogr. botanique raisonnee," p. 872. 

8 "Patrie originaire de 1'espece," /. c. 

* Cf. Gervinus, " Histor. Schriften," Bd. vii., 177. 



ORIGIN, GEOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY. 3 

with trunks six inches in diameter, bearing bunches of the 
weight of twelve pounds. 1 Meyen on the other hand believes 
Cyrenaica to be the fatherland of the vine. In the presence 
of the theory of evolution it would not be difficult to com- 
prehend a derivation from one original species, or from 
several varieties. But the discussion is not likely to be 
conducted to an acceptable conclusion, as the scientific data 
for its consideration are too scarce and too imperfect. 

We find in viticultural literature many allusions to, or 
even descriptions of, wild vines. Thus Crescentius, who 
lived in the thirteenth century at Bologna, and wrote a 
compendium 2 on agriculture, mainly after the ancient Latin 
authors, Palladitis and Columella, stated that he had 
met with many varieties of wild vines in Italy, which 
appeared to him to be peculiar sorts ; and Clemente 3 re- 
cognized the peculiar character of the wild vines of his 
country, and believed them to be indigenous to it, and con- 
sequently to have existed there previous to the introduction 
or origination of the cultivated species. He expresses him- 
self as opposed to the limitation of botanists who assume the 
original existence of only one vitis mnifera and refer all 
other varieties to a play of nature. He describes different 
kinds of wild vines, perfectly characterized, as growing in the 
Algaida,a sandy district near San Lucar de Barrameda, mainly 
grown over with sea-pines. Of this district and its vines, 
the so-called garanones, the reader will find a special descrip- 
tion under the chapter referring to Andalusia, entitled " The 
Algaida and its Indigenous Vines," in which the author has 
embodied the results of a special visit made to the locality. 

In the southern parts of France, in Provence, Languedoc 
and Guyenne, wild vines are met with on hedges, in 
jungles, or in woods and forests. According to Duhamel 4 

1 Schulz, "Diary of 1754," ed. Volz., "Beitrage zur Kulturgessch," 
1852, 52. 

* Petrus de Crescentiis, "Opus ruralium commodorum," Augsburg, 
1471, Louvain, 1474, and many other editions in various languages. 

3 Simon Roxas Clemente, Director of the Botanical Garden, Madrid, 
in his work, " The Vines of Andalusia." 

* Duhamel de Monceau, " Traite des Arbres fruitiers," p. 212. 



4 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

they differ from the cultivated varieties by their leaves being 
in general smaller, and more cottony on the surface, and 
particularly by their fruit being much smaller, and of a less 
soft and sugary taste. These wild vines, to which the 
ancients had given the name of Labrusca? are yet known in 
the present day in the south of France under the name of 
Lambrusco and Lambresquiero. 

With Gmelin begins the scientific diagnosis of wild vines. 
In elaborating the Flora Badensis he observed that the wild 
vine frequently occurred in the dioic state, that is to say, that 
some plants were male, and bore no fruit, while others were 
female, and bore fruit provided they stood in the neighbour- 
hood of male plants. He described such plants botanically 
and gave them a separate place in his treatise, under the 
title of vitis sylvestris. In most botanical works which ap- 
peared subsequently to Gmelin, the vitis sylvestris is quoted 
after him, but the discovery is mostly neutralized by the 
observation that the vitis sylvestris was nothing but a de- 
generated vitis vinifera. Other botanists, including Reichen- 
bach, fell into the error of confounding the American vitis 
labrusca, as accepted by Linne", with the vitis sylvestris. 
These errors were removed, and the observations of Gmelin 
were re-established and expanded by the distinguished 
cenologist, J. P. Bronner, of Wiesloch near Heidelberg. 
He studied these children of the forest in their natural 
haunts, the woods which border the marshy shores of the 
Rhine between Mannheim and Rastadt, where they grow by 
thousands; he visited them in early summer-time, and 
selected from innumerable individuals the types of inflores- 
cence, and multifarious forms of leaves; he marked the 
places of their abode, and returning in the fall, saw and 
tasted the grapes, which had then come to maturity. After 
devoting years to the observation of the several constant 
varieties, he took cuttings from them and planted them in 
his garden at Wiesloch, in order to observe their bearing in 

1 Linne does not seem to have been acquainted with wild vines of 
Europe, for he applied this ancient name or adjective of theirs to an 
American indigenous vine, the first variety which he admitted by the 
side of the vinifera. 



ORIGIN, GEOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY. 5 

the state of cultivation. (I visited this vineyard in 1866, 
and examined a considerable number of these children of 
the Rhine marshes. 1 ) Bronner had thus planted thirty-six 
varieties, when in the year 1842, a very favourable wine- 
year, most of his plants bore very perfect fruit, and brought 
it to the utmost maturity. None of these plants had changed 
their original character by cultivation. He caused accurate 
pictorial representations of their fruit to be made. Already, 
during the time of blossoming, he had obtained faithful 
portraits of the flowers, leaves, and branches, partly by a 
kind of nature-printing, and when these were coloured by an 
artist, the whole formed a complete botanical atlas of the wild 
vines of the Upper Rhine valley. 2 At the same time Bronner 
made an accurate botanical diagnosis of, and attributed a 
suitable Latin name to each variety, and arranged the whole 
as a special system, based upon the construction of the 
flowers, and the formation of the fruit. 

The inflorescence of these wild vines shows three distinct 
forms. A considerable number of plants exhibit only a male 
inflorescence without any umbilicus capable of fructification ; 
in the place where there should be a beginning of a berry 
there is a yellow receptacle filled with honey. The plants 
showing this peculiarity produce an enormous number of 
blossoms, each of which is several inches in length, and with 
its long yellow stamina and terminal pollen bags resembles 
a brush such as is used for cleaning bottles. The flowers 
distribute a most agreeable odour around the plant. 3 

A certain number of the other vines have exactly the same 
inflorescence as the cultivated vines, they are hermaphrodite, 
with long projecting yellow stamina and pollen bags, and an 
umbilicus capable of impregnation. The leaves of these 
vines differ but little from those of the cultivated varieties, 
but the fruit has a different shape, and a different chemical 
nature, being often very acid and sometimes quite inedible. 

1 Cf. Thudichum and Dupre, /. c., p. 4, footnote. 

a This atlas is now in the Library and Museum of the CEconomical 
and Agricultural Society of Baden, at Karlsruhe. 

3 Compare with this description the account which Pliny gives of the 
"CEnanth." 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



But the great majority of individuals as well as species of 
wild vine have a most peculiar inflorescence, differing con- 




Fig, i. Inflorescence of hermaphrodite wild and cultivated vines. 
(Magnified.) 




Fig. 2. Inflorescence of male or sterile wild vines, with open honey 
cup in place of fruit. (Magnified.) 




Fig. 3. Inflorescence of female or fructiferous wild vines, with 
recurved stamina. 

siderably from the two forms just described. On close 
examination of an active blossom of this class it is seen that 
the ordinary so-called crown or cap, which the cultivated 



ORIGIN, GEOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY. / 

vine always sheds completely, is actually detached, but 
remains hanging upon the flower, while the stamina are bent 
downwards below the basis of the future fruit. The stamina 
become, as botanists technically term them, stamina recurvata, 
and thus greatly differ in appearance from the stamina erecta 
of the wild unproductive variety above described, and of 
the hermaphrodite wild and cultivated plants. 

Bronner surmised that the plants which show the stamina 
recurvata were unable to fructify themselves, but required the 
male plants with stamina erecta for impregnation. The 
transfer of the pollen from the male to the female individuals, 
which are mostly standing at a distance from each other, is 
very probably effected by the agency of insects. 

American vines also occur in the polygamic as well as in 
the dioic state. Monographers do not admit this to be a 
characteristic feature, but hold it to be an accident to which 
any variety of vine may be subject. 

In some vineyards of the department of the Ain, in 
France, a variety of vine is cultivated which is termed the 
mescle. It has long bunches of oval grapes and deeply 
lobated leaves, mostly with five divisions. Each of these 
divisions or lobes is provided with a considerable expanse 
of vegetable membrane on both sides of the principal so- 
called nerve in every case in which the plant is fertile ; but 
a leaf with a narrow strip of membrane on both sides of the 
nerve indicates a sterile plant ; such a leaf resembles that 
of a Virginia creeper. By these peculiarities the plants 
can be easily distinguished from each other, even at a 
distance. 

The absolutely and always sterile plants of the mescle 
vine are termed by the vine dressers plants craputs. They 
grow luxuriant branches, and the apparently crippled cha- 
racter of their leaves is no indication of any general want of 
vigour. Their cuttings and pro-vines are as sterile as the 
parent stocks. The French imperialist viticultural author, 
Guyot, 1 was as unable to account for these phenomena as 
were the vine-dressers; but these latter did not dare to 

1 " Rapport sur la Viticulture de 1'Ain," pp. 137. 



8 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

totally extirpate the sterile mescle from the vineyard, al- 
though they abstained from increasing the number of indivi- 
duals. The sterile mescle is no doubt the male, and the 
fertile its female variety, with probably hermaphrodite plants 
intermixed. 

Bronner classified the hermaphrodite indigenous wild 
vines of the Rhine valley ; his list comprises twenty-eight 
varieties, of which the details may be consulted in his 
original work. 1 Not a single bunch of grapes was met with 
which could be said to be similar to or identical with any 
variety of the cultivated grapes of the Rhine valley. The 
grapes were mostly black, and amongst many thousands of 
plants only three were found bearing white fruit. Of these 
latter one had acid, the other moderately sweet fruit; the 
third bore delicious orange-flavoured grapes. The bunches 
of the two first white varieties were loose, pendulous, and 
carried long small berries ; the orange-flavoured vine had 
bunches with densely placed grapes. Among the black 
varieties some bore very small bunches, others reached 
from two to five inches in length ; most common were the 
black grapes of oval shape. The shapes of the leaves 
differed greatly. 

In Upper and Lower Austria, particularly between Vienna 
and Pressburg, there grow many wild vines on the shores of 
the Danube, as well as on the islands of the river. 2 Similar 
vines appear below Buda, and extend to Transylvania. The 
borders of the Theiss are enlivened by their presence ; the 
Save, where it issues from Croatia, waters many plants of 
this kind. On the Adige, in the Tyrol, there are some 
jungles formed by wild vines creeping over low shrubs of 
Rhus cotinus and wild fig-trees ; the wild vines accompany 
the Adige into the low marshy country. 

From the foregoing it is evident that all those European 
countries which possess the climatic conditions have in their 
flora many species of the genus Vitis in a wild state, with 
such botanical characters as leave no doubt that the plants 
are indigenous, produced by natural selection from proto- 

1 Cf. also Thudichum and Dupre, /. c., pp. 8 and 9. 

8 Jaquin in an article in the Austrian "Annals of Agriculture." 



ORIGIN, GEOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY. 9 

types, and not derived from imported cultivated races of 
vines, or degenerated by the struggle for existence from 
previously cultivated races, the products of artificial crossing 
or human selection. 

3. ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED VINES. 

In the appreciation of the nature of the different wines 
produced in the world, it must be borne in mind that each 
particular district producing a particular kind of well-charac- 
terized wine does so by means of particular well-characterized 
varieties of vines. These vines must be considered as 
having been either indigenous to these districts, or as 
having been produced in them by natural or artificial selec- 
tion from indigenous varieties; for when transplanted to 
other districts they change their character more or less so as 
to produce a different wine ; or they lose their peculiarities 
so completely as to be worthless for making wine ; or they 
cease to be fructiferous ; or lastly, they do not succeed at all, 
and pine and die out. 

The Aramont is a vine commonly grown about Montpellier 
on account of its extraordinary fertility ; transplanted to the 
south of Germany it begins to bear in the fourth year and 
produces many and large bunches of grapes, but year by 
year its fertility decreases, its originally large berries become 
smaller, until the viticulturist is obliged to remove the barren 
plants. Bronner 1 who had become acquainted with the 
extraordinary fertility of some vines of Upper Austria the 
Rothgipfler, green Muscateller, the white one of Griming (a 
village near Vienna) and the red Zierifandler of Voslau 
planted numerous samples of all four varieties in his vine- 
yard at Wiesloch. During ten years he did not obtain a 
single grape from any of them, and after ten further years all 
the vines had died out. 

The vines of Europe transplanted to North America do 
not succeed. Viticulture in that country has hitherto only 
succeeded with indigenous varieties or their crosses. Even 
the wine made from the celebrated Catawba is so flavourless 

1 Bronner " Die wilden Trauben," etc. p. 32. 



10 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

that the best which we could obtain from St. Louis was 
strongly flavoured with elder-flower. 

Invariably American vines which yield yet drinkable wine 
in the United States, when grown in the Gironde degenerate 
and yield no drinkable wine. 1 

Vines transplanted from more northern to southern lati- 
tudes do not succeed any better than those which have 
made the inverse migration. We dismiss as unproved the 
often repeated statement, that the Portuguese Bucellas wine 
was made from the "hock-grape;" but we reject as entirely 
fabulous the statement that the vine called Pedro Ximenes 
had been brought to Spain from the banks of the Moselle 
by the man whose name it bears. As a French author 2 
wittily said, " If he took any he took all ; for no such vine 
grows nowadays north of the Pyrenees." 

The vines of the Alto Douro differ in specific botanical 
character from all other vines, as port wine differs from 
other wine. The Gironde produces the peculiar red wines 
by means of its Carbenet, Carmenere, Malbec, and Verdot. 
Transplanted to Spain, these vines do not produce claret 
any longer ; in a climate less moist and less warm, these 
vines so lose their fertility as to cease to be remunerative 
objects of agriculture. 

We might greatly increase the number of data, all pointing 
to the same conclusion, but those above given are sufficient 
to prove a general law, namely, that every uniform climatic 
region has its peculiarly adapted varieties of wild and 
cultivated vines, which cannot be so successfully cultivated 
in other regions, or cannot be cultivated at all anywhere 
else. 

4. FOSSIL VINES AND GRAPES. 

The vine existed certainly in Germany, and perhaps also 
in Bohemia and Tuscany, 3 during the tertiary and before 

1 We learned this from the late M. Boucherot of Carbonnieux near 
Bordeaux, who planted American vines on a large scale. 

a Count Odart, ''Traite des Cepages." 

3 Cf. Gaudin, " Mem. sur quelques Gisements des Feuilles fossiles 
dela Toscane." 



ORIGIN, GEOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY. II 

the basaltic outbreaks which succeeded the tertiary deposits. 
In the relative situations there existed jungles close to lakes 
or morasses, in which latter the decaying vegetation of the 
neighbourhood became imbedded, and by commixture of 
clay, preserved. Thus deposits of lignite, or brown-coal 
were formed, which now supply the neighbourhood with 
fuel. In this lignite the preserved parts of vines are found in 
our time. But these deposits have been preserved from 
ulterior changes, from being washed away by rain, or the 
combined effects of the agencies which produce what in 
geology is termed denudation, by having been covered over 
by basaltic lava, which in the particular case of Salzhausen 
in Hesse, is no less than 180 feet thick. 1 

These lignites contain a great variety of impressions of 
leaves, such as oak leaves resembling the Mexican evergreen 
varieties, species of smilax and anona, leaves of a walnut- 
like tree called carya, and its nuts, the small fruit of a 
pistachia, and the broad leaves of a fig-tree, with here and 
there the impression of a half-grown fig. Interspersed with 
these, or in separate layers, are found the impressions of the 
leaves of the fossil vine, vitis teutonica? and large quantities 
of the seeds of its fruit, " regular fossil raisin-stones," in the 
shape of regular cakes of " murk," or compressed masses oi 
kernels and membranes, the residues of husks. 



5. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF VINES ON THE 
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. 

The vine meets with the climatic conditions of its growth,, 
and the perfection of its fruit, on the northern hemisphere, 
in a belt of territory which is enclosed between two lines, a 
northern one on the polar limit and a southern or equatorial 

1 For details concerning this deposit cf. Thudichum and DupreV 
" Treatise," etc., p. 14-16; also Tasche, in the " Transactions of the 
Imperial Caroline Academy of Sciences." 

2 They were formerly believed to be derived from a species of acer, 
but correctly diagnosed by A. Brown. Cf. F. Unger, " Sylloge 
Plantarum Fossilium," in the Sitz. Ber. d. K. Acad. d. W. ; Wien,, 
1 86 1, vol. xix. 



12 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

limit. Commencing north of the Azores, the polar limit 
passes through the Channel south of England, excluding 
that country, enters France in the Bretagne at Vannes, and 
runs by Mazieres, Alengon and Beauvais. It then takes 
a more northern turn, includes a portion of Rhenish 
Prussia, passes to the north of Thuringia, the valley of the 
Saale, Saxony, and then crosses the Carpathians, to pass 
through South Russia, almost in a straight line to the northern 
end of the Caspian Sea. Thence it proceeds to the river 
Amoor, and somewhat to the north of the southern bend of 
that river ends in the Pacific Ocean. The equatorial limit 
passes south of the Canary Islands, including them and all 
the islands near the African and Spanish coast. It enters 
Africa about the 3oth degree of northern latitude, and, 
running near that degree, leaves Africa at the middle of the 
Isthmus of Suez ; runs across Arabia and the Persian Sea, 
enters India near the 25th degree of northern latitude, runs 
down into Hindostan with a loop, nearly parallel to its 
sea-borders, so that the whole interior of Hindostan is com- 
prised in it while the whole seaboard is excluded. It 
then passes again to the north, enters China and forms a 
loop southwards similar to that in Hindostan, to termi- 
nate at the eastern end of it, on the 27th degree of northern 
latitude. 

These limits are really those of the culture of the vine ; for 
:some varieties will grow to the north of the limit, though its 
fruit never ripens unless with the aid of exceptional protec- 
tion : to the south of the equatorial limit the vine becomes an 
evergreen on which all stages of growth are represented at 
the same time ; and under these circumstances it does not 
mature its fruit with the same perfection as when it is sub- 
ject to the rotation of the seasons. 

The vine requires for the ripening of its fruit not a certain 
high average temperature of the year, but a maximum of 
summer heat, without which the fruit does not ripen. In 
accordance with this general law England does not produce 
wine, for although its average temperature is very high, its 
maximum summer heat is not high enough, owing to the 
large masses of water vapour which constantly pervade the 



ORIGIN, GEOGRAPHY, AND HISTORY. IJ 

air over Britain, and prevent the sun's rays from influencing 
the vegetation with the required energy. 

The cultivation of the vine in America is apparently in- 
cluded between limits similar to those prevailing in Europe. 
Even the indigenous American vines cannot be cultivated 
north of 50 degrees north latitude. The scuppernong does 
not succeed north of the Potomac, and the indigenous vines 
apparently do not pass south of the centre of Mexico. 

On the southern hemisphere, Peru, South Africa (at least 
the Cape of Good Hope), and Australia produce wine. The 
extent of the cultivation in these districts is at present not 
exactly known, but it seems somewhat to increase in 
Australia. 

6. VITICULTURE IN ENGLAND IN MEDIAEVAL TIMES. 

In apparent contradiction to the foregoing and apparently 
unexplained, but supported by documentary evidence, 
stands the assertion that during some centuries, beginning 
somewhat before the Norman Conquest, wine was grown in 
many parts of the south of England. We take the following 
data from Redding's work, 1 premising that in the souitiny 
of ancient documents a doubt must be allowed, whether the 
Latin word, which has been read as vinarium, whether it 
mean a vineyard or a wine-cellar, may not have signified, 
and therefore must not necessarily be read as vivarium Y 
meaning a pond in which fish were reared or kept for use in 
a living state. 

Doomsday Book proves that wine was made in Essex, six 
acres producing 160 gallons. Rabelais, who was born in 
1483, makes an allusion in his works to wine of Britain 
not Bretagne, but England. William of Malmesbury, in his 
book, " De Pontificibus," says that the Vale of Gloucester 
used to produce, in the twelfth century, as good wine as- 
many of the provinces of France. Near Tewkesbury is a 
field still called the " Vineyard." A messuage and land in 
Twyning were held of the lord of Tewkesbury on certain 
conditions, one of which was the " finding a man for sixteen 

1 L. c. p. 33, et seq. 



14 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

days in digging in the vineyard, and gathering the grapes for 
three days." Ing. ad. q. d. 39, Ed. III. Fosbr. Glouc., ii. 
293. In the counties of Worcester, Hereford, Somerset, 
Cambridge, and Essex, there are lands which bear the name 
of vineyards, many of them having been attached to par- 
ticular church establishments, whose ruins are yet in their 
vicinity. Raleigh, in Essex, was valued, in the time of King 
Edward, at ten pounds, propter vinum. In regard to the 
Vale of Gloucester, William of Malmesbury says, " There is 
no province in England which has so many and good vine- 
yards, neither on account of their fertility nor the sweetness 
of the grape." The tithes of the vines of Lincombe, near 
Bath, were confirmed to the abbey there in 1150, by Arch- 
bishop Theobald. The village of Winnal, or Wynall, near 
Winchester, was so named from a vineyard, and not from 
any saint, as some pretend. Besides the counties above 
mentioned, Hertford, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, 
Hants, Dorset, and Wilts, had vine cultivation, as appears 
from Doomsday Book ; but no county north of Cambridge 
is said to have borne vines. Hence it may be concluded 
that the vine did not yield any profit if it grew northward of 
that place. The etymology of Winnal is said to be the 
Welsh " gwinllan," a vineyard. Vines are distinguished in 
old writings as " portantes " or " non portantes." The terms, 
41 Vinea nova," " Vinea noviter," and " Nuperrime plantata," 
occur about the date of the Norman conquest. Six " arpens " 
of land were then said, if the vines turned out well si bent 
brocedit to produce, by one author, 160 gallons by 
another, 120. In seeming opposition to this, it is recorded, 
in " Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarch," p. 337, tome L, in 
an extract from one of Petrarch's own letters to a friend, A.D. 
1337, that "in England they drink nothing but beer and 
cyder. The drink of Flanders is hydromel; and as wine 
cannot be sent to those countries but at great expense, few 
persons can afford to drink it." Petrarch, however, must 
have spoken from hearsay alone. More recently, M. Arago, 
of the French Institute, has commented on the changes in 
the climate of France. He says that at Macon, in the 
department of the Saone and Loire ancient Burgundy 



CONSTITUENTS OF SOIL AND VINES. 1 5 

wine, in 1553, was made of the Muscat grape, which it is not 
now possible to ripen there. The vineyards of Etampes and 
Beauvais were at one time celebrated. Their wines, if now 
made, are unworthy of notice. According to a report 
compiled in 1830, no wine can be made in the whole de- 
partment of the Somme. M. Arago instances a similar 
change of climate in England, proved by old chronicles as 
above quoted, and, inquiring into the causes of this change, 
thinks that a very marked alteration of climate has taken 
place both in France and England. " The cause," he says, 
"is certainly not connected with the sun a proof of which 
is given in the steadiness of the temperature of Palestine." 



CHAPTER II. 
CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF SOIL AND VINES. 

7. MINERAL CONSTITUENTS OF THE VINE AND THEIR 

RELATION TO THOSE OF THE SOIL. 

AN exact knowledge of the mineral constituents of the 
vine enables the viticulturist to adapt his soil to the neces- 
sities of the plant in the most perfect and economical manner, 
and thus to furnish one of the most important elementary 
conditions of the greatest possible production of grapes and 
wine. The mode of obtaining this knowledge is part of the 
science of analytical chemistry, and as such is without the 
limits of the present treatise. We therefore deal only with 
the great features of the results as far as they are necessary 
to the reader to enable him to appreciate facts and processes 
which have to be alluded to summarily in the later chapters. 
The mineral constituents of vines, like those of all or- 
ganized living beings, are obtained as ashes by the combus- 
tion of their several parts, A part of the ash is soluble in 
water, and comprises the alkali metals, potassium and sodium, 



16 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

combined with carbonic and sulphuric acid and chlorine; 
while another portion is insoluble in water, and consists of 
calcium, magnesium, iron and manganese, combined with 
carbonic, phosphoric, and silicic acid. The proportions of 
alkalies to earths are about equal : and again, the united 
weight of the bases is about equal to the half of the weight of 
the entire ash. Different vines yield different proportions of 
ash, but vines of the same kind and the same period of vegeta- 
tion yield very similar proportions of ash. The ashes of the 
various parts of the vine, of leaves, branches, wood, and 
roots, differ from each other in a very striking manner. 1 

The ripe woody canes at the end of the year's growth contain 
from 2o/ to 2 5% of moisture, and from 2-2%to4'2%of ash. 
Old wood and roots contain a little more ; capillary roots with 
63 % moisture, 6% ash; pith with 86% moisture, 7-5 % 
ash. These large quantities of moisture in pith and capillary 
roots explain partly why they are more easily killed by frost. 

Leaves yield the greatest amount of ash, and ripe grapes 
the smallest. The less mineral matter a part contains the 
greater is in its ash the proportion of soluble salts ; inversely 
with the rise of the total ash falls the proportion of soluble 
salts, so that the percentage of soluble ash in leaves is the 
lowest among all specimens of ash examined. Half-ripe 
grapes contain a very low percentage of ash, and in this the 
maximum percentage of soluble salts. 

As canes and grapes are mostly removed from vineyards, 
while the leaves are left on the ground, it is economically im- 
portant to consider what kind and amount of ash is removed 
annually from a vineyard. This inquiry was instituted by 
the celebrated French philosopher Boussingault at his 
estate in Alsatia, and led to the following remarkable results. 

The canes yielded 2*44 /o of a h > the murk after the 
must had been pressed out, air-dry, 6-65 % ; the wine gave 
0*19 % The ash of canes contains less potash and more 
lime than that of the murk, and the proportion of potash to 
lime is highest in the wine. Thus we get per cent, of 

1 Analytical details, the results of many thousands of analyses, tables 
showing the per cent, composition of ashes, and references to the litera- 
ture of the subject are given by Thudichum and Dupre, /. c. pp. 19-30. 



CONSTITUENTS OF SOIL AND VINES. I/ 

potash contained in ash of canes 18*0, murk 36*9, wine 
45 -o; per cent, of lime contained in ash of canes 27-3, 
murk 107, wine 4-9. The percentage of magnesia con- 
tained in the ash of canes is 6'i, murk 2*2, wine 9*2. The 
wine yields a very small percentage of ash compared to the 
other parts, and in consequence its percentage of alkalies is 
smaller than that of any other part of the vine ; but as it 
has lost much mineral matter during fermentation, the 
quantity of its ash is not the measure of the quantity of 
mineral matter removed by it from the soil ; for ascertain- 
ing this latter amount the murk before fermentation, or 
must and yeast with accompanying matters, have to be 
examined. 

Berthier 1 analysed a fruit-bearing one year's branch, cut 
from a Camay vine at Nemours, in October, 1850, at the 
time of the vintage, and the grapes attached to it. The 
branch and leaves contained nine times as much inorganic 
matter, four times as much alkaline salts, fourteen times as 
much earthy salts, and six to seven times as much phos- 
phates as the grapes. 

Raisin stones contain about 2 / of ash, and of this 
quantity one half is phosphate of calcium. 

The leaves in full vegetation contain about 75 % of water, 
and 2-i % of ash; therefore, ash in the dry residue 8-4%. 
Of this ash one half is carbonate of calcium, or 51 %, and 
J 5'3 % is phosphate of calcium. The soluble potassium 
salts obtained, as sulphate and carbonate, amount to 15 / 
of the ash. 

Leaves at the time of the fall contain only 66 % of 
moisture and 11-34 % of ash in about 34-02 / of dry 
residue. In this ash the carbonate of calcium is increased 
to 62-62 %, the phosphate decreased to 13-27 / > and the 
soluble potassium salts are diminished to 8-82 % of the ash. 

The mineral matters of ripe grapes are so distributed that 
if the stalks contain one part, the murk contains about two 
parts, and the juice from three to four parts ; an entire 
bunch of grapes yields from 0-364 to 0-468% ash. 

1 See details of analysis in "Treatise," etc., p. 22. 
C 



1 8 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Many other analyses by Vergnette, Bouchardat, Crasso, 
Walz, Hrushauer, Levi, which have yielded results closely 
corresponding to the foregoing data may be seen in the 
<: Treatise," pp. 23-26. 

Of 100 parts of grape bunches, about 4 parts are stalks, 
22 parts are murk, i.e. husks and stones and 74 (filtered) 
juice. 



8. INFLUENCE OF THE SOIL ON THE MINERAL 
CONSTITUENTS OF THE VINE. 

The quantations of the proportions between the bases, or 
alkalies and alkaline earths in the vine, have taught us that 
the vine is in this particular respect influenced by the soil 
on which it is located. Of course it grows best where all 
the bases are ready at hand in excess, or the necessary 
quantities for a season's growth ; but when the vine cannot 
find a particular kind of base which it ordinarily wants for its 
development, it takes another instead ; it does not take a 
random and uncertain quantity, but substitutes for the one 
which it cannot have a chemical equivalent of that which 
happens to be available, and by this means accomplishes 
the cycle of its functions. These data have manifested the 
existence of a law of nature, which has been chemically ex- 
pressed thus : The ashes of the vine may contain very variable 
quantities of potash, soda, lime, and magnesia ; but the sum of 
the quantities of oxygen contained in these bases is always the 
same, showing that the substitution of one base for another 
takes place in equivalent proportions. 

9. FUNCTIONS OF MINERAL INGREDIENTS OF THE VINE. 
The ash of the vine is obtained by the combustion of its 
parts ; during this process the organic matters with which 
the bases or salts were in combination are destroyed. Instead 
of malates, tartrates, and tannates, we obtain in the ash 
carbonates of potash, soda, and lime ; the carbonate of the 
latter again yields its acid in high temperature and appears as 
caustic lime. Organic phosphorus compounds, e.g. of seeds, 



CONSTITUENTS OF SOIL AND VINES. 19 

and cell nuclei yield phosphoric acid, which expels some of 
the more volatile acids. Against this latter emergency no 
sufficient precaution has hitherto been taken in ash analysis 
by incineration, and all analyses affected by this error are 
faulty, and have to be repeated. 

To appreciate the part which the bases take in the organic 
life of the vine, we must therefore consider them in their 
combinations, just as they occur in the natural tissues and 
juices. In these their main function seems to be the 
fixing and neutralizing of acid nuclei, which, under the re- 
ducing influence of light, and in the presence of the elements 
of vegetable nutrition, water, carbonic acid, ammonia, and 
nitric acid (from which these nuclei themselves have just 
been formed) are gradually developed to more complex 
bodies. If these bases are not present in the soil in an 
accessible form, the vine cannot grow at all ; if they are 
present in insufficient amount the growth of the vine is 
stunted, and its fertility is impaired or suppressed ; if they 
are present in the soil in false proportions the vine effects a 
substitution, and is able to accomplish the cycle of its 
changes. But at the same time this necessity affects, in 
various ways, its growth, durability, fertility, and the nature 
of its product ; it is very probable that a large amount of 
failure in viticulture is engendered by such a disproportion 
in the necessary mineral constituents of the soil. Lastly, in 
soils where the vine finds all the mineral ingredients in 
proper proportion, quantity, and condition, it grows and 
bears with the greatest perfection. In this argument it is 
implied that the position, exposure, watering, and mechani- 
cal conditions of the soil are equal in every case, and that 
the sole variation refers to the mineral ingredients. 



10. AMOUNT OF MINERAL MATTER WHICH VITICULTURE 

ABSTRACTS FROM THE SOIL. 

Boussingault obtained from his vineyard, an inclosed 
property of 170 acres surface, called Schmalzberg, near 
Lampertsloch, Alsatia. in 1848, 5 5 '05 hectolitres of wine ; 
the murk weighed, air-dry, 492 kilos., and left, at 6-65 %, 



2O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

32-72 kilos, of ash. The cutting of the vines in the spring 
of 1849 yielded 2,624 kilos, of canes, which at 2-44 / left 
64-03 % kilos, of ash. A litre of wine left 1-870 gramme of 
ash, or 102-94 kilos, for the 55-05 hectolitres. 

Calculated for an hectare all available data seem to show 
an annual exportation by a crop of mixed canes of more than 
40 kilos, of mineral matter, of which 6 are potash, 7-28 
phosphoric acid. If during the progress of viticulture green 
branches with leaves are removed from the vineyards, as is 
not rarely done in viticultural districts for the purpose of 
feeding domestic herbivorous animals, greater quantities of 
mineral matters are exported. 

Vergnette calculated that on the Cote d'Or an hectare of 
land supports about 25,700 vines ; these produce annually 
about 11,462 kilos, of wood, leaves, and grapes, which burnt 
together would leave 356 kilos, of ash, containing 69-40 
kilos, of soluble and 286-60 kilos, of insoluble salts. 



ii. ORGANIC INGREDIENTS AND CHEMICAL 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE VINE. 

The ingredients of the seed are lignine, which builds up 
its woody structure, then starch, tannic acid, fatty oil, several 
albuminous and phosphorised substances, and the mineral salts 
already referred to. As soon as with the aid of these sub- 
stances the young plant, consisting of a root with fibrils and 
spongioles, and a little stalk with leaves, has been con- 
structed, it becomes independent of the nourishment from 
the seed, and draws its supplies from earth and air. These 
it transforms by the elimination of oxygen and the combina- 
tion of the more carbonized products with the elements of 
water. Thereby a series of acids are formed, which from 
the beginning are combined with the bases above described. 
Carbonic acid is first transformed into oxalic acid ; by the 
combination of two of its particles, and the substitution of 
some oxygen by hydrogen, malic acid, the acid contained in 
apples, berries of the mountain ash, and unripe grapes, is 
formed. This malic acid, by a small addition of oxygen, is 
easily transformed into tartaric acid. Tartaric acid again, 



CONSTITUENTS OF SOIL AND VINES. 21 

by the union of three of its particles, and the addition of 
hydrogen from decomposed water, may easily be trans- 
formed into grape sugar, or similar carbo-hydrates, just as, 
inversely, tartaric acid can be obtained by oxydizing agents 
from carbo-hydrates such as sugar of milk. 

The various chemical processes in the plant are effected 
by the vegetable cells, particularly of the leaves, under the 
influence of the rays of the sun ; and the green colouring 
matter, or chlorophyll, and the yellow ingredient, hiteine, have 
an important mediating share in these processes. 

Three entire seasons are mostly required for the develop- 
ment of the roots and wood of the plant to such a size as to 
enable it to produce ripe fruit. During these various stages 
the following chemical compounds are met with in the 
various parts and juices of the plant. 

The Sap. The first fluid which rises in the canes at the 
beginning of spring is called sap. As it runs in drops from 
a cut surface of canes it is called " tears," and the act of its 
effusion is called "weeping" of the vine. It contains 2 '5 
per mille of solid matter, being a little acid potassium tartrate, 
and gum and soluble starch, together 1*9 per mille, while 
the remaining o - 6 per mille are bases with a trace of phos- 
phoric acid; it also contains ammonia and nitric acid, but 
probably not any albuminous matter. 

The rising of the sap in the vine takes place with an 
enormous force, which was first measured by Stephen 
Hales, more than a century ago ; he found it equal to the 
pressure of a column of mercury 22 inches in height, while 
the German professor, Mohr, of Bonn, found it to rise to a 
maximum of i9 T 3 T inches. 

The young shoots of the vine contain acid tartrate of potash 
in much larger quantities than the sap ; cellulose and 
chlorophyll in constantly increasing quantities are deposited 
within their structure and that of the leaves. The expressed 
juice of entire branches deposits vegetable Jibrine and chlorophyll 
as a green sediment ; it contains in solution tannin, recog- 
nized by its astringent taste, its inky reaction with iron salts, 
and its precipitate with gelatine ; vegetable albumin is preci- 
pitated from it by boiling ; acid tartrates of potash and lime 



22 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

can be obtained from it by evaporation and crystallization ; 
starch is recognizable by its assuming a blue colour with 
iodine ; gum is precipitated from it by alcohol ; mineral sails 
remain as ash. The part remaining insoluble consists of 
lignin or cellulose, the substances of which all wood, young 
and old, is composed. In the cell-cavities of the wood there 
is deposited in autumn a quantity of starch, which can be 
extracted from the rasped wood by boiling water. The 
tendrils taste like, and have the composition of, unripe fruit. 
Unripe grapes contain malates and tartrates, mainly of 
potassium in varying proportions, changing with each period 
of development. Before the appearance of any sugar, 
malates prevail ; when the grapes become sugary tartrates 
prevail, of which a certain portion remains in the fully ripe 
grapes. The grapes then also contains fibrine, albumin, 
gum, pectin, tannin, and in largest quantity the sugar 
peculiar to fruit ; the tannin is not at first in solution in the 
juice, but deposited in the husks and seeds, and requires 
maceration for its extraction. The husks of the blue and 
black grapes contain the blue colouring matter, also deposited 
in the insoluble state along with the tannin, and extractable 
only by alcohol and acid, or by wine, and then assuming a 
red colour in dilute solution. The amount of acid in the 
grapes increases during their growth, and decreases again 
during ripening. 

The proportion of juice to husks, or husks and stalks 
combined, varies in different vines, and in the same vines in 
different years ; thus fine white Chasselas grapes contained 
only 3 % of husks and seeds, with 97 % of must ; black 
Pineau grapes, from which Champagne and Burgundy are 
made, yielded juice 94-8 /o, and murk (no stalks) 5-2 %; 
another sample pressed with stalks, as in the Champagne, 
gave juice 91 '8 / and murk 8*2 %. Again, black Pineau, 
which had been allowed to ferment with husks and stalks, 
as in the preparation of Burgundy wine, gave wine 69-6 % 
and murk 30*4 % 

In the " Treatise," pp. 36-45, will be found the records 
of a number of original observations on the relation of acid 
and sugar in grapes, grown on the Rhine or in France, made 



PRINCIPLES OF VITICULTURE. 23 

by A. Dupre, Rendu, 1 and Pasteur. 2 They show that, at 
least as regards black grapes, there are two kinds of ripening, 
one peculiar to the grape which is not yet black, consisting 
in an augmentation of sugar ; the other, a process mostly 
accomplished in the black grape, consisting in a diminution 
of acidity. 



CHAPTER III. 

PRINCIPLES OF VITICULTURE, GENERAL AND 
SPECIAL. 

12. SOIL FAVOURABLE TO VITICULTURE. 

THE vine requires a territory which must not be clogged 
with water, but pervious to it, and admit air at frequent 
intervals. But at the same time it requires a constant supply 
of water within easy reach of the roots. Thus in the fertile 
paludal districts of the Gironde the ground-water is within a 
few feet of the surface, while the vines of the Medoc are 
placed upon little hillocks of gravelly soil, and receive rain 
at frequent intervals from the clouds which come landwards 
from the Atlantic. 

The vine grows on chalky, silicious, aluminous, and mag- 
nesian soil, on granitic mountains, on formations of transition, 
such as the Devonian slate of the Alto Douro, on tertiary 
formations such as the hills of Jerez, on volcanic and alluvial 
territory. In all it requires the presence of decaying matter 
called humus ; of considerable quantities of chalk and potash 
and of the other mineral ingredients. Our English gardeners 
have considerable experience in the production of an 
empirically prepared soil, in which they grow the vines which 

1 " Ampelographie frai^aise," p. 255. 
a " Maladies du Vin," pp. 202 and 209. 



24 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

produce the beautiful grapes of English conservatories 
Thomson 1 says that the best is a fibry calcareous loam, 
taken not more than three inches deep from an old sheep 
or deer-pasture. Such soil should consist of 65 % of 
sand, 33 % of clay, and 5 % of chalk, with an abundance of 
vegetable fibre. This is next mixed with old plaster with 
hair in it, charred wood and wood-ashes, horse-droppings, 
broken bone and horn-shavings. Of such soil a full-grown 
vine under glass requires from 120 to 150 cubic feet, but of 
an ideal soil it would only require 27 cubic feet. 

13. MANURING AND IMPROVEMENT OF THE SOIL IN 
VINEYARDS. 

Most natural soils admit of being improved in their compo- 
sition, and for such improvements no general rules can be 
given. But as all crops remove certain mineral constituents, 
they exhaust the land more or less rapidly; the material 
abstracted must therefore be restored to the land, and this 
is done by manure. Such manure may be of two kinds, 
stable manure and mineral manure. Of the latter potash 
salts are the most important ingredient, and amply supplied 
by the German potash mines. The manuring and improve- 
ment of the soil of vineyards in all their aspects are fully 
described in Thudichum and Dupre's "Treatise," &c., pp. 
49-5 7, and to this we must refer the reader for further and 
more detailed data. 

14. METHODS OF PROPAGATING AND MULTIPLYING 
THE VINE. 

As it takes from five to six years before a seedling vine 
begins to bear, propagation by seed is not frequently employed. 
Frequently seedlings do not fulfil the expectation with which 
they were reared, and have to be torn out. If the viticulturist 
take care to properly impregnate the flowers from which he 
wishes to grow seed, beautiful and interesting varieties of 
vines are produced. But no vine of extended applicability 
for wine-making has ever been reared in that way. Among 

1 "Cultivation of the Grape Vine," 1867, p. 14. 



PRINCIPLES OF VITICULTURE. 25 

noted vines obtained by crossing of races and growing from 
seed are several American varieties, e.g. Norton's Seedling, 
and the largest and finest grape which grows in France in 
the open air, known at Thomery under the name of Chasselas 
Napoleon. A seedling can be made to bear fruit in the 
third year by grafting it upon an old stem. 

15. PROPAGATION BY MEANS OF EYES, OR BUDS. 

Eyes with the node of wood attached may be cut from 
vines and planted in open beds and vineyards. Such will, 
in one season, form a small vine with particularly great de- 
velopment of roots. 

A specifically English method of propagating vines, when 
practised in forcing-houses, yields in one year a strong vine, 
capable of bearing twelve bunches of grapes the next year. 
The eyes to be " struck " are cut right across the cane, about 
half-an-inch above and below the node, and then a slice is 
taken off the side longitudinally opposite the eye. 

English viticulturists place these buds or eyes in pots filled 
with light turfy loam and a small proportion of decayed leaf- 
mould. These are placed in tan, in vineries or peach-houses, 
and forced at temperatures between 55 F. at night, and 
90 F. in the daytime. At the end of the season each plant 
is an enormous ripe cane with closely set buds ; each will 
bear in the next year from eight to twelve bunches of grapes. 
Whereas by the ordinary method it takes at least six years 
to bring a vineyard to bearing, by this method a vineyard 
can be established in two years, and will bring four harvests, 
amongst them three full ones, before a vineyard planted with 
cut canes will bring one, and will thereby not only repay the 
first outlay on the forcing-houses, and the interest of the 
cost of the land, but also leave a large profit. 

1 6. PROPAGATION BY MEANS OF CUT CANES. 

The most common and, as to outlay, cheapest method of 

multiplying vines is by the planting of cut canes (French, 

boutures, German, Blindholz). The canes are obtained 

at the time when the vines are cut, and in bundles of from 



25 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



eighteen inches to two feet in length form an article of trade. 
During winter-time they are kept deep under ground ; in 
May they are placed with their lower ends in water, and 
when the buds have swelled the canes are planted in the 
ground in the order in which the future vines are to stand. 




Fig. 4. Mode of propagating vine by layer or buried slip. J, point 
where the slip is severed, a year after interment, J', growing branch 
of the new vine. 

A vineyard planted with such canes will require six years 
before bearing a crop. 

17. PROPAGATION BY MEANS OF LAYERS OR SLIPS. 

A long cane, left in connection with the vine on which it 
grew, is partly buried in the earth, but allowed to project into 
the air with its cut end. It forms roots and branches, and 



PRINCIPLES OF VITICULTURE. 2J 

then its connection with the parent plant may be severed, 
and it may be transplanted. Such a layer the French term 
marcotte, the German, Senkrebe, English slip (fig. 4). 

Another kind of layer is the reverse (fig. 5), produced by 




Fig. 5- Mode of propagating vine by inverted slip. K, point where 
the fruit arch on the left will be severed, K, point where the slip will 
be severed from stock, K', point where the new vine will develop, 
after the horizontal slip is suppressed. 

burying the end of a long cane in the earth. In this case 
the growth of the cane becomes inversed after separation. 

1 8. GRAFTING OF VINES. 

Of late years grafting has been employed much more 
frequently than formerly for the following reason. The 



28 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

phylloxera was found to destroy the roots of European 
vines, while it left those of American vines relatively un- 
touched. But American vines grown in Europe gave no 
saleable wine. Viticulturists therefore planted American 
vines, and, when these had attained a certain size, grafted 
European vines upon them, and by this means obtained sale- 
able wines. Grafting of vines may be done by the process 
of eye or bud-grafting, the same as that commonly used for 
the propagation of superior roses ; or by simple inarching, a 
process by which two vines previously distinct are united, 
and when this has been effected, the foot of the one and the 
top of the other vine is removed or suppressed ; a somewhat 
more complicated process is called compound inarching. 
Grafting in grooi'es is very suitable for use with rootless 
canes, or one year's vines ; it should be resorted to in all 
cases in which the top and branches of a vine have perished 
by frost, or wind, or disease, and the stem and roots are 
strong and healthy. Grafting may be resorted to in conser- 
vatories when it is decided to change a vine which yields 
grapes of undesirable quality for another with preferable 
fruit. 



19. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE CULTIVATION OF 
THE VINE. 

The soil having been prepared by deep digging and the 
admixture of any new ingredients deemed necessary, it is to 
be planted with canes or rooted plants. The latter must be 
transferred in March, but canes swelled in water may be 
planted during the period from March to June. All vines 
should be placed in parallel lines, distant from each other a 
little more than a yard, and the single vines to be removed 
from each other by the same interval. The quincunx may 
be employed where manual labour is relied upon, and short, 
small vines are reared. The young vine is not cut or 
interfered with in any way during the first three years, but 
the ground is freed from all weeds. The vine is pruned for 
the first time in the fourth year of its growth ; the pruning 
is then mainly directed to the training of the future stock, 



PRINCIPLES OF VITICULTURE. 29 

and the production of a first harvest must be a subordinate 
consideration. The particular principles of the many 
methods of training the vine are generally the same. It is 
required that every plant should grow every year at least 
two long branches ; of these, one is to produce fruit in the 
next year, and no long branches or wood ; while the other 
is to reproduce the two long branches by means of which 
fruit and wood are to be reproduced in the following year. 




Fig. 6. Vine after the fall of the leaves. A B, the year's fruit branch, 
C D E F, branches to be trimmed for the next season. 

The branch which has borne fruit is cut off entirely in the 
spring following the harvest. Suppose the viticulturist has 
before him the young stock from which everything has been 
cut away except the two principal canes, he should select the 
strongest for fruit, and cut it down to a length not exceeding 
a yard, and not less than half a yard, in direct proportion to 
the strength of the vine. This fruit-branch he should now 
attach horizontally, near to the earth, to a stretched wire. 



30 A TREATISE OX WINES. 

or to a couple of stakes ; the other branch he should cut 
back to a spur of three eyes. When the fruit-branch has 
formed its shoots, and the buds of flowers are seen, all 
shoots without flower-buds should be broken off absolutely, 
while all those with buds should be stopped by pinching off 
their tops above the sixth leaf. The shoots of the wood spur 
must never be pinched or cut back under any circumstances j 
they produce but few grapes, must be kept in a vertical 




Fig. 7. Vine in spiing, just growing. A B, the fruit-branch, C, grow- 
ing fruit-branch and spur-branch for the next year, P P P P, points 
where the new fruit-branches are stopped (cut off or pinched off). 

position, and tied in a bundle to a stake. This simple vine, 
consisting, after pruning in spring, of a stem or foot rooted 
in the ground, a longer cane for fruit-bearing, and a short 
spur for wood-bearing, may be said to carry one viticultural 
element. In practice, a single foot may be made to carry 
several such elements. Thus in the Rhenish so-called 
basket cultivation a foot carries from three to five such 
elements that is, older branches on each of which, at the 
time of cutting, a fruit spur with three buds, and a wood spur, 



PRINCIPLES OF VITICULTURE. 3! 

with two buds, or eyes, are left. The Medoc vines have regu- 
larly two elements, but the spreading large vines on espaliers 
in the paludal districts of the Gironde, or those grown any- 
where on walls and in conservatories, may have any number 
of such elements up to several hundred. The greater the 
number of elements on a single trunk, the greater must be 
the region for the development of its roots. It is therefore 
necessary to give to vines which are to grow on the extension 
system a greater amount of wood under ground at the time 




Fig. 8. Vine in bearing, autumn. 

of planting. The system is, however, not well suited for the 
growth of the vine in open vineyards, where to ripen grapes 
they have to be kept near the ground. Every vine with a 
proper element, or number of elements, and which occupies 
the required square yard of land, and receives sufficient 
nourishment, ought to be able, without exhausting itself, 
and without interfering with the growth of neighbouring 
vines, to produce sixteen bunches of grapes on the fruit- 
branch, and four bunches on the wood-branch, altogether 
twenty bunches, weighing on an average fifty grammes per 
bunch (of small-graped, small-bunched vines), or one kilo. 



32 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

per vine. Middle and large-sized grapes and their bunches 
(such as are produced by the vines of Alto Douro, or those 
of Jerez) attain a greater weight, and a Jerez vine may 
produce from five to thirty kilos, of grapes. During the 
growth of the vine all the branches must be tied up and 
fixed to stakes and wires to maintain the lines. All un- 
necessary shoots and all weeds must be removed. The 
soil must be repeatedly loosened by means of the hoe or 
plough, but deep cultivation is to be reserved for spring and 
autumn. In vineyards where the oidium has appeared, 
flowers or dry milk of sulphur must be dusted over the vines, 
either with bellows or fumigating machines. Manure should 
be carried to the vineyard in autumn, and never be placed 
in contact with the vines, but in the earth around them. In 
dry situations, vines have to be irrigated during the summer 
months. Where that is not feasible, the soil has to be 
saturated with water during the rainy season, by collecting it 
in excavated hollows near each vine, as at Jerez. 

The foregoing general principles of viticulture have been 
specially elucidated in Chapter III. of the " Treatise," etc., 
as regards the Rhenish, and South Spanish, and Portuguese 
countries from personal experience, and as regards France, 
on the information of the best French authors. 1 as well as 
from personal inspection and examination. For the purposes 
of the present work the manner in which vines are cultivated 
has been stated under the chapter referring to each particular 
kind of wine. In this manner the information of interest 
to particular classes of readers will be kept closer together, 
and be easier available. 

1 Guyot, "Viticulture;" R. Charmeux, "Culture du Chasselas ; " 
Lenoir, " Traite de la Culture de la Vigne ; " Odart, Comte de, 
"Ampelographie Universdle ou Traite des Cepages." 



VINES AND VINTAGE. 33 



CHAPTER IV. 
VINES AND VINTAGE. 

20. VARIETIES OF VINES TO BE SELECTED FOR 
CULTIVATION. 

EACH variety of vine generally preserves its main characters 
wherever the climatic conditions allow it to be cultivated so 
as to produce fruit. Exposure, territory, and climate may 
make a vine poor or rich, or extinguish it altogether, but it 
will never transform it into anything else; the Muscat will 
not become Carbenet, the Pineau will never become Gamay, 
the Riessling will never become Chardenay or Tokay. But 
although it is thus unquestionable that the vine dictates the 
quality of the wine, this fact, that the specificity of the plant 
governs the nature of the product has always been applied 
only to the so-called great growths. In these vineyards 
the races of vines are kept select and pure. Indeed, if the 
vineyards of Chateau Lafitte were planted with Gamay, 
or Gouais, they would produce only detestable wine. If 
the old Pineau vines of the Clos Vougeot were substituted 
by Gamays, the value of the wine of that vineyard would 
sink to one-tenth its present figure. Take the Carbenet 
Sauvignon from the Haut Medoc, or the Franc Pineau 
from the Bourgogne, and plant it at Madeira, at the 
Cape, in Spain, or in Algeria, and everywhere you will 
obtain wines, which will at least recall the wines of the 
countries from which the plants have been taken. The 
exposure, the climate, the mode of cultivation of the vine, 
and the mode of making the wine will of course influence 
the lightness, richness, taste, and bouquet of the ultimate 
product ; but the Pineau, wherever grown, will reproduce 
the main qualities of the Burgundy wine, and the Carbenet, 
wherever grown will recall that of the Medoc. The 
Riessling, whether grown on the Rhine, in the Tyrol, in 

D 



34 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Croatia, or at the Cape, will always recall the qualities of 
the wine of the Rhine. But the quality of the transferred 
vines is not preserved for any very long time, and they either 
deteriorate, or degenerate and die out. This has been the 
case absolutely with European vines transplanted to America. 
In Australia, vines have preserved more of their original 
character, but it remains to be seen whether this adaptation 
will be permanent. Not all bad results of new plantations 
must be placed to the account of the vines, much depends 
upon the culture of the vine, and upon the vinification. 
Thus the Duke de la Vittoria, Espartero, caused Bordeaux 
grape-vines to be planted in his vineyards in Navarre, and 
they produced a wine resembling Bordeaux, so far as 
taste and body were concerned, but it had a sour and bad 
after-taste, found in many Spanish wines from other kinds of 
grapes, which is not due to the grapes, but is produced 
by the methods of preparation and keeping adopted 
throughout Spain. 

For this reason it ought to be a demand of trade that 
each wine, no matter from what country it comes, should 
bear the name or names of the grapes from which it is made. 
Thus " wine of Burgundy " is an incomplete, deceptive name ; 
it should be stated whether the wine comes from Pineau or 
Gamais, or other grapes. Bordeaux wine should always be 
distinguished as "wine of Carbenet from Bordeaux," or 
" wine of Verdot." One should speak of " wine of fine 
plants of Champagne," and not of Champagne simply. In 
the Bourgogne there are produced, side by side on one and 
the same slope, excellent wines from good varieties of grapes, 
and very bad wines from bad varieties of grapes. These 
varieties are frequently mixed in the vineyard for purposes 
which may be very justifiable in the eyes of the producer, 
but are sure to deteriorate the wine by the time that it comes 
on the table of the consumer. The Germans, in practical 
recognition of our contention, call their wine made from 
Riessling grapes " Riessling," that from the Traminer by its 
name also ; and we may rely upon it that these are pure 
wines, because their characters are so striking, and an ad- 
mixture of other grapes would produce so infallible a de- 



VINES AND VINTAGE. 35 

terioration in the quality, that no prudent person would think 
of effecting such a mixture. All great "growths" were 
originally produced by intelligent persons who planted 
favourably-situated vineyards with excellent vines. The 
excellence of the produce was gradually ascribed to the 
situation only, and the effect of the particular cultivation and 
of the species of vine was forgotten. But the great law is, 
that the variety of the vine governs the quality of the wine, 
and no inferior vine will ever in the best situation and the 
best seasons produce wine equal in quality and value to that 
of the higher class vines. The finest varieties will not give 
less produce than the coarsest if they are cultivated in a 
manner adapted to their nature. 

The ampelographic school of the garden of the Palace of 
the Luxembourg, at Paris, founded in 1819 by the then Due 
Decaze, under the direction of M. Hardy failed in exercising 
any influence on viticulture anywhere : it was the same with 
the collection of vines made at Baden, and another at 
Heidelberg, in which Metzger, the botanist, took so distin- 
guished a part, and which has served as the basis of the 
monograph on vines by Von Babo, of Weinheim : and 
another at Gratz made under the direction of the late Arch- 
duke John, the quondam German Reichsverweser ; another 
at Kloster Neuburg, which serves as the botanical school of 
the Agricultural Institute of that convent. All these have 
augmented the knowledge of vines in general, but vinifica- 
tion has not thereby been improved in any appreciable 
manner. The Luxembourg collection was displaced to 
Algiers under Napoleon III. before 1870, and will there 
also continue to be an interesting botanical collection; it 
comprised more than 500 varieties of vines. 

The " Ampelographie " of Count Odart is a highly in- 
structive and entertaining work for all those who appreciate 
the subject of vines in connection with wine. The count 
had formed an extensive collection of vines from all parts of 
the world, studied their physiology, and formed vineyards 
by hundreds of vines of all those which promised a good 
yield. The collection was near La Hardelliere, Cormery, 
(Indre-et-Loire), and was left by the count to his gardener, as 



36 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the departmental council refused to undertake its guardianship, 
which had been offered to it by the count on liberal terms. 

In the introduction to his work he proves at length that, 
contrary to what had been maintained by some authors, e.g., 
Chaptal, vines transplanted from one country to another, 
provided they find the required climatic conditions, do not 
change in character. On p. 37 he gives the interesting 
information from Auguste Saint-Hilaire, that grapes and all 
other fruit such as is common and excellent in France, 
remain of very mediocre quality in Brazil. This is ascribed 
to the humidity of the climate, and the absence of the cold 
nights which arrest the circulation of the sap at the end of 
the vegetative period. He discusses the information and 
names for vines of the authors, and denies that those vines, 
which could be recognized from the description, such as 
\heAminea of Columella, nowPineau, had altered in character 
since ancient times. When vines or vineyards had degene- 
rated as it was termed, that is to say become old or barren 
or exhausted, the vines could always be recalled to their 
pristine character, either by amelioration of the land, or by 
transfer of the vine to new land. 

In the chapter " On Vines reared from Seeds," Odart 
proves that most allegations of new good varieties of vines 
having been obtained from seeds, even seeds derived from 
the best varieties of vines, were fables ; most seedlings which 
bore fruit stood to their parent vines in the relation of 
" crabs ; " they generally were made to bear fruit only after 
ten to fourteen years, and wine, if at all, after twenty years ; 
and no wine was ever produced from seedlings which has 
become a staple article or a desirable object of commerce. 
This experience does not exclude the occasional success of 
seedlings produced with selected pollen as well as recep- 
tacles ; but even of such no wine has ever been made. 



21. SELECTION OF SUITABLE SPECIES OF VINES FOR 

WINE-MAKING. 

How great the problem of the selection of vines may 
appear when it is considered without reference to locality, 



VINES AND VINTAGE. 37 

will appear from the fact, that in the whole of France no 
less than thirty-eight principal varieties of vines are cultivated 
on a large scale. Of these about one-fifth are used for the 
production of raisins, liqueur-wines, or for the distillation of 
best brandy, the other four-fifths serve for the production 
of wine in the true sense of the word. We will first enume- 
rate the vines best suited to the south and south-east of 
France. They are, for box-raisins, the Mayorquin, or 
Bourmen, and the Pauses ; for liqueur- wines, that is to say, 
grape-must, the fermentation of which has been prevented 
by the addition of spirit, the Furmint, Grenache, Maccabeo, 
Malvoisie, Muscat blanc, and Muscat noir. All these are 
large-berried and large-bunched vines, requiring for the 
whole of their vegetative period a very hot climate. For 
good wines are used in the south-east of France the follow- 
ing vines : Carignane, Clarette, Marsanne, Petite- Schiraz^ 
Picpoule, Rons sane, Rousselet, Rousette Ugni, Vionnier. In 
the south-west of France only medium and small-berried 
small-bunched vines prevail ; these are used for the best 
wines, the Carbenet, Carbenet gris, and Carmenere, these 
prevailing in the Medoc : the Cruchinet, Muscadelle, Sauvig- 
non, Semillon, these latter two yielding the white Sauterne, 
and the Verdot, yielding the best ordinary Bordeaux wine ; 
the best brandies in the district of the Charente extending 
in a circle round the town of Cognac are obtained from a 
vine called La Folle blanche. In the east, the central, and 
the western districts, the following vines are grown for good 
wines : Epinette and Blanc Fume, Fromentes Rose, blanc or 
gris, Meslier, Pineau blanc, or Chardenay, Pineau gris or 
Beuret, Pineau of the Loire or Vouvray, Fineau noir or 
Noirien, Plant Dore, vert or gris, Riessling, or Savagner. 

We shall have to refer to the vines again, when we shall 
treat of each particular district of cultivation. Bronner was 
right when he said that the vine made the wine, and that, e.g., 
in the must of Carbenet one could taste the full bouquet of 
fine Medoc wine. 



38 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

22. VINTAGE AND VINDICATION. 

The principles of the most common methods of vinifica- 
tion are easily stated, but the details to be noted are so 
numerous, depending as they do upon different vines, 
customs and countries, that they are better reserved for the 
chapters treating of the viticulture of each cenopoetic 
district. White grapes are generally crushed and pressed, 
and the juice, freed from stalks and husks, is put into 
barrels and allowed to ferment in a cellar or other tempe- 
rate place. In some districts, however, the juice is allowed 
to ferment while the husks and stalks are immersed in it, 
e.g., in the Alto Douro, as regards white wine as well as 
red. Black grapes which are to yield red wine are crushed 
and put into vats, not rarely, as in the south, consisting of 
masonry, and allowed to ferment until the wine has ex- 
tracted the colouring matter. The wine is then drawn off, 
the must pressed, and the united products are put into 
barrels or great vats to complete their fermentation or have 
it arrested by the addition of brandy. 

23. TIME OF VINTAGE. 

The first condition of the vintage is that the grapes 
should be ripe. In many parts of the south of Europe it is 
considered that the grapes should be vintaged when they 
have attained their greatest volume. But must from such 
grapes is quite unfit for the production of good natural 
wine; this can be seen in the product of the vineyard of 
San Lucar de Barrameda, which owing to its bitterness is 
called Manzanilla ; but here the early vintage is probably a 
necessity produced by the climate, which by its early rains 
in September is liable to deteriorate or destroy the vintage. 

In the most celebrated districts for the production of 
white wine the grapes are allowed to hang on the vines 
until they have attained the maximum of sweetness and 
maturity, and are commencing to decay on their outside. 
Thus in the Sauterne district the best berries of every 
bunch are cut out at intervals and carried to the press. In 



VINES AND VINTAGE. 39 

the finest situations of the Rhinegau the grapes are collected 
only when rain or frost of the latest autumn necessitate the 
vintage. At Tokay the best grapes are allowed to passulate, 
i.e., to become shrivelled to raisins, and are then extracted 
with must from plump grapes; but the result is here not 
wine in the true sense of the word, but a sweet liqueur 
which contains only little alcohol formed in the liquid or 
added thereto. 

Black grapes are never allowed to attain the same degree 
of maturity as white ones, except at a few places such as 
Rota, in Spain ; for the colour of red wines required by 
the traders can only be obtained from grapes at a certain 
stage of maturity, and that stage does not coincide with, 
but precedes the stage of maximum maturity which the 
grapes can attain on the vine. Consequently, much of the 
quality of the wine is abandoned in favour of a conventional 
dye ; and the unripe wine has to remain years in barrels 
and bottles before it acquires the qualities which fit it 
for use. The Champagne grapes, on the other hand, are 
not permitted to attain the stage of highest maturity, 
because it is conventional that the effervescent wines of 
that country shall be as pale as possible, and not have the 
slightest tint of redness. But whereas the fully ripe Pineau 
always yields a rosy or partridge-eye coloured juice, the 
stage of fullest ripeness is not awaited, but the grapes are 
gathered at the time of their greatest volume, when they 
yield a perfectly colourless juice and wine. In Burgundy 
again, where red wines are produced, the same time is 
chosen, but for another reason : fully ripe Pineau, when 
fermented with the husks, yields wine which has a tawny 
red colour, and not the lively bluish red of elder-berry juice; 
but as traders prefer the latter, the grapes, with few ex- 
ceptions, are collected at a time when the husks produce 
the deepest colour. 

Viticulturists intent upon producing the best wine possible 
allow their grapes to hang on the vine as long as is com- 
patible with the safety of the harvest. The proprietors of 
large vineyards make sample trials from time to time to 
ascertain the progress of the formation of sugar in the 



40 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

grapes, by pressing samples of grapes and testing the must 
by special instruments for its specific gravity. Some of 
these gravimeters or glucometers are so arranged as to 
indicate by one degree of their scale a quantity of fruit- 
sugar, which after fermentation would yield a volume (per 
cent, of the must) of absolute alcohol, or, in other words, 
each degree would indicate the presence in one hectolitre 
of must of 1,500 grammes of sugar. Now as must which 
would only yield from 6 to 8 per cent, of alcohol would 
give inferior wine, grapes showing only as much sugar as 
would yield that amount of alcohol should not be harvested ; 
the harvest should be contemplated only when the samples 
of must show above 8 per cent, of future alcohol, but it 
should even then 'be delayed if possible as long as by 
repeated trials any increase in the quantity of sugar is 
observable. Even when the sugar has attained its maximum 
the grapes will still, if the season be favourable, particularly 
if the soil be dry, undergo beneficial changes by hanging 
upon the vine. 

It is an important fact that fully ripe grapes in all viti- 
cultural districts contain about the same amount of sugar, 
/'.<?., a little more than 16 per cent, of the must. When the 
must is much richer in sugar this result has been attained 
by passulation of the grapes on the vines, by twisting the 
stalks, or by drying of the cut bunches on mats, on straw, 
in the sun or sheltered places. In many of these rich musts, 
e.g., the Sauternes, fermentation ceases long before even a 
great part of the sugar has been consumed, or even the high 
degree of alcoholicity, at which all fermentation is absolutely 
arrested, namely, 16 per cent, of alcohol, has been attained. 
Musts of a saccharine strength of less than 16 per cent, of 
fruit-sugar, should be raised to this strength by the addition 
of fruit-sugar produced from cane-sugar ; each kilogram and 
a half of such sugar added to a hectolitre of must will raise 
its alcoholicity by i per cent, of alcohol after fermentation. 

24. MODES OF VINTAGE. 

The mechanical operation of cutting off all the grapes and 
carrying them to the press can be performed by children and 



VINES AND VINTAGE. 4! 

adults of both sexes. All labourers are required to remain 
in line, the work being of course equally distributed to equal 
agents. These cut the bunches off with scissors or knives, 
and place them in little baskets. Every full basket is re- 
placed by an empty one and carried away by a collector, 
who thus attends to the wants of from four to six labourers. 
The vintagers may be taught to cut out of every bunch all 
unripe, corroded, or spoiled berries, long stalks and tendrils, 




fJS 



Fig- 9- Mode of separating stalks from grapes, by stirring with a 
trident. A. The trident. B. Pail with grapes in course of being 
stirred. 



and put them aside. But it is preferable to intrust this 
work to particularly instructed labourers located at the 
place where the contents of the primary baskets are deposited. 
The cleaned grapes should then be placed in vessels of known 
capacity, such as a hectolitre, so that the vintage is im- 
mediately measured and the amount of work done ascer- 
tained. A butt of the capacity of a hectolitre will hold 
fifty kilos, of grapes, and with its own weight of ten to fifteen 
kilos, can be lifted and carried by a single man. 



42 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



25. SEPARATION OF STALKS. 

When the grapes are very ripe, the stalks are woody and 
do not easily yield juice to any pressure, however strong. But 
when the grapes are less ripe, the stalks are green and sue- 
culent, and yield some harsh astringent juice on pressure. 
In the case of white wines the stalks are not often separated 
from the grapes; in Sauternes, e.g., only the first grapes, 
which yield only the "head-wine," or tcte, are so separated ; 
the " middle " and " tail " are pressed with the stalks ; as a 




Fig. IO. Machine for separating grapes from stalks. The funnel- 
shaped top D is taken from the stand on which it rests by means of 
the hooks E to show the cylindrical box of parallel wires and stirrer 
B B within. C. Handle of stirrer. One thirtieth of actual size. 

rule, must of white grapes is pressed immediately and not 
left in contact with the murk for any length of time. The 
black Champagne grapes are also pressed with the stalks, 
and the juice of the latter causes the last third of the must 
which flows from the press to be harsh and of less value 
than the first two-thirds. All black grapes which are to 
yield red wine, on the other hand, have to remain in contact 
with their juice during fermentation until the red colouring 
matter is extracted. If then the must be very astringent a 



VINES AND VINTAGE. 43 

harsh wine is produced, while the same grapes, without the 
stalks, yield a milder, better maturing wine. The stalks 
are therefore separated before the grapes are mashed. .This 
separation, called in France egrappage, in Germany Abrappen, 
can be effected either by stirring the bunches in a tub with 
a trident of wood (as shown in fig. 9) or with the aid of 
specially constructed machines, such as that represented in 
fig. 10. The bunches enter above by a funnel, the berries 




Fig. II. Grape mill for crushing grapes, with grooved rollers. 
A. Handle for turning. B. Grooved Rollers. C. Frame supporting 
runnel and rollers. One-thirtieth of actual size. 

are detached by the stirrer, which is put into a rotatory 
motion, and then drop through the interstices of the wires of 
the cage; the latter at last contains only stalks, which are 
removed through a side door. Ripe Verdot of the Gironde 
will drop its grapes like hail when it is merely shaken, while 
ripe Pineau of Burgundy is less easily separated. 

26. MASHING AND CRUSHING. 

, The grapes, whether they have been separated from 'the 
stalks or not, have to be crushed, with the precaution not to 



44 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

comminute any stones and stalks if they remain. From 
ancient times to the present this has been most commonly 
effected by means of the feet of men. This treading of 
grapes is a very excellent method; it is done on a wide 
wooden platform, or in a large vat, and the juice which is 
pressed out simultaneously is allowed to flow off into a 
separate receptacle. Another mode of crushing the grapes 
is by crushing machines, or grape-mills, consisting of grooved 
wooden rollers working against each other, as in fig. 1 1 on 
p. 43. Such rollers should be covered with felt or vul- 
canized caoutchouc. 



CHAPTER V. 
PRESSING AND VINDICATION. 

27. WINE-PRESSES AND PRESSING. 
IN the preparation of Champagne wine the grapes are not 
crushed at all in detail previously to their being put into the 
press, and the only crushing which they receive is in the 
press itself. We have already explained that this is done to 
keep the must of the black grapes perfectly colourless. It 
is for this reason that the presses in the Champagne are the 
most powerful of any known. In the preparation of other 
white wines, however, the must is separated from the murk 
as much as possible before the latter is pressed, so that the 
volume of the matter to be pressed may be as small as 
possible. 

In the preparation of red wine on the other hand, the 
juice which flows off the treading platform, together with all 
the husks and the stalks, if they have not been removed, 
are put into the fermentation vat; when the stalks have 
been isolated they are placed in a heap on the top of the 
murk about to be fermented. Fermentation is now allowed 
to complete itself under various modalities, of which we 



PRESSING AND VINDICATION. 



45 




Fig. 12. Wine-press for pressing the murk of red wine after 
fermentation. 




Fig. 13. Wine-press for pressing white grapes before fermentation. 
The box consists of six horizontal sections. 



46 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

shall give details lower down under each viticultural region. 
When the fermentation is finished the wine is stirred 
energetically with the husks which are mostly collected as 
a hard cake on the top of the wine so as to extract the 
utmost amount of colouring matter; all the wine which will 
run off by itself is drawn from the taps ; the murk, removed 
by a manhole at the bottom or side of the vat, is placed into 




Fig. 14. Wine-press as used in Spain (Jerez). Grapes in bandaged 
cylinder. 

the press, and the wine flowing from it is added to the other, 
if it be already in barrels, equally distributed amongst them. 
The science of the wine-presses is so extensive that it 
would admit of being represented in a separate treatise. 
Most of these machines reflect the tendency to squeeze the 
utmost amount of juice out of the murk, but some are so 
powerful as to force the juice out of the stalks ; the applica- 
tion of this maximum of pressure should be under all 
circumstances avoided, or the juice so expressed at the end 
of an operation should be put aside and not mixed with the 



PRESSING AND VINDICATION. 47 

must. The most suitable presses appear to be those common 
in the Gironde, which have an iron screw in the centre of a 
round receptacle made of perpendicular or horizontal boards, 
such as are represented in the engravings. In fig. 12 as the 
murk sinks the screw-nut has to be raised from time to 
time by interposed logs of wood; in fig. 13 the screw-nut 
need never be loosened, as when it sinks over the murk, 




Fig. 15. The press in action. Juice flowing. 

the lateral filtering boards can be removed in tiers and 
allow free play to the screw lever handles. 

Figs. 14 and 15 represent wine-presses as used in Spain 
(Jerez). Fig. 16 represents a beam or lever press of the 
Alto Douro. 

It is probable that presses will soon have to compete 
with centrifugal machines, which perform in two hours, 
with the aid of three men, what presses working upon the 
same amount of material can only perform in seventeen 
hours, with the aid of seven men. 



48 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

28. FERMENTATION OF THE WINE-MUST. 
Must for white wine is generally fermented in barrels 
with only the ordinary bunghole at the top open for the 
escape of the carbonic acid gas. The white wines of the 
Gironde are all fermented in barriques, which in this country 
are called hogsheads. New casks are always taken; they 
are not completely filled with must, so that no yeast or scum 
can escape from the bung, but all is retained in the wine. 
This therefore differs from the mode in which fermentation 




Fig. 16. Ancient beam or lever wine-press as used in Alto Douro and 
other wine-producing countries. 

is allowed at least to complete itself in the production of 
beer, according to the Burton-on-Trent method, where the 
beer clarifies itself by the expulsion of the yeast through 
the bunghole with the rising froth. The white wines of 
the Rhine are mostly fermented in large casks, containing 
1,200 litres each, and called "piece," German Stuck. 
Sherries are fermented now mostly in butts, rarely in vats 
of wood or masonry. The Champagne musts, after having 
been cleared of scum and deposit, are also fermented in 
small casks of 220 litres each. 



PRESSING AND VINDICATION. 49 

The mash of black grapes for red wine is generally fer- 
mented in vats, being conical wooden casks open at the 
top ; this is a mechanical necessity resulting from the com- 
plications introduced into the preparation of red wine by 
the bulk of the husks and the necessity for stirring. The 
Portuguese also ferment some of their red wines in large 
closed barrels, with manholes for the removal of the murk. 
Port wine is fermented in flat receptacles built of masonry. 
In the south-west of France the vats are filled to a certain 
point ; if the stalks have been separated they are placed on 
the top of the murk, the house is shut, and fermentation is 
allowed to complete itself. The heap of stalks on the top, 
called "hat" or chapeau, is now taken off, together with the 
outer layer of murk which is mostly somewhat decomposed. 
The bulk of the murk is now submerged and vigorously 
stirred with the new wine, so that its colour may be fully 
extracted. At last the wine is drawn off, and the murk put 
in the press. In other parts of France the husks of black 
grapes are kept submerged in the fluid by a wooden cover 
fixed some distance below the level of the fluid, and pierced 
with holes to allow the gas to escape. In other parts, again, 
the vats are covered, but opened daily, and the murk is 
submerged with wooden instruments. In parts of Burgundy 
the vats are not covered, nor is the murk stirred before fer- 
mentation is complete ; it used then to be agitated by men 
in a state of nudity, but this practice, we hope, has been 
abandoned. 

In all cases when the fermentation of red wine is complete 
the liquid is put into barrels and allowed to settle. It clears 
much quicker than the white wine, which remains thick for 
weeks when fermenting in the temperate atmosphere of 
northern climates. In the south the white wine ferments 
with great violence, and becomes clear very rapidly. It is 
probable that the red wine is ready more quickly because, 
fermenting in larger bulk, it attains a higher temperature, and 
therefore is finished in a shorter period. 

By the time that the wine has completed its fermentation 
and become clear, all the yeast and impurity are deposited at 
the bottom of the cask. From this deposit the wine has to 

E 



5O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

be separated by racking. This can be done by drawing the 
wine through a syphon placed in the bunghole and causing 
it to flow over either by gravity or by air pressure produced 
in the cask by bellows, or by simply running it off through 
a tap-hole or tap fixed in the most suitable place. The clear 
wine is put into a clean, not new, but wine-green cask, i.e., 
a cask in which, when it was new, at least one charge of 
must has been fermented to wine ; the cask just emptied is 
freed of its lees, washed and rinsed, and is immediately 
ready to receive the clear wine from another cask to be 
racked. By this operation the wine generally becomes 
disturbed a little, or it was not yet quite clear, but in any 
case requires fining. This is mostly done, in the case of 
white natural wine, with isinglass ; in the case of brandied 
wines and of red wines with white of egg. All casks thus 
treated are made bung-full, closed, and allowed to rest for six 
weeks. After this period the wine is mostly quite clear and 
bright, and, being racked another time, mostly remains so, 
and is ready for the spring sales or other purposes. 



29. VARIOUS MODES OF CORRECTING THE COMPOSITION 

OF MUST BEFORE FERMENTATION. 
There are produced, particularly in bad seasons, quanti- 
ties of must which are either too deficient in sugar, or too 
abundantly provided with acid to give good wine. These 
faults require to be corrected. In some parts, e.g., Portugal, 
must which is too watery is concentrated by evaporation in 
a cauldron. But in France such must is now corrected by 
the addition of sugar or of sugar solution. The sugar to 
be employed should always be the so-called grape sugar, 
technically called "invert sugar," or saccharine made from 
cane sugar. When the must is only thin, and not exces- 
sively acid, it has to be improved by the addition of sugar, 
until its concentration is equal to that of normal must, i.e., 
until it contain at least 18 and not more than 23 per cent, 
of sugar. If however the must be too acid, it has to be 
reduced to the normal standard of acidity by the addition of 
sugar solution of from 18 to 23 per cent, strength. These 



PRESSING AND VINDICATION. 51 

processes were first applied en the large scale by French 
chemists who happened to be also proprietors of vineyards, 
namely, Petiot, Thenard (father and son), Ladrey (of 
Douay in Burgundy), and introduced into Germany by 
Thilmany, and particularly by Dr. L. Gall, of Treves. Petiot 
and the Thenards also produced second wines by ferment- 
ing the murk repeatedly with sugar solution. It was the 
French cabinet minister, Chaptal, who first improved wine- 
must by the mere addition of sugar (at that time cane sugar) 
but he did not diminish the acid ; this removal of excess of 
acid was generally effected by the addition of chalk or of 
plaster of Paris containing chalk. The addition of sugar 
and of sugar solution to faulty must was therefore an im- 
provement, and it kept the wine pure and homogeneous, and 
did not introduce any foreign element into its composition. 
Maumene ' relates how the celebrated chemist Macquer, 
already in 1777, made from unripe and hard grapes an 
agreeably tasting, fiery wine like that from ripe grapes. All 
these wines prepared by the processes of Petiot, Gall and 
others retain the bouquet of the natural wines. The amount 
of acidity or of tartrate of potash is less than in normal 
wine, so that they do not deposit any ; they are, therefore, 
more like old, long-kept wines, which gradually deposit their 
redundant tartar. There is little doubt that although these 
processes have been and may be applied with perfect success 
by scientific chemists, they will not be useful to the ordinary 
agricultural wine producer, just because they require too 
much practical scientific attention and knowledge. Those, 
therefore, who object to them may rest assured that they are 
not likely to meet in trade with such products. In fact, 
their production would be more expensive than that of 
natural wines is, and they could not, therefore, unless they 
were very much better, enter into commercial competition 
with the ordinary products. 

It should, however, be remembered in this connection 
that the process of Gall was only an extension to wine-must 
of a practice which for a very great length of time had been 

1 "Sur le Travail des Vins." 



52 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

commonly applied in all countries to fruit wine. In all old 
cookery books will be found numbers of prescriptions for 
making gooseberry, currant, and other sorts of fruit wine, 
and in all of them water is added to the fruit juice to re- 
duce the acidity, and then sugar is added in its turn to bring 
the sweetness up to the standard of at least 18 per 
cent, in order to furnish the material for the production of 
that amount of alcohol which will make the product an 
alcoholic beverage of the nature and strength of wine. It 
should be remembered that wine with more than five per 
mille of acid, considered as tartaric, is not drinkable, or at 
least not agreeable, or not useful even after dilution with 
water; and that the best unbrandied wines contain even 
less acid, namely, from 3 to 4 per mille, and from 8 to 1 1 
per cent, of alcohol. 

30. PLASTERING OF WINE AND MUST. 
In Spain and the south of France plaster of Paris, in the 
shape of powder, is added to the grape juice in the process 
of wine-making. The plaster is either thrown upon the 
grapes before they are crushed, or it is added after fermen- 
tation has commenced, and is applied as well to white as to 
red grape-must. The reason generally given in favour of 
such addition of plaster is this, that gypsum (sulphate of 
lime) by uniting with some of the water of the grape juice, 
rendered the remaining juice richer in sugar and therefore 
more valuable. If such were really the intention, the de- 
sired effect would not be obtained to any degree worth 
noticing, because even perfectly pure and anhydrous plaster 
of Paris unites with only about one-fourth of its weight of 
water, while the gypsum thus formed takes up mechanically 
some of the must and reduces the yield. 1 The effect is not 
altered if the gypsum be allowed to ferment with the must, 
for in that case the mineral retains a little wine, which can 
be as little recovered by pressure as the sugar. We have, 
therefore, to set aside this attempted explanation as un- 
satisfactory. 

1 See the experimental proofs in Thudichumand Dupre, "Treatise,' 1 
p. ng,etsef. 



PRESSING AND VINDICATION. 53 

The addition of gypsum to must or wine has a chemical 
effect which is of a somewhat complicated nature. The 
sulphate of lime decomposes the tartrate of potassium pre- 
sent in the juice, insoluble tartrate of calcium being formed, 
and sulphate of potassium going into solution. At the 
same time the carbonate of calcium, which is always present 
in larger or smaller quantities in plaster of Paris, precipi- 
tates the free tartaric acid. It neutralizes some of the other 
free acids of the juice, and, if present in sufficient quantity, 
it neutralizes them completely, in which case the phosphates 
of the juice will also be precipitated. Thus malic acid, 
which grapes have in common with all other sour fruit, is 
also partially neutralized, but remains in solution. The 
place of cream of tartar, however, is taken by sulphate of 
potassium, a salt having a perceptibly bitter taste, and 
acting as a purgative in even moderate doses. 

31. PROBABLE OBJECT OF THE PRACTICE OF 
PLASTERING. 

As the amount of tartaric acid increases with the increas- 
ing ripeness of the grape, while the malic acid diminishes, 
the plastering virtually reduces the juice of even the ripest 
grapes to a state of unripeness, at least as regards the nature 
of the acids. From all these considerations we have come 
to the conclusion that the object of the practice as ordi- 
narily stated, namely that it withdraws water, and thereby 
effects a condensation of the must, is not the real object. 

In view of the fact that southern wines are much more 
liable to diseases, that is to say, decomposition by minute 
fungi (microzymes) than the wines of more northern countries 
(where plastering is never practised), and considering that 
such diseases are counteracted by sulphurous acid, and by 
sulphates ; and considering further that such fungi absorb 
and decompose tartrate of potassium, and leave acetic or 
other acids instead, and do not thrive so well without 
tartar as with it, we have thought it not impossible that this 
process of plastering might have been directed against these 
diseases and have acted as a double precaution ; the fungi 



54 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

had less chance to develop at all in the absence of tartar,. 
and in case they did nevertheless develop, the result of 
their action could not spoil the wine by the development of 
that peculiar acidity which just gives the wine an acetous 
flavour and depresses its value. From our observations it 
seems certain that the presence of tartar favours the 
development of the viscosity fungus, and we have even ob- 
served the reappearance of the fungus in old originally 
plastered wine of natural strength after the sulphate had 
been removed and substituted by tartrate. But it must not 
be supposed that the viscosity fungus is killed or removed 
entirely from wine by plastering; it still exists in even 
plastered and somewiiat brandied wine, and does not die 
in wine of less than 34 per cent, alcohol. Therefore, 
even if the object of plastering were the protection of the 
wine from the worst effects of this viscosity fungus or scud, 
it would be but partially attained, and there would still be 
room for the better prevention and curing of this bane of 
the southern wine-growers. 



CHAPTER VI. 
CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF WINE. 

32. ETHYLIC ALCOHOL. 

THE principal constituent of wine is alcohol, a colourless 
very mobile liquid, of a peculiar spirituous smell and ex- 
tremely burning taste and poisonous qualities, of a specific 
gravity of 079319 at 15 -5 centigrade, water at 4 centigrade 
being ro. It does not solidify at the temperature of 150 
centigrade, though it becomes somewhat viscid. It is 
readily inflammable and burns with a blue non-luminous 
flame. It is miscible with water in every proportion. Its 
admixture with water is attended with evolution of heat and 



CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF WINE. 55 

contraction of volume; the mixture has a higher tempera- 
ture and occupies a smaller space than water and alcohol 
separately. 

The contraction is greatest when 53*939 volumes of alcohol 
are mixed with 49 '836 volumes of water, when it amounts 
to 3*638 per cent.; the 103775 volumes of water and 
alcohol become reduced, after cooling of the mixture to the 
original temperature, to 100 ; or 100 volumes become 96-362 
volumes. In these mixtures the specific gravity, the boiling 
point and the capillary attraction fall, the rate of expansion 
and vapour tension rise with the increasing percentage of 
alcohol ; and hence these properties may be made use of 
for estimating the amount of alcohol present in a mixture of 
alcohol and water. 

The bearing of alcohol towards animal membrane is of 
importance for the explanation of its physiological action. 
If an animal membrane, such as pig's bladder, be made by 
a suitable arrangement to separate alcohol from water, or a 
stronger from a weaker spirit, an interchange of liquids will 
take place through such membrane until the composition of 
the mixture on both sides is equal, the alcohol, or stronger 
mixture, losing alcohol, but gaining in bulk by the accession 
of water ; the water, or weaker spirit, on the other hand, 
gaining in alcohol, but losing in bulk by loss of water; the 
exchange takes place, generally, the more rapidly the greater 
the difference in alcoholic strength on the two sides of the 
diaphragm. If the liquid on one side of the membrane be 
always pure water, kept pure by renewal, all the alcohol 
will find its way out into it, and the interchange will only 
cease when nothing but pure water remains on both sides of 
the membranous diaphragm. 

The German anatomist, Soemmering, discovered a method 
for producing strong alcohol which was based upon these 
relations of alcohol and water to animal membrane, and had 
some practical value a century ago. It consists in putting a 
weak spirit into a bladder from a calf or ox and hanging 
it up in a warm place for a certain time. Both alcohol and 
water pass through the bladder and evaporate on the out- 
side, but more than four times the amount of water passes 



56 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

through in the time during which one part of alcohol passes, 
consequently the alcoholic strength of the liquid in the 
bladder increases, and it is said even absolute alcohol may 
thus be obtained, particularly if the bladder before use be 
covered inside and out with a thin coating of isinglass. 

33. ALCOHOLS HOMOLOGOUS TO ETHYLIC OR 
COMMON ALCOHOL. 

When sugar ferments, alcohol and carbonic acid are the 
principal products as regards quantity : but besides these, of 
which carbonic acid, or as it is called in modern chemistry, 
carbonic anhydride, passes into the air, some other alcohols 
and some acids are formed. It is possible that these other 
alcohols are formed by peculiar ferments ; they are glycerine, 
or glycerol) and propylic, butylic, amylic and caproic alcohols. 
They are mostly present in very small quantities only, 
glycerol in the largest, next to ethylic alcohol. When these 
alcohols occur in higher proportions they influence the 
taste of the wine unfavourably, and sometimes spoil it 
altogether. But on the whole the relation of these alcohols 
to the various qualities of wine are not yet sufficiently in- 
vestigated. 

34. ALDEHYDES. 

When some of the hydrogen of the alcohol is removed by 
combination with oxygen from the air, a new body, aldehyde^ 
is formed (alcohol dehydrogenatus) ; to each alcohol cor- 
responds a particular aldehyde. Of the several aldehydes, 
the ethylic and propylic are occasionally found in wine, the 
former particularly as an intermediate product of the acetous 
fermentation. 



35. ACIDS FORMED FROM ALCOHOLS IN WlNE. 

When aldehyde is remaining under the influence of the 
acetous ferment in the presence of oxygen, it is transformed 
into acetic acid. This transformation of ethylic alcohol into 



ANALYSIS OF WINES. 57 

aldehyde, and ultimately acetic acid, constitutes the process 
known as the acetous fermentation, the final product of which 
is vinegar (vin aigre, sour wine). It is remarkable that wine 
contains some for/vie acid, although it has never been known 
to contain any methylic alcohol ; the formation of this formic 
acid is therefore due to another process, and not to a deri- 
vation from this alcohol through the intermediate stage of 
methylic aldehyde ; propylic acid also occurs in wine. 

36. COMPOUND ETHERS. 

All the foregoing alcohols and acids, and all the other 
acids of the wine may combine with each other to form 
cojuponnd ethers in which an alcoholic and an acid radicle 
are joined together. These ethers are the main agents in 
forming the bouquet of the wine. 



CHAPTER VII. 
ANALYSIS OF WINES. 

37. MODE OF ASCERTAINING THE STRENGTH OF WlNE BY 

THE SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF THE DISTILLATE FROM IT. 
THERE are various methods for finding the strength of 
wine and other alcoholic mixtures ; these mainly rely upon 
specific gravity, or boiling point, vapour tension, or rate of 
expansion ; all these methods were devised for the purpose 
of saving the trouble connected with the process of distilla- 
tion. But they are liable to be affected by many sources of 
error arising, e.g., from imperfect instruments, and therefore 
the process of distillation and ascertaining the alcoholicity 
of the distillate by its specific gravity are almost univer- 
sally preferred ; to this process no objections have ever been 
raised on the score of want of accuracy. 



58 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

38. DISTILLATION. 

The quantity of wine to be subjected to distillation should 
amount to from 200 to 300 cubic centimetres. It may be 
weighed, in which case the experiment becomes independent 
of temperature, and therefore most accurate ; or it may be 
measured, when the temperature of the sample has to be 
ascertained. The weighed or measured quantity of wine is 
introduced into a flask or retort, rendered slightly alkaline 
by caustic soda, mixed with a small quantity of tannin to 
prevent frothing, and then carefully distilled by driving the 
alcoholic vapours, by means of heat applied underneath the 
flask, into a tube surrounded with cold water, a so-called 
condenser. It is well to drive over from one-half to two- 
thirds of the liquid in the flask. Strong and heavy wines 
may advantageously be diluted with water before distillation. 
The flask and condenser should be connected air-tight, and 
the receiver should be closed with a little mercury valve, so 
as to prevent the evaporation of any portion of alcohol. 

As soon as the necessary quantity is distilled, the distil- 
late is mixed with so much water as may be required to 
raise it to the exact weight or measure of the wine originally 
taken for distillation. In the case of filling up to measure, 
the mixture must be brought to the same temperature as the 
original wine, and must be well agitated before being em- 
ployed for the purpose of determining its specific gravity. 
The latter may be ascertained by a floating hydrometer, or 
the balance and specific gravity bottle. The specific gravity 
bottle should have a capacity of from 20 to 60 cubic centi- 
metres, or a thousand grains. Its contents should have the 
temperature of i5'5 C. or 60 F., the temperature for which 
most alcohol tables are constructed ; in case it should be 
either higher or lower, it should be cooled down or warmed 
up to the desired point. When the contents of the specific 
gravity bottle have been weighed, and compared with the 
weight of the amount of pure water which fills the bottle, 
considered as i, the specific gravity of the distillate is 
found. In order from this datum of specific gravity to find 
the amount of pure or absolute alcohol contained in the 



ANALYSIS OF WINES. 59 

distillate, it is necessary to consult tables which have been 
empirically constructed by experiments on all kinds of 
mixtures of alcohol and water, so-called alcohol tables. On 
such tables we first find the specific gravity which our 
experiment has yielded ; next, the temperature at which it 
has been weighed, and opposite this we find the amount of 
alcohol in per cents. The reader should bear in mind that 
there are several modes of stating the percentage of alcohol, 
one being per cent, by volume in volume of wine ; a second, 
per cent, by weight in weight of wine ; and a third, percent, 
by weight in volume of wine. 

The method of expressing the alcoholic strength of a 
wine in per cent, by weight in volume seems, on the whole, 
the preferable one. If in this case the decimal point is 
moved one figure to the right, the number of grammes of 
alcohol contained in one litre of wine is obtained ; and if 
this figure is further multiplied by seven, the number of 
grains of absolute alcohol in one gallon (six bottles) of wine 
is given. 

In England the government department which collects 
the taxes on alcoholic liquids, etc., called the Excise, has 
adopted a mode of giving the alcoholic strength of wines 
and spirits differing from those of all other nations ; namely, 
in volume per cent, of proof-spirit, indicated as degrees by 
a hydrometer, called, after its constructor, that of Sikes. 

39- QUANTATION OF ALCOHOL IN WlNES BY 
INDIRECT MEANS. 

We here merely indicate the nature of these processes, 
without any description of their details ; these latter and the 
mathematical formulae of their application can be seen in 
Thudichum and Dupre, "Treatise," pp. 139-158. 

The first method was proposed by Tabarie, and much used 
and recommended by Balling and Mulder. A quantity 
of wine of known specific gravity is measured or weighed off 
(100 c.c.), carefully evaporated in a water bath to about 
a quarter of its bulk ; it is then cooled and mixed with 
sufficient distilled water to bring up its weight or bulk to the 



60 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

original weight or bulk. Balling preferred the use of weighed 
quantities; we employed Tabarie's measuring process, as 
the former gives the alcohol a trifle too high, but with 
sherries Tabarie's method gives the alcohol too low ; in 
neither case does the error exceed 0-25 per cent, either way. 
From our experiments it follows that the results obtainable 
by this process are sufficiently accurate for all practical 
purposes, whilst as regards rapidity and facility of execution, 
no other proceeding is comparable to it, particularly when 
large numbers of samples have to be examined. 

In other methods for the quantation of alcohol the boiling 
point of the mixture is used as the test of strength. A 
number of instruments, to which the name of ebullioscope has 
been given, have been devised by Brossard, Vidal, Pohl, 
Ure, Conatz, and others. In a metal boiler containing the 
wine a delicate thermometer is sunk, which latter is provided 
with a converted scale, i.e., an indicator which shows not 
the temperature of the boiling liquid or vapour, but at once 
the percentage of alcohol in the boiling fluid. We have 
found that the presence of sugar in wine produces an error 
in this method, which raises the percentage of alcohol by 
about i per cent, for every 5-95 per cent of sugar. 

A third method of alcohol quantation is based upon the 
vapour tension of alcoholic liquids ; it is applied by means 
of an instrument termed a vaporimeter, invented and con- 
structed by the late philosophers' mechanician, Geissler of 
Bonn ; it was studied by Professor Pliicker, and others, e.g., 
Mohr. Wine is made to boil in the complicated apparatus ; 
its vapour is made to force mercury from the bottle into a 
tube, until the height of this column of mercury exactly 
counteracts the pressure of the vapour rising from the wine 
at the temperature of boiling water. This height of the 
mercurial column is the measure of the alcoholic strength of 
the wine. This process offers difficulties by the presence 
of gases in wine, by the changes of boiling point with eleva- 
tion above the sea-level ; it also does not actually show the 
strength of wine, but only the proportion of wine to water. 

A fourth method of alcohol quantation is based upon the 
expansibility of alcoholic mixtures by heat, measured by an 



ANALYSIS OF WINES. 6l 

instrument called a dilatotneter (Silbermann). In this pro- 
cess it is found that the presence of sugar increases the rate 
of expansion beyond that of a mixture of alcohol and water 
of equal strength. 

With light wines or natural wines of low alcoholicity, and 
without any admixture, all the above methods give toler- 
able results ; the process of distillation and Balling's plan 
give however the best results; the other methods, while 
requiring much care and skill in their application, are liable 
to considerable errors from even slight inattention to minute 
points in the manipulation or in the character of the wine. 
With strong, heavy, sweet wines no process except that of 
Balling or distillation deserves any consideration. 

40. STATE IN WHICH ALCOHOL is CONTAINED IN WINE. 
It has frequently been asked whether alcohol is present in 
wine as free alcohol, or is only produced and liberated 
during distillation, and this question has been answered some- 
times in the negative, and sometimes in the affirmative. What 
gave rise to this question was the observation that pure wine 
differs in taste from wine to which alcohol has been added. 
Most persons of moderate experience in tasting wine are able 
to detect the addition of a few per cent, of alcohol to a wine, 
even if its strength after this addition is not greater than the 
strength of many pure wines in which the spirit cannot be 
detected by the taste. A practised wine-taster will detect 
the addition of even a few per milles of alcohol to a pure 
wine. From these facts, namely, that no alcohol can be 
tasted in pure wine, while the addition of even a few per 
milles of alcohol to pure wine is instantly detected by the 
taste, it has been argued that no free alcohol is contained in 
wine, but that what appears as alcohol by distillation exists 
in some kind of combination, and that the application of 
heat breaks up the compound, alcohol distilling over, the 
other constituents of the compound remaining behind. We 
have, however, not found a single physical or chemical 
property possessed by wine which is not in perfect harmony 
with the assumption that it contains the alcohol as a simple 






62 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

admixture and not in any sort of combination. When wine 
is freed from all its alcohol by distillation, and the distilled 
spirit is again returned to the residue in the still, a compound 
i made which no doubt tastes differently from the original 
wine, but is identical with it in all its physical features, such 
as specific gravity, boiling point, vapour tension at high and 
low temperature, effects of freezing, facility with which the 
alcohol can be separated, endosmotic equivalent, capillary 
attraction and specific heat. Some of these physical qualities, 
such as endosmotic equivalent and specific heat, would cer- 
tainly have manifested even slight differences in the physical 
or chemical character of the two liquids had there been 
any, but all the eight tests prove identity. We have there- 
fore to account for the change in taste by the process of 
distillation by hypotheses other than that which assumes the 
alcohol in natural wine to be in combination. The alcohol 
or spirit from fermented liquids is always accompanied by 
matters not being ethylic alcohol, but being, like this, pro- 
ducts of fermentation, or being products of the action of 
heat on certain ingredients of the fermented liquid. Some 
of these products remain mixed with the alcohol with great 
pertinacity, are hardly separable by practical means, and 
impart to it a peculiar pungent taste, differing from that of 
pure alcohol. What tastes disagreeably in newly distilled 
spirit is not the alcohol, but these admixtures produced by 
the influence of heat. The by-taste can be diminished or 
removed by purifying the alcohol, distilling it over caustic 
lime, diluting it to a strength of 20 or 30 per cent., and 
filtering it repeatedly through fresh animal charcoal; 
gradually the taste becomes less pungent, and, as the pfirifi- 
cation proceeds, the mixture will appear less strong to the 
taste than a mixture of equal strength which has remained 
unpurified. It is owing to the admixture of these heat 
products, which have been termed empyreumatic, that new 
whiskey is harsh and objectionable, and requires the in- 
fluence of air admitted gradually through the pores of the 
wood of the barrels, and of time to become mellow and fit for 
use. Alcohol which has been entirely freed from these ad- 
mixtures is called silent spirit; but this in its turn never 



ACIDS IN WINE. 63 

acquires any flavour of any kind, and remains always unfit 
for use as a beverage in dilution ; to be drinkable it must 
have a flavour imparted to it, such as that of juniper, which 
makes it gin, or must itself be mixed with large volumes of 
flavoured alcoholic liquids, such as Andalusian wine, which 
makes it sherry. 

Of the matters which give a peculiar flavour to spirit 
distilled from wine aldehyde is not rarely one. Mostly such 
wines are condemned to the still which are not fit for being 
drunk in their natural state ; and are undergoing progressive 
deterioration by the viscous or acetous ferment. To this 
rule only the wines of the Charente and of Languedoc are 
exceptions, which are grown for being distilled soon after 
their fermentation is complete, and which have no time 
allowed to them for becoming spoiled ; they are not good 
wines for drinking, but their spirit is precious as Cognac 
brandy or as Trois-six. The presence of aldehyde is readily 
detected by the peculiar smell and flavour; it may be re- 
moved from the wine, neutralized by an alkali, by distillation, 
and collected in a well-cooled condenser ; it then maintains 
its smell and flavour on the tongue, reduces silver salts, and 
is easily converted into acetic acid. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
[ACIDS IN WINE. 

41. VARIETIES OF ACIDS IN WINE. 
THE acids which have hitherto been distinctly recognized 
as present in wine are of two kinds, namely, such as are 
already found in the grape, tartaric, malic, and tannic acid, 
and such as are produced during fermentation, namely, 
acetic, formic, succinic, and carbonic acid. In addition to 
these wine nearly always contains traces of some of the more 



64 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

complicated members of the fatty acid series, as propionic, 
butyric, and particularly cznanthic acid ; from the latter some 
philosophers have derived the peculiarly agreeable flavour 
common to all wine apart from any special bouquet. 

Tartaric acid. This is the most characteristic acid of 
wine ; it occurs in it as acid potash salt, so-called tartar, in 
trade also argol, which is deposited from wine when it is 
kept long in barrels. Of the acid six varieties are known, 
all of which have the chemical composition expressed by the 
formula, C 4 ff & O 6 ; they are all dibasic and form therefore 
two classes of salts and ethers, neutral and acid. Of the six 
varieties of tartaric acid only two have been found in wine, 
namely, ordinary tartaric acid, which as it turns the plane of 
polarized light, as seen in an instrument called a polarimder, 
to the right, is characterized as dextro-tartaric acid ; and 
paratartaric or racemic acid, which has no influence on 
polarized light. This latter acid is found in small quantities 
in nearly all crude tartar, but more particularly in tartar from 
Italy. By various chemical proceedings it can be split up 
into two equivalent parts, one being the ordinary dextro- 
tartaric acid, the other being an acid of the same chemical 
composition and almost identical chemical properties, but 
having upon polarized light the opposite effect to that of the 
ordinary acid, namely, a turning to the left, and hence being 
called laevo-tartaric acid. The ordinary acid turns pola- 
rized light just as much to the right as laevo-tartaric acid 
turns it to the left ; when the two are combined to racemic 
acid one optical effect neutralizes the opposite one, and the 
twin acid shows no polarity effect at all. With these optical 
characters of the two simple acids and of their conjugation 
product other physical and chemical properties are combined, 
which are, so to say, oppositionally symmetrical, the left and 
right turning acid being in the same relation to each other 
as a body before a mirror is to its reflected image. These 
relations are of great crystallographical interest, but we must 
leave their further consideration to more specifically chemical 
works. In wine we have practically to deal with ordinary 
tartaric acid, its salts and ethers. In the same form it is a 
regular constituent of the juice of the fr-uit of many plants, 



ACIDS IN \VIN 7 E. 65 

as tamarinds, mountain ash, mulberries, pine-apples, and 
others. 

Tartaric add ether (C 2 H 6 , C 4 Jf 4 O 6 ), a compound con- 
sisting of the acid and alcohol, is analogous to the salts, and 
is gradually formed in all wines, very slowly in the cold, more 
rapidly in higher temperatures. It contributes not to the 
bouquet, but to the rich taste of the wine. Wines which as 
must or as wines have been treated with gypsum or plaster 
of Paris have thereby lost all tartaric acid present in the 
must, consequently do not develop the rich taste of natural 
wine, but exhibit a bitter metallic taste of Glauber's salts, or 
sulphate of potash. 

Malic acid (C 4 H 6 <9 5 ) is found either free or in combina- 
tion with alkalies and earths, in the juices, particularly those 
of the fruit of many plants, as apples (from which it bears 
the name), cherries, plums, grapes, the berries of the moun- 
tain ash, etc. ; the latter, containing it in great quantity, are 
generally employed for its preparation. Malic acid is also 
obtainable from asparagin, a body present in the young 
shoots of many plants, e.g., vetches, asparagus, and in edible 
roots, e.g., salsifis. Malic, like tartaric acid, is a dibasic 
acid, and therefore forms two series of salts and ethers, 
neutral and acid ones. As regards the formation of ethers, 
it.behaves like tartaric acid. 

Succinic acid (C 4 H^ O^ derives its name from its forma- 
tion during the destructive distillation of amber, the fossil 
resin used for ornaments. It is found in some parts of the 
animal organism, e.g., the brain, of which it is a regular con- 
stituent. It is a frequent product of the oxydation of 
organic substances, more particularly the fats and the fatty 
acids. It is also produced during the decomposition by 
ferment of various substances, as asparagin, malic acid, 
sugar, etc., and is therefore always found in small quantities 
in wines. Grape sugar during its fermentation by yeast 
yields about 0-5 per cent, of its weight of succinic acid. 
Malic and tartaric acid may also be transformed into suc- 
cinic acid by the abstraction of some of their oxygen. 
Commercial succinic acid is prepared by the fermentation 
of malate of lime in water with some cheese. Upon every 
F 



66 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

two parts 01 succinic one part of acetic acid is simul- 
taneously formed, and it is not improbable that some of the 
acetic acid formed in even plastered wine by the viscosity 
fungus is produced from malic along with succinic acid. It 
is a very stable body, and is sublimable without change ; it 
is dibasic, and forms two series of salts and ethers. Suc- 
cinic acid is extracted from the dry residue of wine by ether- 
alcohol, combined with lime, and separated as calcium salt 
from the glycerol simultaneously extracted. One litre of 
wine contains from i to 1-5 gramme of succinic acid, equal to 
one-fourth or one-fifth of the whole of its acidity considered 
as tartaric. 

The relation of the three acids of wine described in the 
foregoing are chemically very conspicuous ; they all three 
contain the same number of atoms of carbon, C 4 , and hydro- 
gen, J1 6 , but differ as regards the oxygen, of which tartaric 
acid contains six, O 6 , malic five, O s , and succinic four, O ; 
and that this difference in the quantities of oxygen is the only 
constitutional difference is proved by the fact that by ab- 
straction of oxygen, tartaric acid can be transformed into 
malic, and this into succinic acid, while inversely succinic 
acid by the addition of oxygen can be promoted to malic, 
and this, by a further addition, to tartaric acid. 

Acetic add. Acetic acid (C z H 2 ) is found in the juices 
of some plants and animals, either free or in combination, 
but only in extremely small quantities. The chief sources 
of its production for use as vinegar are the oxydation of 
ordinary alcohol under the influence of a particular fer- 
ment called the vinegar plant (mycoderma aceti), and the 
destructive distillation of wood. The manner in which 
the plant acts is not known, but it transfers oxygen to 
alcohol, forming first aldehyde, afterwards acetic acid. The 
mycoderma cannot live in strong alcohol, and converts only 
weak spirit, not much exceeding ten per cent, alcoholic 
strength, such as is common to natural wine, into vinegar. 
The temperature most favourable to the formation of vinegar 
is between 22 and 37 C. 

Must after partial fermentation contains many of the 
elements favourable to the production of vinegar. Where 



ACIDS IN WINE. 67 

the must ferments in open vats, as in many parts of the 
south, it exposes a large surface to the atmosphere, which 
is further increased by the thick froth covering it, or, as is 
often the case with red wines, by the skins and stalks of the 
grapes which float on the top. Much wine in southern 
countries is lost by a beginning of acetous fermentation, 
and its value is partially recovered only by distilling off the 
main bulk of the alcohol. In more northern wine-produc- 
ing countries, however, the temperature prevailing during 
the time of fermentation is not high enough to favour 
acetous fermentation; and, moreover, during the greater 
part of such fermentation the carbonic acid constantly 
produced and escaping at the surface prevents the free 
access of air. In all moderately warm countries it requires, 
therefore, but slight attention to prevent an excessive pro- 
duction of acetic acid, and in the wines produced there the 
quantity of this acid usually ranges from between 0*5 to 1*5 
per mille. In warm countries and seasons, however, and in 
all cases where the husks are allowed to remain in the 
fermenting must, great care is requisite to prevent the 
formation of vinegar, and sometimes the fermentation of 
the must has to be stopped by the addition of alcohol, in 
order to limit as much as possible the time during which 
the wine has to be kept in open vats. For just as in the 
manufacture of vinegar from wine it is found that the 
rapidity with which wine is converted into vinegar increases 
to a certain extent with the increasing amount of acetic 
acid, so in vinification it is observed that if once the 
quantity of acetic acid present has reached a certain 
amount, its further production will go on at a greatly increased 
rate, and the wine can no longer be kept in vessels to which 
air has access without turning sour entirely. If the oxyda- 
tion of alcohol takes place under conditions when there is 
but a limited supply of oxygen, it often stops short at 
aldehyde ; in many wines of Sauternes, and in Greek wines 
which had been kept in barrels, we have found aldehyde and 
acetic acid simultaneously. Many Australian wines im- 
ported into London, red as well as white, are acetous, and 
some lots of wine in barrels from that country we found 



68 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

almost entirely transformed into vinegar. The highest 
amount of acetic acid found in more than a hundred 
samples of French and German wines amounted to 1*78 pro 
mille, the lowest being 0-36 pro mille ; while in a number 
of samples of Greek wines the acetic acid varied between 
1*53 and 3*63 pro mille. 

If the acetic acid, as is the case in wine, is mixed with a 
great many other substances, and it is desired to test it and 
estimate its quantity, it should be separated from them by 
distillation, and the tests should be applied to the distillate, 
neutralized, if necessary, by potash or ammonia. That the 
volatile acid of wine is almost all acetic acid is readily 
proved by estimating its atomic weight This is done by 
combining the acid, once purified by re-distillation from its 
soda salt, after addition of sulphuric acid, with baryta ; the 
pure acetate of baryum contains 53^54 per cent, of baryum ; 
the volatile acid from many wines we have found to contain, 
as baryum salt, from 53-3 to 53*9 per cent of baryum. 
The estimation of the baryum in the salt produced by the 
whole of the volatile acid, is not, however, in itself a 
perfectly reliable criterion of the purity of the acetic acid 
contained in it. 

Formic and other acids of the acetic or fatty series. The 
series of these acids runs parallel to the series of alcohols 
which we have enumerated; they are formic, propionic, 
butyric, valerianic, caproic, etc., acids. The only acid of 
this series, besides acetic acid, which ha* been recognized as 
certainly present in many wines is formic acid; of the 
others we only know that they are represented in wine by 
one or more of their number, though we cannot certainly 
say by which. Formic acid is recognized in the distillate by 
appropriate tests, particularly that when heated with silver 
nitrate it causes a black deposit of silver. When only little 
formic acid is mixed with much acetic it must be separated 
first by a process of fractional distillation. By the same kind 
of fractionation the heavier acids may be isolated, and their 
atomic weights may be fixed by baryta. In all cases in 
which the acids distilled from large quantities of wine were 
examined, the salt of the first fraction contained less baryum 



ACIDS IN WINE. 69 

than corresponds to an acetate ; the intermediate portions 
contained almost the exact proportion required by pure 
acetate; the last fraction contained perceptibly more. 
Formiate contains 60-18 per cent, baryum, acetate 53*54, pro- 
pionate 48*22, and butyrate 43-87 per cent. To carry, 
analytically, the separation of the volatile acids of wine to 
perfection would require the distillation of very large 
amounts of wine. 

(Enanthic acid. This acid does not occur in wine in its 
isolated condition, but only combined with alcohol as cenan- 
thic ether. Of this ether we shall again speak in the chapter 
on ethers. Here it may suffice to state that it was obtained 
by Liebig and Pelouze in the course of an examination of 
the ether in question. Its formula is C u ff x O s , and it 
forms an oil solidifying below 13 C. Its origin and mode 
of formation are unknown. It is curious that by itself the 
acid is quite inodorous, and that the characteristic smell of 
its ether should not be foreshadowed in it. It is insoluble 
in water, and therefore could scarcely be contained in must 
before fermentation it is therefore probably formed during 
fermentation and in statu nascendi at once combines with 
alcohol to form ether. 



42. CHEMICAL ESTIMATION OF THE QUANTITY OF 

ACIDS IN VVlNE. 1 

We must only indicate the general principle of the pro- 
cesses by which the quantities of acids in wines may be 
ascertained. For the purpose of ordinary analysis it is 
sufficient to estimate the whole of the volatile acids as acetic. 
Infixed acids may be treated as if they were tartaric and 
malic only. The entire acidity in wine is ascertained by 
adding an alkaline test solution of known strength, and 
using freshly prepared tincture of logwood as an indicator ; 
when the acid has all been neutralized, the colour of the 
logwood changes from yellow to brown or red. In some 
vines this change from yellow to red takes place at once, 

1 For full details of the processes cf. Thudichum and Dupre, 
*' Treatise," pp. 189-197. 



/O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

and can be easily observed ; in others, however, the colour 
passes gradually through brown, blue, green, etc., and never 
becomes actually red. In these cases it is impossible to 
accurately fix the point where sufficient alkali has been 
added, and then the process has to be modified by testing a 
small portion of the mixture with logwood tincture a second 
time. The mixture remains brown while it is neutral, and 
becomes red the moment it is alkaline. 

The total amount of volatile acid in wine may be estimated 
not only by the acidity of any distillate, but more con- 
veniently by deducting the amount of permanent acidity, 
after evaporation of the wine, from that which the fresh 
wine showed. This proceeding has the advantage that it 
can be carried out on as small a quantity of wine as 20 cub. 
centimetres, and thus taking much less time than an ex- 
periment on the larger quantities required by other methods. 

It is almost impossible to estimate accurately the volatile 
acid by distillation and quantation of the acidity of the 
distillate, because a part of the acid is obstinately retained 
by the residue, even when fresh water is added and the dis- 
tillation is prolonged. On the other hand, evaporation and 
drying in an open dish expels all the volatile acid. 

In good sound wines the total amount of free acid ranges 
from 0-3 to 07 per cent. ; wines with more than the latter 
amount of free acid are neither pleasant nor wholesome. Of 
the total acidity not more than an amount of 0-15 per cent, 
of the wine should be due to volatile acid. 



43. ESTIMATION OF TARTARIC ACID AND BITARTRATE 

OF POTASH IN WINE. 

This quantation is mostly effected by a process elaborated 
by the French chemist Berthelot, and is based upon the in- 
solubility of the bitartrate in a mixture of strong alcohol and 
ether. Any free acid is soluble, and can be precipitated by 
caustic potash. In a process elaborated by the German 
chemist Nessler, absolute alcohol only is used to precipitate 
the tartar. Both methods give accurate results if the 
amount of tartaric acid present does not fall short of 0*05 



ACIDS IN WINE. 71 

per cent. ; if it be below this amount the results are of less 
accuracy, because the alkalimetric liquids fail to be applic- 
able. To increase the accuracy of the method we recom- 
mend that the operator should use double the quantity of 
wine prescribed for the test by both Berthelot and Nessler. 
These authors probably had to deal with wines rich in tartaric 
acid, while the wines which we examined were less endowed 
with that ingredient. 

In the majority of wines all the tartaric acid is present as 
bitartrate, that is to say, there is a sufficient amount of 
potash present to enable the whole of the tartaric acid to be 
precipitated in this form by the addition of ether and alcohol ; 
the wines, in fact, frequently correspond to a solution of bi- 
tartrate, saturated at the lowest temperature to which the 
wine may have been exposed for a certain length of time. 

All pure natural wines contain more or less of tartaric 
acid, and the quantity is probably the higher the riper are 
the grapes from which it is produced. There is not, how- 
ever, any apparent connection between the amount of tar- 
taric acid present, and the quality of the wine ; the excess 
of acidity perceptible to the taste depends not upon the 
quantity of the tartaric, but that of the malic, succinic, and 
the volatile acids present ; we have also occasionally observed 
lactic acid as a cause of excessive acidity of wines. All wines 
in the course of the preparation of which plaster of Paris, 
gypsum, sulphate of lime has been used are nearly free 
from tartaric acid. 

In the majority of unplastered wines, if not in all, the 
amount of tartaric acid corresponds to only a fraction of the 
total free fixed acid present ; the rest of the acid consists mainly 
of malic, with some succinic acid. In the course of the ana- 
lytical proceedings for the isolation and quantation of these 
acids, particularly of the tartaric, it has to be borne in mind, 
that the wine contains sulphate and chloride of potassium, 
which are decomposed by free tartaric acid in the presence 
of large quantities of alcohol and ether, as used in the 
Nessler and Berthelot processes. 

The quantation and isolation of malic acid is based upon 
the insolubility of its calcium salt in absolute alcohol. 



/2 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

The presence of any considerable amount of acetic acid 
shows the wine, even when yet of good taste, to be unsound ; 
the presence of much malic acid shows the must from which 
the wine was made to have proceeded from somewhat under- 
ripe grapes; the absence of tartaric acid proves that the 
wine has been plastered ; any excess of tartrate of potash is 
easily removed by exposing the wine to a wintry temperature. 



CHAPTER IX. 
ETHERS OR BOUQUET OF WINES. 

44. VARIETIES OF ETHERS IN WINE. 
THE ethers in wine are compounds of the fixed and volatile 
acids with alcohols, and are formed after fermentation, with 
the exception perhaps of cenanthic ether, which seems to 
be formed during fermentation. They are formed very 
slowly, and as wine owes to them much of its flavour it has 
to remain long in barrels or bottles to _allow of the etherifi- 
cation to be effected. 

Aceto-Ethylic Ether. By far the greater part of the vola- 
tile ethers found in wine is acetic ether ; it is volatile and 
possesses a very decided smell, of an agreeable kind ; and 
thereby no doubt contributes much to the general flavour of 
wine, although neither the characteristic wine-flavour, nor 
the peculiar bouquet of wine is due to it. It serves rather as 
a background to these, and its excess is detrimental to the 
specific flavours. It can easily be produced by combining 
acetic acid and alcohol in the presence of sulphuric acid; in 
wine it is formed by the interaction of acetic acid and alcohol 
under the influence of the other acids, but its quantity is 
kept within certain limits by the great bulk of water contained 
in wine. Its formation in wine is gradual, and thus the 
amount of it present in wine at a given time can be used as 
a measure of the age of the wine. 



ETHERS OR BOUQUET OF WINES. 73 

Aceto-Propylic, Butylic, Amy lie ^ Caproylic, etc.) Ethers. 
The place of ethyl in the acetic ether just described may be 
taken by any of the radicles of the other alcohols present in 
wine, when the ethers enumerated in the heading result. 
They correspond in their general characters to acetic ether, 
and are all volatile ; they all have an agreeable smell, greatly 
resembling the smell of certain qualities of fruit, more parti- 
cularly when much diluted; thus acetate of amyl has the 
odour of pears. Minute quantities of these ethers are pre- 
sent, particularly in old wine, and contribute to its flavour 
and bouquet. 

Butyro-Ethylic, Caprylo-Ethylic, Capro-Ethylic, and Pe- 
largo-Ethylic Ethers. Just as acetic acid forms a series of 
ethers with the radicles of the alcohol series described in the 
foregoing, so the other acids form each a series of ethers with 
the same series of alcohol radicles. In wine we may expect 
these acids always to combine with the prevailing, namely, 
ethylic alcohol. The etherification is apparently facilitated 
by the presence of tartaric acid. Many of these ethers have 
a very powerful and characteristic odour. Very frequently 
the odour of the concentrated pure ethers is rather disagree- 
able, but becomes agreeable, and resembles the flavour of 
fruit, when it is greatly diluted. Thus dilute butyric ether 
resembles in its smell that of pine-apples ; caprylic ether has 
a similar smell ; caproic ether has the odour of melons , and 
to pelargonic ether probably a portion of the characteristic 
wine-flavour is due. 



45. (ENANTHIC ETHER. 

At the end of the distillation of large volumes of wine, 
such as are used in the south of France, a small quantity of 
an oily liquid passes over, which is the crude ether here in 
question. Forty thousand parts of wine yield about one 
part of the oil. The ether is also contained in wine yeast, 
and removed from it by distillation with water. The ether 
as first obtained contains also acid as an admixture which 
has to be removed by alkali and re-distillation. The pure 
ether is a colourless, thin, oily liquid, with an overpowering 



74 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

vinous smell and a sharp, disagreeable taste. Its compo- 
sition is expressed by the formula C 18 H m O 3 ; it contains 
two ethyle radicles. It is very soluble in even diluted spirit, 
but insoluble in water. It is generally admitted that the 
characteristic vinous smell, which distinguishes all kinds of 
wine from every other fermented liquid, is due to the 
presence of this cenanthic ether. The particular flavour or 
bouquet, however, by which the wines of different vineyards 
and vines are distinguishable from each other, is produced 
by substances of a different nature and composition. Much 
so-called cenanthic ether is synthetically produced in manu- 
factories and used in the transformation of silent spirit into 
so-called British brandy. 

46. TARTARIC ETHER. 

Tartaric acid being dibasic may be made to form two 
varieties of ethers, namely, neutral and acid ones. Only the 
latter kind is met with in wine, tartro-ethylic ether, C 6 T W O 6 . 
It is a crystallizable, but deliquescent, solid body, and 
behaves like an acid, as it even forms salts with bases. It 
cannot be distilled, but under the influence of higher tem- 
peratures breaks up into various products. 

By the interaction of the alcohols and ethers present in 
wine a great number of compound ethers may be formed. 
Thus, assuming the presence of five acids and five alcohols, 
they might form twenty-five compound ethers, any or all of 
which might be present and contribute their share to the 
flavour ; and the flavour would alter with the predominance 
of the one or the other of these ethers. In the manufacture of 
brandy very large quantities of wine are distilled, and a con- 
siderable amount of so-called fusel or fousel-oil is obtained, 
in which a number of the above-named volatile acids and 
ethers, as well as several different alcohols have been detected. 
The more volatile ethers of course remain with the distilled 
brandy. 

47. QUANTATION OF ETHERS IN WlNE. 

Berthelot estimated the ethers in wine by destroying them 
with baryta and ascertaining the quantity of acid which had 



ETHERS OR BOUQUET OF WINES. 75 

entered into combination with the earth. But we have found 
that the presence of sugar makes the process inapplicable. 
We have therefore used another method ; 1 the volatile ethers 
are separated by distillation, and decomposed by alkali, and 
in the salt the quantity of add is estimated ; the fixed ethers 
are decomposed in the residue by alkali ; and the alcohol 
separated is estimated. Wine may be distilled from a retort 
with the usual precaution of a water or sand-bath, without 
any of the ethers undergoing decomposition. The dry 
residue of wine by long heating loses its acidity, but not its 
fixed ethers ; by careful experiment it has been ascertained 
that tartaric ether in the presence of tartaric acid is not de- 
composed by being heated in an open dish on a water-bath. 
All the volatile ethers are expelled from wine, together with 
the alcohol, by a concentration of the wine to one-fifth. The 
foregoing process of separate quantation of volatile and 
fixed ethers is as applicable to dry natural as to sweet or 
sugared wines. 



48. THEORY OF THE LIMITATION OF ETHERS IN WINE. 
It has been maintained by Berthelot that the amount of 
ethers found in any mixture of alcohols and acids is after a 
certain time a constant quantity, independent of the nature 
of the alcohols and acids present, and a function only of 
their relative amount. He has given a formula for calculat- 
ing the amount of alcohol contained in the compound ethers 
of one litre of a mixture of acids, alcohol, and water, such as 
wine essentially is when etherification is complete. The 
formula is available for any alcoholic strength up to 25 per 
cent. As by far the greatest proportion of alcohol present is 
ethylic alcohol, the other alcohols may for the present pur- 
pose be left out of consideration. We have found that the 
data obtained by the application of Berthelot's formula agree 
very well with those obtained by direct analysis ; the only 
exceptions to the rule are very young wines, in which etheri- 
fication is incomplete, and wines to which alcohol has beea 

1 Thudichum and Dnpre, "Treatise," pp. 203-216. 



76 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

added just before they come under observation, and in which 
therefore etherification has not yet re-attained its equilibrium. 

The estimation of ethers in wines thus affords a valuable 
means of judging of their age and genuineness. A natural 
wine should during the first few years contain somewhat less 
ether than required by the formula; the amount should 
gradually augment with age, until after from four to six years 
the maximum would be reached. If then an appreciable 
amount of alcohol be added, the wine be fortified, etherifi- 
cation will begin afresh, and again reach a maximum after a 
number of years. On the other hand, wine prepared arti- 
ficially, with addition of ethers, will probably at once show 
a maximum of ethers, or will even exceed this, and will then, 
instead of increasing in richness, remain stationary, or show 
a diminution of ethers with increasing age. Thus sherries, 
on arrival from Spain in wood, are always out of equilibrium, 
because they have been brandied just before their departure, 
and require some years in bottle before they acquire the 
limit of etherification. 

Although the total amount of alcohol present as ether in 
wines which we have examined expressly generally agrees 
closely with that required by theory, yet the amount present 
in fixed ether on the one, and volatile ether on the other 
hand bears no regular relation to the amount of fixed and 
volatile acids present. The amount of alcohol present as 
volatile ether is almost always greater than the amount 
present in fixed ether, in spite of the circumstance that the 
amount of volatile acid present is almost always much 
smaller than the amount of fixed acid. The proportion 
between the volatile and fixed ethers bears no proportionate 
relation to the amounts of volatile and fixed acids present. 
All the fixed acids are present already in the grape juice, 
and their etherification can therefore begin as soon as alcohol 
begins to be formed during fermentation, and continue 
simultaneously with its production. Moreover, the amount 
-of fixed acids is greatest at the beginning of fermentation, 
decreasing as the amount of alcohol increases, on account of 
the lesser solubility of acid tartrate of potassium in alcoholic 
liquids. It is therefore evident. that the amount of fixed 



ETHERS OR BOUQUET OF WINES. 77 

ethers formed in a given time is greatest in quite young, or 
still fermenting wine. 

The volatile acids, on the other hand, are all formed 
during or after fermentation. If therefore fermentation has- 
taken place under circumstances unfavourable to the pro- 
duction of volatile acids, say acetic acid, as is the case 
when must ferments at a low temperature, or in carefully 
closed vessels, little or no volatile acid will be present at 
first, but the amount will increase gradually with the age of 
the wine, provided it be kept in well-ullaged casks. In, 
such a wine, therefore, the production of fixed ethers begins 
before that of the volatile ethers. But the continually 
increasing amount of volatile acids, aided by their greater 
tendency to etherification, and the gradual decrease in the 
amount of fixed acids, aided further by the circumstance 
that the volatile acids are in presence of alcohol in statu 
nascendt, when this combining tendency is at its maximum, 
soon reverses the conditions, and causes the volatile ethers- 
to preponderate. 

In judging of the relative quantity of free, fixed and 
volatile acids present it should be borne in mind that the 
volatile ethers being neutral ethers, neutralize their acid 
completely, while the fixed ethers being acid ethers, have 
only half their acidity neutralized. It is therefore necessary, 
in order to find the quantity of that part of fixed acid which 
is really free and uncombined, to subtract an amount of 
acid equal to that found neutralized in the fixed ethers from; 
the total amount of free fixed acid found. And from this 
the acid present as bitartrate should perhaps also be de- 
ducted in order to obtain data by which the amount of 
etherification due to fixed and volatile acids respectively; 
may be accurately determined. 

49. SMELL, BOUQUET OR AROMA OF WINE. 

There are odoriferous constituents common to all wines 
which we have seen are essentially compound ethers, and! 
these produce the truly vinous smell ; this can hardly be 
called either aroma or bouquet with much propriety : indeed 



78 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the word aroma indicates spice, and wine to become aromatic, 
in the language of past pharmacy aromatites, has to be 
mixed with spice; of such spice myrrh is used in the 
present day at Naples to give a flavour to the flavourless 
white wine; crocus or saffron was extracted with Canary 
wine and this tincture went by the name of aroph, a con- 
traction of aroma philosophorum. But pure wine was never 
termed, and is not aromatic in the true sense of the word. 
Odoriferous constituents which are characteristic of par- 
ticular kinds of wine, being always mixed with the more or 
less prominent flavour of the oenanthic principles, may 
properly be termed bouquet. The substances producing 
the bouquet and peculiar characteristic flavour of special 
wines are of two kinds ; namely, such as are already present 
in the grape, and are unaltered during fermentation, e.g., the 
smell of the muscatel, or Isabella grape ; and, secondly, such 
as are formed during and after fermentation, partly out of 
substances already present in the grape, partly from matters 
formed during or after fermentation. Some of the substances 
present in the grape are formed apparently in greater quan- 
tity with their increasing ripeness, and have probably the 
characters of essential oils. On the other hand the 
substances yielding the bouquet are sometimes contained in 
greater quantity in unripe than in ripe grapes. The fruit, 
blossoms, or other parts of certain plants, when steeped in a 
liquid undergoing alcoholic fermentation, produce or yield 
a small quantity of essential oil, termed ferment oil, which 
possesses a characteristic smell, not rarely resembling the 
bouquet of certain kinds of wine. Thus the flowers of elder 
when allowed to ferment with the must, or extracted with 
spirit, impart to the solvents a flavour not unlike that of 
muscatel grapes ; while the flowers of any vine, more par- 
ticularly the wild vine, yield to alcohol the Rhine wine 
bouquet. 

It has been attempted to separate the odoriferous con- 
stituents of wine by means of ether, but their extremely 
unstable character under the influence of heat and air, and 
their small amount made these attempts abortive. The 
.extracted bouquetted matter of a litre of wine was entirely 



SUGARS IN GRAPES AND WINE. 79 

destroyed when fifty cubic centimetres of air were left in 
contact with it. This explains the manner in which very 
old wines gradually lose their bouquet; the air penetrates 
both wood and corks. On the other hand in young wines 
the limited access of air is essential to their development as 
regards bouquet ; and as the access of air is much more 
rapid in casks than in bottles, it is a part of the art and 
knowledge and skill of the wine-maker to mature the wine 
in cask until it has attained its maximum of bouquet, and 
then to bottle it to maintain the bouquet, and effect the 
rest of the changes which demand exclusion of air. 



CHAPTER X. 
SUGARS IN GRAPES AND WINE. 

50. VARIETIES OF SUGAR OCCURRING IN GRAPES 
AND WINE. 

THE sweetness of grapes is due to the presence of a con- 
siderable amount of sugar in their juice, which is probably 
a mixture in atomic proportions of two different kinds of 
sugar, called respectively fruit-sugar and grape-sugar. The 
same mixture is produced by the action of dilute acids 
upon cane-sugar, and is then termed invert sugar. 

Cane-sugar has never been found in grapes; it is however 
sometimes added to must or to wine, for example to the 
sweet kinds of Champagne and other effervescent vinous 
products, and in large quantities to British wines. But 
when thus dissolved in wine cane-sugar is soon changed 
into invert sugar, so that, after the lapse of a few weeks, 
cane-sugar is no longer found in the wine to which it has 
been added. 

During the fermentation of the must, the fruit and grape- 
sugars are decomposed so as to yield chiefly alcohol and 



80 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

carbonic acid, besides small quantities of glycerol and 
succinic acid. The grape-sugar is decomposed more quickly 
than the fruit-sugar, so that at the end of the fermentation 
generally more fruit-sugar than grape-sugar is left. The 
sugar which remains permanently in wine consists mainly 
of fruit-sugar, with only a small proportion of grape-sugar. 
The proportion between them differs in different kinds of 
wine, and seems to depend in some sort on the mode of 
fermentation ; in wines which retain much sugar the grape- 
sugar sometimes predominates, while all the fruit-sugar is 
decomposed. The sugar, whether fruit or grape-sugar, left 
undecomposed at the end of the fermentation, in pure 
natural wines, rarely amounts to more than 0*5 per cent., 
and is generally much less in quantity. Even this small 
amount is confined chiefly to young wines, and disappears 
with progressing age of the wine, generally after a second 
fermentation in the spring following the first fermentation. 
In wines to which alcohol is added to check fermentation, 
or in liqueur wines made from sun-dried grapes or raisins, 
the so-called dulce of the south of France and Spain, the 
sugar ranges from 2 or 3 per cent, to upwards of 20 per 
cent. 



51. GRAPE-SUGAR, DEXTROSE, OR RIGHT-TURNING 

GLUCOSE. 

Grape-sugar has the composition expressed by the formula 
C 6 HU O 6 , and is found in many kinds of fruit, and in bees' 
honey, mixed or combined with fruit-sugar. It is produced 
by the action of warm diluted sulphuric acid on starch or 
cellulose, is excreted in large quantities by the kidneys in a 
disease termed diabetes, and is obtained by the decom- 
position of substances, products of organic nature, which 
from this fact are termed glucosides. It is also formed by 
the action of ferment, e.g., yeast or cane-sugar ; this change 
takes place instantaneously when two parts of finely-pow- 
dered white cane-sugar are mixed in a mortar with one part 
by weight of solid yeast, and the mixture becomes fluid. 
Dextrose, as we shall hereafter term this sugar, crystallizes 



SUGARS IN GRAPES AND WINE. 8 1 

from a moderately concentrated solution in granular masses 
containing a molecle of water of crystallization, which they 
lose at a temperature of 60 C. If the solution be evaporated 
to a thick syrup, so as not to contain this necessary water, it 
will crystallize only after having attracted sufficient water from 
the atmosphere to form the hydrated crystals. From alcohol 
of 95 per cent, strength it crystallizes in fine needles contain- 
ing no water of crystallization. It is soluble in its own weight 
of water, but slightly soluble in alcohol, scarcely soluble in 
ether. Its most remarkable and useful chemical reaction is 
that when a salt of copper is mixed with it, and caustic alkali 
is added to the mixture a deep blue solution, without any 
precipitate, is formed ; when this mixture is allowed to stand, 
after a lapse of time, or when it is heated immediately, a 
yellowish-red precipitate of hydrate of suboxide of copper, 
or cuprous oxide, or a red precipitate of the anhydrous sub- 
oxide is formed and deposited. As one molecle of grape- 
sugar thus reduces ten molecles of oxide of copper to sub- 
oxide, by withdrawing the oxygen from the copper, this re- 
action may be used as a means for estimating the amount of 
dextrose present in a solution. The reaction was discovered 
by Trommer, and bears his name ; its quantitative applica- 
tion was elaborated by Fehling, and the fluid of known 
strength used in it bears the name of the later chemist. The 
test is so delicate that the presence of even a thousandth 
part of dextrose in a solution may be detected by it. The 
name of dextrose is derived from the fact that solutions of 
the sugar turn the plane of a beam of polarized light to the 
right, as seen in an apparatus called a polarimeter, or sac- 
charometer. The actual rotating power is 56 of the circle 
to the right ; this power is but little affected by differences in 
temperature. 



52. FRUIT-SUGAR, LEVULOSE OR LEFT-TURNING 

GLUCOSE. 

Fruit-sugar is found and formed in conjunction with dex- 
trose in all the cases above described. It can be separated 
from the latter by combination with lime, and from the lime 



82 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

by oxalic or sulphuric acid. It forms an uncrystallizable 
syrup, soluble in water in every proportion, soluble in 
alcohol, slightly soluble in ether. Like dextrose it decom- 
poses an alkaline solution of copper salt, and in exactly the 
same proportions. Its solutions turn the plane of polarized 
light to the left, its molecular rotating power being 106 of 
a circle at 14 C. This power is much affected by tempera- 
ture, and at 90 C. is reduced to 53. 

53. INVERT SUGAR. 

As cane-sugar turns the plane of polarization to the right, 
but after decomposition by acids turns it to the left, it was 
said to have become inverted, and this gave rise to the name 
of inverted or, abbreviated, invert sugar. It behaves like a 
mixture of levulose and dextrose, and either of these sugars 
can be extracted from it. On adding to a solution of cane- 
sugar in strong alcohol much hydrochloric acid, pure dex- 
trose crystallizes in time, while levulose remains in solution ; 
the levulose in its turn is separated by lime as already stated. 
Invert sugar turns the plane of polarization to the left, its mole- 
cular rotating power being 26 at 15 C. ; as the temperature 
rises above 15 C. the rotation diminishes by 0-37 for each 
degree of temperature, while a sinking temperature increases 
the rotation by the same amount for each degree below 
15 C. 



54. INOSITE OR PHASEOMANNITE. 
It has been stated that the syrupy wines of Sauternes, and 
some Rhine wines of the best years, which retain permanently 
up to 4 per cent, of sugar contain, besides dextrose and 
levulose, a kind of sugar which was first discovered in green 
beans, and hence received the second name of the above 
title. It was discovered as an ingredient of the flesh of many 
animals, and therefore termed inosite ; it is also present in 
considerable amount in the brain of man and of the ox. 
Some have supposed that the presence of this sugar in the 
wines named might explain in part their strongly intoxicating 



SUGARS IN GRAPES AND WINE. 83 

quality, which is also peculiar in its kind, and termed by the 
French heady. But there is no record of inosite, though it 
is an alcohol, having any narcotic effect. Inosite is par- 
ticularly liable to the lactic acid fermentation, and it is to 
lactic acid formed in the barrels that many medium sweet 
wines of the Gironde owe their acidity, which forms so 
striking a contrast to their sweetness ; this makes them un- 
drinkable to an accomplished palate. 

55. TESTING WINES FOR SUGAR. 

For details regarding the preparation and application of 
the several tests to wine we must refer to p. 226 of the great 
"Treatise." As wine must be colourless for the application 
of either the chemical or optical test, red and dark-coloured 
varieties have to be decolorized by agitation with charcoal ; 
very concentrated wines have to be diluted. Some extrac- 
tive matters which are not sugar, but affect the copper test, 
can be removed by lead acetate, so-called sugar of lead; 
this reagent also removes the brownish matters from wines 
coloured with caramels, such as sherry and Marsala. If any 
cane-sugar be present in the wine to be examined it has to 
be transformed into invert sugar by boiling with dilute sul- 
phuric acid. Cane-sugar, C 12 H^ O u , by taking up a molecle 
of water, H z O, becomes by this process, called hydrolysis, 
2 x C 6 H 12 O 6 , or 342 parts of cane-sugar become 360 parts 
of invert sugar. 

As regards the optical fesf, a full explanation of the theory 
of polarization, and description of some of the best apparatus 
for its application, will be found in the " Treatise," /. c. t pp. 
231-252. The wine to be subjected to the optical test is 
made colourless by the application of lead acetate, and 
afterwards a little animal charcoal, and the bright colourless 
liquid is placed into the tube of the polarimeter. As wine 
contains a mixture of dextrose and levulose in proportions 
which are not those of invert sugar, the amount of polariza- 
tion which it shows depends upon the proportion of the two 
sugars present. As one part of dextrose turns about as 
much to the right as half a part of levulose turns to the left 



84 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

a mixture of the two in these proportions would show no pola- 
rization at all ; a prevalence of either sugar would cause the 
polarization to turn in its peculiar direction but whatever 
might be the proportion between them, half a part of levu- 
lose would always neutralize the optical effect of one part of 
dextrose, and the visible optical effect would be due only to 
the excess of either sugar over the stated proportion. The 
optical test, therefore, is unable to estimate the amount of 
sugar present; it can only estimate the non-neutralized 
excess of either. But if to the data obtained by this test be 
added the datum obtained by the chemical test, the quantity 
of each variety of sugar present is easily calculated. 

A number of specimens of wine from the Rhine and the 
Gironde contained about i '057 per cent, of sugar by chemical 
test; of this, 0-802 per cent, were levulose, 0-252 per cent, 
dextrose, or upon one part of the latter 3-19 parts of the 
former. A fine old Madeira showed i '024 per cent, of sugar, 
of which dextrose placed as i part the levulose amounted to 
3-43 parts. Six high-class port wines showed 1-179 P er cent, 
sugar: in this, dextrose i part, levulose 2-57 parts. 

A sample of cheap port contained 1-971 per cent, of 
sugar; in this i part of dextrose corresponded to 1-35 part 
of levulose. 

A high-class sherry, fifty years old, contained 2-11 per 
cent, sugar, in this i part dextrose was present besides 1-26 
part levulose. 

A commercial Marsala showed 4*329 per cent, sugar ; here 
i part dextrose was by the side of 0-84 part of levulose. 

A cheap sherry contained 4-617 per cent, sugar; in this 
dextrose as i was to levulose o - 8i part. 

A sample of Elbe sherry (Greek wine mixed with sugar and 
spirit at Hamburg) contained 6-512 per cent, of sugar ; in this 
dextrose = i was counterbalanced by levulose = 0-37 part. 
In the cases of the last three wines so-called saccharine 
(matter) mainly dextrose, had no doubt been added. 

In a sample of port chemical tests showed the presence of 
0*177 per cent, of sugar, while not a trace of polarization 
was perceptible in a saccharometer which will yet indicate 
o'oi per cent, or one-seventeenth the quantity found chemi- 



SUGARS IN GRAPES AND WINE. 85 

cally in the wine. In this case the sugars were in the pro- 
portion in which one neutralized the other, or one dextrose 
upon one-half part levulose. When the proportion of 
levulose sinks still lower the wine begins to turn to the 
right. It is usually assumed that this condition indicates 
an addition of dextrose to the wine ; we have, however, met 
with several wines which turned to the right, although, as 
we had been credibly assured, no addition of dextrose or 
any other sugar had been made. These wines were young, 
and had undergone a second fermentation in bottle. One 
specimen before fermentation turned to the left, after it to 
the right, so that more levulose than dextrose had been 
destroyed. Another contained 0-144 per cent, of dextrose 
and o'oio per cent, of levulose, which is equivalent to an 
almost total disappearance of the levulose. 

Thus while in the above seven and more samples the 
residual sugar was mainly levulose, and while these cases 
represent the ordinary result of fermentation, under special 
conditions dextrose mainly may be preserved, and its 
presence in wine in excess of the equivalent of levulose 
must not be assumed to necessarily indicate any adulte- 
ration or illegitimate addition. 

The sugar contained >n champagne is chiefly invert sugar, 
formed by the action of the acids in the wine on the cane- 
sugar added in the liqueur. Thus the sugar found in a 
sample of champagne was found chemically to be 2-935 
per cent. ; and the optical test showed it to be almost pure 
invert sugar. 

Should cane-sugar be suspected in wine, it may be found by 
destroying the dextrose and levulose by boiling with caustic 
alkali, and then transforming the cane-sugar, proved by its 
right-handed polarization, into invert sugar, by boiling with 
10 per cent, of strong hydrochloric acid, and finding in the 
product the amount of polarization now directed to the left. 

It is thus proved that neither the optical nor the chemical 
test can by itself give information on the quality and 
proportion of the sugars ; the chemical test alone can give 
the total sugar ; both tests conjointly are alone able to 
furnish complete qualitative and quantitative results. 



86 A TREATISE ON WINES. 



CHAPTER XI. 

COLOURING, ASTRINGENT, EXTRACTIVE AND 
MINERAL CONSTITUENTS OF WINE. 

56. GLYCEROL. 

GLYCEROL, C 3 Jf 8 O 3 formerly termed glycerine, but now 
marked as an alcohol by the terminal syllable, one of the 
constituents of animal and vegetable fats, and of those 
peculiar substances contained in the brain known as phos- 
phorised matters, may be prepared by saponification or 
decomposition of fats with superheated steam. For our 
present purpose it is of importance as a product of the 
fermentation of sugar, and contributes, in a limited manner, 
to the agreeably sweetish taste of wine. It is a colourless, 
syrupy, sweet liquid at ordinary temperatures, but crystallizes 
when subject to temperatures much below the freezing 
point of water. Owing to its being a tridynamic alcohol it 
forms three series of ethers and other compounds, and 
undergoes a variety of interesting chemical transformations. 
In the process of fermentation 100 parts of cane-sugar, 
or 105-26 parts of dextrose, yield 3-64 parts of glycerol. 
It should, therefore, always be present in wine in the pro- 
portion of about one-fourteenth part of the alcohol, and 
thus contribute the more sweetness to the taste the richer 
the wine is in natural alcohol. It is separated from the 
residue of wine obtained by evaporation by extraction with 
a mixture of alcohol and ether, but then is always mixed 
with a little dextrose. But with all care the methods of 
Pasteur and of Pohl for the quantation of glycerol in wine 
do not exclude other extractives besides this dextrose, and 
thus it cannot be said that our means of ascertaining its 
quantity in wine are very accurate at present. Nevertheless 
wines are empirically adjusted to taste by the addition of 
glycerol, and it is as legitimate to add glycerol to wines. 



COLOURING MATTERS OF WINE. 87 

which have been strengthened with alcohol, as to add this 
alcohol itself. When so added it should always be in the 
proportion of one part to fourteen parts of alcohol con- 
sidered as absolute. 

57. COLOURING MATTERS. 

French, German and Spanish wines in their youth are 
almost colourless, so much so that this state was at one 
time made a test of genuineness, a colour obtained by age 
only being easily imparted by art. It is therefore important 
to be able to distinguish natural from artificial tints, for a 
good wine matured by age cannot be colourless. Other 
wines are purely yellow, like old Sauternes. Other wines 
have all varieties of shade of colour up to dark brown ; the 
darker shades are all artificially produced by the addition 
of boiled must, either to the fresh must before the fermenta- 
tion, or to the made wine before sale. The colour of the 
boiled must is due to the browned, dehydrated or so-called 
burnt sugar, technically called caramel, and used in all 
kitchens for browning soups, sauces, and other accompani- 
ments of solid productions of culinary art, e.g., custards. 
In consequence of this knowledge many wine-makers colour 
their products with culinary caramel, /.<?., cane-sugar boiled 
to the desired colour ; but every caramel, be it of dextrose 
in must or of cane-sugar, introduces an element of bitter- 
ness in the wine, which we hold not to be to its advantage. 
Some kinds of Marsala and Madeira, otherwise excellent 
cheap wines, are not rarely overcoloured, and thereby pre- 
judiced in their taste and quality. 

The natural colorations assumed by wines originally 
colourless, or white, as they are popularly termed, are pro- 
duced by the oxydizing effect of the air upon certain matters 
contained in smaller or larger quantities in grapes, viz., the 
so-called extractives, being bodies not yet known in an 
isolated form, and the tannic acid which is extracted by 
the juice or wine from the husks, kernels and stalks. The 
wine during fermentation and rest in the cask also extracts 
tannin from the oak. Now just as raisins, and other kinds 



88 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

of fruit, during drying assume a brown colour, which becomes 
a light yellowish brown in any dilute, watery or alcoholic 
extract, so the wine during ripening becomes darker in 
colour, and in many cases sheds a brown deposit, being 
the fully oxydized extractive matter and tannin which is 
incapable of remaining in solution. 

Amongst the colorations of white wine which are due to 
abnormal agencies there is one which, in the opinion of 
Pasteur, is due to the presence or preliminary action of 
decomposing fungi. It is observed occasionally upon all 
kinds of white wines, upon Graves, Barsac, Haut Sauternes, 
Rhenish, Hungarian and Italian wines, upon Cham- 
pagne, and effervescent wines of the Loire, Saumur, and 
Vouvray. When the bottle is opened, and some wine is 
poured into the glass, the liquid is white or nearly so, but 
when it is allowed to stand a short time, it becomes some- 
what coloured so as to attract attention. When such wine 
is filled into a white glass bottle and allowed to stand open, 
it will become brown on the surface, and the coloration 
will gradually descend to the bottom of the flask. The 
upper layers will, after some days or weeks, be actually 
blackish brown; ultimately a dark deposit falls. During 
this process some of the alcohol is oxydized to acetic acid, 
probably by a collateral action of acetous ferment. Wine 
showing this phenomenon of quick darkening on exposure 
to air is unquestionably unsound, or sick, and requires 
appropriate treatment for its recovery. 

The tints of all kinds of red wine, whether they are 
slightly rose-coloured, or almost black and impenetrable to 
light, are produced by peculiar colouring matters contained 
originally either in the pulp or the husk of the grape. The 
soluble colouring matter contained in the pulp of the grapes 
produced by such varieties of vines as the teinturier, or dyer, 
which is extensively grown in France and Spain for the 
purpose of producing wine of deep colour, which may be 
used to dye white wines, in quantity up to eight times the 
volume of the red, differs greatly from the colouring matter 
deposited in the husks of grapes, particularly by the evident 
fact of its solubility in the juice of the grapes, in which 



COLOURING MATTERS OF WINE. 89 

the pigment of the husk is insoluble. This soluble colouring 
matter is more closely related to that contained in the juice 
of elderberries and black currants. It enters into the com- 
position of many Spanish, Portuguese, south and central 
French red wines. It has not, that we are aware of, been 
chemically examined with the desirable method and degree of 
accuracy. But the colouring matter from the husks of blue 
and black grapes has been examined by Mulder and others, 
so that we know a little more about it. It is precipitated 
from wine by lead acetate, and this precipitate is decom- 
posed by sulphuretted hydrogen. From the purified sulphide 
the pigment is extracted by alcohol and acetic acid. This 
alcoholic acetic solution is now evaporated, when it at first 
becomes red like wine ; as the alcohol evaporates further it 
becomes violet; and lastly, when only little acetic acid 
remains, beautifully blue. The residue is dried completely, 
freed from a little fat by ether, and is then pure pigment. 
It is in the dry state bluish-black, like black lead (graphite) ; 
it is amorphous, insoluble in alcohol, water, ether, chloro- 
form, bisulphide of carbon, oil of turpentine and of olives. 
It is soluble in alcohol containing a trace of acetic acid, 
and the saturated solution has a blue colour ; more acetic 
acid makes the solution red. In alcohol and tartaric acid 
it is also soluble with a red colour. The same acids do not 
make it soluble in ether or chloroform. A red solution in 
alcohol and tartaric acid will, after neutralization with 
ammonia or any other alkali, become blue ; acids restore 
the red colour. If a slight excess of ammonia be added to the 
acid alcoholic solution, the colouring matter becomes green. 
If an acid be now quickly added, the red colour is restored, 
but not with the same intensity as before ; and if the am- 
monia is allowed to act upon it for a few moments, or an 
excess has been used, the subsequent addition of an acid 
does not any longer restore the red colour, but produces 
only a brown tint ; the colouring matter has been decom- 
posed. This decomposition also ensues when large volumes 
of its acetic acid and alcohol solution are heated for a long 
time ; it is necessary to effect the evaporation on small 
volumes in shallow vessels at the lowest possible tempera- 



9O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

ture. Almost the same reaction is observed upon all red 
vegetable juices, particularly of fruit. Fixed caustic alkalies 
effect the destruction as certainly as and quicker than am- 
monia. Strong acids do not much affect the pigment, but hot 
nitric acid destroys it. Chlorine destroys it, and leaves a 
brown liquid ; excess of chlorine makes the solution yellow. 
Light has a double effect upon the pigment, it bleaches it in 
part and makes another part insoluble. 

The colour of wine depends upon two factors, the amount 
of blue colouring matter present, and the quantity of free 
acid which acts upon it. The more free acid is present, 
the more red will the wine appear ; and with the decrease 
of the acidity, the colour will approach towards the violet. 

The colouring matters of Burgundy, Bordeaux and Oporto 
wine behave essentially in the same manner when subjected 
to the above proceeding, although port wine generally 
contains some of the soluble pigments of the teintiirier 
grapes. This requires a little modification of the process 
of analysis. The crust which port wine forms in bottles 
contains oxydized tannin in an insoluble state, and colouring 
matter probably also in a changed state. The changed 
tannin combines with the colouring matter like the lead 
oxide. The colouring matter when once precipitated 
seems to be rather stable, for it can be prepared with all its 
characteristic properties from crude red tartar. 

There are added to wines in many parts of the wine 
countries other natural dyes ; some red wine is made of 
white wine coloured with vegetable pigment not being the 
product of any vine at all. Black cherries are a favourite 
dye. Next come elderberries, the production of which for 
this purpose is very considerable. Bilberries are used in 
some parts ; logwood is said to be used in others, but we 
have not been able to obtain any proof of this. Some 
British wines made on a certain scale are coloured with 
cochineal, which is also used largely in confectionery and 
culinary proceedings. All these pigments are in them- 
selves quite wholesome. The great bulk of red wines 
contains so much natural pigment that no addition is 
needed. 



ALBUMINOUS CONSTITUENTS OF WINE. 91 

58. AMMONIA. 

The grape juice, like all vegetable juices, contains small 
quantities of ammonia; a little more is formed during 
fermentation from nitrogenized matters not defined. The 
greater part of this ammonia is precipitated during the 
progress of fermentation as ammonio-magnesic phosphate. 
An extremely small quantity however remains in solution in 
the wine, and can be isolated and estimated by the usual 
chemical proceedings. In some wines, and particularly in 
the syrupy liqueur wines, such as Tokay and Tintilla de 
Rota (Rota Tent) the ammonia is accompanied with traces 
of trimethylamine. 

59. ALBUMINOUS MATTERS. 

Grapes contain albuminous substances, of which some 
curdle like the fibrine of the blood of animals after the juice 
is expressed ; others are made insoluble during fermentation. 
When exposed to the air on the top of fermenting vats they 
are liable to be oxydized as well as decomposed; and it 
is necessary to guard against the contamination of wine by 
such products. Properly fermented white wines contain 
very little of this albuminous substance, and are but little 
liable to further change. In imperfectly fermented wines, 
on the other hand, particularly wines made from underripe, 
grapes, some of this albuminous substance remains dissolved,, 
and renders them liable to further change. All red wines 
contain, when young, much albuminous substance, which is 
preserved from change by the tannin present. In the course 
of time the greater part of it is thrown down with the 
colouring matter and tannin. 

When testing wines, particularly sherries, Marsalas, Cana- 
ries, Madeiras, and red wines of the Gironde and Burgundy 
for albumen, it must be remembered that these are habi- 
tually clarified, or as it is technically termed, fined, by the 
addition of considerable quantities of white of egg, In 
some sherries we have found enormous quantities of albu- 
men, which could be removed by ferrocyanide of potas- 



92 A TREATISE ON WINES. 



; the precipitate is bluish-black, from admixture of 
some iron salt, but leaves the wine perfectly clear and 
potable. Indeed sherries which refuse to be clarified by 
white of egg alone, can be perfectly clarified by the 
combination of albumen and ferrocyanide. 

The amount of albuminous matter found in wines varies 
between four parts per thousand of wine, or a quantity 
equalling that of the free acid, and five in ten thousand ; 
the latter quantity we found in port wine, made by ourselves 
in the Alto Douro, which had never been fined with albu- 
men but had been clarified by filtration. Some natural 
wines deposit albumen when they are heated according to 
the process of Pasteur ; but all the albumen is not deposited ; 
in the case of an excellent young Palatinate wine we found 
that the heating diminished the albumen from 0-3550 per 
cent, to 0*2448 per cent. In the forms of apparatus working 
with tubes for Pasteurizing wine special arrangements are 
necessary to clear the tubes from time to time of the albu- 
men and other matter deposited on their inner surface during 
the heating. 

60. TANNIN. 

The astringent principles, which give precipitates with 
solutions of gelatine and of albumen, and produce a deep 
bluish-black precipitate or coloration with persalts of iron 
(so called ink), are termed tannins from their use in the 
production of leather. There are many varieties of these 
substances, occurring in different plants, from which they 
derive their surnames. They are all glucosides, that is, 
bodies which under chemical decomposition break up into 
at least two substances, of which one is a sugar. 

The juice of most grapes is perfectly free from tannin ; 
the skins and stalks, however, contain a considerable quan- 
tity of a substance, which though it be not ordinary tannin 
-of the oak or its galls, yet closely resembles it in properties. 
While ordinary tannin breaks up by means of the influence 
of acids, or of a special kind of fermentation into glucose 
and gallic acid, the tannin of grapes, under the like circum- 



TANNIN AND EXTRACTIVES OF WINE. 9$ 

stances, breaks up into glucose and an acid which is not 
gallic acid. 

White wines, in the preparation of which the must is at 
once separated from the murk, contain little tannin ; while 
red wines, being allowed to ferment with the murk, are 
rich in tannin, which imparts to them the well-known 
astringent taste. The tannin of white wines, as of brandies, 
is sometimes derived from the oaken casks in which the 
wine or spirit is kept ; their colour, at first very pale yellow, 
increases in depth in the course of years. The tannin 
contained in them absorbs oxygen and is converted into a 
yellow, or brown humus-like substance, which, though 
much less soluble in wine than the tannin, is yet sufficiently 
so to impart a strong colour to it. Red wines, on the other 
hand, gradually lose their dark colour by the agency of the 
tannin they contain. In these wines so much tannin is 
present that more of the humus-like substance is gradually 
formed than can remain dissolved ; it is then thrown down 
as a precipitate, and carries the colouring matter with it. 

The presence of tannin in white wines may be detected 
by the inky coloration produced on the addition of a ferric 
salt and acetate of potash, and by the precipitate produced 
by the addition of gelatine. 

Tannin is supposed to render wines more durable by its- 
preservative action upon the albuminous substances. The 
addition of tannin to wines liable to turn has also, on this- 
account, frequently been proposed, and seems to act bene- 
ficially. Thus to white Champagne wines it has been 
systematically added to prevent viscosity. It would be 
advisable to use for this addition a tannin extracted from 
the skins, stalks, or kernels of the grapes, or even the green 
parts of the vine, instead of the ordinary tannin extracted 
from galls or other sources. 

6 1. EXTRACTIVES. 

By the side of the matters which we have described there 
are contained in wine certain matters the chemical charac- 
ters of which are at present unknown. As they remain in 



94 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the treacly state of vegetable extracts as they appear in 
pharmacy, they have been termed extractives. They are 
never absent from, but, on the contrary, generally constitute 
the greater part of the total solids in all genuine wines which 
contain little or no sugar. 

Many factitious wines contain only small proportions of 
these extractives, or none at all, and it is therefore frequently 
possible to distinguish such wines, or diluted wines, by a 
quantation of the extractives. Inversely, in genuine wines, 
the extractive matter frequently stands in a direct relation 
to the value of the wine, the higher class wines containing 
generally more extractive than the lower class ones. 

62. MINERAL CONSTITUENTS. 

The residue which remains after the liquids of the wine 
have been evaporated, when subjected to combustion, leaves 
the mineral constituents in the form of ash. This consists 
chiefly of potassium in the form of carbonate, chloride, 
sulphate and phosphate, sodium as chloride, calcium as 
phosphate and carbonate, with traces of magnesia, iron, 
silica, and sometimes alumina and manganese. The car- 
bonates of potassium and calcium are not as such contained 
in the wine, but are produced by the combustion of the 
tartrate or malate of potassium or calcium. From the ash 
of pure natural wines carbonates and chlorides are scarcely 
ever absent ; sometimes, however, if the wine has been sub- 
jected to much sulphuring, either as must to prevent false 
fermentation, or as wine, it may contain an excess of sulphuric 
acid, which, during the evaporation and incineration, drives 
out all the volatile acids ; the ash, in such a case, consists 
exclusively of sulphates and phosphates. The ash of wines 
made from must, to which, as to sherries, plaster of Paris 
has been added, scarcely ever contains carbonates, and is 
very frequently free from chlorides, on account of its con- 
taining an excess of sulphuric acid formed by double de- 
composition from the calcium sulphate and potassium 
-bitartrate. 

The amount and nature of the ash left by a wine is a very 



MINERAL CONSTITUENTS OF WINE. 95 

valuable means of judging of its genuineness. The analysis 
to be used for that purpose has been described at length in 
the " Treatise " at pp. 267-272. Some mineral constituents, 
such as chlorine, are expelled during combustion, and these 
must be sought for in the wine itself, and the disarrangement 
in the proportion of other acids must be rectified by 
similar experiments made on the wine without combustion 
of its residue. Sulphuric acid in particular must always be 
precipitated from the wine itself, as, in case it were free, it 
would be expelled or expel other acids from the mixture ot 
salts in the ash. 

Iron is generally present in wines in minute quantity, 
larger in red wines. It is maintained that the blue colouring 
matter of grapes contains iron in organic combination, like 
the colouring matter of the blood, but of this there is no 
acceptable scientific proof at present to be found in ceno- 
logical records. It is said that alum is sometimes added to 
flat red wine to heighten its colour and improve its taste ; but 
this is probably a very rare adulteration, as we have never 
met with a single instance of it, or encountered a judicially 
proved case of that kind. 

The amount of mineral matter contained in different 
wines varies considerably ; in pure natural wines it amounts 
generally to from 0-15 to 0-30 per cent.; in wines which 
have been plastered the ash rises to 0-5 per cent, and upwards ; 
and in all wines in which any excessive acidity has been neutra- 
lized by an alkali or an earth, the ash may rise considerably 
above that amount. 



63. TOTAL SOLID CONSTITUENTS OF WINE. 
We have experimentally ascertained that the complicated 
mixture of substances constituting the solid residue left after 
the evaporation of wine, cannot be completely dried even at 
the temperature of boiling water, 1 00 C., without suffering 
decomposition. This is proved by the great diminution of 
the free fixed acid, and the insolubility of a portion of the 
dried matter, which previously was quite soluble ; by long 
drying the residue becomes dark brown, semi-charred, de- 



96 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

composed; much matter is volatilized, and the residue may 
weigh less than the mere dextrose, which, as shown by tests 
on the wine itself was originally contained in it. The total 
solids can therefore not be estimated by drying and weighing 
the residue. 

Balling has endeavoured to estimate the quantity of solids 
in wine by means of the specific gravity of their solution. 
Extract of malt has been taken as the standard of com- 
parison. But as the mineral constituents of wine differ from 
sugar as regards specific gravity of their solutions in this, 
that for a given specific gravity the amount of mineral 
matter is about double that required for a sugar solution of 
the same gravity, it is necessary to subtract from the per- 
centage of extract thus estimated the percentage of ash 
found in the same wine; or if the amount of extract without 
the ash be required, the percentage of ash multiplied by two 
has to be subtracted from the percentage found according 
to the specific gravity. In wines containing but little ash 
this correction is not very important ; but as in some wines 
the ash amounts to 0-5 per cent, and upwards a serious error 
would be committed without it. 

In our experiments a Marsala contained 5^80 per cent, 
total solids; a Spanish red wine called port 6-909 per cent j 
a Greek Lachrymse Christ! 32-022 per cent 



CHAPTER XII. 
WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 

64. DIVISIONS OF THE GIRONDE. 

THE wines of the department of the Gironde, in which 
definition are comprised seven viticultural provinces situated 
to the south and north of the Gironde and Garonne, namely, 
Medoc, Graves, Sauternes, Entre deux Mers, Libournais, 
Fronsadais, and Blayais, are celebrated for their variety, 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 97 

their remarkable perfection or roundness, the low prices of 
their common qualities, the high prices of their first qualities, 
and the remarkable trade to all parts of the world to which 
they give rise. The department possesses about 140,000 
hectares of vineyards, which produce an annual average of 
250,000 tonneaux, or 2,280,000 hectolitres of wine. The 
estimated average value of two-sixths of the annual produce 
is 50 francs the barrique ; two-sixths 125 francs ; one-sixth is 
250 francs, and the last sixth 500 francs the barrique, imme- 
diately after the spring racking. This gives a gross produc- 
tion of 280 millions of francs, and if we deduct from that sum 
an average expenditure of 500 francs per hectare, we find 
that the Gironde raises an annual clear value of 180 millions 
of francs in the shape of wine alone. 

The Medoc. The Medoc geographically so-called, is the 
tongue of land which, bordered on the Atlantic side by the 
Gulf of Gascony, forms on the north-east the left border of 
the Garonne after its union with the Dordogne (the two 
combined rivers forming the estuary called the Gironde), and 
extends on this border from Blanquefort, a little town about 
fifteen kilometres west of Bordeaux, to the sea. But the 
Medoc of the cenophilist begins only west of Ludon, in the 
commune of Macau. It produces the wines of Labarde and 
Cantenac ; in its very heart those of Margaux. Further on 
are the growths of Saint Julien and Pauillac. Still further 
west it produces the St. Estephe, and at its western limits 
the wines of Saint Saurin-de-Cadourne. The districts just 
mentioned form the Haut-Medoc, which is about forty-five 
kilometres in length, and from eight to twenty kilometres 
in width. In its main features it is a plain, falling some- 
what towards the Gironde. Its soil is gravel, or rolled 
quartz, or flint, covering a subsoil which is sometimes clayey, 
but most frequently formed of sand, or of sand which by an 
infiltration of hydrated iron oxide has been concreted partly 
into a soft, friable pudding-stone, partly into a very hard 
rock-like material, both being known under the name of the 
alios. This variation of the soil causes a great diversity in 
its products, so that very good and inferior wines grow often 
side by side. 



9$ A TREATISE ON WINES. 

65. VINES CULTIVATED IN THE MEDOC. 

The vines cultivated in the Medoc, although not very 
numerous, are designated by various names, so that their 
identification is a matter of difficulty. The most common 
vine is the Carbenet Saurignoti, (as spelt by Guyot, Caber- 
net, Rendu, and known as Petite Vidure in the neighbour- 
hood of Bordeaux). Sauvignon is a mere surname derived 
from a similarity to another vine bearing that name ex- 
clusively. It has small, rugged, light green leaves, the 
lower side of which is woolly ; the bunch of grapes is less 
than middle-sized, pyramidal, longish, generally bearing two 
somewhat detached wings. The berries are small, of even 
size, bluish-black, very bloomy, with a thin husk. They are 
very juicy, and have not the sweet astringent taste of the 
Burgundy grape, but a more acidulous, refreshing, and most 
agreeable taste, giving the impression, says Bronner, as if 
one had the ready-made wine in one's mouth. It is the best 
and most fertile of all the fine black grapes of the Gironde, 
ripens the earliest and spoils the last. It is the most 
esteemed in the great growths of Pauillac, Saint Julien, and 
Margaux; it makes up five-eighths of the plantations of 
Lafitte, Mouton, Latour, Le'oville, Margaux, Rozan, and 
others. It is regular, but never abundant in production, 
and carries all grapes to an equal degree of maturity at the 
same time, without showing on the same stalk black, red, 
and green grapes. It yields wine of a fine colour, full of 
delicacy and possessing great bouquet. The wine during 
the first years is a little harsh, and in order to acquire its 
perfection must be kept up to four years in wood, and two 
years in bottle. It increases a little in bouquet up to 
the fifteenth year, if bottled at the right time. After the 
twentieth year of its age it loses its soft fulness and becomes 
drier. The Carbenet Sauvignon stands to the great wines 
of the Me"doc in the same relation as the Pineau or Noirien 
to the great wines of the Cote d'Or, as the Riessling to 
the great wines of the Rheingau ; they would not exist 
without it. 

A variety of the former, and only second to it in impor- 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 99 

tance in the Gironde, is the Franc Carbenet, also termed 
Carbenct gris ; its leaves are of a darker green colour, its 
berries are smaller and less deeply coloured than those of 
the previously described variety. It prospers in lighter soil 
(graves douces) ; its wine is excellent. 

The Merlot, or gros doux, is stated by Paguierre to bear 
its name from merle, a thrush, because this bird was par- 
ticularly fond of the grapes of that vine. As these plagues of 
the vineyard eat all kinds of grapes, and destroy much, their 
alleged preference for the Merlot is probably due to the fact 
that this vine ripens its grapes a little earlier than do the 
Carbenets, and when once ripe become easily rotten ; they 
are a little flabby when the vine stands on dry soil, for the 
vine cannot bear drought, and grows best on moist inclines, 
or so-called graves fraiches en coteaux. Its wine is lighter 
and earlier ready than that of the Carbenet, and has much 
less juiciness (sere) than the latter; it also lacks body and 
durability, but it is soft and tender. 

The Malbec bears many other names in the Gironde, 
amongst them Noir de Pressac, Gourdoux, Ertrangey, Cot 
rouge, Piedde Perdrix. In central Germany it passes as blaue 
facobstraube (blue James or Jacobin). It is an abundant pro- 
ducer and thrives in consistent or in gravelly soil ; its grape 
is very precocious, very sweet and tasty, much inclined to 
rottenness when once ripe, and gives a light wine without 
qualities, particularly when grown on fat land. In the 
Medoc it is allowed only on low grounds, where its precocity is 
neutralized by the situation, and its grape is admitted only 
as material for second-rate wines. Count Odart ascribes to 
the wine made from this grape alone, purity, a dark colour, 
and much body. This property, says the great cenologist, 
enables the wine merchant to mix this wine with white wine, 
and thus to impart to it the spirit which it wants. In this 
manner most of the white wines of the north side of the 
Gironde are transformed into red and exported. The variety 
of Malbec with red grapes and stalklets is the Pied de 
Perdrix, from the colour of the feet of the red-legged part- 
ridge of the south ; another variety has green berries and 
stalklets. In its general character the Malbec is closely 



100 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

related to the Pineau of Burgundy, and in systematic classifi- 
tion is always placed by its side. 

The Verdot vine occurs in the Me'doc only as an auxiliary, 
but in the " Palus " or marshes, it is the vine of the first impor- 
tance. The wines of Queyrier and Montferrand owe their 
reputation to this vine. Its grapes are small, soft, uneven, 
round, reddish-black, strongly bloomed, with a thin skin and 
an acidulous taste, ripening late, latest of any in the Gironde. 
The vine prospers the better the moister is the subsoil on 
which it grows ; and of such position it requires the best, just 
on account of its ripening its grapes so late. Its wine has 
much juiciness, fulness and vinosity, and combines well with 
that of the Carbenet ; it gives durability to wines with which 
it is mixed. The Verdot is therefore found amongst the best 
growths of the Me'doc, in Pauillac, St. Julien, and Margaux. 

The Cruchinet, sometimes also specified as Cruchinet rouge, 
as if it had to be distinguished from a white variety, has a large 
bunch with closely packed, and hence somewhat elongated 
grapes. Its five-lobed leaf is but slightly woolly. It gives a re- 
markably agreeable bouquet to wine, and for this reason has 
for some years been somewhat multiplied at Chateau Lafitte. 

The Carmenere is cultivated amongst other vines at Mar- 
gaux and Cantenac ; it thrives in light, sandy soil, and is not 
injured by drought. It sprouts early in spring, and thus makes 
sure of a long vegetative period ; it yields a sweet and tasty 
grape with black skin. Its wine has more body and colour 
than that of the Carbenet Sauvignon. The Carmenere de- 
velops its full bearing powers only seven or eight years after 
plantation, and is never very fertile, yielding about half the 
crop which the Carbenet vines yield on the same area. It 
is therefore cultivated solely for its peculiar qualities in par- 
ticular situations, and not rarely mixed with the Cruchinet. 
The mixed wine of these two plants is of excellent quality. 

Besides these principal or dominant vines of the Medoc 
others are cultivated in mediocre situations solely for their 
pi educing quantities of wine. Among these are the Brasac, 
with a small grape ; the Mareye, with very large grape ; and 
the Enrachet, with sour grapes and red woolly leaves. All 
these offer certain advantages in certain localities. 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. IOI 

66. MODES OF CULTIVATING THE VINE IN THE MEDOC. 

The more valuable the situation the more care is bestowed 
upon the preparation of the land by levelling and draining 
by tile-tubes ; in the marshy land, or " Palus," ditches are cut 
round the vineyards, and at certain seasons kept full of 
water by sluices, which at others are opened to let the water 
flow out at low tide. In parts where the alias is not far from 
the surface it is broken up, however hard it may be, but if it 
lies deeper than one metre it is left untouched. 

The canes are planted in holes made with an iron rod, 
surrounded with a little loose sand, or placed into holes made 
with a bidented hoe. In the second year any canes which 
have failed to grow are replaced by rooted canes or bat beaux. 




Fig. 17. Training of vines in the Haut Medoc. Vines four, eight, and 
sixteen years old. a a', branches rising from foot ; b b' , wood spurs ; 
cc', bearing or fruit -branches. 

Two eyes are left above ground, and the young plant is pro- 
tected by a stake. The vines of the same line stand at a 
distance of a little more than one metre apart ; the lines are 
one metre from each other. The hectare generally carries 
9,000 vines. Weeding of the land is most assiduously 
attended to. In the third year the vine-dresser commences 
to form the two arms which constitute the peculiarity of the 
Medoc cultivation. In addition to the " tutor " close to its 
stem (carasson), a second stake is placed equidistant from 
each two vines, and their tops are united horizontally by a 
single line of lath (latte). To these the vines are fixed in the 
manner illustrated by the figures. The whole of the vines 
of the Haut-Medoc are thus cultivated. As the vines begin 
to bear they are manured with rotten stable-dung, so-called 



IO2 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

consomme, a cubic metre to every fifty vines. The pruning 
of the vines takes place between November and January, and 
is called faille a Paste. This word aste in the Medoc has the 
specific meaning of " fruit-branch," and reminds us of the 
German Ast, a branch in general. There are several words 
referring to the cultivation of the vine, derived from German 
roots, used in the Gironde, which do not occur in any other 
part of France. Possibly the transplantation of vines from 
the Moselle to the Bordelais, related by Ausonius, was the 
occasion of the transfer of these terms. The aste, strictly 
so-called, is the strongest cane of the one year's wood, grosvn 
from the stationary arm, cut to a length of from six to eight 
eyes ; it is always kept fixed to the lath, in such a manner 
that the bunches of grapes which it bears hang downwards 




Fig. 18. Vines forty and sixty years old, trained for season, d tf, low 
wood spurs ( " cots ") ; o o', and //', line where stem may be cut off, 
in case of the top perishing. 

towards the earth. By the side of the aste is left a cane- 
stump of two eyes, intended to produce the canes from which 
the next year's aste is selected. Each arm, therefore, carries 
one aste, and one two-eyed stump, that is to say a viticultural 
element as defined in the general part of this treatise. As 
each fruit-bearing branch may carry from six to eight bunches, 
and each stump three to four, each vine may bear from, 
eighteen to twenty-four bunches of grapes. 

Attempts to cultivate the Medoc vines in different moda- 
lities have mostly failed. Some vines, however, are treated 
a little differently from the above. The Carbenet gris, or 
Franc Carbenet, must have at least eight eyes to the aste ; 
if it is cut shorter it runs into wood and sheds its blossoms. 
The Carbenet Sauvignon, on the other hand, should not 
have more than six or seven eyes to the aste. The Malbec 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 1 03 

and Merlot are also cut upon aste, tiret, and cot (an auxiliary 
stump, to be called into action in case the principal one 
fail) but there are one or two tirets left in addition which 
produce a few grapes more. The Verdot is cut shorter 
than the other vines. The soil is either ploughed or 
turned with the hoe ; the earth is removed from the vine, 
to allow the water to collect in the furrows during the 
winter period; during the vegetative period the earth is 
again heaped up around the vines, and the draining furrows 
are established between the lines. Most vineyards are now 
ploughed with the improved instruments of Portal of Moux, 
and of Goethals and Scawinsky of Giscours ; each plough 
is drawn by one horse or ox. The first ploughing takes 
place in March and is called opening the vine (ouvrir la 
vigne), and removes the earth from the plants, which are 
now cleared of visible high roots, day-roots; the second 
ploughing is performed in April, with the apparatus attached 
to the plough called la courbe ; this pushes the earth back 
to the vine, and transforms the intervals between the rows 
into furrows, through which the rain-water can flow towards 
the terminal ditches. In May the vines are again unearthed 
as at the first ploughing, and at a fourth and last ploughing, 
in July or beginning of August, they are again covered at 
their base. 

The vine in the Me*doc blossoms during the period from 
the loth to the 1 5th of June. Immediately after it has passed 
that critical period, the superfluous shoots are cut off with 
a knife (in other parts they are broken off). The shortening 
of the principal green canes, rognage, is only effected towards 
the approach of the vintage. 

During the hundred days which generally elapse between 
the blossoming of the vine and the maturity of the grape, 
the plants have to be cleared of any vermin which may settle 
upon them, such as several kinds of endemic caterpillars, 
altise, and attelabe, called crabe by the country people ; slugs, 
and snails of the helix tribe, H. hortensis> nemoralis and ar- 
bustorum ; most commonly, and in some years forming a 
veritable plague, the helix aspersa, or escargeot, which may 
ruin entire vineyards. The vine-beetle (Curculio Bacchus, 



IO4 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

should be anti-Bacchus) which pierces green canes and causes 
them to pine or die, also causes much damage in some 
years. 

The cultivated vine lives long, in some places up to 
seventy years, while in others its vitality is quickly exhausted, 
so that Margaux and Cantenac have to re-plant every twenty 
or thirty years. 

67. VINTAGE IN THE MDOC. 

In exceptionally good years the vintage commences in 
August ; in ordinary years between September 20th, and 
October ist. Years in which the vintage can only take place 
in the first fortnight of October are said to be bad. All the 
other vintages of red wine in the Gironde are a fortnight later 
than those of the Medoc; the vintage in the whitewine district 
of Sauternes is a full month later. There is no vintage-ban 
in the Gironde, and every proprietor harvests whenever he 
chooses. 

The vintage is performed by labourers who congregate for 
the occasion from the south of France ; most of them are 
given food and shelter, and the women and children receive 
from fivepence a day to eightpence, men tenpence; the 
labourers in the press-house, who must possess some little 
skill, receive a gratuity in addition to the wages and keep. 
The vintagers are organized in gangs, consisting of women 
and children who cut the grapes; of a superintendent (rangeur); 
a basket-emptier (vide-panier\ who puts the grapes from the 
cutter's basket into a large pail, called baste; when a baste is 
full, a porter (there are two porters to every eight ranges of 
vines) carries it to the waggon, when the two attendants, 
one the driver of the horses or oxen, and the other the 
attendant of the vat fixed upon the waggon, empty the 
contents of the baste into the vat (douil or douillat} and 
stamp them down. A commandant directs the whole of the 
operation from the cutting and cleaning, including the re- 
moval of green, rotten, or otherwise spoiled grapes, to the 
moment when the vat, being full, is drawn to the cuvier, or 
place where the grapes are converted into wine. 

This building mostly contains the presses {pressoirs or 



WINES OF THE GIROXDE. IO5 

fouloirs) on the one side, and the vats or cuves on the other ; 
in the term presses are included platforms on which the 
grapes are trodden, and apparatus for removing berries from 
stalks. The true presses, with screws for the application of 
power to murk, are now mostly made of wood, but there 
were up to a late date also some presses of stone, e.g., at 
Lafitte, Galon Segur, and Chateau Margaux. 

The square press has the advantage that any quantity of 
grapes, large or small, may be pressed at any time. If the 
vintager desires to add fresh pulp to the murk already in the 
press, he need only add a tier of boards all round, and thus 
raising the height of the receptacle of the press, increase its 
capacity. On the other hand, as the pulp is being pressed 
dry, the upper boards may be removed, and thus give free 
scope to the levers by which the screw-nut is turned. Some 
of these presses measure three metres a side ; those of 
smaller dimensions have only one metre a side. They may 
be fixed, or movable on wheels, so as to be easily trans- 
portable to each fermentation vat. In one of the largest 
cuviers of the Gironde we saw two presses which were 
moved backwards and forwards on railways running in front 
of the two rows of fermentation vats. Red wine murk is 
pressed only after fermentation, and requires less power 
than the murk of white grapes, or of red Champagne grapes 
which are pressed before fermentation. 

When the berries are pulled from the stalks by any of 
the many contrivances invented for that purpose, they are 
placed on a platform and trodden by men. This process 
is frequently described in books in a spirit of poetical 
exaltation ; the sound of music produced by clarionet and 
violin, to which the vintagers keep time in forms resembling 
a contredanse, is heard here and there, but this has merely 
the object and effect of mitigating with the vintagers the 
sense of fatigue and tedium which is produced by the long- 
continued daily work; for the vintage must be hurried to 
bring all the vats into fermentation within as short a compass 
of time as possible, in order to be able to close the cuvier, 
and preserve the temperature most favourable to a quick and 
perfect fermentation. 



106 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

This method of crushing the berries is falling into desue- 
tude, and at the present time more than half the proprietors 
in the Me"doc do not crush their grapes at all. The wine 
produced is of the same quality whether the grapes are 
crushed or not. The stalks are not cast aside, but put into 
the fermentation vat either partly or wholly. Many rake 
them out of the murk, and place them as a thick layer 
on the top of the murk, where they increase the bulk of the 
top solids or so-called chapeau (hat) ; this is not rarely 
weighted with stones, to keep the rising husks 'submerged. 

The fermentation vats, being thoroughly cleaned and 
sponged with brandy, are filled with the mixture of juice, 
stalks, skins, and kernels ; each vat is, if possible, filled in 
one day, and then left at absolute rest until the wine be 
formed. The time required for the vinification varies some- 
what according to the quality of the vintage and the tem- 
perature of the season ; in good years it is not more than 
four or five days. If the vatting is continued longer the 
wine becomes fuller, but loses a little in taste, softness, and 
delicacy ; these latter qualities are preferred to body in the 
good parts of the Medoc, where also deep colour is rather 
avoided. When the must has lost its sweetness, and assumed 
a vinous flavour, it is drawn off by means of an instrument 
called a griffon into a large wooden vessel, and is thence 
transferred by means of cans into the barriques or hogsheads, 
so that each barrique receives an equal number of cans of 
each running from the vat, and at the end of the operation 
all the barriques of the storehouse {chais) contain wine of 
the same quality. This wine, which runs spontaneously, i.e., 
without pressure, from the vats, and runs clear, is termed 
the first wine. In this operation a so-called second wine is 
not produced by itself, although, curiously enough, there is 
a third wine made from the contents of the same vat which 
yields the first, thus : When all the clear first wine has run 
off, and the run becomes thick, QMS fond the cttvt, or bottoms, 
which flows yet spontaneously, is put aside ; it is put with 
the whole of the wine made from grapes which are grown in 
inferior situations of the estate, and this mixture constitutes 
the second wine. When all liquid which will spontaneously 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. IO/ 

flow has left the murk, this is put into the press ; a very dark 
" thick " wine is obtained, which by cautious operators is 
never mixed with the first wine. It is more commonly used 
for blending with white wine, whereby it loses much of its 
hardness and alcoholicity ; for the pulp retains much alcohol 
by a peculiar affinity, and the wine pressed from it is from 
3 to 5 per cent, stronger in alcohol than the first wine. 

The filling of the hogshead with wine must be completed 
in three days at the utmost, in order to preserve to the wine 
all its qualities. The barriques are then closed. During 
the first month they are ullaged, that is to say, the amount 
of wine which they have lost by evaporation is supplied 
every four or five days ; during the second month every eight 
days ; and subsequently every fortnight : this is always 
effected with wine of the same quality. In January the 
wine is drawn from the lees, or racked, a first time ; a second 
time in June ; and a third time in September. In subsequent 
years it is racked but twice. It remains in the barriques for 
four years before it is put into bottles, and may be drunk 
when six years old. But in these respects each vintage has 
its peculiarities. Some, like that of 1825, produce wines 
which require twenty years to allow the wine to reach its 
full perfection ; that of 1828 required seven or eight years ; 
the wines of 1831 were late, those of 1839 and 1847 preco- 
cious. The wines of 1846 were hardly ready ten years later. 



68. VARIOUS QUALITIES OF THE WINES OF THE MEDOC. 
There is no viticultural district in which so many distinc- 
tions are made between different wines as in the Medoc. 
The vineyards occupy an area of 20,000 hectares, of which 
each produces 2 tonneaux, or 18 hectolitres and 24 litres of 
wine ; on an average, the whole Medoc consequently 
produces about 40,000 tonneaux. Of these 4,500 are wines 
of high quality, and termed classified because they are again 
sub-divided into five classes, or great divisions, or growths 
(crus), as they are technically termed. Another 4,500 ton- 
neaux are simply fine wines, and are not, in the trade, classi- 
fied. Actually, therefore, only about 9,000 tonneaux (or 



108 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

82,000 hectolitres) out of the 40,000 tonneaux are choice 
wines, the other 31,000 tonneaux, although sold under the 
name of Medoc, and frequently more choice names, are of 
ordinary quality. The 9,000 tonneaux of fine wines of the 
Medoc, yielding about ten millions of ordinary wine-bottles 
full of wine (six bottles making a gallon), may be arranged 
in three categories, (i) The classified wines coming from 
certain vineyards in the arrondissement of Bordeaux and 
Lesparre. (2) The "citizen" or bourgeois wines, which 
are again sub-divided into higher, good, and ordinary citizens, 
or bourgeois superieur, bon bourgeois and bourgeois ordinaire. 
(3) The "peasants" or pay sans, or wines of the small 
proprietors. Whatever the category to which they may 
belong, all wines of the Medoc are distinguished and recog- 
nized by certain general characters, which exclude all con- 
fusion with other wines. They have a certain slight, peculiar 
roughness, are fine, juicy, marrowy in the mouth, and after 
having been in bottle for some years they have a very beauti- 
ful bouquet. They possess the hygienic quality, that they 
can be drunk in larger quantities than other wines, without, 
as the French say, " fatiguing " either head or stomach. 
The Medoc wines also endure transportation better than 
other French wines, and by long sea voyages are greatly 
improved. 

69. CLASSIFIED GROWTHS. 

The commercial specialists of Bordeaux recognize as 
classified the wines from about 200 estates, or small districts. 
They may be conveniently sub-divided, after M. Frank, the 
author of a monograph concerning them, into five great 
divisions or growths. 

First grouiths. This division includes only three vineyards, 
called the three first growths (les trois premiers cms) out of 
the whole classified sixty of the Medoc. They are the follow- 
ing, their names being derived from the dominating country- 
house of the district. 

Chateau Margaux produces annually from 100 to no 
tonneaux of wine. As at Johannisberg and Steinberg, a 
great farm is attached to the wine-producing establishments, 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. IQp 

on which a very great number of cattle yield the manure by 
means of which the vines later on luxuriate. The cuvier 
or fermenting shed contains eighteen vats, all in one line ; 
opposite to these are s\\pressoirs, all built in stone,upon which 
the grapes are separated from the stalks and trodden into 
pulp. The cJiais or cellar, is an enormous hall of great height, 
its ceiling supported by eighteen columns. The vinification 
has been unchanged from time immemorial. The vats are 
filled up to within a foot of the upper margin, and the con- 
tents allowed to ferment without covering or limitation of 




Fig. 19. Normal Cultivation of the Haul Medoc, 

air. The chapeaii rises, sometimes to the extent of an 
entire foot, above the margin of the vat, its upper half is 
always taken off; and no part of it is left that has not a purely 
vinous smell, without admixture of acetic or putrid odours. 
No selection of grapes is made, and the whole of the vintage 
of all the vineyards of the estate furnishes but one quality 
of wine. Notwithstanding, the wine is nearly always the best 
of the whole Medoc. In good or great years it is absolutely 
the best, but in middling years Lafhte and Latour are superior 
to it. As compared to St. Julien and Pauillac, the wine of 
Chateau Margaux has more finesse and juiciness, but less 



IIO A TREATISE ON WINES. 

body. The vineyards of the Chateau are about 80 hectares 
in extent. Their soil is a grey-coloured, heavy material 
(grave), with a substratum of clayey pudding-stone, often 
containing sand and veins of iron oxide. The principal slopes 
are towards east and west, but the best part of the vine- 
yards, the Sampeyre, slopes towards the north and the south, 
and nevertheless yields the best wine. One half of the entire 
surface is planted with the Carbenet Sauvignon. 

Chateau Zafittehas 67 hectares of vine plantation; its soil 
is very variable, being a strong grave or clay-gravel, with all 




Fig. 20. Lines of vines, the earth in course of being dressed with the 
plough. Department of the Haute Garonne. 

directions of slopes, amongst which those toward the north 
predominate. The subsoil is very uniformly made of quartzy 
rolled stones mixed with sand and clay. Five-eighths of 
the vineyards are planted with the Carbenet Sauvignon, the 
other parts mostly with the Carbenet gris and the Merlot. 
The wine of Chateau Lafitte has all the qualities of Chateau 
Margaux except alone its finesse ; it has, however, more body 
and a distinguished taste. 

Chateau Latour is surrounded by 42 hectares of vineyards. 
The vines are planted in heavy clay-gravel, with a compact 
subsoil of much rolled stone. The surface is more regular 
than that of Lafitte, and inclined uniformly one-half towards 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 1 1 I 

the north, and the other towards the south. Two-thirds of 
the vines are Carbenet Sauvignon ; there are also Carbenet 
gris, and Malbec prevails in the low situations. The wine 
of this Chateau has the most body amongst the three great 
growths of the Mddoc, but \essjintsse and bouquet. 

Second^ third, and fourth growths . These comprise about 
130 separate properties, half of them, and amongst them 
compact large areas belonging to the fourth growth. We 




Fig. 21. Vines in lines on ridges, the earth being thrown up around 
the stems (chanssees). Department of the Haute Garonne. 

abstain from giving a detailed list of them, it may be found 
in Thudichum and Dupre's " Treatise," etc., pp. 329, 330. 
The yield of the whole of these growths may be estimated 
to be about five millions of bottles. The excess of 220,000 
bottles, which might be calculated from the sum of the 
numbers of tonneaux raised, would be quite absorbed by 
filling up, racking, and loss in bottling operations and trans- 
mission. When these five millions of bottles are distributed 
amongst the wealthy consumers of the whole world, it 
becomes apparent how small a quantity each can obtain, 



2nd do 


1,200 to 1,400 do. 


3rd do 
4th do 
5th do 

Bourgois supe"rieur . 
do. ordinaire . 
Paysans .... 


800 to 900 do. 
700 to 900 do. 
600 to 700 do. 
400 to 500 do. 
350 to 400 do. 
300 to 325 do. 



112 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

particularly if he insists upon having the product of good 
years only, and how enormous must be the substitutions 
which the traders of Bordeaux and other places make of 
unclassed, and, indeed, of any kind of wine, whether from 
Bordeaux or other parts of France, for Me"doc. 

From a careful consideration of many data at our disposal 
concerning the money value of these wines we have derived 
the following scale of prices for average growths of classified 
wines of the Medoc : 

ist class .... 2,000 to 5,000 francs per tonneau. 

do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 

The prices of the latter wines are curiously alike in all 
villages of the Me"doc. As the travelling brokers cross the 
country, a uniformity of price is established, at least so far 
as the price demanded is concerned, which astonishes those 
who do not know the machinery by which it is brought about. 
These brokers effect most of the sales; they know the districts 
and all their varieties and accidents ; they visit the cellars, 
taste the wines, and arrange them in order of value. They 
sometimes raise or reduce the rank of a certain growth 
according to the care which has been bestowed upon the 
cultivation of the vine, and upon vinification. The mer- 
chants of Bordeaux mostly rely upon the judgment of these 
brokers, but the growers are often dissatisfied with it. 

70. CONSUMPTION OF MDOC WINES. 
Of the first growths only a very small proportion is con- 
sumed in France, the bulk goes to foreign parts. England 
is the principal consumer of the best qualities of Me"doc ; 
lower classes go to Holland, Russia, and particularly the 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 113 

north of Germany. There is a tradition that fine wines 
destined for exportation to England were mixed with red 
Hermitage, in order to please better the palates accustomed 
to ports and other strong alcoholic drinks. Such wines 
obtained thereby a warmth and spirituosity which is by no 
means natural to them, and lost much of their juicy softness 
and finesse. Persons of taste would recognize such wines 
at once and put them in their proper places. We are, however, 
assured that at the present time most fine wines are not any 




Fig. 22. Vines trained upon trees, "goblet-shape," as seen at St. 
Gaudens near Toulouse. Department of the Haute Garonne. 

longer mixed with Hermitage. Common sorts of Me"doc 
wines going to England are sometimes and were formerly 
more frequently than at present prepared, especially before 
exportation, by being mixed with wine from the east or 
centre of France, or with brandy. The amount of mixing 
carried on at Bordeaux is enormous; for its exports are 
twelve times as great as the production of the entire Medoc, 
and one-half of these exports sells as Bordeaux wine, so that 
it is quite fair to assume that the Gironde wine is multiplied 



114 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

severaRimes by the addition or substitution of other wines 
of France, the Card furnishing alcohol and colour, the 
fiat land of the Maconnais, on which formerly wheat was 
grown, producing the acidity, and all other parts of France 
the special subordinate needed ingredients. 

We have ourselves witnessed on the quay at Bordeaux 
the addition of brandy to red wines of ordinary quality 
destined for exportation to England. The admixture is by 
no means uncommon, but is not carried to the same amount 
as with Portuguese red wines. Bordeaux wines rarely exceed 
in their alcoholicity the maximum of 10 per cent, while 
ports have double that amount, namely from 19 to 20 per cent, 
of absolute alcohol. According to the statements of the 
exporters the addition of spirit to red wines at Bordeaux is 
made to suit the English palate, and is by no means required 
as a preservative of the wine. 

In Thudichum and Dupre's "Treatise," pp. 334-348 can 
be seen the statistics of viticultural property and production 
in the Medoc, according to districts, of which the following 
are the names : Blanquefort, Ludon, Le Taillan, Le Pian, 
Parernpuyre, Palus, Arsac, Macau, Labarde, Cantenac, 
Margaux, Sousans, Avensan, Castelnau, Moulis, Listrac, 
Arcins, Lamarque, Cussac, St. Julien de Reignac, Pauillac 
and St. Lambert, St. Estephe, St. Seurin de Cadourne, 
St. Laurent, St. Sauveur, Cissac, Vertheuil, St. Germain 
d'Esteuil, St. Christoly et Couqueques, Valeyrac, lau, 
Lesparre and Uch, Prignac, St. Trelody, Potensac, Blaignan, 
St. Yzans, Ordonnac, Begadan, Gaillan, Civrac, Queyrac, 
St. Vivien. 



71. THE GRAVES. 

The district immediately surrounding Bordeaux on the 
south side of the Garonne is called the Graves, from the 
territory, which consists of sand and gravel, mixed here and 
there with more cr less clay and marl. The same soil occurs 
also at the confluence of the Garonne and Dordogne ; it is 
based in most places upon limestone, in others, however, it 
overlies the alios, the peculiar concrete-like siliceous layer, 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 115 

which has mostly to be pierced in many places to give to the 
rainwater access to the subsoil ; if such ditches be not made, 
the alias causes the land in the hollow parts to be swampy. 
The red wines grown on the Graves have greater body, 
deeper colour and a little more spirit than those of the 
Medoc, and resemble thereby more to the wines of Burgundy, 
but yet have an altogether particular taste and quality. The 
bouquet is not great, and they require some as much as six, 




Fig. 23. 'Normal Cultivation of the Graves. 

others eight years in barrel before they can usefully be put 
into bottles. After that they remain of excellent quality. 
But the production of white wine prevails in the Graves 
over that of red, because the latter are too unlike the Medoc 
\vines to be sold with them, while the white ones resemble 
those of the Sauternes district, and can be sold as such; 
neither white nor red wines are of sufficiently distinguished 
quality to make a name for themselves. Many of the white 
wines have a peculiar taste, called "of tha pebble," which 
seems to us to arise from bad management. Higher up the 



Il6 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Garonne, in the whole district of Sauternes, the white wines, 
which should properly be called yellow, prevail, and no red 
wines are produced. 

72. RED WINES OF THE GRAVES. 

The leading quality, classed immediately after those of 
the Chateaux Margaux, Lafitte and Latour, is that of 
Chateau Haut-Brion, distant about six kilometres from 
Bordeaux, and situated in the community of Pessac. The 
vineyards have forty-four hectares of surface; the mode of 
cultivating the vine is peculiar to the district, and differs 
from that of the Me"doc. The principal vines cultivated 
here are the Grosse Vidure and the Vidure Sauvignone, 
together with the Malbec and Cruchinet. The vines stand 
in rows ; the earth is worked by the plough. Each vine is 
generally trained upon two arms, and after that upon three 
branches, of which each is supported by a stake. To each 
arm there is left a cane of six or seven eyes in length, and a 
spur of four eyes : the rest of the operations and the vinifi- 
cation are as in the Medoc. 

At some distance from Haut-Brion is an estate which 
was owned by a well-known vinologist, M. Boucherot. 
This gentleman had a collection of vines from all the world 
on his estate, amounting to upwards of six hundred 
varieties. With many of them he had made experiments 
of plantation and vinification on a large scale. All the 
American vines failed in these experiments. The German 
and other European vines gave indifferent results, and it 
was established that the only vines which succeed well 
in the district are those which are peculiar to it. We our- 
selves had the pleasure many years ago of seeing the whole 
estate and all its varieties of viticulture, and of deriving 
much information from the kindness of M. Boucherot. 



73. WHITE WINES OF THE GRAVES OR SAUTERNES 
, DISTRICT. 

This district is situated to the south-east of Bordeaux, on 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. Ii; 

the left bank of the Loire. The centre is Bazas, its eastern 
termination Captieux. A little west of Podensac, on the 
Loire, it passes into the Graves of Bordeaux, already 
described. It consists of a series of easy hills, rising 
gradually from the Loire towards the south and west, 
mostly with western exposure, some with all kinds of 
orientation. They are interspersed with woods and a little 
cultivated meadow-land. The gravelly soil is easily worked. 
The vines bear, almost exclusively, white grapes ; they are 
mainly of two varieties, the Semillon and the Sauvignone, 
mixed here and there with a little Muscatel. It is calculated 
that the Semillon occupies two-thirds of the surface, the 




Fig. 24. Normal Cultivation of the Sauternes District. 

other third is occupied by the Sauvignone. The soil is 
worked partly by the plough, partly by hand ; the pruning 
is done between December and February. The canes are 
left with three eyes, and the spurs with two eyes only, the 
Sauvignone generally gets an eye on each cane or spur 
more than the Semillon. 



74. VINTAGE. 

The vintage in these districts is altogether different from 
the vintage in any other part of the world ; for the grapes 
are allowed to hang until they are ripe and begin to decay, 
and then they are collected berry by berry, only such 



US A TREATISE ON WINES. 

berries being taken as fully answer to the description, " ripe 
and rotten." The definition of "rottenness," however, 
requires a qualification, which is also well-known on the 
Rhine, namely, it must be "sweet." The decay applies 
in reality only to the husk, or a portion of it, while the 
flesh of the grape remains sound underneath it. We have 
been present at Chateau Suduiraut on an occasion when the 
vintagers passed through the vineyard for the tenth time, 
each time collecting single berries, and it was believed 
that they would have to pass once or twice more. In 
general, however, the grapes are collected in three successive 
harvests. The grapes are crushed and pressed, and the 
sweet thick must which flows off is put into barriques. 
When the first must has run off the murk is stirred up and 
loosened, trodden by the feet of men, and again pressed, 
and this process is repeated once more; the barrels 
are then removed to the fermenting shed, or chais, and 
there allowed to ferment. The vintage of one day is 
always kept by itself, and not mixed with the vintage of 
another day. In October we observed in the chais of 
various great estates, including Chateau Yquem, twenty-one 
different sets of barriques, each in a different stage of 
fermentation, representing the results of the vintage pro- 
tracted during twenty-one days. The first seven or eight 
days' collection, when many are made, or the first collec- 
tion when only three are made, are kept apart even after 
the wine is ripe from those of the second and third seven 
days, or the second and third collections. The first series 
of collections give generally what is called the "head 
wines " vins de tete ; these are the sweetest and headiest. 
The second collection or series generally gives vins de 
milieu, or wines of middle quality, which are less heady or 
alcoholic, and contain less sugar ; and the third class are 
wines of the tail, or queues, which are the result of the 
pressing of all the grapes that remain after the other selec- 
tions have been made. These latter yield the driest wines ; 
therefore in tasting the white wines of this district one has to 
taste first the three qualities of head, middle, and tail each 
by itself, and then a mixture of equal parts of the three, 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 



119 



ensemble. By means of this particular treatment of the 
grape a must is obtained which is exquisitely sweet ; this 
sweetness remains, to a great extent, throughout the whole 
life of the wine. Indeed, the Sauternes wines, and all white 
wines of the Gironde which are similarly made, and from 
similar vines, are now of such a nature that they are not 




Fig. 25. Vine supported by a Walnut Tree at Celles, Canton of Mont- 
agries, Arrondissement of Riberac. Department of the Boulogne. 



preferred in England, France or Germany to fully fer- 
mented wines. The excessive sweetness is given to them 
on account of the great demand which exists for sweet 
Sauternes in Russia. The dry fine wines of Sauternes were 
once amongst the great favourites of the cenophilists' cellars, 
but they have now almost entirely disappeared. Indeed 
Sauternes are now, or will be soon, what Muscat-Lunel and 



120 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Rivesaltes have been hitherto, but there will be this 
difference, that the Sauternes never receive any addition of 
alcohol, whereas the Lunel and Rivesaltes are like the 
Spanish dulces^ mere sweet grape-juice not fermented, but 
preserved from fermentation by the addition of brandy. 

The fermentation of the Sauternes is allowed to proceed 
in the barrels, and the yeast is not allowed to be cleared out 
at the bung-hole, but is compelled to sink in the fluid. 
Thus a maximum of alcohol is obtained to preserve the 
great quantity of fermented sugar from subsequent secondary 
fermentation. During four or five years the head wines 
have a disagreeable flavour, but much alcohol and sweetness, 
commonly called body. The flavour improves as they 
become drier. The more liquorous the wine is the longer 
it must be kept before its strong and peculiar flavour is 
adjusted to the right medium. 

The principal growths of the district are the Barsacs, 
Sauternes, and Bommes. From the heights of Sauternes 
and from the castle of Yquem a splendid view of the valley 
of the Loire is obtained, one of the finest landscapes in 
Europe. 

75. DESCRIPTION OF THE WINES. 
The wines of Barsac have much body, alcohol and a fine 
bouquet. They are more heady capiteux as it is termed in 
French and have a more lively taste and a more amber- 
tinted colour. The first growth of the district of Barsac is 
that of the Chateau Contet. The wines of Sauternes proper 
are more marrowy, and fine, more transparent and agree- 
able. The Chateau Yquem produces the finest of all the 
Sauternes wines; its prices range from 12,000 to 15,000 
francs per tonneau of four barriques. In 1869 we tasted 
the several vintages, amongst them 1844 and 1865 ; the 
latter was very attractive, the tete excessively sweet, and 
when it was mixed with the tail, it sank in it like syrup of 
high specific gravity. The 1866 was too hot, i.e., too 
alcoholic. At Chateau la Tour blanche, we found the 1865 
very similar in flavour to Rhenish cabinet wines, which 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 121 

also remain excessively sweet ; the middles and tails suited 
our British palates better. 

At Chateau Suduiraut, distinguished by rich sources of 
flowing spring water, we observed an amusing little incident 
illustrative of the view which one may take of the hypocrisy 
of tasting wines for purposes of business. In tasting, the 
wine is supposed to be spat out after being rolled about the 
mouth for a few moments, and the tasters maintain that 
they are not in the habit of swallowing any, and that they 
are not obliged to swallow any for the purpose of getting a 
perfect taste. While we were tasting the 1857 wines the 
proprietor's little son came near, and his father asked him 
whether he would have a drink. The boy replied in the 
affirmative, and then putting the glass to his mouth drank 
its contents ; but as the company was not supposed to 
drink but only to taste, the father jocularly admonished the 
son to " spit a little " crachez tin pen. In reality, of course, 
no taster could exist if he had to swallow even a quarter of 
what he puts in his mouth for tasting. 

The viticultual statistics of the Sauternes district producing 
white as well as red wines are fully given in Thudichum 
and Dupre, "Treatise," pp. 357-365. 

76. WINES OF THE HILL-SIDES OR COTES OF THE 

GIRONDE. 

A chain of hills extending along the right bank of the 
Garonne from Ambarez to Sainte-Croix-du-Mont yield 
great quantities of vines termed " of the hill-sides," Vim 
de Cotes. The northern part of the district produces 
mainly dark-coloured wines, which are at first hard and 
rough, but ameliorate with age. These are exported 
under the name of " wines of the good hill-side." In the 
southern part only little red wine is made but much white 
wine of a dry quality, called "wine of the little hill-sides." 
Under this latter category the traders of Bordeaux include 
the wines of the right bank of the Dordogne, from Bourg, 
which is about twenty kilometres north of Bordeaux to 
Fronsac, which is about twenty-four kilometres north-east of 



122 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Bordeaux. Among all these wines the most celebrated are 
those which are grown in the community of St. Emilion, 
and named after that district; the vineyards occupy 1,041 
hectares. The best qualities are obtained on the plateau of 
the Madeleine and St. Martin, and on the inclines towards the 
south and west of the St. Emilion hills. The soil on the 
hill-sides is chalky clay lying upon rock ; in the lower parts 
the territory becomes sandy, and rests frequently upon 
ferruginous subsoil. 

St. Emilion was a stronghold of the Knights Templars, 




Fig. 26. The Secateur as used for pruning Vines in the Gironde 

and of their churches and order-houses innumerable ruins 
exist, interspersed with inhabited houses. 

The varieties of vines met with in this district are the 
Noir de Pressac, the Merlot and the Bouchet or Cabernet. 
The Merlot is one of the vines of the marshes or Palus, 
and the Cabernet one of the best vines of the Medoc, 
where however it is designated by the synonym of Carmenet. 
These vines are represented at St. Emilion in the 
proportion of one-third of the whole set. To the 
Cabernet the St. Emilion wine, in our opinion, owes its 
finesse ; to the Merlot its body and lasting quality ; and to 



WINES OF THE GIRONDE. 



123 



the Noir de Pressac its particularly fiery and fresh quality. 
The mode of cultivation is very similar to the so-called 
basket cultivation of the Rheingau. The Noir de Pressac 
is pruned so that only short spurs are left. The Bouchet 
and the Merlot, however, are cut with long canes. The soil 
is worked by hoe and plough. The vines are tied to stakes, 




Fig. 27. The Secateur as used with both hands to cut a 
thicker branch. 



which here bear the peculiar name of carasonr.es. A hectare 
of the best vineyards yields about six barriques or thirteen 
and a half hectolitres ; the common vineyards yield double 
that quantity. The vintage takes place at the end of 
September and beginning of October. Most proprietors 
crush the grapes and put them by preference into middle- 



124 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



sized vats. The rest of the treatment is the same as that 
which we have described as prevalent in the Me*doc. 

St. Emilion of good quality can be put into bottle towards 
the fourth year, and must, under all circumstances, be 
bottled by the sixth year. If this period be overstepped and 
the wine left in barrel beyond it, it loses its fruitiness, 
freshness, flavour, and colour, and becomes incapable of 
producing in bottle that fragrance which it would have 
obtained had it been bottled at the proper time. It follows 
that St. Emilion wine will be less injured by premature 
bottling than by undue delay of this operation. It is singular 
that the St. Emilion wine is not liked in England, although 
like the best Montpellier it recalls many of the finest 




Fig. 28. Vines of the Palus (Villenave d'Ornon) pruned for 
spring growth. 

qualities of fine port wines, leaving brandy out of the 
question. Fine wines will sell at 300 to 350 francs the 
hogshead, and will come to about ;i6 the hogshead in 
London. Some qualities sell at 75 francs the hogshead. 
Most of the good St. Emilion at present goes to Belgium, 
Holland, Denmark and Sweden, the second class St. 
Emilion is largely imported into Paris. 

St. Emilion is the centre of a district called the Libour- 
nais, of which Libourne is the principal town. Towards the 
north-west the Libournais is marked off by the river Isle. On 
the other side of the river is the district called Fronsadais, 
of which the principal town is Fronsac, upon the banks of 



WINES OF ROUSSILLON AND LANGUEDOC. 1 25 

the Dordogne. To the north-east of the Fronsadais is the 
JBlayais, which has the town of Blaye, a fortress lying on the 
banks of the Gironde, for its centre. The Blayais, there- 
fore, lies opposite the Medoc, on the banks of the Gironde. 
In these districts considerable quantities of red and white 
wines are produced. None of these are classified, but many 
are very useful. Large quantities, particularly of white cotes, 
coloured up with Teinturier of Toulouse, are exported to 
America. 

For statistics of these districts see Thudichum and Dupre\ 
" Treatise," pp. 370-380. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
WINES OF ROUSSILLON AND LANGUEDOC. 

77. WINES OF ROUSSILLON. 

THE ancient province of France formerly called Rous- 
sillon is now merged in the department of the Oriental 
Pyrenees. Its name has been preserved, at least with 
foreign nations, by its wines ; and certainly its wines were, 
and in part are yet, its only or principal wealth. It contains 
more than 50,000 hectares of vineyards. Three kinds of 
wine are produced : liqueur wines, or musts preserved with 
spirit without fermentation ; dry wines by ordinary fermen- 
tation, and half-fermented wines, which are in such a con- 
dition that they can be used for the manufacture of any- 
thing factitious port in particular. It is to the fortified 
wines, particularly red wines, that Roussillon owes its main 
success. The most celebrated vineyards of the district are 
at Banyuls-sur-Mer, Collioure, Port-Vendres, Rivesaltes, 
and Perpignan. Banyuls-sur-Mer is very near the Spanish 
frontier, in the warmest part of the eastern Pyrenees, and 
. its vineyards have an area of about 4,500 hectares; they 



126 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

are mostly on slopes of schistose rock, in the plain on 
alluvial soil. 

The vineyards are planted almost exclusively with the 
Grenache noir and the Carignane. In the whole of the 
Roussillon district the Grenache is mainly planted on the 
heights, while the lower parts of the vineyards are popu- 
lated by the Carignane. The bunch of grapes of the 
Grenache is large, loose, pyramidal, with uneven berries, 
and otherwise deformed by accident during blossom time. 
The bluish-black colour of its thin skin is overlaid by a 
strong waxy bloom ; in it fine taste, sweetness and perfume 
prevail, and it ripens early. The Carignane is less fertile 
and less delicate than the Grenache, and gives dry wine ; its 
bunch of grapes is long, round, and uneven, blackish-blue, 
with a strong bloom. It has a thick husk, ripens late, and 
tastes less sweet than the Grenache. The ordinary Banyuls 
wines are generally made of two-thirds of Grenache and 
one-third of Carignane grapes. Two other vines furnish 
some addition of grapes, one, the Mataro, bearing a 
blackish, sweet, and early ripe grape; another, thzPtcpoule, 
which seems useful for bearing quantity ; for this it is grown 
in the lower Rhone valley, the Herault, and the Gard. 
-These two adventitious vines, as far as Roussillon is con- 
cerned, according to Lenoir, yield only mediocre wine. 

In the accompanying engraving Fig. 29, a view of the 
vineyards of Banyuls, Port-Vendres, and Collioure is given, 
which shows the remarkable steepness of the slopes on 
which the vines are planted. In consequence the labour 
here is manual, while in the plain the soil is worked with the 
plough. A hectare on the slopes yields about 15 hecto- 
litres of wine, while in the plain it gives 25 hectolitres. 
Plastering of the must is not rarely practised, and helps to 
make Roussillon wine flat and mawkish, and to deprive it 
of that refreshing acidity which alone makes sugary wines 
palatable. 

The so-called Grenache wine is not really a wine at all, 
but grape-juice preserved from fermenting by the addition 
of spirit., sulphurous acid, and frequent racking from any 
deposits, including any yeast which may grow. The richer 



128 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

in sugar the must is, the less spirit does it require, but the 
amount of spirit added is never very great ; the main agents 
in suppressing fermentation are, besides concentration and 
alcohol, the vapour of burnt sulphur and frequent racking. 
It is said that the liqueur must remain in cask for fifteen 
years before it is fit for being drunk. This is, therefore, a 
preparation resembling in every way to the Spanish dulce, 
except in this, that it receives less spirit than the dulce, and 
consequently requires more time for its perfection. 

The vineyards of Collioure cover 800 hectares, those of 
Port- Vendres 600 hectares ; they resemble in every respect 
those of Banyuls, and the treatment of plants and product 
is the same. The Collioure wines have much colour, body, 
and what the French call generosity, yet being drier than 
that of Banyuls. They lose colour after ten years in 
barrel, and then are thought to be most fit for bottling, but 
such delay between growth and consumption is nowadays 
not very practicable. When sold after the first spring 
racking the wines fetch very low prices, from 15 francs a 
hectolitre, being a penny-halfpenny for a litre, up to 150 
francs, being a franc and a half for a litre. Most of these 
wines go to the United States, to be there transformed into 
liqueur wines, and to the Brazils, to be there drunk as dry 
wines. Cette and Marseilles take considerable quantities 
to work them up into whatever may be demanded. The 
vineyards of Rivesaltes cover 10,500 hectares] they yield a 
fine wine which is qualified to be transformed into effer- 
vescent wine after the manner of Champagne. 

In the Collioure vineyards a peculiar vine is grown, the 
Ctairette, also sometimes improperly called the Blanquette, 
but only intermixed with the main or prevailing sets above 
described. The bunches of this vine are pyramidal, with 
wings, and among the grapes are many oval, half-transparent, 
golden yellow bloomy ones, having a thick skin and a sugary 
taste. They ripen late and give a fine wine, which, when 
young, is sweet, and afterwards becomes dry, and is also 
qualified for transformation into Mousseux. 

Rivesaltes produces what are called specialities, which 
have a limited reputation, such are the Muscat, the Maccabeo, 



WINES OF ROUSSILLON AND LANGUEDOC. 129 

the Malvoisie, the Grenache, and the Rando. All these 
names are those of vines from which the beverages, mostly 
liqueurs, are produced ; the Rando alone is named after its 
age and dryness, and bears a Spanish name, which once indi- 
cated old wine, but by modern traders is held to be a term 
implying condemnation. 

78. MODE OF PRODUCTION OF MUSCAT SWEET WINE. 
The grapes are shrunk on the plant, or on trays in the 
sun, until they are raisin-like shrivelled, but not dry. They 
are then crushed by any of the several methods, and on 
pressing yield a must of great density, which is put into 
barrels and allowed to ferment. The barrels are not 
entirely filled up, and when fermentation is completed the 
wine is racked. Owing to its great amount of sugar, this 
wine, like Tokay or Rota Tent, forms very little alcohol ; in 
the first year therefore it resembles more to a syrup than a 
wine, and approaches the thick Sauternes in quality, though 
these are not artificially condensed, and form more spirit. 
In the second year the wine becomes clean, acquires finesse* 
and fire, and that Muscat bouquet to which it owes its repu- 
tation. It should not be kept very long, for its bouquet 
is transient, but should be drunk while it is fresh. The 
Rivesaltes is sold young at about 100 francs the hectolitre. 



79. MODE OF PRODUCTION OF MALVOISIE AND 

MACCABEO WINES. 

The grapes used for these wines are not dried or concen- 
trated by the sun, but their expressed juice is somewhat 
concentrated in a pan over the fire. When the scum has 
risen and been removed, the liquid is allowed to cool, and 
put into barrels, together with a certain amount of proof 
spirit. It is racked once a month for six months, and 
thereby fermentation is completely prevented. In the 
making of the Malvoisie the grapes are carried to the press 
with the utmost care, for if they are at all injured they lose 
much of their flavour. The must, although mixed with 



I3O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

some proof spirit, is allowed to ferment as long as it will. 
When fermentation has ceased the wine is racked, and a 
little more spirit is added. Dry Malvoisie is also made 
with the aid of full fermentation. On the whole, the pro- 
duction of these sweet wines is very limited as regards 
quantity, and their prices are very low, on account of the 
long time during which they must be kept before they are 
approved of by the consumers. 



80. VINEYARD OF PERPIGNAN 

Of the 5,000 hectares of this vineyard two-thirds are in 
the plain and of inferior quality to those on the hills, and 
even these slopes rise but little above the level of the sea. 
The soil is clay, here and there chalk, and everywhere there 
are rolled pebbles as in the Medoc. The wine is left in the 
cuves from twenty-five to thirty-six days ; the lower class 
wines are always treated with gypsum or plaster of Paris ; 
the white wines, if sweet, are put in bottle in March. The 
red wines remain in barrel much longer, but are apt to lose 
much of their colour. As they preserve it when bottled, 
they are put in glass early, and decanted from any deposit, 
and transferred to new bottles seven times in fifteen years. 
It is doubtful whether the resulting wines are worth the 
trouble bestowed upon them, and they would not bear the 
expense if they were not so extraordinarily cheap when 
newly made. Much of the wine grown here goes to North 
and South America, to Genoa, Cette and Marseilles, and to 
a few inland places of France, Lyons among them. In the 
Canton of Perpignan there is produced a wine called Torre- 
mila, which comes very near to average Madeira ; at 
Torremila also a kind of Mousseux is made, which has a cer- 
tain reputation. 

8 1. SUMMARY OF THE WINES OF ROUSSILLON. 
The most esteemed liqueur wines, whether partly fer- 
mented or not, and treated as dukes, are the Muscat of 
Rivesaltes, the Maccabeo, the Grenache, and the Malvoisie. 



WINES OF ROUSSILLON AND LANGUEDOC. 131 

Amongst the dry wines are esteemed those of Banyuls- 
sur-Mer, of Torremila, of Rivesaltes, and of Terrats ; the 
Malvoisie and Picpoule are here also made of dry quality. 

Among the red or commercial liqueur wines those which 
take the first places are of Banyuls-sur-Mer, Collioures, and 
Port-Vendres, Corneilla-de-la-Riviere, Pezilla-de-la-Riviere, 
Tautavel, Montner, and Banyuls-des-Aspres. 

Among the dry ordinaries are to be mentioned the wines 
of Espira-de-la-Gly, Rivesaltes, Baixas, Salces, Millas, Saint 
Andre, and the two Cantons of Perpignan. 

The barrels in which Roussillon wine is made and sold 
are of the size of barriques of Bordeaux. The wine is laden 
into ships directly from the producing district ; but, as the 
ships cannot come near to the shore in that part, the barrel 
is rolled out to the beach, and then down the beach into 
the water, which may be a distance of a mile or two miles. 
When the barrel begins to float, the man who has rolled it 
pushes it on towards the ship, at last by swimming. When 
the cask arrives at the ship, it is lifted on board by a crane, 
and the man returns to the shore. 



82. WINES OF LANGUEDOC, OR THE MIDI OF FRANCE. 
TOPOGRAPHY AND SOIL. 

Languedoc is the name of an ancient province of France, 
and comprises the greater part of what are now the depart- 
ments of the Aude, of the Herault, and of a portion of the 
Gard. The wines are mostly red, and the inspectors of the 
English Board of Customs, who were sent there on an 
official inquiry, found none which contained above 23-9 per 
cent, of proof spirit, while many contained less. In a great 
part of Languedoc viticulture was in a flourishing condition 
already at the time of the Romans ; and now these wines 
are the objects of a vast commerce, which is daily increasing 
owing to the united advantages of climate, soil, and situation, 
by means of which great quantities of cheap and saleable 
wines are produced. The surface occupied by vineyards 
in the three departments mentioned amounts to 258,192 



132 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

hectares, of which the department of the Aude owns 70,982, 
that of the Herault 179,962, and that of the Card 75,248 
hectares. 

The soil is chalky on the slopes, chalky and clayey in the 
plains, and silico-calcareous, with many rolled pebbles, on 
the high plains or plateaux. The same vines are raised 
throughout the whole of the departments, and the wines 
which are obtained from them are classified in the same 
manner throughout the entire province of Languedoc. 
They go generally under the name of Vins du Midi, which 
in the eyes of uninformed persons is equivalent to cheap, 
bad stuff. If they knew the quantities of such wines ex- 
ported to all parts of France, and mixed with the Burgundies, 
the Bordeaux, and other varieties of French wine drunk in 
the country or exported, they would moderate their dislike ; 
and if they had the enterprise to study the wines of these 
countries themselves, they would find their quality and 
cheapness a sufficient recommendation to all consumers of 
the middle classes. The wines are divided into two cate- 
gories : wines for the distillery, and wines for commerce. 
These latter are sub-divided, first, into ordinary red and 
white wines of commerce; secondly, into the fine red wines ; 
and thirdly, into the white dry wines, and the white liqueur 
and Muscat wines. The sales are effected through the 
agency of brokers, termed courtiers, who formerly were of 
more importance than nowadays, when their only office is 
to obtain samples and bring them to the merchants. 

83. VINES CULTIVATED IN LANGUEDOC. 
The vines prevalent in this province are the Carignane, 
the Terret noir, the Grenache, the Mourastel, the Aspiran, 
the Oeillade and its variety the Sinsaon, the black Picpoule, 
the white Picpoule, and the Clairette. These yield the 
wines of commerce. For the distillery wines only two vines 
are cultivated, namely, the Aramon and the Terret bourret. 
These two latter cover the whole of the plains of Herault 
and of St. Guilhem upon the sea, the plain of Lunel, of 
Orbe, and of the Aude. The grapes of these vines are 



WINES OF ROUSSILLON AND LANGUEDOC. 133 

their most characteristic parts. The Terret noir has loosely 
hanging grapes of equal size, oval in shape, of a blackish- 
red colour, transparent and browned by the sun, with a 
thick skin of acidulous taste ; the bunch is pyramidal and 
winged. The grapes of the Terret bourret are of similar 
shape, but of a light rosy or violet colour ; they have a flat 
taste, and yield only the lowest wines used in the distilleries. 
The Aramon has a long exuberant bunch, with round, equal, 
violet-black bloomy grapes, of a flat taste, and provided 
with a thick skin. The Oeillade bears a magnificent pyra- 
midal winged bunch, with voluminous grapes, hanging on 




Fig. 30. Vine of the Herault, with all its wood as seen in winter. 

very long green stalks, of blackish blue colour, with brown 
sun spots, ripening early; their taste is fresh, sugary, and 
agreeable. The Piran or Aspiran bears a middle-sized 
bunch with black-bloomed grapes of fine and sugary taste. 
The white wines are mostly made of Picpoule and Clairette. 
The vines which are planted on alluvial soil are called Tines 
of the plain; those on ferruginous soil mixed with pebbles, 
the result of chalk denudation, are termed vines of the 
terrain de gres. They give esteemed commercial wines. 
The slopes, garrigues, yield wines which are fit for exporta- 
tion, and are distilled only in years of plentiful harvests. 
In abundant years the distillery keeps up the prices of 



134 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

wines for consumption ; in years of dearth even the wines 
of the plain, which ordinarily go to the distillery, are mixed 
with wines of good years and sold to the world. 

The vines are not very carefully cultivated, the manuring 
in particular is very negligently performed. The vintage 
takes place in the middle of September and extends into 
October. In the rich alluvial plains a hectare may some- 
times yield 200 hectolitres of distillery wine ; but on the 
slopes and gravels only from 25 to 30 hectolitres. Good 
ordinary soils planted with Aramon and Terret bourret yield 
up to 50 hectolitres. 

The grapes are crushed as usual, powdered over with 




Fig. 31. Vines of the Herault pruned and their "feet" uncovered. 
a. b. a', b'. Stocks with four branches each. 

plaster of Paris, and put into the vats ; the wine is placed 
in foudres or large barrels of a capacity varying between 7 
and 700 hectolitres. 



84. DISTINGUISHED GROWTHS OF THE DEPARTMENTS 

OF THE AUDE AND GARD. 

The vineyard of Limoux yields a white wine passing as 
Blanquette de Limoux ; of this about 3,000 hectolitres are 
made, which fetch double the price of the red wine \ of the 
latter 10,000 hectolitres are produced. These wines are 
termed, after the localities, Le"denon, Langlade, and St. 
Gilles, all three in the arrondissement of Nismes. The 



WINES OF ROUSSILLON AND LANGUEDOC. 135 

Langlade wine is left only three days in the vat, is light, of 
rich colour, and less alcoholic than other wines ; as it is so 
well known, thousands of barrels of other districts pass under 
its name. The vineyard of St. Gilles, 5,000 hectares in 
extent, produces wines of brilliant purple colour, soft taste, 
yet of the quality which the French express by nerve and 
mordant, for which we might say strength and grip. They 
are called vins fermes, because they can be used to give 
colour and strength to wines which do not possess those 
properties, and hence they are also called vins de remede. 
The St. Gilles' wines have, however, and always bring into 
other wines with which they are mixed, a particular taste 
so-called taste of territory. Considered in their character 
as dyeing materials for other wines, the products of this 
district are divided into six classes, and called accordingly 
the wines of one, three, five, or six colours, according to 
whether they can, on being mixed with one, three, five, or 
six times their volume of white wine, produce a well- 
coloured ordinary table wine. At St. Gilles wine is sold by 
the barrel, measuring a little more than 50 litres, and cor- 
responding almost to the Austrian Eimer. The hectolitre 
may fetch up to fifty-three francs, and in good years sink to 
three francs. The average price is ten francs the hectolitre. 
Most of this wine goes to Paris and Holland. 

In the vinification the care taken to extract all the colour- 
ing matter from the husks is very great. Before the vintage 
is mashed it is put into closed spaces, whereby a slight fer- 
mentation begins in the unbroken berries, through which 
the skin is predisposed to part with its pigment. The rest 
is not peculiar, except that little care is taken to avoid the 
effects of a tainted or acetous top or chapeau. 

A peculiar process adopted to strengthen wines consists 
in concentrating entire grapes in cauldrons heated by steam; 
they shrivel, as if they were in the sun, and become cooked 
as well ; the hard skin becomes macerated and the pigment 
loosened. Grapes thus concentrated are put into spirit or 
into new wine. Mild wines of dark rose colour, from the 
third day of fermentation, are sent off to Burgundy to serve 
in what is called the "arrangement" of Burgundy wines; 



136 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

excess of colour and of acidity is thereby corrected and the 
Burgundy becomes earlier fit for sale. 

At St. Gilles sweet wine is also made with the aid of sul- 
phuring and racking, which delay fermentation and allow 
the wine to become clear ; when fermentation ultimately sets 
in it is much slower and less energetic than it would have 
been in the must not sulphured and racked, and leaves a 
great deal more sugar in the fluid than would otherwise have 
been left. 

At St. Gilles is also made a speciality, by a proprietor, Dr. 
Beaumes, namely, a wine from the true Furmint or Tokay 
vine, after the manner of the Hungarian Tokay ; it is called 
Tokay Princesse, and sold in the place at the price of six 
francs the bottle. 



85. REMARKABLE GROWTHS OF THE HERAULT. 
Amongst the red wines of the province those of St. 
Georges D'Orques, St. Chrystol, and St. Drezery are best 
known. The Picardans are white wines, and the Lunels 
are Muscat wines. The wines of the arrondissement of 
Montpellier are amongst the finest of the department. 
The Picardan wines are sweet or dry, and mostly obtained 
from the Clairette. The grape of this vine must hang into 
October. The wines obtained from it are similar to 
Madeira, and are frequently mixed with alcohol, so as to 
contain from 13 to 15*5 per cent, of absolute alcohol. The 
wines are also heated in the sun, or in hot chambers as in 
Madeira. They are mostly cheap, selling at from 12 to 16 
francs the hectolitre. 



86. REMARKABLE MUSCAT WINES. 
The mode of their production has been above described. 
They are mostly made from white, more rarely from black 
Muscat grapes. At Frontignan from 230 hectares there 
are annually produced of white Muscat 800 to 900 barrels, 
containing from 220 to 225 litres each, while of red 



WINES OF ROUSSILLON AND LANGUEDOC. 137 

Muscat only 20 hectolitres are made. The price per barrel 
varies between 120 and 200 francs. Lunel is rapidly 
diminishing its production, while Maraussan and Espagnac 
are not increasing theirs. 



87. MANUFACTURE OF SPIRIT DISTILLED FROM WINE, 
CALLED "TROIS-SIX" AND " EAU-DE-VlE," AT MONT- 

PELLIER. 

In the department of the Herault two qualities of brandy, 
called trois-six, are made from grapes, one of wine and the 
other of murk. The former ones are called "of good 
taste " (de bon gout} when the wine from which they have 
been made was neither spoiled nor sour. The spirit from 
murk, always called trois-six of murk, is less valuable than 
that of wine by from 25 to 50 per cent. The trois-six of 
good taste is obtained by stills, called after their inventor 
De Rosne, and other more modern ones, which will in 
twenty-four hours produce up to 30 hectolitres of brandy of 
86 per cent, strength. The wines of the plain contain from 
7 to ii volumes per cent, of trois-six of 84, in good years 
up to 12 volumes per cent : a large still can consume daily 
from 200 to 300 hectolitres of wine. The residues have a 
very repulsive odour, and when discharged into water-courses 
infect the air more than sewage. No use for them has as 
yet been discovered. The strength of the distilled spirit is 
mostly ascertained by the aid of the alcoholometer of Bories. 
This is a very ancient instrument, and the manufacturers 
and producers of Languedcc are as reluctant to give it up 
as the Germans are with regard to that of Tralles, or the 
English with regard to that of Sikes. 



88. MARKETS FOR THE SALE OF SPIRITS. 

There are in the department of the Herault four markets 

of eau-de-vie and alcohol, in the order of their importance : 

Be'ziers (principal sale day Friday) ; Pdzenas (Saturday) ; 

Cette (Wednesday) ; and Lunel (Monday). If there are no 



138 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

stipulations made to the contrary, the manufacturers of trois- 
six are bound to deliver all produce to one or other of these 
markets, and let it be accompanied with a warranty of its 
quality. The inspector of the market verifies the analysis, 
and, if correct, admits ; if incorrect, returns the piece. The 
inspector states the limpidity, which must be perfect ; he 
observes that it is free from any colour ; the taste must be 
pure and free. If a piece is declared of mauvais gout, it 
will be paid for only as trois-six of murk. All trois-six is 
paid for in cash. 



89. DESIGNATIONS OF SPIRITS OF VARIOUS DEGREES 
OF STRENGTH. 

The several designations of spirits of various strengths 
used in Languedoc and other parts of France are derived as 
follows : Common eau-de-vie is accepted as the standard, 
and supposed to show 19 Carder at 12-5 temperature. It 
then contains a little less than 50 volumes per. cent, of abso- 
lute alcohol. Trois-six is a spirit of which three volumes 
added to three volumes of water were supposed to give six 
volumes of eau-de-vie at 19 Cartier. It is the common 
alcohol of commerce, marks 33 on the scale of Cartier, and 
contains consequently 84*4 volumes per cent, of absolute 
alcohol. Trois-cinq is a spirit of which three volumes added 
to two volumes of water were supposed to give five volumes 
of eau-de-vie at 19 Cartier, while trois-sept is an alcohol of 
which three volumes added to four volumes of water were 
supposed to give seven volumes of eau-de-vie. It is evident 
that by the more accurate methods of ascertaining the 
strengths of spirits these names have lost much of their 
meaning, the very standard of eau-de-vie, with 50 volumes 
per cent, alcohol, excluding the possibility of the existence 
of an alcohol called trois-sept. But whenever these names 
are used without the definition of the exact strength in 
volume per cent., or degrees Cartier, we may assume that 
by 3/7 is meant a spirit of 94 per cent, by volume ; by 3/6 a 
spirit of about 84 per cent, volume ; by 3/5 a spirit of 78 
per cent, volume ; by proof of Holland a spirit of 58 volumes 



WINES OF THE EAST OF FRANCE. 139 

per cent. [Rendu, "Vins du Languedoc," i. p. 71, gives 
proof of Holland as 52 volumes per cent. ; Payen, "Chimie 
Industrielle," third edition, p. 712, gives proof of Holland 
at 587, and proof of London at 58 volumes per cent.; 
British (or Sikes's) proof spirit at 15-5 contains 57-06 
volumes per cent, or 49-24 weight per cent, of absolute 
alcohol.] 

Commerce and manufactures demand and produce now 
only the strongest kind of spirit which can be conveniently 
produced by mere distillation. While at Montpellier there 
are now produced annually only 2,000 pieces of eau-de-vie, 
equal to 6,000 hectolitres of 52, the manufacture of 3/6 rises 
to 60,000 pieces, equal to 360,000 hectolitres of eau-de-vie ; 
60,000 hectares of vineyards of the Herault produce nothing 
but wine to be used for distilling. The average production 
of 3/6 in the four departments the eastern Pyrenees, the 
Herault, the Card, and the Aude has been 500,000, half-a- 
million hectolitres, or fifty millions of litres. The spirit 
distilled immediately after the fermentation is the best ; 
older wine gives inferior brandy. The alcohol from murk 
is expelled by steam. On an average 13,000 kilogrammes 
of murk yield 600 litres of spirit The warm murk after 
expulsion of the alcohol can be used for feeding sheep. 
The alcohols of the Herault are mostly sold in France to be 
drunk as eau-de-vie, or to be used for fortifying wine viner 
les vin$. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
WINES OF THE EAST OF FRANCE. 

90. WINES OF THE EAST OF FRANCE. 
THE greater and most reputed part of the wines of the 
east of France is grown on the right bank of the Rhone in 
the communes of Laudun, Chuselan, Tavel, Roquemaure, 
all in the department of the Gard ; in the district which 



I4O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

contains St. Pdray, department of Ardeche, and at Condrieu 
and Cote-rotie, department of the Rhone. On the left 
bank of the Rhone much less wine is grown than on the 
right, but it is celebrated by the name of Chateau-neuf-du- 
Pape, department Vaucluse, and of I'Ermitage, department of 
the Drome. The vineyards of Croyes, Larnage, and Mer- 
curol, in the same department, produce wine which in 
quality follows immediately after Ermitage. The wines of 
the Card have the character of the Fins du Midi. The 
white St. Peray has a character of its own, particularly in 
the effervescent or Mousseux state. The wines of the 
upper part of the Rhone, Cote-rotie, resemble those of the 
Beaujolais and the Cote d'Or. The wines of I'Ermitage 
are distinguished by peculiar qualities, and a pleasing 
bouquet, coupled with great finesse ; and those of Chateau- 
neuf-du-Pape by spirituosity and colour, for which qualities 
they are taken to Burgundy to serve as improvers of lesser 
qualities. 

The greater part of the vineyards of the Rhone is on 
calcareous soil, on the left bank mixed with clay and pebbles ; 
the upper parts of the borders of the Rhone are formed of 
granite, the more horizontal land of diluvium of alpine 
origin. 



91. COTE DU RHONE. 

The name of Cote du Rhone as applied to vineyards is 
equivalent to vineyards of the Card ; they are about thirty 
miles long by six miles in width. The black grapes grown 
here are the Terret, Picpoule, Piran (Aspiran), Camaneze, 
and Grenache or Alicante. The latter imparts the good 
qualities to the wine of this region. In some localities the 
Uni and the Bourboulenque are grown on a small scale 
with the others. Of the white grapes the Clairette and 
Calitor form about a fifth part, the others are Uni blanc, 
Picardan, and several other varieties. The wines produced 
on the Cote are classified as follows : 

Red Wines First class ; not iwtted, Tavel. Very dry, 
light-coloured wines, improve much by age. Annual produce, 



WINES OF THE EAST OF FRANCE. 14! 

3,000 pieces of 280 litres measure, and about 50 francs value 
each. 

Lirac. Very dry, firmer than Tavel, of a lively rose- 
colour. Annual produce, 1,000 pieces of 50 francs value 
each. 

Chusdan. Very agreeable liqueur wine. Produce, 2,000 
pieces per annum ; value 50 francs each. 

Second class ; not vatted, Orsan. A tender wine of deep 
colour. Annual produce, 1,500 pieces, value 45 francs 
each. 

St. Genies-de-Comolas. Of this wine, which has analogies 
with Chusclan, 3,000 pieces are annually produced, of 45 
francs average value. 

Third class. Saint Laurent-des-Arbres. Wine of half a 
colour so-called, 3,000 pieces annually, average price 45 
francs . 

Roquemaure. The better productions are "of good quality," 
and valued as dinner wines ; 5,000 pieces, at 45 francs each. 

Of white wine there is only one staple variety, named 
Laudun, it is agreeable. The total production is 1,000 
pieces per annum, of which 700 pieces remain dry, while 
200 pieces are converted into sweet wine. 

92. CHATEAU-NEUF-DU-PAPE. 

The 600 hectares of this vineyard are situated on the left 
bank of the Rhone, a few kilometres from Orange ; the 
plantations have mostly a southward inclination ; some, 
however, are in the plain, and have contributed much to 
decrease the reputation of this vineyard. The black grapes 
cultivated here are the Grenache, Picpoule, Tinto, and 
Terret noir ; of white varieties, the Clairette, Uni and Muscat. 
The cultivators say that the Grenache gives alcohol and 
finesse, the Picpoule generosity, Tinto colours, and the 
Terret quantity. The best vines, the Grenaches, are the 
latest to bear and the earliest to decay ; a well-kept 
Grenachiere, as a vineyard planted with Grenaches only is 
called, produces up to 30 hectolitres of wine per hectare : 
the average of other varieties is only 20 hectolitres. A 



142 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

piece of wine of 270 litres is sold at the price of from 25 
to 50 francs. The red wine sheds its colour after three 
years in barrel, and preserves it then only when bottled. 
The most remarkable vineyards in this district are the 
following : The vineyard of La Nerthe gained its reputation 
through the practice of the owner, the Marquis of Villefranche, 
of frequently treating his guests at Paris to old fine Nerthe 
wine. The product is not now husbanded to the same 
advantage. The Cru de Condorcet is situated below the 
Nerthe and measures 20 hectares; its wines fetch only 
a fifth of the price of Nerthe. The vineyard of Fortia 
occupied a place similar to that of Nerthe under its former 
proprietor, the Marquis de Fortia d'Urban ; that of Vaudieu 
produces light-coloured and less alcoholic wines, several 
parts of it are planted exclusively with white vines, from the 
fruit of which a dry wine is made, as well as a sweet one by 
the addition of spirit to the must. In the commune of 
Chateau-neuf-du-Pape the land is extremely subdivided, and 
every owner is a wine-grower. The wines are mostly bought 
after the harvest by the commission^agents of Roquemaure, 
who after having averaged, i.e., mixed them, send the greater 
quantity into Burgundy to be used there as " doctors " to 
feeble, acid and pale wines of bad years. Bordeaux also 
receives a quantity of these wines for the same purpose. 
Jn consequence the wines of Chateau-neuf-du-Pape do not 
occur in trade in their original condition at all ; when bought 
for mixing they are already in a mixed state. The principle 
of vinification is to produce black alcoholic wine, in great 
volume, and in consequence the ancient reputation of these 
vineyards is gradually diminishing. 

93. VINEYARD OF ST. PERAY, ARDECHE. 
The vineyard of St. Peray is situated on the right bank of 
the Rhone in the department of Ardeche; it is 172 hectares 
in extent and produces only white wine. The dominant 
vine is the Grosse Roussette (Roussanne of the Ermitage) ; it 
is mixed with a small proportion of the petite Roussette, but 
with no other vine. The dry wine is made in the ordinary 



WINES OF THE EAST OF FRANCE. 143 

manner, and is put into bottles in the third or fourth 
year. The Mousseux is produced in the same manner as 
Champagne : Grand Mousseux of the best years is sold at 
two francs a bottle retail ; it is very heady and neither so 
fine nor so mild as Champagne. The wine in barrel is sold 
for 50 to 75 francs the hectolitre. 

94. VINEYARDS OF THE ERMITAGE. 
The vineyards of the Ermitage are situated on the left 
border of the Rhone in the commune of Tain, twenty-eight 
kilometres from Valence, department of Drome ; have a 
surface of 1 90 hectares and are distributed over two slopes ; 
one of these is on granitic soil, the other on alluvial. They 
are exposed to the south-west in such a manner that the sun 
strikes them from his rising to his setting. The name is 
derived from a place of retirement which one Gaspard de 
Sterimberg, a courtier of Queen Blanche of Castile, built 
thereabouts for his old age in the year 1225. The vineyards 
on granitic soil constitute the so-called " Mas de Bessas ; " 
those on the alluvial the " Mas du Me"al ; " those on alluvial 
clay the " Mas de Greffieux." The high quality of the 
Ermitage wines depends upon the combination of these 
three vineyards, the produce of which is always sold mixed ; 
and a proprietor in order to have his produce classified as 
" premier cru " must hold property in the three vineyards. 
In short, what is called Ermitage, and has any quality, is 
always a mixture of the grapes of the three " Mas." The 
vines grown here are the " grosse Sirrah " and " petite 
Sirrah" for red wine; and the "Roussanne" and "Mar- 
sanne " for white ; the "grosse Sirrah " is remarkable for its 
fertility, but produces a common wine ; it is therefore 
gradually being driven out of the good vineyards and is 
grown in the plain. Nineteen out of twenty parts of the 
hill-district cultivate the " petite Sirrah," the rest is planted 
with white vines. The " petite Sirrah " has a fine elongated 
winged bunch, bearing slightly oval grapes, which are 
unequal, closely packed together, of a blackish-violet colour, 
much browned on the surface, juicy, very sweet and with a 



144 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

thin husk ; they ripen early. The grapes of the Roussanne 
are white, small, round, unequal, and very much browned 
under a thick bloom ; the bunch of the Marsanne is not so 
large as that of the Roussanne ; its berries are unequal and 
very closely set. As the vines are kept very near to the 
ground, many of the bunches lie partially on the ground 
when nearly ripe, and become covered with earth. This 
entails a special operation in August called "unearthing 
the grapes." The vintage ordinarily takes place towards 
the end of September, but in early years it is made before 
the equinox, as heavy rains are not rarely experienced at that 
time. A hectare brings about 24 hectolitres of wine ; a 
vineyard of this surface may be bought, if it produce first growth, 
for 60,000 francs, second for 48,000 francs, third for 36,000 
irancs. The cultivation costs about 900 francs per annum. 
To make a barrique of so-called straw wine, i.e., sweet liqueur 
wine, 760 kilogrammes of grapes are required, which with- 
out drying would have yielded three barriques of wine. 
The black grapes remain long, sometimes as long as forty 
days in the vats and are stirred frequently. This seems 
required by the large amount of sugar contained in the 
must, of which the last portions are only slowly transformed 
into the strongly alcoholic liquid. The wine can be bottled 
after having been in the barrel during four or five years. 
The best red Ermitage is sold at about 400 francs the 
barrique of 210 litres. Red Ermitage of the best quality 
goes to Bordeaux, to be mixed with the colder growths of 
the Gironde ; anything sold in trade as Ermitage is always 
second class, if it be Ermitage at all. When genuine it is 
distinguished by great richness, a lively purple colour, and 
a special bouquet, and becomes by these united qualities the 
best wine of the south of France. 

There are a number of smaller vineyards resembling by 
their products Ermitage ; these are called of Crozes, Lamage, 
Mercurol (La Rochegude), La Roliere, Die, Condrieu 
and Cote-rotie. The wines are mainly red, and ripe for 
bottle in five or six years. The piece of Ampuis, measuring 
240 litres, is sold at about 200 francs. The wines are fiery 
and heady, but have great finesse and much bouquet 



WINES OF THE EAST OF FRANCE. 145 

When the wine is made from the Vionnier grape mainly, it is 
lighter and more delicate, and does not lose its colour by 
age, but when made principally from the Terine, the wine is 
more harsh, and of darker colour; in bottle it forms a 
strong crust, loses its purple colour, and becomes of the 
light red colour of onion peel. In ancient times much of the 
produce of the Rhone valley was exported to Rome, now it 
is dispersed over the world, mainly in admixture to less 
alcoholic wines. 



95. VINEYARDS OF THE BEAUJOLAIS, MACONNAIS, 
AND THE CHALON C6TE. 

The districts which contain these vineyards are situated 
in the upper part of the valleys of the French contributories 
of the Rhone, particularly the Saone. The vineyards are 
agglomerated, partly on slopes running towards the Saone, 
partly on rich flat land. The traveller by rail or road enters 
suddenly upon a viticultural district, continues in it, per- 
ceiving right and left nothing but vines, and after having 
travelled some miles he suddenly leaves it, when all 
viticulture ends and nothing but ordinary agriculture is 
perceptible. 

96. THE BEAUJOLAIS. 

The Beaujolais is an arrondissement with Villefranche as 
principal town, and extends from the confines of the Macon- 
nais to the district of Lyons. It is divided by a chain of 
hills into the high and low Beaujolais. The high Beau- 
jolais consists of the cantons of Beaujeu and Belleville, where 
the best vineyards are met with. The low Beaujolais pro- 
duces a greater quantity of wine, but of a less distinguished 
quality. There are now in this district 20,000 hectares of 
vineyards, stretching over a length of 35 kilometres and a 
breadth of 6 kilometres. In the soil red quartzy porphyry- 
predominates ; in other parts a schistose formation comes 
out, and there are many mixtures of Plutonic and Neptunic 
formations. In the lower part chalk, with alluvial soil, crops 

L 



146 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

up. Most of the vineyards, like those of Burgundy, slope 
towards the east. 

97. VINES, VINTAGE, AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE 
WINES OF THE BEAUJOLAIS. 

Two vines prevail in the Beaujolais, the Petit Gamay and 
Camay Nicolas. Their bunches are elongated, conical and 
winged, and bear loose-hanging, unequal grapes of middle 
size, ovoid shape, black colour, bloomy surface, with thin 
skin, liquid juice and particularly sweet taste. Many vine- 
yards are cultivated by tenant farmers, who occupy from 
4 to 5 hectares, reside on the land, and pay as rent half 
the produce of wine. The hectare in the Haut-Beaujolais 
yields on an average 20 pieces of wine of 210 litres each; 
in the Bas-Beaujolais much larger quantities. The vintage 
takes place in the end of September, and vinification is per- 
formed in the manner usual in Burgundy. 

The better wines of the Beaujolais may be arranged 
under three categories : First, the fine, early maturing and 
little coloured wines of Che'nas, Fleury, Lancie', St. Etienne- 
la-Varennes ; secondly, the fine, strong, deep-coloured and 
long-lasting wines of which Jullie"nas is the representative ; 
and, thirdly, the semi-fine wines which are esteemed but do 
not reach the quality of the former. The wines in this 
district are more delicate than the wines of the south of 
France. They taste juicy, and frequently are very sour. 
It is for this reason that they are esteemed in France, where 
it is usual to mix water with the ordinary wine drunk at 
table. The wines are not treated with plaster of Paris. 
The common wines fetch from 80 to 140 francs, the better 
ones from 130 to 400 francs the piece of 210 litres. The 
special examination of the crus can be seen in Thudichum 
and Dupre*'s "Treatise," /. c., p. 418. 

98. THE MACONNAIS. GENERAL DIVISION OF DISTRICT 
AND SOIL. 

The district is situated round the town of Macon, also in 
the valley of the Saone, and may be divided into five belts. 



WINES OF THE EAST OF FRANCE. 147 

of which four yield exclusively red wine,, while the fifth 
gives exclusively white wines. The first belt includes the 
Thorins and the Romaneche, which yield the finest class of 
Maconnais wine ; the second belt is represented by the 
vineyard of St. Amour; the third by that of Davaye"; the 
fourth belt includes the whole district north of Macon and 
the canton of Lugny. The wines of the latter are inferior 
to those of other districts, and remain common, but are 
abundant. While young they are rough, and become 
drinkable only after years of keeping. To the north of 
this district is the vineyard of Tournus, which produces 
much flat and dark-coloured wine; but this district no 
longer belongs to the Maconnais. The fifth zone is repre- 
sented by the vineyard of Pouilly, which gives the typical 
white wines of the Maconnais. The good vineyards are 
mostly situated upon slopes, the soil is granitic and schistose, 
frequently chalky. White wines are mostly grown on chalky 
soil. The vines on the rich alluvial soil in the valley of the 
Saone produce only rough common wines, which go to 
supply the town of Lyons. 



99. PREDOMINATING VINES. 

Formerly the black Burgundy grape called Pineau pre- 
dominated, under the name of Bourguignon, but this has 
almost disappeared and given way to the Camay, which is 
here termed bon plant and plant de la dombe. There are 
three varieties of this Camay, the Camay Picard, Gamais 
Nicolas, and the Petit Gamais. These vines have nothing 
in common with that particular vine called the Gros Camay, 
the planting and cultivating of which was forbidden by a 
law passed by Philip le Hardi and the parliaments of Metz 
and Dijon. The bon plants of the Maconnais bear much 
fruit, and this produces good wines, but they are never equal 
to the Pineau. In the vineyards for white wines the Char- 
denet, or white Pineau, the prevalent white grape of the 
Bourgogne and Champagne, predominates. 



148 A TREATISE ON WINES. 



100. MODE OF CULTIVATION, VINTAGE AND TREATMENT 

OF RED WINES. 

The vines are kept near the ground, with low stems and 
short spurs for growing wood. The vintage begins at the 
end of September and is completed by the middle of Octo- 
ber. The grapes are vatted, and allowed to ferment during 
thirty-six hours ; in the lower parts during five days. The 
wines, when in barrel, are treated like those of the Bourgogne 
and Gironde. They are fined with white of egg, and bottled 
in the fourth or fifth year. They are ripe for drinking six 
months after bottling, and are mostly sold in Paris, Lyons, 
and Geneva, provided they are cheap. The better Macon 
wines are sometimes carried into Burgundy to be sold as 
wines of that country. They are very alcoholic, and very 
acid at the same time, and if not mixed with water are not 
an agreeable drink, but excite the heart. It is possible 
that owing to the great acidity the alcohol remains unper- 
ceived in the drinking, and incommodes the consumer 
afterwards. 

1 01. WHITE GRAPE-VINES, AND CHARACTER OF 

THEIR WINE. 

The typical processes of viticulture and vinification, so 
far as white wine is concerned, can be studied at Pouilly 
and Fuisse*. The white vines are trained with long bearing 
canes, having ten eyes each. At the vintage, towards the 
end of September, the grapes are all deposited in baignoires 
and after slight mashing are pressed ; the must is run into 
barrels, and fermentation proceeds. All the white wines 
of the Maconnais district go to the town of Macon, and are 
thence transported to Paris. The Pouilly wine is dry, but 
too heady ; it is not so transparent as the Chablis, but has 
a more golden colour, preferred by many consumers. At 
the end of four years, of which two are spent in bottle, the 
vinosity and bouquet of the wine are fully developed. The 
Fuissd is inferior to Pouilly in finesse and generosity ; it is 
therefore mostly "put under," i.e., mixed with Pouilly. 



WINES OF THE EAST OF FRANCE. 149 

Chaintre' is a pleasing sort of small wine, and of good taste, 
but inferior to Pouilly. A hectare of the best Pouilly vine- 
yard yields about 18 hectolitres of wine, each of which, at 
the vat, is worth 50 francs. The wines of Fuisse" and 
Solutre" are rarely worth more than 40 francs. 

1 02. COTE OF CHALON-SUR-SAONE. 
The vineyards of the arrondissement of Chalon-sur-Saone 
are situated along the Cote of Chalon, and produce mainly 
ordinary wines, more rarely wines analogous to the half-fine 
wines and great ordinaries of the Cote d'Or, which are sold 
under the name of the latter. The vineyards are divided 
into three zones. The lowest is the plain; the next is the 
half cote; and the third, or upper cote, called coteau. The 
plain yields only common wines; the half cote wines of 
ordinary second quality; while the best wines are obtained 
on the incline which commences north of Chalon, runs 
through Sivry, and then subsides in the Maconnais. The soil 
is chalk mixed with clay, silica and ferric oxide ; much of it 
is alluvial. The best growths of the cote are protected by 
hills from the north wind, and the sun shines on them from 
its rising to its setting. The vines which here predominate 
are the Pineau, the Beurot or grey Pineau, in Germany 
called Rulander; the Camay, and the Giboudot, which 
is also called Malain, or " plant of Abraham." In this 
district also the desire of viticulturists for the production of 
quantity is increasing daily, and, in consequence, the black 
Burgundy grape is being diminished in number, while the 
more plenteous bearer the Camay, is being substituted for 
it. The grapes of the latter ripen rather late, and as those 
of the Beurot ripen early, the mixture is harvested before 
the Camay is quite ripe. The "plant of Abraham" has 
only one virtue, its enormous fertility. It has large bunches 
with loose-hanging berries ; these have thick skins, so that 
with the ordinary mode of vatting they remain sometimes 
entire. The wine obtained from them is violet red, harsh 
and sour, and can be drunk only after it has been several 
years in barrel. The white Camay yields a flat white wine 



ISO A TREATISE ON WINES. 

The wines of the Chalonnais are sold in pieces of 228 
litres, and mostly go to Paris. The wine of Mercurey has 
for many years had a great reputation. The merchants of 
Beaune bought this wine in order to mix it with Volnay, to 
which it was very similar, and of which it increased the 
small quantity produced, but with the gradual diminution 
of its quality Mercurey wine lost even this value. A share 
in this decay is due to the general want of intelligence and 
care on the part of the vignerons. It is stated that the 
renting of vineyards at the rent of half the produce does 
not answer well in the Chalonnais. 



CHAPTER XV. 
WINES OF BURGUNDY. 

103. GENERAL OBSERVATION ON THE WINES OF 
BURGUNDY. 

BURGUNDY is probably the oldest viticultural country in 
central Europe, and the art of wine-making migrated thence 
to many parts of France and Germany. In the Middle 
Ages Burgundy was the standard wine on the table of great 
people. When the reputation of Burgundy wine had been 
established, many proprietors without that district desired 
to obtain the vine from which this beautiful beverage was 
produced; and the value of the plant may be estimated 
from the fact recorded in history, that reigning princes of 
Burgundy made presents of such vines to other princes whom 
they befriended. Then the Burgundy vine migrated across 
the Rhine, up the Maine, into Saxony, Bohemia, and Moravia, 
and with it the mode of cultivation which we see in Burgundy. 
The place which Burgundy wine formerly occupied in 
society is now taken by Champagne, and in those parts,, 
for example, of Germany where formerly much Burgundy 
was drunk, now hardly any is met with. But the Nether- 



WINES OF BURGUNDY. 151 

lands and Belgium preserve much of this ancient predilec- 
tion for Burgundy, and in these countries the best wine of 
this kind is to be met with. 



104. VlTICULTURAL DISTRICTS OF BURGUNDY. 

That part of Burgundy which produces the best wines of 
its kind has been called the Cote d'Or, or " golden hillside." 
This is formed by a series of hills, about thirty-six miles in 
length, which stretch from Chalon on the Saone to Dijon, 
their cultivated inclination and exposure being towards the 
east. They are from 200 to 300 feet high, and consist of 
a loose chalk mixed with little clay. Towards the east of 
these hills there expands an enormous fertile plain right to 
the Jura mountains, which in fine weather can be seen, with 
the Mont Blanc behind them. Along these thirty miles of 
declivity an uninterrupted series of vineyards have been 
planted. They begin on the upper third of the hills, never 
ascending to the brow, and then stretch down the inclination 
into the plain, and frequently extend for a mile or two in 
the plain itself. The good vineyards are all situated about 
the lower third of the inclines. The property in the good 
situations is very much divided, so that a vineyard of five 
hectares is very rarely met with. An exception to this is 
the Clos de Vougeot, which has about fifty hectares of vine- 
yard and is surrounded by a wall. The vineyard of the Clos 
appears to the eye to be almost level. The Clos Romance 
Conti has only about two and a half hectares, the Cham- 
bertin four to five hectares. 

As these celebrated vineyards, and all others approaching 
them in quality of product, are very flat, it may be said that 
a vineyard which has an inclination of above ten degrees in 
the Bourgogne does not belong to the first class. Along 
the higher regions of the hills many deserted vineyards with 
old terraces may be discovered. They demonstrate that the 
vine does not succeed above a certain height along the 
incline. In the Champagne also the black Burgundy grape 
does not rise up to the crest of the hill, but at the upper 
third is replaced by the white Burgundy. Thus nature limited 



152 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the production of Burgundy on two sides ; on the side of the 
mountain by spring frosts, and on the side of the plain by 
want of quality of the produce. 



105. VARIETIES OF VINES PLANTED IN BURGUNDY. 

The vineyards of Burgundy are populated by a mixture 
of vines termed by the vignerons Passe-tous-grains. The 
black-graped vine peculiar to, perhaps indigenous of Bur- 
gundy, the Pineau or Noirien, is the dominating variety 
along the Cote ; but in the ordinary situations, and in small 
vineyards, white and red grapes are found among the black. 
The Pineau is also the dominating grape in the Champagne. 
But by the side of it there is another variety, the Camay, 
the dominant grape of the Maconnais and Beaujolais. This 
latter grape gives a wine of much inferior quality, but the 
vine bears much more abundantly, for which reason it is 
preferred by those vignerons who get paid for quantity only. 
The must of the Noirien is much sweeter than that of the 
Camay, showing one-eighth more sugar than the latter. 
The vines themselves are not easily distinguished from each 
other by external appearance, but more easily by their fruit, 
that of the Camay being larger in the berries and frequently 
showing some unripe ones; while the Noirien is always of 
equal ripeness in all its berries. The Camay is the same 
vine with that planted at Bolle in Switzerland, and there 
called La Dole; a great amount of effervescent wine is 
manufactured from it at VeVais on the Lake of Geneva. 
Another variety of vine which frequently occurs in Burgundy 
is one bearing light red, almost grey grapes, called Beurot, 
known in Germany as Rulander. Of white grape-vines there 
is the Chardenay or White Burgundy, which is grown in the 
Champagne in the higher-lying vineyards, but also mixed 
with the other vines, and prevails in the northern part of 
Burgundy, yielding among others the celebrated wine of 
Chablis. 



WINES OF BURGUNDY. 
1 06. MODE OF CULTIVATION. 



153 



New plantations follow the ordinary general rules ; young 
plants do not bear before the fifth or sixth year ; they are 
dressed upon two spurs, kept low on the ground, and sup- 
ported by stakes. Single vines are replaced by sinkers. 
Rejuvenescence by sinking all the vines, as is frequently 
practised in the Champagne, a process which gives to many 




Fig. 32. Burgundy Vine as it ought to be dressed, according to Guyot. 
A' B' the bearing or fruit cane. C D 1 the space for growing next 
year's fruit cane. 

vineyards of this district the aspect of great youthfulness, 
is not effected with regularity or extensively. Along the 
cotes of Beaune we have observed many vineyards with vines 
at least twenty years old, and having their bearing systems 
a foot and a half above the ground, a condition preventing 
excellence in the product ; moreover, the yearly branches 
are then so high that the stakes cannot carry them any 
more. Such vines would therefore be advantageously treated 
by the sinking process usual in the Champagne. Each plant 



154 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

shoots three new canes, which are allowed to grow until the 
middle of summer. They are then tied together at the top, 
and when the grapes begin to colour the tops are cut off, 
excepting those of all canes which it is intended to sink, 
these are allowed to grow to their full length. 

As the reproduction of the vine is practised very irregularly, 
the vineyards of Burgundy do not present that remarkably 
cultivated, orderly, and youthful appearance of the vineyards 
of the Champagne. On the contrary, the peculiar sight is 
one of great inequality, very young vines being mixed with 
very old ones, and very low ones with very high ones. The 
soil, moreover, is stony, and is not so well attended to as 
elsewhere ; many stones are brought to the surface by the 
sinking of ditches for the laying of canes ; these sinkers 
affect about one-fifteenth of all the vines every year, so that 
a vineyard is rejuvenesced gradually once every fifteen years. 

The vineyards are manured as well as possible; all the 
labour is done by hand, and there is no ploughing. The 
vineyards are divided into ouvrees, or areas, which give a 
day's work to a man; such an ouvrbe has 3,645 square feet. 
The sinking, up to twenty vines per ouvree, is included in the 
contract ; a higher number of sinkers has to be paid for 
beyond the wages. In many parts of Burgundy the old 
arrangement prevails by which the labourer does all the 
work in the vineyard, and receives half the harvest as his 
payment. Such a vigneron generally has from three to four 
hectares under his charge ; he is aided by his family. He 
carries all the earth and manure, finds the poles or stakes, 
performs the vintage, presses the wine, and, in short, does 
every operation until the wine is in barrel. In parts where 
the wines are very good and high in price the viticulturist 
has yet to bear the half of the State taxes and of the com- 
munal imposts. The proprietor, however, allows him some 
collateral advantages, in the shape of plots of land for the 
keeping of animals, and free lodging. This peculiar practice 
of dividing estates into vintageries or vigneronnages, has been 
carried into Saxony, particularly into the neighbourhood of 
Dresden, where the whole wine-producing district is culti- 
vated upon the pattern of Burgundy. 



WINES OF BURGUNDY. 1 55 

Grafting, In Burgundy also much grafting is practised, 
the slip, sinker, or sunken cane being grafted with its end into 
a groove made in the stem which has to be renewed or 
lowered. The labour of this process is no doubt great, but 
as grapes can be obtained from grafts sometimes in the first, 
mostly in the second year, the expense of the labour is 
sometimes at least partly repaid. 



107. VINTAGE. 

The period of the vintage in Burgundy fluctuates between 
the latter end of September and first half of October. Early 
vintages are supposed to prognosticate a better wine, for of 
course they result from a favourable summer season. In some 
communes there is yet the vintage ban, a regulation intended 
to protect the grape-harvest by keeping everybody out of 
the vineyard from the time the grapes begin to ripen until 
the time of the vintage. Even the proprietors are not 
allowed to enter their own vineyards except perhaps once a 
week, during an interval which is announced by the village 
bells. When the grapes are ripe a commission is appointed, 
consisting generally of the mayor, a proprietor, a practical 
vigneron, and one merchant. This commission, while 
visiting the vineyard, forms an opinion whether or not the 
grapes ought to be collected. When they have fixed the 
time they announce it to the mayor, or the prefect, and it 
is published by the town-crier or by other means. This 
peculiar law does, of course, not affect enclosed properties. 
The Gironde abolished it effectually during the revolution- 
Burgundy did the same, but the law was re-enacted under 
the restoration. In the Rhenish provinces of Germany this 
law was also abolished, at least remained only in a harmless 
modified form, as a faculty never practised ; but in Wurtem- 
berg and some of the wine-producing districts east of the 
Rhine it has been retained, and exercises an impeding 
influence on the progress of viticulture ; for the vineyards 
owner whose grapes, owing to situation or variety of vine, 
ripen early, has to let them hang until the late ripening 



156 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

grapes in the district have attained a tolerable maturity ; and 
when he comes to his vineyard he finds his crop either eaten 
by flies and other vermin, or rotten, or overripe, and in any 
case it yields him a lesser quantity or quality of wine. He 
who has late ripening grapes, cannot let them hang to 
ripen, because, from the moment that the vintage is over, he 
loses the protection of the public custody of the fields. 

When the grapes are collected, they are put into a large 
vat, called ballonge, fixed on a waggon ; in this they are 
trodden down by a man as fast and firmly as possible. 
When the vat is full the carter dismounts, rubs his feet on 
the nearest bundle of grass, puts on his boots, drives the 
cart home, and sees the grapes put into the large vats. The 
carter then returns with his ballonge, until the whole of the 
harvest is at home. In this manner the great bulk of the 
Burgundy grapes are carried home ; but we have also seen 
instances of better treatment, in which the grapes were cut, 
cleaned, their stalks were removed, and the murk was 
fermented by itself. Here, as in the Champagne, many of 
the grapes are sold while hanging on the vines, and the 
proprietors collect them according to the prescription of the 
purchasers. Many wine-merchants buy the whole harvest 
of a vineyard and collect the grapes themselves. Frequently 
the grapes are bought by others after they have been 
collected by the proprietors, and during the vintage an 
active trade in grapes is carried on along all the roadsides 
in viticultural Burgundy ; there are the baskets full of 
grapes, and anyone who likes can come and buy. The 
grapes are measured by feuillettes, being barrels of 114 litres 
capacity, being half a piece, or a quarter queue ; the half 
queue or entire piece in Burgundy therefore contains 228 
litres. The feuillettes used for measuring the grapes are 
provided with two iron handles. The grapes are filled in 
without pressure, and when the vessel is brimful the grapes 
are heaped on the top as high as possible. Ten feuillettes 
full of grapes generally give one queue, or two pieces of 
must ; or 1,140 litres of grapes give 456 litres of must; or 
z\ bulks of grapes give one bulk of must; until the wine be 
made this proportion is again changed, and nearly three 



WINES OF BURGUNDY. 157 

volumes of grapes are requisite to furnish one volume of 
finished wine, having passed the spring racking. 



1 08. VATTING AND FERMENTATION. 

The grapes are transferred from the ballonges to the vats 
or cuves by a coarse process in which a kind of hook, 
called a grappe, is employed. The ripest berries are broken,, 
but many of the harder ones remain entire and have to be 
broken by the press. The vats are generally higher than- 
they are broad, and narrower at the top than at the base. 
This shape has practical advantages on account of the 
facility with which the hoops can be kept tight. Their 
height is between five and six feet ; they are not provided 
with any opening at the bottom or side for letting off the 
wine, but throughout Burgundy the wine is drawn from the 
vats by syphons. The cuves are therefore raised only one 
foot from the ground, instead of three or four feet as in the 
Gironde. Every proprietor endeavours to fill a cuve in one 
day. Some vignerons moisten the inside of the vat with 
brandy, to take away what they call the taste of the wood ~ r 
but as they do not afterwards remove the brandy with the 
woody taste from the cuve, the process results in an addition? 
of spirit to the wine. The cuve is filled to within a foot 
from the top. A narrow basket of the height of the cuve is- 
fixed to the inner side, and serves as a well, or space free 
from the murk of the grapes, from which the wine is drawn, 
by the syphon after fermentation. In many parts of Bur- 
gundy the addition of sugar to the must is very common^ 
We have witnessed this addition, which in some cases- 
amounted to twenty pounds to the piece. This increase of 
the eventual alcoholicity preserves the Burgundy better from 
secondary fermentations, to which it is so liable. A quick 
fermentation, completed in about six days, is desirable for 
Burgundy to effect a complete extraction of the colour and 
perfect decomposition of the sugar. 

While the fermentation proceeds the murk rises to the 
top and forms the hat or chapeau. This being penetrated 
with or supported by gas, rises above the level of the liquor.. 



f$8 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

As long as the chapeau continues to rise or remain sta- 
tionary, the fermentation must be allowed to proceed. In 
-case the weather becomes cold, and impedes fermentation, it is 
.necessary to warm the fermenting room, by means of stoves, 
up to 80 or 90 F. When the chapeau begins to sink it is 
-necessary to draw the wine in order to prevent the upper 
or somewhat spoiled and acetified part from coming into 
contact with the wine and imparting to it a disagreeable 
taste. Another criterion of the proper moment for drawing 
the wine is the specific gravity of the liquor. This is ascer- 
tained by an areometer so constructed that its zero indicates 
the point at which the sugar has completely disappeared. 
The colour of the wine is also ascertained by means of a 
small vessel called a tasse, embossed with hollows, bumps 
and ridges, and highly polished, so that the light can be 
reflected through the wine in all directions. The wine is 
not often drawn before it is of a sufficiently deep colour. 
The extraction of the colour is completed by a process of 
distributing the chapeau in the wine repeatedly. This is 
done by men who in a state of nudity penetrate the 
chapeau, sink into the wine, and then mix the chapeau 
with the wine for half-an-hour or longer. The spoiled parts 
of the chapeau have been previously taken off. After the 
lapse of several hours the husks have again risen to the top, 
and, if not well decolorised, are mixed a second time with the 
wine by the men. The work is very severe upon the men, 
for, owing to the large quantities of carbonic acid evolved, 
they are mostly deadly pale or blue, and pant and hang 
their heads over the edges of the cuves, gasping for fresh 
air. We cannot approve this method of effecting the/outage, 
otherwise so necessary, any more than the dirty proceeding 
of treading the grapes observable in the Gironde or in Spain. 
Many more cautious proprietors avoid the spoiling of any 
portion of the chapeau, either by keeping it submerged by 
wicker-work loaded with weights, or by closing the vat with 
a wooden cover, luted by means of loam or clay; the 
more rustic and poorer vignerons cover the vat with a layer of 
clay or loam, to which cow dung has been added to give it 
^cohesion. No wonder, then, that much of the wine that is 



WINES OF BURGUNDY. 159 

made in Burgundy has a strange, disagreeable taste, and 
does not keep ; that along the Cote there is made not only 
the best wine in the world, but also the worst ; that in not a 
single hotel or inn along the Cote a single bottle of Bur- 
gundian wine fit to be drunk by any traveller accustomed to 
fair wine is to be obtained, as we testify from personal expe- 
rience ; what is set before the traveller is cheap Vin du Midi, 
and the growth of the vineyard within sight is as good as 
unknown. We cannot be astonished that Burgundy wine is 
subject to those many alterations called "diseases," such 
as bitterness, loss of colour, acetification, etc. 

After \.\\.Qfoulage the wine is drawn by means of a syphon 
fixed in the wicker-well already mentioned, and put into 
barrels or pieces of 228 litres each. The after-fermentation 
is completed in the cellar, and the wine is racked in February 
and ready for sale in March. Common wine may be drunk 
at the end of the first year. The good wines require four 
years in barrel and several years in bottle before they 
develop their full qualities ; but during that time they give 
to the proprietors and the wine-merchants a great amount of 
trouble, and require very attentive treatment. 

When the wine is drawn the murk is put upon the press, 
and the wine thus obtained is added to the wine drawn by 
the syphon. The pressed murk is then sometimes used to 
make a second wine, or piquette, which is very much 
relished by the working vignerons. The presses commonly 
in use in Burgundy are the long-beam presses, which for- 
merly prevailed everywhere, and are only gradually disap- 
pearing. The beams are of oak, from fifteen to thirty feet 
in length, and exercise their pressure upon a space of twelve 
feet square as maximum. The beam is weighted at its end 
by a box of stones, or a millstone, or even several mill- 
stones. The weights are made to exercise this influence 
by being raised by an enormous screw passing through the 
free end of the beam. In some parts presses like those in 
the Champagne are used. Of course, with the progress of 
time, the round or square screw presses take the place of 
these old constructions, which are difficult to manage and 
consume much time in their application. 



160 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

The wines are mostly drawn into small casks, but on large 
properties, e.g., the Clos Vougeot, the wine is laid in barrels 
containing from ten to thirty pieces, and is drawn into single 
pieces only after it has been sold. While the young wine is in 
the chais, the barrels are carefully kept full (ouille). The 
fining of wines is effected by means of white of egg. 

The wines of Burgundy are sold by \h& piece of 228 litres, 
the feuillette of 114 litres, the quartant of 57 litres, and the 
bouteilleGi 75 centilitres or three-quarters of a litre. In the 
case of great wines the price of the cask is always included 
in that of the wine. Quotations are mostly loco Beaune, 
the centre of the trade of the Cote d'Or. 

An hectare of vineyard planted with Pineaus produces on 
an average annually fifteen hectolitres of wine, while the 
common varieties of vines produce from fifty to sixty hecto- 
litres per hectare. 

For further details concerning the statistics of viticulture 
in Burgundy, we refer the reader to the table of the " Comite 
d'Agriculture de 1'Arrondissement de Beaune." This publi- 
cation also contains a good map of the Cote. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 

109. WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 

THE Champagne is an ancient province of France, spread 
out under three degrees of latitude, the 47th to the 49th. At 
the division of France into departments it was cut up into 
four parts, which, united with other communes, were formed 
into the departments of the Ardennes, the Marne, the Upper 
Marne, and the Aube. The celebrated wine called Cham- 
pagne is obtained only in the department of the Marne, which 
includes the prefectures of Chalons-sur-Marne, Epernay, 
Rheims, Saint-Mendhould, and Vitry-sur-Marne. These 



WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. l6l 

prefectures contain 19,589 hectares of vineyards, which are 
situated on the territories of 453 communities, and belong 
to 27,018 proprietors. An average vintage produces about 
700,000 hectolitres, of which more than a quarter is drunk by 
the inhabitants themselves. Good wine is produced only in 
the prefectures of Rheims and Epernay. The vineyards of 
the former are situated around the slopes of a wooded moun- 
tain, which is called the Bois et montagne de Rheims. No vines 
grow in the plain, and none grow above a certain height on 
the slopes of the mountain. About one-half of the vineyards 
lie on the north-eastern slope, and the other half on the 
southern slope of this little mountain. In the former are 
situated the celebrated growths of Bouzy, of Verzy, and of 
Verzenay, and if the tourist who visits the Champagne starts 
from Bouzy, and walks along the road northward and north- 
westward, he will gradually pass all these celebrated places 
one by one, and terminate his tour at Villers, a few miles 
south of Rheims. The growths situated on the southern 
slope include Ay, Haut Villers, and a number of others. 
These latter vineyards extend from the slope of the mountain 
to very near the border of the Marne, but the plain in 
which the Marne itself flows is destitute of vines. The second 
district lies south of the Marne, and its centre is Epernay. 
It is bordered on the west by the forest of Anguien, the 
smaller one of Brugny, and in the south by that of Vertus. 
It is one continuous, splendid vineyard, and besides the 
growths of Epernay, yields those of Cramant and Avize. 

The soil of the Champagne is composed of chalk, sand, 
and clay in varying proportions. The vegetation does not 
show any particular signs of luxuriance ; the northern district, 
which slopes toward the north-east, would, on theoretical 
grounds, be supposed to be very unfavourable to the growth 
of the vine for wine, for throughout the world we find that 
the declivities of mountains sloping towards the meridian 
and exposed to the sun are those which produce the best 
wine, and that eastern and western exposures are less 
favourable, and northern declivitits almost unproductive. 
The explanation is supposed to be this. To the north and 
east of the Bouzy and Verzenay districts extends a great 
II 



1 62 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

plain, over which the sun exercises a free influence so as to 
warm the soil during the daytime to a very high temperature. 
Much of this land is barren and bears only a few wretched 
pines. It is termed the "lousy Champagne" (Champagne 
fouilleuse). Another part is cultivated, but no part of it is 
so covered by vegetation as to prevent the sun from striking 
the soil. During the whole of the summer months, from 
June to September, the prevailing current of the air over 
this plain is in the direction of the mountain of Rheims ; 
the air thus passing abstracts heat from the soil, and thus, on 
reaching the vines, not only adds to the direct effect of the 
sun upon them, but is an auxiliary to their progress during 
the evening and throughout the entire night. This phenomenon 
seems fully sufficient to explain the magnificent development 
which the vines and grapes attain round the whole of that 
Cote. 



no. WINE-PRODUCING PART OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 

The wine-producing part of the Champagne from its extreme 
north, namely Rheims, to the southernmost point, Vertus, 
lias a diameter of about forty-five English miles. The 
centre of the whole district is Epernay, on the borders of 
the Marne. The slopes of Verzenay, Verzy, Saint Basle, 
Villers, Marctnary, and Bouzy are formed on a series of 
rounded promontories running out from the main mountain, 
the gentle valleys between which, down to the beginning of 
the plain, are all covered with vines. But the slopes of 
Mareuil, Ay, Dizy, and Haut Villers are more rapid. From 
the heights of Ay, one can see the extent of the whole Cote 
of the Marne in an easterly as well as westerly direction, and 
also perceive a great part of the vineyards south of Epernay. 

The vineyards south of Epernay extend over an undulating 
plain southward to Vertus. From Pierry to Vertus the 
territory consists of an irregular accumulation of small chalk 
hills which slope towards the east. Epernay has 6,000 
inhabitants, its only trade being in wine. Rheims has 40,000 
inhabitants, and, besides a remarkable trade in wine, has a 



WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 163 

very important industry in spinning, weaving, and dyeing, 
particularly of woollen goods. To the east of the Champagne 
wine district, and almost out of it, lies Chalons-sur-Marne, 
which has 13,000 inhabitants, and an important trade in 
wine. This localization of the manufacture of Champagne 
at Chalons is due almost exclusively to the circumstance that 
the chalk hills running along both sides of the valley are 
composed of so favourable a material, that large cellars, 
which do not require any masonry to support them, can be 
easily excavated. In consequence, these chalk hills are 
pierced by cellars like honeycombs, and millions of bottles 
of Champagne are constantly stored in them and sent out of 
them to all parts of the world. 

In coming from Rheims towards Sillery we observed a 
little plot of vineyards, said to be the celebrated Bruyeres 
de Mailly, which used to form the pretext for the so-called 
Sillery wine. The Chateau of Sillery formerly belonged to 
the widow of Marshal d'Estrees, and as she possessed some 
of the finest vineyards in Verzy and Verzenay, and caused 
their products to be treated with particular attention in her 
cellars at Sillery, this name obtained a notoriety which its ten 
acres of vineyard actually situated there could never have 
obtained for it. The chateau afterwards went into the 
possession of Madame de Stael, and later into that of M. 
Ruinard de Brimont ; some years ago it was owned by 
M. Jacqueson, of Chalons. Not very far from this little 
chateau is the estate of Romont, to which now a great part 
of the Bruyeres and some of the vineyards at Verzenay 
belong, which yield the best so-called Sillery. 

In one of our cenological peregrinations we started from 
Sillery and walked to Verzenay. The road crosses the great 
canal repeatedly, then goes along it, and, suddenly turning to 
the right, tends towards the mountain. From this road a 
most lovely view of Verzenay is enjoyed. It is a bright 
village, lying on the high part of the saddle formed by two 
promontories projecting from the main mountain. Behind 
it is the green forest of the mountain of Rheims. In front 
of it are open cultivated plains, and the tops of the two hills 
which mark its lateral limits are surmounted by two 



1 64 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

enormous windmills, which impart to the beautiful view a 
kind of animation. The soft verdure of the expanses of 
vineyards is most pleasing to the eye. Passing through the 
vineyards and the village we went across the heights towards 
Verzy and Saint Basle, the character of the country remain- 
ing much the same ; but, as the promontories ran more to- 
wards the east, one of these declivities formed a good southern 
exposure. The best among them were at Contures and 
Minets. We everywhere perceived that the lower part of the 
cotes bore the black Burgundy grape, while in the higher parts, 
toward the forest, the white Burgundy grapes were mostly 
grown, but in many parts of the vineyards which we visited 
we saw a few white Burgundy among the black. Having 
passed Verzy, we found an interruption in the continuity of 
the vineyards of several miles in length ; continuing our 
journey southward we came to Bouzy. This is celebrated 
for its red wine, the so-called still red Champagne; but 
many of the grapes grown there are also used for making 
white Champagne. The soil is chalky, ferruginous, and 
contains many pebbles. A few miles south of Bouzy ends 
the viticultural district of the cote of Rheims, and the 
traveller passes ordinary fields towards the Marne to enter 
upon the southern cote at Mareuil. In wandering through 
the splendid situations of Mareuil, Ay, Dizy. and Haut Villers,. 
we saw an uninterrupted, undulating, splendidly green vine- 
yard, wound like a mantle round the slopes of the Rheims 
mountain. Below Haut Villers, which, as its name indicates, 
is situated rather high, and nearly opposite Epernay, the 
mountain projects more towards the Marne, corresponding 
to a similar projection northwards of the mountain which 
runs behind Epernay towards Pierry. By this arrangement 
a wide kettle-like valley is formed in which Epernay appears 
as the inhabited centre. Among the hills which form the 
best situations from Mareuil to Haut Villers, the mountain 
of Ay is distinguished by its form, inclination and exposure. 
It has a height of about 200 feet and an inclination of about 
20, being exposed towards the south-south-west. Upon its 
side lies the village of Ay, which in its environs has manv 
beautiful gardens and villas, giving signs of opulence anj 



\VIXES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 1 6$ 

well-being. Indeed Ay is the most lovely place in the 
whole Champagne, The cote runs uninterruptedly by 
Dizy towards Haut Villers, a length of six English miles. 
Here mostly black Burgundy grapes are grown. Most of the 
vineyards of Haut Villers lie below the village, so that, seen 
from a distance, this village seems to crown a mount of 
vines ; its best situations are called les quartieres and Hataut. 
From Haut Villers viticulture is continued along the right 
bank of the Marne to Chatillon. 

Passing to the south of the Marne, and starting from 
Epernay to Pierry, we observed that the exposure of the 
vineyards became south-easterly. In the neighbourhood of 
Pierry the vegetation is much richer than in other parts of 
the Champagne. The grapes are larger and blacker, so that 
one is almost tempted to think they are another kind. In 
this part the variety called Meunier, or miller vine, is often 
blended with others. It is recognized by the white felt 
which covers the dark -green leaves, and particularly the tops 
of young shoots, and gives them an appearance of having 
been dusted with flour. The soil is very stony, a fact appa- 
rently incorporated in the name of the village. On passing 
over a considerable chalk hill, the traveller finds near 
Cramont, and more southerly, near Avize, a cote or series of 
hills having an easterly exposure, and being covered with 
vines. This cote runs from Cramont, Avize, Ojer, and Le 
Menil up to Vertus, where the vine cultivation terminates. 
In this part mostly white grapes are grown, and it is stated 
that the black grapes do not succeed so well. Avize 
has from 700 to 800 acres of vineyard, amongst them one 
with a southern exposure, called Goutte d'Or. This name is 
very common in France and indicates everywhere a place 
where a good wine is grown. 

As the basis of the geological formation of the Champagne 
is chalk with pebbles, the fructiferous covering of cultivated 
ground could only have been formed by the superaddition 
of alluvial masses, and these we find, singularly enough, upon 
the high points of the mountains. Much clay has been 
washed down from them by the agency of rain, and 
enormous quantities of it are annually carried on the backs 



1 66 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

of donkeys or mules, or in waggons and baskets, into the 
vineyards. One particular kind of clay is termed cendriere 
(ash soil). We observed this black material in the neighbour- 
hood of Verzy and Verzenay, where a trade was apparently 
being carried on in it, there being depositories at frequent 
intervals along the road, and establishments where it was 
mixed with manure and other matters, and formed into a 
kind of compost. We ascertained that it contained gypsum, 
iron oxide, clay and sand. 



in. CULTIVATION OF THE VINE IN CHAMPAGNE. 

The management of the Champagne vineyard differs in 
some important particulars from that which prevails in other 
districts. The established wines are every three years sunk 
into the ground, and one year's wood alone is allowed to 
project from the ground and to form the new vines. Every 
vineyard, almost, thus becomes a continuous nursery for the 
formation of young vines. It is to this circumstance, that 
no vine which appears above ground has older wood than 
three years, that the whole of the vineyards of the Champagne 
owe their juvenile aspect. In the Medoc one sees vines 
perhaps 150 years old, in the districts of St. Emilion and 
Sauternes one sees vines which are seventy or eighty years 
old, but in the Champagne district all that appears above 
ground is only one, two, or three years old. The method of 
the Champagne viticulture might therefore be called viti- 
culture by constant rejuvenescence. The vines are pruned 
so as to leave to each plant two or three branches, with 
from two to four eyes each. The soil is worked by manual 
labour with the hoe, never ploughed, and manured as much 
as possible. The cultivation of an acre of vineyard costs 
from 1 60 to 240 francs per annum. 



112. VALUE OF THE VINEYARDS. 

Throughout the Champagne the prices of vineyards are 
very high, because of the great subdivision of the soil, which 
allows as many as 27,000 proprietors to participate in the 



WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. l6/ 

benefit of its cultivation by manual labour. At Verzy an 
acre of vineyard sells at from 4,000 to 10,000 francs; at Ay 
for 6,000 francs ; at Epernay, Pierry and Haut Villers the 
acre frequently sells at from 12,000 to 16,000 francs; at 
Avize the average price is 4,000 francs, that of the better 
situations rises up to 8,000 francs. 



113. VARIETIES OF VINES GROWN IN THE CHAMPAGNE. 

The prevailing vine in the Champagne is the one called 
Plant dore, black-graped, identical with the black-graped vine 
of Burgundy, there called Noirien or Pineau. The Pineau is 
sometimes distinguished from the Noirien and called Gros 
Plant dore. The bunches of the Pineau are less cramped or 
closely set, while those of the Noirien are more dense and 
rounded off; but the difference in other properties is so 
small as to appear irrelevant. The true Plant dore ripens 
its grapes equally, while the Noirien, here at least, always 
shows a few green berries among the black ones. The 
Pineau is the most fructiferous and gives on large bunches 
strong grapes. We have not been able to ascertain whether 
these popularly admitted varieties are true varieties or not. 
We have seen the Plant dore at Pierry with such thick, 
glistening and black berries that it seemed almost a different 
vine from the one at Verzy, and yet it was the same. Indeed 
the black Burgundy grape changes its non-essential properties 
according to situation, soil or climate, and its development 
into Pineau, or Plant dore is the effect of accidental 
circumstances. 

Next to these black-graped vines, which yield the best 
white Champagne, there is grown in the neighbourhood of 
Epernay the Meunier, or miller. This gives a wine of inferior 
quality, but bears more than the Plant dore. The white 
Champagne grape, called gros blanc and petit blanc, and also 
the white of good nature, is identical with the white Burgundy 
grape, the Chardenay from which, among others, the wine of 
Chablis is made. About one-third of the whole of the 
vines in the Champagne are of this white kind. It dominates 



1 68 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

in the upper part of the Champagne, near Avize, Vertus, and 
Cramant ; in the lower part of the Champagne, from Ay to 
Rheims, the heights are planted with this vine. The majority 
of the old vineyards are yet planted half with white and half 
with black grapes, a mixture which was formerly supposed 
to be the most suitable to produce great mousse in the wine. 
At the present time the Champagne makers prefer to keep 
the varieties separate, and to mix the young wine from 
white grapes with that from black grapes only in spring, 
after the nature of their separate fermentation is known. 
The white vines are more hardy, and less liable to suffer 
from spring frosts and other calamities. When we visited 
the Champagne in 1867 we found that the Pineaus had 
suffered greatly at various periods of the year, and yielded 
the most indifferent harvests, while the white Burgundy or 
Champagne vines, which stood mixed with the Pineaus 
\vhich had suffered, were full of healthy, large and tolerably 
sweet grapes. Thus, to the cultivator of vineyards, the 
white Champagne grape is a kind of assurance in bad years ; 
the Pineau failing, the Chardenay will at least give him 
his house-drink. 

Here and there a little Gamai's, the dominant vine of the 
Maconnais, is met with, but it gives a sour wine unsuitable 
for the production of Champagne. Another white grape 
which occurs here and there is the Marmot vert, -identical 
with the Elbling of the Moselle and the Goix <f Orleans. A 
variety is moreover met with which the Germans call Rulander, 
and which is in effect a black Burgundy which has become 
half white, and hence is called "smoked." Of the German 
varieties, the Riessling, Traminer, Sylvaner, and Austrians, 
not a single plant can be discovered throughout the Cham- 
pagne. 

On the whole, then, the character of the effervescent 
Champagne vines is derived mainly from the black Burgundy 
grape the small and large varieties with which in good 
years is mixed a certain quantity of white Chardenay ; the 
still Champagnes are made, the red varieties from the black 
Pineau only; the white varieties (for example, the excellent 
white Verzenay) from the white Chardenay only. 



WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 



I6 9 



114. VINTAGE IN THE CHAMPAGNE. 
Of the 700,000 hectolitres of wine produced annually in 
the department of the Maine, a quantity which would 
amount to eighty millions of bottles, only about 180,000 
hectolitres, or twenty-two millions of bottles, are trans- 
formed into effervescent wine. That is, a little more than 
one-fourth of the whole quantity produced. The rest is 




Fig. 33. Gathering of the grapes in Champagne. 



transformed to a small extent into white, but for the most 
part into red wine. The production of red wine is much 
like that usual in Burgundy, and therefore does not require 
here a description, but the production of white wine offers 
peculiarities which we must follow. 

There is no vintage-ban in the Champagne. The pro- 
prietors either take off the grapes themselves, press them, 
and sell the wine in December or January, or they sell the 
grapes as they are on the vines, which is called " selling the 



170 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

harvest." This is done either according to an estimate of 
the quantity per acre, or the grapes are measured after 
having been cut, and the agreed sum is paid for the grapes 
delivered. In bad years from six to seven hectolitres of 
grapes may be necessary to produce a hectolitre of wine, 
while ordinarily five cr four and a half would be sufficient 
to produce that quantity. The vintage attracts great num- 
bers of labourers of both sexes, and proprietors of mules, 
donkeys, horses, carts, etc., to the district. It is preferred 
to cut the grapes early in the morning, even though they 
should be yet a little wet from dew, because it is necessary 
to press them while they are cool, to prevent the incipient 
fermentation from extracting any colouring matter from the 
husk, for, although made from black grapes, Champagne is 
nowadays the more valuable the more colourless it is. The 
cut grapes are carefully cleaned, and carried in baskets or 
panniers to the press-house. The animation of a harvest 
day in the Champagne can hardly be imagined. Through- 
out all the green undulating vineyards hundreds and thou- 
sands of people are dispersed ; all the roads are lined with the 
cleaners, and the heaps of grapes on trays and in panniers. 
Everywhere donkeys stand to wait for new loads, or go in 
long strings along the narrow paths of the driving roads. 
So peculiar is this scene to the Champagne, that in our 
many oenological peregrinations we have never observed 
anything like it in any other of the wine-growing countries 
which we have visited. The donkey is a symbol of the 
vintage in the Champagne, as the great oxen are the symbol 
of its culture in the Medoc. Nowhere else have we seen 
grapes intended for wine carried home in baskets. The 
grapes of the Me*doc, for example, would lose half their 
juice if they were so carried, as they become crushed by 
their own pressure, or fall off the stalks by slight shaking. 
On the occasions of our visits to the Champagne in harvest- 
time we were much struck with the good-nature and hospi- 
tality of the population. Many persons carrying home their 
produce would speak to us, or answer our greeting, and 
invite us to taste their grapes an offer which had not always 
the object of effecting a sale. The value of a hectolitre cf 



WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 



I/I 



grapes in bad years is 5 francs, in middling years 10 francs, 
and in very good years it rises to from 12 to 15 francs. 



115. PRESSING, FERMENTATION, CELLARING, AND 

FINING OF THE WINE. 

The presses in the Champagne are complicated and 
powerful machines. The nuts of the iron screws, of which 




ig- 34- The wine press of the small proprietor. 



there are two to each press, of the size of a strong man's leg, 
are worked by means of a toothed wheel, which is itself 
turned by a large upright wheel to which four or five men 
can apply their strength. This great power of the pressing 
apparatus is necessary because the grapes do not go through 
any process of crushing before being placed into the press ; 



1/2 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the entire grapes as they are emptied from the panniers are 
thrown on the press, and the press is the only agent that 
extracts the wine. The first must which runs from the 
press is the best, and goes by the name of " the first drop." 
In middling years this must is kept separate for the pro- 
duction of the best quality of wine. The cake of murk is 
repeatedly trimmed, the sides are cut off and thrown upon 
the middle, and pressure is re-applied. The fourth drawing 
is generally a harsh must, with much stalk-juice, and can 
only in good years, when the stalks are very dry and yield 
no juice, be mixed with the first three drawings. Forty 
basicetfuls of grapes are generally put upon the press at 
one and the same time, and yield ten pieces of wine. The 
entire process of pressing one quantity has to be finished in 
two hours; if that time be exceeded the must becomes 
coloured. The must obtained by the first three pressings 
(called serres) is put into a large vat standing by the side of 
the press ; each such vat takes on an average not less than 
ten pieces. In these vats, called cuves, the must is allowed to 
stand at rest for from six to eighteen hours, to throw up a 
froth to the top, and deposit a mucous matter at the bottom. 
From both these impurities the must is separated and 
drawn into small barrels of two hectolitres capacity and 
left to ferment. This clearing of the must is also frequently 
effected by filtration, particularly in hot weather. If the 
season be warm this clearing must be favoured by sulphur- 
ing the must to delay fermentation. The purified must is 
then allowed to ferment in the chais, or cellar, and to lie 
quiet until the weather has become cold, about the middle 
of December. The wine, then mostly clear, is now drawn 
from the lees. As the wine has now, to a certain extent, 
declared its quality, purchases can be made with more safety 
than at harvest-time, but of a less speculative kind, and at 
higher prices ; thus commerce becomes enlivened at that 
period. It is now that the Champagne-making houses carry 
to their own establishments the wvie bespoke in autumn, 
or newly bought by their agents, particularly that which 
they stand in need of for mixing with the qualities which 
ihey may have themselves produced. This mixing is one 



WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 1/3 

of the most important operations in the production of 
Champagne. Every manufacturer is, of course, obliged to 
produce the varieties which the public demand, and the 
object of all the Champagne houses is to produce, by the 
art of mixing, wines which shall satisfy the particular de- 
mands, or represent particular qualities under particular 
names of localities. When these necessary ingredients have 
been brought together they are mixed by vatting, and drawn 
off into barrels for further treatment. 

The wine is next fined by the introduction of isinglass. 
This is pounded small, soaked and swelled up in wine, 
kneaded with the hands, and driven through a sieve to 
disintegrate all solid particles, and then mixed with sufficient 
wine to produce a semi-fluid paste. It is then allowed to 
stand for twenty-four hours, when it has again formed a set 
jelly. The adding of wine and the kneading with hands is 
then continued daily, until the isinglass does not swell any 
more, or as it is technically expressed, " ceases to grow." The 
fining material is now ready ; it is passed through a tammy 
once more, and the necessary quantity of it is then put into 
each barrel and mixed with the wine by strong agitation. 
The wine generally becomes clear in from twelve to fourteen 
hours. One hundred pieces, or little barrels, require a pound 
of isinglass, provided the wine was pretty clear when it was 
put into the barrels ; but in case the wine was thick, each 
barrel requires a quarter of an ounce of isinglass, which is 
about double the quantity previously mentioned. Through- 
out the Champagne these operations of fining are effected in 
the small barrels. The reason for this is the facility with 
which the wine is kept cold in them, so as to prevent every 
chance of even the slightest degree of fermentation being set 
up. All these operations are carried on in a shed above 
ground, which is called a cellar or cellier, and corresponds 
to the chais of the Me"doc. After the application of the 
finings, and their thorough incorporation, the wine is left at 
rest for a week or a fortnight, and if clear, is racked ; if not 
clear it is left for another fortnight, and if not clear then, 
is racked from the lees, and fined a second time. During 
these finings and rackings much sulphur vapour is used for 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



the purpose of keeping the wine quiet, and making it as 
ipale as possible. 



1 1 6. DRAWING INTO BOTTLES, OR TIRAGE. 

The bottles intended to receive the wine for manufacture 
are tested by experienced persons, who strike two bottles 
together with their sides ; all badly annealed bottles break 
at once ; the bottles which are too thin, or which show 
blisters or galls, are rejected. The bottles which are not of 
good shape are sold to the country people at a reduced 
price, and it is partly owing to this fact that all the wines 
which one gets throughout the Champagne in the small 
public-houses, or sees among vignerons, is contained in such 
faulty Champagne bottles. The bottles are washed with 
water, rinsed with spirit, and closed with a cork, and are 
ready for use. On each bottle the State levies a tax of 
threepence. The 100 bottles cost, at the manufacturers, 
twenty-eight francs; of these ten per cent, break or are 
rejected at the testing. 

The wine is now so arranged by mixing with sweeter wines, 
or with sugar, that it shall contain two per cent, of ferment- 
able sugar. In this state it is drawn into bottles ; these 
are now corked. The corks are compressed by a special 
powerful machine, and forced into the neck of the bottle 
with a wooden mallet ; they are then tied down with string 
and wire. 

The full bottles are carried into the fermenting vaults, 
or caves, as true cellars are called, and put up in piles of four 
or five feet in height and any convenient length and breadth ; 
the latter mostly four bottles deep. They are held together 
with thin wooden laths ; single bottles can be removed at 
any time. The wine in the bottles begins gradually 
to ferment ; it becomes turbid, increases in bulk, and 
shows the presence of gas when shaken. Now some bottles 
break, from the internal pressure, or leak. When the break- 
age does not exceed eight per cent, it is cheaper to take no 
measures to arrest ; when it is higher the wine has to be 
luncorked, or to be moved to a colder place; during this 



WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 175 

operation the workmen wear masks and gloves, to prevent 
injury from bursting bottles. As winter cools the caves the 
wine becomes quiescent, and the breakage ceases. 



117. CLEARING OF THE BOTTLES OF YEAST, 

OR DISGORGING. 

When the fermentation is complete the stacks of bottles are 
rummaged ; all broken bottles are removed, all those which 
leak are put aside, and only those which have kept in good 
condition are re-stacked. They are then allowed to lie at 
rest until the whole of the yeast has settled on the lower 
side of the bottle. In that state the wine remains until it 
has to be prepared for sale. The preparations for clearing 
the wine consist in putting the bottles with their necks down- 
wards on benches which are pierced with holes. A workman 
now gives the bottles a skilful turn, thereby effects the 
loosening of the deposit of yeast from the side of the bottle, 
and causes it to sink upon the cork. This has to be repeated 
until the whole of the deposit has been worked down and 
the wine is quite clear. The bottles are now what is called 
disgorged, that is to say, opened by a skilful extraction of 
the cork, and the yeast is removed ; a little wine is lost as 
the cork is discharged with a loud report, and the froth, 
which immediately rises, carries with it all the impurities 
collected in the neck ; the latter is moreover touched with 
the finger while the froth is rising, to detach the last traces 
of yeast. The bottle thus prepared passes into the hands 
of another operator. 



118. LIQUEURING, CORKING, AND FINISHING. 
Champagne prepared in the manner above described is 
quite dry, that is to say contains no sugar whatever percep- 
tible to the taste. But the operation of liqueuring is intended 
to impart to its taste some amelioration, whereby it may 
become more attractive, either by imparting to it some 
amount of sugar corresponding to the taste of the con- 
sumer, or to give to wine which has not had time to mature 



1/6 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

a certain finish and flavour, by mixing it with a small quan- 
tity of good old well-matured and fine-flavoured wine. For 
this purpose the Champagne makers provide themselves with 
the best wines they can get for the purpose of making these 
liqueurs, and in all these cases the liqueur consists of a 
mixture of cane-sugar and wine only. But the cheap kinds 
of Champagne, not admitting of the introduction of expen- 
sive wines, or requiring the addition of alcohol on account 
of the natural want of that ingredient, are only treated with 
a liqueur consisting of spirit of wine and sugar. Many of 
the so-called dry wines receive no sugar at all, but only 
brandy. The liqueurs have to be made stronger or weaker 
according to the nature of the wine, and to be added in 
larger or smaller quantities according to the taste of the 
consumer. For England strong-bodied wines are taken, 
and little liqueur is added, because in this country the dry 
and semi-dry qualities of Champagne are preferred. But 
there is also mild, sweet Champagne imported, such as also 
goes to Russia. In Austria and Germany Champagne is 
preferred with some sweetness in it. In France a nice 
medium of liqueur is commended. When the bottle has 
received its measured addition of the selected liqueur it is 
filled up with wine already liqueured, and handed to the 
corker. The cork is forced in, and is tied down with string 
and wire, and the operation of disgorging is complete. The 
bottles are washed externally, inspected one by one as to 
their clearness, and, if passed, covered with the usual tin- 
or bronze-foil. The desired label is attached, and the bottles 
are placed in boxes, or baskets, and exported. 

Most Champagne makers keep their wine in an unfinished 
condition as long as possible, as wine which has been so 
lying is not apt to form a second deposit after disgorging. 
It sometimes happens, however, that the wine which has 
been disgorged and liqueured undergoes a second slight 
fermentation, and thereby becomes turbid again. It has 
then of course to be disgorged a second time, after the yeast 
has been collected on the cork as before. If the wine has 
become turbid without any fermentation, as it may from the 
development of microscopic fungi, the second disgorging 



WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 1/7 

involves the loss of much mousse, the wine ceases to be 
Grand Mousseux, and becomes simply Mousseux, or even 
only Cremant. 

119. QUALITIES OF CHAMPAGNE AND QUANTITIES 
PRODUCED. 

The wines produced in the Champagne are of four 
qualities. Of these the first is Champagne non-mousseux 
(Still Champagne}. This is wine which has been fully fer- 
mented, fined, drawn into bottles, stoppered in the usual 
manner of the Mousseux wines, tied, and allowed to rest 
a long time. This is the original method of making bottled 
wine in the Champagne, and out of it arose the discovery of 
the Mousseux. Of such non-mousseux, many, if properly 
matured, have striking peculiarities of taste and flavour. 
The second variety is that moderately sparkling wine called 
Cremant, which derives its name from its faculty of forming 
a slight cream of effervescent bubbles upon its surface when 
it is poured into a glass. The third variety is Mousseux. This 
wine, on the bottle being opened, projects the cork with an 
audible report, and begins to rise gently over the margin of 
the bottle. The fourth variety is Grand Mousseux, which 
projects the cork with a loud report, and immediately over- 
flows from the bottle. When only a small quantity is poured 
out, the foam which it produces also rises over the edge of 
the glass. Champagne which contains less than four atmo- 
spheres of carbonic acid gas is not any longer saleable as 
Mousseux or Grand Mousseux. Mousseux must have from 
four to four and a half atmospheres ; four and a half to five 
atmospheres constitute Grand Mousseux. Above five atmo- 
spheres of gas cause the wine to be lost by frothing, and 
six to eight atmospheres burst most of the bottles. There 
are distinctions made between ordinary wines, fine wines, 
and cabinet wines ; between pale wines, reddish wines, the 
so-called ceuil de perdrix, and those rather uncommon 
varieties which are sometimes made as articles of curiosity. 

The prices of Champagne begin at 165-. the dozen bottles 
at the place of manufacture ; some varieties are sold in 

N 



178 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

London in bond at lys, a dozen. Much is bought at 225. 
and can be sold in London at 28^. per dozen. The price 
of a good class of wine rises to 40$. ; best sorts to 65^. and 
jos. Anything beyond is fancy price, for which special 
grounds must exist. 

Champagne must be kept a few months after having been 
disgorged and liqueured, in order that the wine and liqueur 
may be perfectly amalgamated, and the new flavour become 
a little developed ; after a year it has reached its perfection, 
and does not improve, but deteriorates after two or three 
years. It becomes a little etheric, but it loses mousse, and 
becomes cremant, and the danger of the stoppers leaking in- 
creases with the time during which the pressure has been 
exercised upon them. 

Latterly, sound, rather dry effervescent wines from various 
parts of France have made competition to Champagne ; 
they are like the prototype, useful dietetic drinks for persons 
of means or patients suffering from impaired digestion. 
The glasses from which to drink Champagne should be 
conical, seven inches high, and provided with a heavy base 
or foot, so that they cannot be easily upset. In these glasses 
the sparkling is best observed, in which much of the attrac- 
tiveness of Champagne rests. 



120. HISTORICAL NOTE ON THE DISCOVERY OF 

CHAMPAGNE. 

The Champagne has produced red and white wine ever 
since the time of the Roman Emperor Probus, A.D. 280, to 
whom, it is said, the Gate of Mars, still extant at Rheims, 
was dedicated by his troops. It appears from the historical 
notes contained in the work of M. Perrier, that there was at 
the Abbey of Haut Villers a monk of the name of Dom 
Perignon, who managed the cellars of the Abbey from the 
year 1670 to that of 1715. One of his successors in the 
administration, Grossard, states that Pdrignon was the 
inventor of effervescent wine. Grossard had in his posses- 
sion the documents of the Abbey up to the time of the French 
Revolution, and he asserts that before Perignon, the art of 



WINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE. 1/9 

stoppering bottles with corks was not known ; the only 
stoppers which were used being bundles of hemp dipped 
in oil, as seen nowadays in some parts of Italy. It appears 
from a little book of the year 1718, which has been 
examined by M. Perrier, that white effervescent wine was in 
course of being made twenty years previously, which would 
put the first record of the making of such wine to the year 
1698 ; it was then called petillant, " stopper-jumper," or 
" cork -jumper," and "devil's wine." The new wine be- 
came popular, but the art of making it was kept secret, and 
all sorts of fables were current about it. The writer main- 
tains that he possessed the true secret of the manufacture, 
and that it had been given to him by the dying Dom 
Perignon. It was, therefore, probably first made at Haut 
Villers. The introduction of corks for stoppering bottles of 
young wine would lead to the formation and discovery of 
effervescent wine, and the rest would be done by art and study. 
The production of Champagne has much increased during 
the century; in 1835 about 5,000,000 bottles were 
exported from France; of these America took 500,000; 
England 700,000 ; Russia 500,000 ; Germany 500,000 ; 
Sweden and Denmark 200,000 ; Italy 100,000 ; and 600,000 
were used in France itself. In 1866, the export had risen 
to 22,000,000 bottles, and at present exceeds 30,000,000. 



i2i, PRODUCTION AND VARIATION OF THE MOUSSE. 

One hundred volumes of wine containing 10 volumes per 
cent, of alcohol, and 90 per cent, of water at 12 C., at the 
ordinary pressure will absorb 132-969 volumes of carbonic 
acid gas. The excess of carbonic acid gas, which makes the 
wine mousseux can therefore exist in it only under pressure. 

The fined Champagne wine, ready for bottling, called 
Claret hardly ever contains more than a half per cent, of sugar. 
This would be insufficient for producing a good mousse, and 
therefore sugar has to be added ; its temperature also must 
be raised to let the fermentation begin. The Champagne 
maker carefully adjusts the amount of acidity in his claret; 
if it be intended for sweet wine it may reach seven per mille, 



ISO A TREATISE ON WINES. 

while ordinary dry wine bears only four to five per mille. 
He then examines the amount of sugar contained in his 
claret, and adds as much to the quantity found as will raise 
the whole to three per cent, of the weight of the wine ; this 
percentage after complete fermentation would yield a mousse 
of five and a half atmospheres, which after disgorging, would 
fall to five. If the wine has been too much fined, and air 
has not been sufficiently in contact with it, it is liable to 
lose its power of passing into fermentation. To obviate this 
mishap some makers carefully ventilate the wine, and add 
a minute quantity of wine-yeast, not exceeding a teaspoonful 
to the hogshead, to the sugared claret, in order to make sure 
that a few spores may be present in every bottle. 

The report on opening a bottle of Champagne is produced 
by the gas which is compressed in the air space. If this 
space be large the report will be full and deep ; if the space 
be small the report is high pitched, dry and short. A good 
report is only produced by a cork which fits equally all round, 
and does not allow gas to escape on one side before it is 
ejected entire. If the cork be unilaterally weak, or stand 
obliquely, it allows the gas to escape with a hissing noise on 
opening and no report is produced. This is so objectionable 
that manufacturers spare no expense to obtain the best corks. 
Champagne, after having been opened, and relieved of its 
pressure, is somewhat viscid, and disengages the carbonic 
acid slowly in the form called sparkling, in French p'etillement. 
During the whole of this time the wine is over-saturated with 
gas, as is shown by many phenomena. Thus the gas 
bubbles rise mainly from projections and uneven portions of 
the surface of the glass. Almost invisible particles of dust 
give cause to the prolonged rise of strings of little pearls of 
gas. Any porous body, such as bread, or sponge cake, 
produces immediately a lively effervescence. When the glass 
is held tightly in one hand, and the palm of the other is 
struck gently on the top of it, bubbles are evolved on the 
entire inner surface of the glass. The glass being depressed 
suddenly, while the fluid is unable to follow as suddenly, 
a slight attenuation is produced in the fluid next to the glass, 
whereby the gas is liberated. 



WINES OF THE LOIRE AND CHARENTE. l8l 

The disgorged Champagne has lost all traces of ferment, 
and possesses little tendency to ferment again ; the addition 
of brandy and sugar diminish the liability to ferment still 
further. Most Champagne, therefore, after proper treatment 
remains clear and at rest ; the bottles should be kept lying 
on their sides, so that the cork remains moist and swelled 
and does not allow any gas to escape. 

The cane-sugar, sugar-candy, which is added in the liqueur 
to the sweet varieties of Champagne after disgorgement, is 
after a short time found to be entirely transformed into 
invert sugar. 

Champagne after being poured into a glass contains 
carbonic acid to the extent only of its own volume, no matter 
what may have been the amount of gas in the bottle. It is 
therefore probably an error to endeavour to give to this wine 
a conventional mousse of six atmospheres. With such a 
pressure the cork certainly rises high up in the air with a 
loud report, the wine rises from the bottle and from the glasses 
into which it is poured, and is in part lost by overflowing; but 
when it is drank, the wine does not contain more carbonic 
acid than it would if the wine in the bottle had contained 
only two and a half to three atmospheres. The more the 
wine is agitated by rapid development of overcharged gas 
the quicker it becomes flat. The artificial aerated waters 
show a similar bearing ; they become flat much sooner than 
the natural ones, which, though less charged, are less agitated. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WINES OF THE VALLEYS OF THE LOIRE AND 
CHARENTE. 

122. WINES AND VINES OF THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 
IN the neighbourhood of Orleans there are considerable 
plantations of vines which extend through an extensive 



1 82 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

plain towards Blois, and then towards Angouleme and 
Poitiers, and further towards the Charente into the district 
of Cognac. 

The most common vine is the " miller," or Meunier, recog- 
nized by its white dusted leaves; it bears bluish-black 
grapes on middle-sized bunches, and is very fertile. Some 
vineyards are exclusively planted with the " dyer vine," the 
Teinturier. The grapes of this vine yield a dark red juice on 
pressing, and this juice becomes still darker by fermentation 
with the husks ; they contain therefore two different kinds 
of colouring matter, one soluble in the acid, half-sweet 
liquid juice ; and another insoluble in the juice, but extracted 
from the husk by the alcohol developed during fermentation 
with the aid of the acid contained in the juice. The wine 
made from the dyer grape is of itself very sour, but is very 
well suited for colouring white wines, one part being suffi- 
cient to impart a red colour to seven or eight parts of wine. 
Owing to the large quantity of astringent matter present in 
the Teinturier juice, the white wines treated with it obtain 
the character of original red wines, and are sold as such at 
Paris mainly, being unsuitable for transport to greater 
distance, or across the sea. The dyer grape, on account of 
its thick black colour is also called Gros Noir, in some places 
Auvernat tint, and at Cahors, in the department des Lot, it is 
called Auxerrois. Next to the " miller" and "dyer," the most 
commonly grown grape on the Loire is one called Auvernat 
noir, which on examination turns out to be the black 
Burgundy grape. 

123. MODE OF CULTIVATION. 

The cultivation of the vines on the Loire is carried on by a 
number of methods ; the most rational is that according to 
which the bearing canes form arches tied to a stake; the vines 
are sometimes planted in groups of four, and the new canes 
are united in the middle. From Blois towards Tours a low 
ridge of mountains stretches for about forty-five miles along 
the former wide bed of the Loire. The whole incline of 
this ridge towards the Loire is covered with vines ; but all 



WINES OF THE LOIRE AND CHARENTE. 183 

are lying on the ground, with not a single stake to support 
them, covering the earth in such a manner that neither a 
path nor a separation of property can be distinguished. 
From a distance the whole looks like a light green meadow ; 
there is no interruption of its remarkable continuity. The 
canes are always rejuvenesced by sinking, as in the 
Champagne. The Germans call such a plantation a hedge- 
vineyard. 

In some parts of the valley of the Loire men live in ex- 
cavations in the rocks; in others there are luxurious villas, 
and splendid gardens with cypress, pomegranate, fig, orange 
and citron trees. 



124. WINES AND BRANDIES OF THE CHARENTE. 
This viticultural district comprises a nearly circular ex- 
panse of country on both sides of the river Charente ; its 
eastern border is marked by the town of Angouleme, its 
western by that of Saintes ; it comprises portions of two 
departments, the department of the Charente proper, and 
the department of the lower Charente ; its very centre is 
marked by the town of Cognac. In many parts of this 
land, the entire hill-country, as far as the eye can reach, is 
seen to be covered with vines ; from Angouleme to Cognac, 
a distance of about fifteen miles, stretches an almost con- 
tinuous vineyard. This area produces a wine which is not 
valuable as such, but only as the material for distilling from 
it the spirit or brandy named Cognac. 



125. VARIETIES OF VINES PRODUCING THE EAU-DE-VIE 

OF COGNAC. 

Cognac brandy is produced from vines bearing white 
grapes, namely the Folle-blanche, the JSoillot, and the Blanc 
doux, Colombar, Sauvignon, and St. Pierre. None of the 
latter varieties, however, gives so sweet and well-flavoured 
a spirit as the Folle-blanche. Its wine, nevertheless, 
although full of alcohol, is not agreeable. The spirit of 
red grape wine, which is sometimes made, does not possess 



184 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the soft and agreeable properties which are peculiar to that 
obtained from the white. Here vines were formerly 
allowed to attain the height of dwarf trees, to admit of 
some herbaceous growth underneath them, but the practice 
is very rare now. 

126. MODE OF PRODUCING THE EAU-DE-VlE OF COGNAC. 

As the best brandy is obtained from the youngest wine, 
distillation begins almost immediately after the fermenta- 
tion is completed, and is carried on during the whole winter- 
time. Almost every other proprietor of vineyards possesses 
a still. Those vignerons who do not possess a still, sell their 
wine to the large distillers, or have it distilled by any of the 
migrating distillers, who go about from village to village, 
and extract the spirit from any one's wine. In spring the 
distillation is mostly effected and over. The spirit obtained 
is for the most part, at first, colourless, and of the strength 
called "four degrees of Tessa," equal to from 59 to 60 
volumes per cent, of absolute alcohol. As regards this time- 
honoured instrument, the alcoholometer of Tessa, it is 
known and used mainly, some say exclusively, in the Cognac 
district. Each of its degrees above four is said to be equal 
to 3 volumes per cent, of alcohol, so that " five of Tessa " 
would be about 63 per cent, by volume, and so forth. 
Calculating the value of the lower degrees at that rate, the 
zero of Tessa would be about 47 to 48 per cent, by volume 
of absolute alcohol. We may surmise it to coincide with 
the strength of eau-de-vie as formerly generally sold in 
commerce, namely 49*1 per cent, by volume. The freshly 
distilled Cognac brandy has a disagreeable, burning, rough 
taste, without any flavour, and is, in fact, undrinkable. It 
is kept in barriques of 200 litres for periods differing 
between a year and four years. During that time it amelio- 
rates, becomes sweet and tasty, and extracts from the wood 
the light amber colour which it retains thereafter. 

The quantity of brandy produced on the banks of the 
Charente every year amounts to 180,000 hectolitres, being 
the produce of the distillation of 1,400,000 hectolitres of 



WINES OF THE LOIRE AND CHARENTE. 185 

wine, which, together with 300,000 hectolitres of wine drunk 
in the country and sold as wine, make the 1,700,000 hec- 
tolitres of wine which grow on the 112,648 hectares of 
vineyards in this department. In good years six to seven 
bottles of wine yield one bottle of standard Cognac eau- 
de-vie ; in bad years eight to ten bottles are required to 
yield the same result. The value of wine, as such, in this 
part of France is perhaps the smallest that occurs anywhere, 
no more than from 8 to 10 francs per 200 litres being 
paid for white, and 1 8 to 20 francs for red wine. Yet wine 
continues to be produced, probably because climate and 
soil do not admit of the cultivation of other crops. The 
cultivable land rests everywhere upon a limestone, which 
covers the soil with fragments in the same manner as in 
Burgundy ; cultivation is by the hoe. The vines are 
pruned once in spring, and beyond that no operation is 
effected either upon the soil or upon the vine ; the rest is 
left to nature and the sun. Rakes are neither required, nor 
used. The vines sometimes have such strong stems and 
tree-like branches that children can mount them. 

A part of the district bears the name of the Champagne, 
and hence the eau-de-vie produced here is called Cham- 
pagne brandy, a term which has given rise to the erroneous 
conception that the brandy was made from the mousseux 
wine of the Champagne proper. All eau-de-vie of the 
Cognac district is ranged in five classes ; the best is called 
fine Champagne brandy, the second is termed little Champagne 
brandy. These terms are all supposed to be derived from 
the fact that vines were planted on clearings of forest, and 
the space cleared was called a champagne, or cultivated 
field. When at the beginning of the present century further 
clearings were made, new names had to be made for them, 
and they were called bois, or borderies (the latter is also the 
ancient name for common wines grown in the district); 
they were classified as ires ban bois, bon bois ordinaires, and 
troisiemebon bois. Thus Cognac brandy is classified \r\five 
great categories, derived from the assumed places of their 
growth. Some writers limit the classes of Cognac to four. 

The Charente seems to have overcome the depression 



1 86 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

caused by the ravages of the phylloxera, for it is reported 
that about a hundred new firms trading in brandy have been 
established at Cognac since 1875. 

Those readers who would desire to read or consult a 
general classification of the wines of France are referred to 
Thudichum and Dupre, "Treatise," etc., /.<:., pp. 495-524, 
where will be found at least the name and situation of every 
wine-producing community. On pp. 493, 494 is a list of the 
names of the vines cultivated in the different parts of France, 
arranged according to climatic districts. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

WINES OF THE UPPER RHINE AND MAINE 
VALLEY. 

Wines of Alsatia ; of the Palatinate or Rhenish Bavaria; 

of Rhenish Hesse ; of Franconia, or the Upper 

Maine; of Baden, Wiirtemberg, and 

Hesse North of the Maine. 

127. WINES OF ALSATIA. 

THESE wines bear the Rhenish character, and are quite 
distinct from the French wines ; they are mostly white, and 
made from Riessling, Traminer, Burger, or Sibling and 
Grosser Rauschling. There is also Sylvaner and Rulander 
or Grey Pineau. Peculiar to the district is the Knipperle, 
Petit Mielleux, which fills the vineyards of Thann, Rick- 
weiher and Ribweiler. The cultivation is peculiar : the 
vines are trained to form elements; each element at the 
pruning receives a long fruit cane, which is bent in an arch 
downwards and fixed to the stake. By this arrangement 
most of the grapes are situated too high above the ground, 
and ripen with difficulty. But the vineyards in the best 



WINES OF THE UPPER RHINE AND MAINE. l8/ 

situations are cultivated like those of the Rheingau. The 
vineyards of Zahnacker and Trotacker at Rickweiher are 
celebrated by the researches which Boussingault carried on 
in them, and from which we have taken many data con- 
tained in our general part. Some parts of Alsatia are said 
to be free from spring frosts, but all are exposed to the 
early autumnal rains, which destroy a great part of the 
harvest, particularly in Sylvaner. The wines produced are 




Fig. 35. Cultivation of the Vine. Rhenish Basket. 

consumed in the district and in the adjoining parts of 
Switzerland. They were formerly added to Rhenish pro- 
ducts of the lower districts, but now the reverse obtains. 
The Strassburg hotel-keepers and wine-dealers were very 
French as regards the labels on their bottles, but the contents 
of the bottles were all genuine Alsatian products; this we 
know from personal study and experience. Now this is 
somewhat altered, and the German market has raised their 
wines in the estimation of the Alsatians themselves. Most 



1 88 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

of the Alsatian wines are white and dry, those of good 
quality ranking in the second class ; good old bouquetted 
wine can be obtained now and then in country inns ; most 
popular wines belong to the third class, and yet are by no 
means cheap. The so-called liqueur or straw wines are 
more curiosities than articles of commerce, and scarcely 
leave the hands of their makers. 

The wines of lower Alsatia, particularly those of the 
historical environs of Weissenburg and Worth, have to be 
considered with those of the Palatinate, as the vines and 
viticulture are nearly identical. 

128. WINES OF THE PALATINATE, OR RHENISH 

BAVARIA. 

The viticultural districts of the Palatinate are situated at 
the foot of the Haardt mountain, which is the continuation 
towards the north of the Vosges, and forms the western limit 
of the Rhine valley in Rhenish Bavaria. The mountain, 
which consists mainly of sandstone, rises rather rapidly to 
a height of from 600 to 800 feet, and is intersected by many 
valleys, which are mostly directed rectangularly upon the 
Rhine. The land at the foot of this mountain is, in 
general, from 50 to 100 feet higher than the level of the 
Rhine valley, and forms, therefore, a kind of plateau, inter- 
mediate between the Rhine valley and the Haardt moun- 
tain. The slope is distributed over a distance of about four 
or five English miles, and is therefore little perceptible in 
any one locality. Near Landau and Deidesheim the district 
is more hilly. The valleys which run from west to east 
produce many exposures, but on the whole the aspect of 
the vineyards is towards the east. The land upon which the 
vineyards are situated is chiefly of alluvial origin, drift from 
earlier ages of the Rhine, lacustrine shores, and washings 
from the mountain by water and ice-carried drift. Here 
and there basaltic formations are seen ; the red sandstone 
of the higher mountain reposes upon clay schist and 
granite. At some places the grey old chalk becomes 
visible, as at Deidesheim and Neustadr, and influences 



WINES OF THE UPPER RHINE AND MAINE. 189 

viticulture favourably. Marl and sand are found over the 
whole district, giving to the soil the peculiar faculty of pro- 
ducing large crops. The whole of this alluvial formation, 
from the mountain to the plain, is covered with vines, and 
only rarely are a few small meadows to be seen in the troughs 
of the smaller valleys. From many eminences, e.g., a mount 
near Burrweiler, the wine-fields can be seen extending over 
an area more than thirty miles long and seven miles wide. 
They produce one-seventh part of all the wine of South 
Germany, namely 70,000 fuder. The wine of the Palatinate 
is reputed for its medium good quality, the purity and fresh- 
ness of its taste, and the extreme relative lowness of its 
price. The quality of the wine is partly the effect of the 
regular air-currents, which during the day pass from west to 
east, and during the night from east to west ; this air has 
been warmed in the plain of the Rhine, and helps to bring 
the grapes to better maturity. 

129. MODE OF CULTIVATING THE VINE. 
The mode of cultivating the vine is here altogether 
peculiar ; it is called double-chamber cultivation (Zwei-Kam- 
merbau\ and extends from Landau to Maikammer. At 
Hambach and Dittesfeldt the so-called closed low-frame 
training is usual. In all the villages east and south of the 
village of Haardt the open low-frame training is usual ; this 
latter also prevails in the celebrated vineyards of Rupperts- 
berg and Deidesheim. The closed chamber-training or 
KammerbaU) is essentially the result of a particular/raw^, 
which is better understood by a drawing than a description. 
From twelve to fifteen vines are adapted to such a frame,, 
and, when the leaves and branches are fully developed, 
form a low chamber, which is covered on all sides like an 
arbour or bower. This framing entails great expense for 
wood, and involves great agility on the part of the workers. 
It is partly owing to this cause that nothing is done to the 
vines throughout the growing season. They are allowed to 
spread and cover the whole of the chambers as best they 
may. In September only the viticulturists go out to cut 



1 90 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the superfluous branches, mainly for the purpose of pro- 
ducing fodder for their cows, which then begins to get 
scarce in the meadows and in the fields. The branches 
which cannot be consumed green are dried for the winter. 
In the district of Weissenburg, and in Rhenish Bavaria, the 
vine is, indeed, utilized as much to produce fodder as to 
produce wine, and in some parts there prevails a practice of 
planting mangold wurtzel underneath the chambers, whereby 
the thicket is greatly increased, and the chances of the 
ripening of the grapes are very much diminished. 

The method of closed chambers is most developed in the 
neighbourhood of Edenkoben, where the vineyards are 
divided by many foot-paths and roads. 

130. PREVAILING VINES. 

The vines which are most commonly planted in this 
district are the Chasselas, called Gutedel, the Traminer, 
the Austrian or Sylvaner, and the Riessling. For some 
decenniums the Traminer has gained a great preponderance, 
and much good wine is now sold as being specifically made 
from it. Whatever may be the origin of the name of the 
vine, it is certain that it cannot be traced to the little town 
of Tramin in Tyrol, as the vine does not occur there. It 
occurs however in many localities under different names. 
Count Odart and Guyot, the vitologist of the French 
empire, term it Gentil dTtret, which we therefore accept as 
the French name. The vine is medium-sized, its bunch 
is small, generally dense, branched, pyramidal, multiple 
and short. The grapes are of nearly equal size, small, and 
somewhat elongated, but the more ripe and juicy the more 
round they become. They are transparent, show veins of a 
light red colour, whence the adjective (Gentil) rose used in 
Alsatia, and a greyish-blue bloom. The skin of the grapes 
is thick and hard, and resists the autumn rains better 
than do the thinner husks of the grapes of other vines. 
The juice is of semi-viscid, mucous nature, very sweet and 
agreeable, and with a peculiar taste, which is not musky, but 
aromatic. From this property the vine is also termed the 



WINES OF THE UPPER RHINE AND MAINE. 19 1 

aromatic Traminer (Gewurtz Traminer?) It cannot bear 
spring frosts, as it does not shoot secondary eyes when the 
first shoots have been lost. It is trained with fruit canes, 
bent downwards ; the leaves are shed early, and the harvest 
is sometimes taken off vines already entirely bared of leaves. 
The wine made from the grapes has great body, makes an 
impression of corporeality upon the taste, and is locally 
called fat; it is smooth, generally, with little acidity. 
In Tyrol, where it occurs, it is called Francon, and may- 
have come from Franconia on the Maine. 

The mixed sets of vines in the vineyards of the Palatinate 
offer several advantages to the viticulturist over single sets, 
and unitary plantations. The Chasselas ripens early, and 
almost every year, and although it does not give wine of 
lasting qualities, it yields tolerable substance without acidity. 
The Traminer gives wine of much body and smoothness, as 
already stated, but its lasting qualities during the first years 
are doubtful. The Sylvaner yields a very fine liquid tasting 
wine, without much particular flavour. The Riessling, in bad 
years gives much acidity, but in good years it imparts to the 
mixture of the other qualities a beautiful bouquet. This 
mixture of vines produces the best average of which the 
changes and vicissitudes of the seasons will admit. In the 
direction of Worms plantations of pure Traminer and pure 
Riessling are becoming more common. 

There are in the Palatinate 33,048 morgen of vineyards; 
of these 12,576 belong to the first, 9,816 to the second, and 
10,656 to the third class. It is estimated that a full harvest 
yields between 70,000 and 80,000 fuder of wine. As a 
fuder is about 1,000 litres, the maximum would be 800,000 
hectolitres. 



131. WINES OF RHENISH HESSE. 
The vines and wines of this province, the ancient arch- 
bishopric of Mayence, are very similar to those of the Palati- 
nate on the one, and those of Rheingau on the other hand. 
The average annual production amounts toabout one"Stiick" 
(piece) of 1,200 litres per morgen; and as there are 27,842 



192 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

morgen of vineyards, the total production of wine amounts 
to 334,104 hectolitres, being less than half the quantity 
produced in the Palatinate. The vineyards of Worms 
include the one south of the Liebfrauenkirche, which pro- 
duces the "Liebfraumilch," a Riessling wine of fine bouquet. 
The district of Oberingelheim produces much red wine of 
the character of Burgundies of the second and third class, 
from Burgundy grapes, and furnishes considerable quantities 
of these latter for the production of effervescent hock. The 
district of Bingen is distinguished by the growths of Scharlach- 
berg and Feuerberg. The wines of Laubenheim, Bodenheim, 
Guntersblum, Nierstein and Selzen possess individual re- 
putation, and are often substituted for wines of the Rheingau. 
Many wines of the other villages, particularly of the Kreis 
Oppenheim are sold under the title of Niersteiner, especially 
in England, where the name of this village enjoys marked 
favour. 

The statistics of the area and production of the vineyards 
of Rhenish Hesse, according to districts and communities, 
can be seen in Thudichum and Dupre's "Treatise," l.c.^ 
PP. 537-539- 

132. WINES OF FRANCONIA, OR THE UPPER MAINE. 

The country anciently called Franconia, which is now 
comprehended under the name of the lower circle of the 
Maine of Bavaria, contains about 70,000 Bavarian tag- 
merke of vineyards, which is about the same surface as that 
cultivated in the whole of the kingdom of Wiirtemberg. 
Most of the wine grown there is consumed in the country, 
only a small quantity, grown in the proximity of Wiirtzburg, 
is exported. The slopes and heights surrounding Wiirtzburg 
are planted with vines in every direction, there being alto- 
gether 6,000 morgen of them visible from the town as centre. 
The best vineyard is the so-called Leiste, situated on the left 
side of the Maine, in a small side valley, between two hills, 
south of the former fortress. Next in quality to this is the 
Stein, which is situated on the right bank of the Maine, 
close to the river. To the north from the Stein is the so- 



WINES OF THE UPPER RHINE AND MAINE. 193 

called Middle Stein, and behind that the Harp and Schaiks- 
berg; the vineyards continue eastward for some distance. 
The wines of these situations in good years have a particular 
strength. 

The Leiste vineyard, 85 Wiirtzburg morgen, or nearly 
17 hectares in extent, was protected from the north 
wind by the wall of the former fort ; the grapes ripened a 
month or two months earlier than elsewhere. The vines, 
cultivated after the manner of Hochheim, are mostly Riess- 
ling and Traminer, also the so-called Franconia vine, or 
white Traminer, perhaps indigenous to this district. Odart, 
who had consulted and corresponded with Stoltz, the author 
of an ampelography of the Rhine, does not mention their 
supposed origin. Besides these a good deal of Elbling is 
grown. A peculiar grape is also grown here, the so-called 
Ermitage, of a yellowish-brown colour like the white Trami- 
ner, of fine flavour, the taste being between that of a ripe 
Riessling and a Muscatel, having neither the fine flavour of 
the Riessling nor the gross flavour of the Muscatel. A wine 
made from such grapes only might be something excellent. 
The greater part of the Leiste is a royal domain, and the 
wine made there goes into the cellars underneath the royal 
castle of Wiirtzburg. 

The cellars of the castle are vaulted, and of splendid 
construction ; on both sides of each vault there are casks 
holding from five to ten fuder, or 50 to 100 hectolitres. 
Many of these tuns date from the time when Wiirtzburg 
was the seat of a powerful bishop, who was also the ruler 
of Franconia under the Emperor. Many of the old casks 
are ornamented with apostles and other saints. The largest 
of them is so high that, in order to ascend to the top of it, 
it is necessary to make use of a ladder of twenty-four steps ; 
this contains 660 eimer, and was built in 1784. Not far 
from this is another, called the " tun of the Swedes," because, 
it is said, the Swedes, when sacking Wiirtzburg in 1630, 
during the Thirty Years' War, left this tun unharmed. The 
number of tuns in all the cellars of the castle is 289 ; of 
these about ten per cent, are now supplied with wine. The 
Leiste wine of good quality is mostly carried to Munich 
o 



194 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

and drunk at court : only a small quantity is sold to the 
trade. 

The Stein, an abbreviation of Steinberg, or chalk-hill, 
slopes towards the Maine, and the vineyards reach the river- 
side. The best part of the Stein vineyard is the property of 
the town hospital, and yields the wine called "of the Holy 
Ghost." This can be bought only from the steward of the 
Biirger Hospital, and is sold by him in peculiarly shaped 
flasks called " Bocksbeutel," bottles with a wide belly 
compressed from the sides, and a short neck, containing 
thirty-two ounces of liquid. The vines prevailing in the 
vineyards are Riessling, Traminer, and Rulander. The wine 
of many vineyards in the neighbourhood of the Stein is sold 
as genuine Stein, though of very inferior quality as compared 
to it. Much of the wine which is sold under the name of 
Stein wine in London is Palatinate wine, which at Mayence 
and other places is filled into bottles of the shape of the 
Bocksbeutel, and then sold as Stein. 

The mode in which the vine was trained in Franconia is 
called "the head-knob system," an antiquated form, con- 
demned by experience. The best Rhenish methods are now 
almost generally introduced. 



133. WINES OF BADEN, WURTEMBERG, AND HESSE, 
NORTH OF THE MAINE. 

Wurtemberg and Baden produce considerable quantities 
of wine, but as its quality is rarely above the fourth class 
none is exported. The area of the vineyards of Baden is 
51,532 Baden morgen; the quantity of wine produced 
annually exceeds 500,000 ohm; its value is estimated to 
vary between seven and eleven millions of florins, or nearly 
a million sterling. Growths of reputation are the white 
Markgrafler, which is the product of thirteen village districts, 
and the Affenthaler, a light, agreeable red wine. 

The government of the Grand Duchy of Baden have done 
more for viticulture and the science and art of wine making 
than any other authority on the continent. Only by the 
government of Napoleon III. was an attempt made, with 






WINES OF THE UPPER RHINE AND MAINE. 195 

the aid of the viticultural author, Guyot, to effect for France 
-what had been initiated by Baden. The scientific referee 
And reporter to the Baden government was J. P. Bronner, 
an accomplished apothecary and vineyard proprietor at 
Wiesloch, near Heidelberg. He was commissioned to 
undertake scientific journeys into many viticultural districts, 
and report the results of his inquiries and inspections. 
Thus he reported on the Champagne, and the art of 
producing its effervescent wines ; on the Bourgogne, and the 
art of producing red wines; on the Gironde, its treasures 
and methods ; he travelled to French Switzerland, to Italy, 
the Tyrol, Austria, Styria, Hungary, and in detail examined 
the Rhenish vineyards, and studied the wild vines of the 
Rhine Valley in an exquisitely scientific, and, withal, 
almost poetical manner. He embodied his reports in small 
treatises, which were published at intervals during the years 
from 1830 to 1845. His works on the red wines, including 
a history of the black Burgundy grape, which is interesting 
as a chapter of the history of culture in general, were pub- 
lished in 1855 and 1856. Altogether his works are con- 
tained in some fifteen different publications, which are now 
very scarce and difficult to obtain. It was Bronner who 
mainly stimulated the adoption of improvement in viticul- 
ture, and to his description of the art of making effervescent 
wine is due the great development of this manufacture on 
the banks of the Rhine. He had enthusiastic support on 
the part of Dr. Batt, of Weinheim, and of the Director of the 
Botanical Garden at Heidelberg, Metzger, who himself 
published a work on viticulture, and formed a collection of 
vines in the garden under his direction. There was also the 
Baron von Babo, who, stimulated by Dr. Batt, the tutor of his 
sons, went in for viticulture, and wrote several encyclopaedic 
treatises. A son of this Baron became teacher of viticulture 
at the Austrian Agricultural College at Kloster Neuburg. 

The area of the vineyards of Wiirtemberg is 54,600 mor- 
gen, of which more than half are situated in the valley of the 
Neckar. The average money value of the annual product is 
only three and a half millions of florins. Much of the wine 
has a pale red colour, and hence is termed " Schiller." 



Ip6 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Hesse north of the Maine, produces wine in the valley of 
the Kintzig, from Hanau to Gelnhausen, the ancient castle 
of the Emperor Rothbart. named after his daughter Gela. 
To the north of this is Biidingen, which has a favourably 
situated vineyard called the Pfaffenwald. Here, in a 
beautiful garden and vineyard, the author early acquired 
that love for viticulture and its resultant or adjuvant 
sciences which has remained with him throughout his life. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

WINES OF THE RHEINGAU, OF THE LOWER 
MAINE, AND OF THE MOSELLE. 

134. WINES OF THE RHEINGAU. HISTORICAL NOTE. 
THE vine was cultivated in the Rheingau as early as the 
sixth and seventh century, therefore long before the time at 
which Charlemagne is related to have caused vines to be 
planted at Riidesheim. Great extension was given to viti- 
culture by mediaeval monasteries, Johannisberg (1106), 
Eberbach, Steinberg (1131), and Grafenberg. The corpora- 
tions were swept away by the Reformation, and the wars 
consequent upon the French Revolution of 1789, and the 
properties, having been for some time in the hands of 
bishops, passed into those of Prince Metternich and the 
Duke of Nassau. During last century a great extension of 
viticulture ensued by the fact that many persons of property 
invested in vineyards and planted new ones. 

135. TOPOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL NOTE. 

The Rheingau is enclosed between the Taunus mountain 

on the north, and the river Rhine on the south ; it forms a 

bay in the mountain, twice as long as broad, and filled with 

undulating hillocks. It is protected from sweeping northerly 



WINES OF RHEINGAU AND MOSELLE. Ip/ 

winds, and from south-west winds; the climate is most 
favourable to the production of the peculiar viticultural pro- 
ducts. The basis of the soil is the Rhenish slate, or clay- 
schist, the renowned grauwacke, which has been re-named 
Devonian slate, as it occurs massively in Devonshire; in some 
parts it contains much free quartz; at Rothenberg, near 
Geisenheim, much iron oxide. The hills in the wider part 
of the Gau are alluvial, with loam, marl, clay, and gravel, the 
whole of the Rhine valley from Bale to Bingen having been 
a great lake before the river excavated its present bed 
through the slate mountains from Bingen to Coblentz. 



| 136. VARIETIES OF VINES CULTIVATED IN THE RHEINGAU. 

The characteristic and most frequently cultivated vine of 
the Rheingau is the Riessling. It is durable, yields wood 
every year, ripens in time before the winter frosts, is little 
liable to be affected by the winter frosts, and is not easily 
nipped by the May frosts, as it grows tardily in the spring. 
It is a short-wooded vine. It is also common in Rhenish 
Hesse and in the Palatinate, but in the latter the Traminer 
and Rulander have much supplanted it. It is, however, 
spreading in various parts of the world, even in Australia; 
only in France and Italy it seems quite unknown. 

The Riessling is not only peculiar to the Rhine valley, 
but probably indigenous to it. Being a small vine, its fruit 
is developed near the soil, and receives its radiation of heat 
at night ; its bunch is not large, its grapes are also of a small 
size, with little juice and much acid, with hardy skins cap- 
able of withstanding much inclemency of the seasons, and 
with great ability to ripen late in the year while hanging on 
the vine, almost to the beginning of winter frosts. When 
the grapes are very ripe they assume a rose-red hue. 
During the last ripening the stalks become dry and shrivel, 
ripe berries and some bunches drop off the vine, like other 
ripe fruit. Of other vines, a small number of the Albe, or 
Elbling, are cultivated. At Assmannshausen the black Bur- 
gundy vine, or Pineau, is grown massively, and gives the red 
wine for which the place is known. In many vineyards white 



198 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

grapes are mixed with the black ones. Of these the Klein- 
berger is a variety of the Elbling, with small berries among 
larger grapes, whence its name Kleinbeeriger, contracted in 
speaking as just spelled. The small-berried large-bunched 
Velteliner in also grown here and there amongst mixed sets. 

The Rheingau is densely populated, but lacks an agricul- 
tural substratum of fodder production, and this engenders a 
one-sided reliance upon viticulture, which in bad years pro- 
duces great want. Good years, on the other hand, make up 
for the losses of many years. On the whole, however, the 
statistics of the Rheingau show that no proprietor can on 
an average make more than three per cent, per annum on 
his capital, and for the realization of this interest even he 
must be in a position to bide his time for selling. 

The most important vineyards of the Rheingau are the 
following : Ellfeld or Eltville, the largest village in the Gau, 
is situated on alluvial loam, gravel, and clay ; the vines are 
disposed in groups of four, an antiquated arrangement 
called stocky now on the decline. The vineyard faces the 
river. In Rauenthal, vineyards are situated on the side of 
a long hill, which appears to be placed across the opening 
of a large mountain valley ; it was a forest up till 1626, when 
it was transformed into a vineyard. Each rood of land was 
then charged by the lord of the manor with an annual impost 
of one pint of wine, which tax has remained the same during 
the centuries up to the present, and some years ago amounted 
for the whole Berg to eight pieces and four ohms of wine. On 
the west of the Rauenthaler Berg is an ultimate eminence 
of white quartzy sandstone, where there was formerly a 
chapel. From this point a view of the Rhine valley and the 
Gau can be obtained, which rivals in magnificence that from 
the Niederwald, or from Rudesheim. The vineyards of 
Kiedrich include the Grafenberg, formerly the property of 
the monastery of Eberbach, now held by private parties* 

137. THE STEINBERG. 

The Steinberg^ the most famous vineyard of Germany, 
also belonged formerly to Kloster Eberbach ; it became a 



WINES OF RHEINGAU AND MOSELLE. 199 

Nassovian domain, and since 1866 is public property of 
Prussia. The Steinberg is a hill about three miles distant 
from the Rhine; its vineyard is a long oval of about eighty 
morgen surface, entirely enclosed with a thick wall, twelve 
feet high, and protected from the weather by a roof of 
timber and slate. On the eastern side toward the convent 
the wall is pierced by a number of doors, through which the 
produce is carried to the Kloster. The vineyard is provided 
with carriage ways, so that all parts of the plantation can be 
reached by horse and cart; it is drained by drains of 
masonry, sunk below the sphere of the roots of the vines. 
The whole is ornamented by two pavilions. At the foot of 
the vineyard is a farm, which is kept for the sole object of 
producing the manure necessary for the vineyard ; to this 
farm are attached 200 morgen of meadow land, and 400 
morgen of arable land ; the tithe contributories delivered, 
moreover, 1 2,000 trusses of straw, which, since the commu- 
tation, have to be bought One hundred and sixteen head 
of cattle are kept, besides the draught animals, and the 
entire amount of manure thus produced, namely, a thousand 
so-called double-carts full, each being equal to a load for 
two horses, or twenty-four cubic feet, is annually carried 
into the vineyard. Each morgen of vineyard receives every 
three years forty such double-carts full, each double-cart 
being distributed to sixty-four vines. The farm carts enter 
the vineyard by gates leading into the enclosure of the farm. 
It will thus be seen that the Steinberg wine is virtually 
the product of 680 morgen of land, and not of the 80 
morgen of vineyard only. The vineyard itself is divided 
into parts, which produce different qualities of wine ; the 
best grows in the part called "the golden beaker"; the 
second quality in " the garden of roses " ; the third, newest 
part, bears the name of " planzer." The work of dressing 
the vines is performed by specially appointed vine-dressers, 
called " Weinbergs Hofleute," who work by contract, 
according to a special code of instructions, which is an 
accurate and intelligible short guide to viticulture adapted 
to the Rheingau. The vintage is always very late, mostly 
in October, when the grapes are over-ripe. They are 



2OO A TREATISE ON WINES. 

trodden by men wearing special boots, standing in a pail 
with a perforated bottom. Stalks are never separated from 
berries ; they produce a slight depreciation of the wine, but 
it is less than the expense of removing the stalks. The 
presshouse is an old chapel, which the monks, having 
built a new one, devoted to Bacchus. Where before stood 
the altar they placed ten magnificent wooden wine-presses ; 
the rest of the chapel was filled with pails, baskets, vats, 
and other apparatus to be used at vintage time. 

Opposite this chapel is a smaller hall, where the cabinet 
wines are pressed. Close to this hall is the so-called Cabinet, 
a vault above ground protected by double walls, and by 
trees and shrubs from the external heat of the atmosphere 
and the rays of the sun. In this place the best wines are 
kept, and hence called Cabinet Wines. All other wines 
are put in the large beautiful underground cellars, and 
there prepared for sale. All the produce of Steinberg is 
sold by public auction at Erbach. The day of this sale 
resembles a festivity. Each stranger arriving, presumably 
a buyer, receives a dinner and a liberal allowance of good 
wine, cabinet wines being given with the dessert. The sale 
afterwards proceeds amidst general merriment. 

The wine at auction is sold in pieces of 1,200 litres each, 
being 7^- ohms ; the cabinet wine is also sold in smaller 
quantities by private arrangement, if the auction price be 
below the reserved price ; it is also disposed of in bottle at 
high prices. The wines of other domainial vineyards, e.g. 
Hattenheim, are sold at the same time ; so that with the 
average of 84 pieces from Steinberg, 120 to 150 pieces may 
be sold at one auction. The price of the wine varies 
between ^"65 per piece and ;6oo to ^700, the latter 
being the highest realized for exceptionally fine qualities. 

138. MARCOBRUNN AND JOHANNISBERG. 

The vineyards of Marcobrunn are partly Nassau (Prussian) 

domains, partly property of Count Schonborn. In the 

middle of the front of the vineyard is the gushing spring 

from which the situation bears its name. Other names are 



WINES OF RHEINGAU AND MOSELLE 2OI 

Hattenheim, Ostrich, Winkel, Geisenheim with its Rother 
Berg. The Johannisberg is the only rival of the Steinberg ; 
it is a conical hill, projected from the Taunus mountain to 
within about a mile of the river Rhine. The estate was 
originally a Benedictine abbey, founded in 1106 by 
Ruthard, Archbishop of Mayence. In the course of seven 
centuries the Johannisberg changed proprietors frequently : 
in 1717 it was bought by the Abbot of Fulda, Adalbert von 
Walderdorf, who built the present castle. At the time of 
the French Revolution the Johannisberg came into the 
hands of the then Prince of Orange, but Napoleon, after 
the battle of Jena, took it from him and gave it to Marshal 
Kellermann. In 1815 the Emperor of Austria took posses- 
sion of it, and on August ist, 1816, gave it to Prince Metter- 
nich, with whose descendant it now remains. The proprietor 
pays annual wine-tithes to the House of Hapsburg. 

The vineyard has a surface of 62 morgen, and is manured 
by the entire produce of a farm of 450 morgen of arable 
land, and 70 morgen of meadow land. The vine is culti- 
vated after the manner usual in the Rheingau. The grapes 
are selected with great care, and the vineyard is passed 
through by the reapers several times, when the best produce 
is selected berry by berry. Such Auslese, as it is termed, 
easily loses the character of Rhine wine, and becomes a 
sweet liquorous product, resembling Muscat or Sauterne. 
Much of the wine is bottled at the castle and sold to the 
public. Each cork shows the brand of the Metternich arms ; 
after it has been inserted in the bottle, it is sealed over, and 
the wax is again impressed with the same coat of arms. A 
label, stating the name, year, and price of the wine, is now 
fixed upon each bottle, and the wine is then sent away in 
cases and baskets to its destination. 

The cellars of the Johannisberg generally contain upwards 
of a hundred pieces of wine. The quantity of wine produced 
varies greatly with the years between forty-eight and sixty 
pieces. The wines of inferior years are sold by auction after 
the spring racking, only the higher qualities are kept in the 
cellar, and are bottled at the age of four or five years, the 
time of their maturity in cask. After being bottled, the 



2O2 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

wines improve greatly in bouquet, and keep twenty-five 
years. The auction wines fetch from ^50 to ^200 per 
piece, and the cabinet wines from ^"500 to ji,ooo per piece. 
The Johannisberg wines, like all white Rhine wines, are kept 
very pale, and any influence which would increase their 
colour is carefully kept away. 

139. VINEYARDS OF RUDESHEIM. 
The vineyards of Rudesheim have perhaps the most ideal 
situation of any on the Rhine, but suffer easily from drought. 
They are now daily traversed by many tourists, who ascend 
to the Niederwald to inspect the national monument com- 
memorating the results of the war of 1870-71. The Rtides- 
heimer Berg, as the best part of the vineyard is termed, has 
an area of upwards of 400 morgen. The price of vineyards 
is very high, as the mere planting, terracing, earthing, and 
removal of stones from underground, etc., involves an 
original expense of from ^600 to ^"700 per morgen. 

140. WINES OF THE LOWER MAINE, OR HOCHHEIM. 

Hochheim is a village situated on the northern side of 
the Maine, about three-quarters of a mile from the banks of 
that river, 100 feet above its level, and about three miles 
above its confluence with the Rhine. The vineyards extend 
for two miles along the northern bank of the river ; their 
area is 1,779 morgen of 160 ruthen each ; their inclination 
to the south is slight, and they have no particular protection 
from the north wind ; but the two most celebrated vineyards, 
the Domdechanei, and the Stein, are protected on their 
northern ends by a high church and the houses of the 
village. The so-called " church-plot " (or piece) of the 
Dechanei yields wines for which, in good years, as much as 
^600 per piece Rhenish are obtained. The soil is calcare- 
ous clay, mixed higher up with gravel. The vines and mode 
of their treatment are the same as in the Rheingau, as by 
its methods and results Hochheim is really a part, and a 
very typical one, of the Rheingau. The Riessling grape 
here attains its highest development; it is, when perfect, 



WINES OF RHEINGAU AND MOSELLE. 203 

light brown and transparent, not green ; the kernels are 
brown, and not white or light-coloured ; the taste is burning, 
sweet, and accompanied with the peculiar strong flavour of 
the Riessling ; the stalk of the perfectly ripe bunch must be 
dry and shrivelled, like that of raisins, and not green or 
succulent. Vinification offers no peculiarities. The wine is 
ripe for bottling after five years. 

Hochheimer seems to have been the earliest and best- 
known Rhenish wine in this country, and has furnished the 
monosyllabic English term by which all Rhine wines are 
confused, the curious symbol of " Hock." 

The whole of the vineyards in bearing in the Prussian 
province of Nassau, including Hochheim, have an area of 
10,974 morgen; the morgen contains 160 ruthen of 100 
square feet each. The produce may be estimated as amount- 
ing to a piece of wine per morgen. Of all the vines in the 
province 51 per cent, are Riessling, 16-3 per cent. Klein- 
berger, 8-9 per cent Sylvaner, or Oestreicher,* 6-9 per cent, 
are nondescript mixtures; the black Burgundies amount to 
4 per cent, the Traminer to 2-2 per cent., and the almost 
extinct Orleans vine to only 0.8 per cent. The Nassau 
ohm measures 160 litres ; the piece (German Stuck) mea- 
sures 74; ohms, or 1,200 litres; the same measures obtain in 
Hesse Darmsdadt and Baden. The Frankfort ohm, by which 
wine is commonly sold to England, has a capacity of only 
143-41 litres, or 31 -56 imperial gallons. Of Frankfort ohms, 
eight are equal to one Frankfort stuck of 1,152 litres, equal 
to 640 Frankfort maas. The Palatinate/z^kr is 1,000 litres^ 

141. WINES OF THE MOSELLE. 

The Moselle issues from the western slopes of the Vosges, 
and receives its principal contributory, the Saar, near Treves ; 
it then runs nearly northwards, with many windings, and 
flows into the Rhine near Coblentz. The valley is deeply 
cut through the Rhenish slate formation, or Devonian schist,, 
which on the right bank bears the orological name of Huns- 
ruck, or Hundsriick, on the left that of the Eifel. Its 
undulating banks in Lorraine are mostly covered with black 



2O4 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Burgundy vines; but from Treves to Cochem white vines 
are planted. 



142. CULTIVATED VINES AND MODE OF TRAINING. 

Of the cultivated vines of the Moselle, one, the Albuelis 
of Columella, or Elbling, or Kleinberger, seems to be indi- 
genous to the Moselle valley. It occurs in all vineyards, 
and frequently prevails over the Riessling, but the latter is 
everywhere mixed with it. In five or six districts from 
Piesport to Trarbach are vineyards planted with Riessling 
exclusively. At Piesport and Kersten more red wine is 
already made, and in the neighbourhood of Cobern, Cochem, 
Garden, and a few places of the Lower Moselle, much red 
wine is grown, and the Burgundy vine prevails. 

The small viticulturists grow their vines according to the 
hedge principle, as it is termed (Hecken- Wingert}, that is to 
say, the vines 'get one pruning, no supports, and then grow 
as best they can : in August and September superfluous 
branches and foliage are removed for fodder, and in October 
any grapes are cut. The wealthier viticulturists all go in for 
quantity, and frequently injure their vines by leaving too 
much wood for bearing. The cultivation on the Upper 
Moselle is essentially French, specially Burgundian. 

143. PECULIARITIES OF MOSELLE WINES. 
The general character of white Moselle wine is that of 
thin Rhine wine, but it never attains as much flavour. It 
matures quickly, and does not possess the keeping qualities 
of Hock. Owing to the natural absence of flavour or 
bouquet, the producers of Moselle, and the merchants in 
their track, have devised an artificial flavour, namely, the 
tincture of the elder flower : it is used particularly in 
sparkling Moselle, and when properly applied affords a very 
agreeable bouquet. The tincture is made as follows. The 
little elder-flowers are cut from the bunches and infused 
with pure strong spirit of wine. After twenty-four hours 
standing the spirit is filtered. It may now be again infused 



WINES OF AUSTRIA. 2O5 

upon new elder-flowers, and this process repeated several 
times, according to the strength which it is intended to give 
to the essence. Much care has to be bestowed upon the 
clarification of the essence. Of this tincture a small quan- 
tity added to common Rhine wine or Moselle gives it the 
peculiar flavour which is termed " muscatel flavour." But 
there is no grape grown upon the Moselle fit for wine- 
making which has this flavour, or any muscatel flavour, and 
not a single barrel of wine is made which has that flavour 
naturally, all which has that flavour derives it from elder- 
flower ; much of the "Moselle with muscatel flavour" sold 
in England is Rhine wine flavoured with the elder. There 
can be no objection to the use of this tincture, and there 
ought to be no concealment about it. Elder-flower is an 
agreeable flavour, in no way prejudicial to health, and has 
from time immemorial been used to make a high-flavoured 
infusion for the treatment of slight indisposition, particularly 
of the gastric organs. 

The area of the vineyards on the Moselle is 20,606 mor- 
gen, which, with 15,080 morgen situated on the Rhine, make 
up 48,631 morgen of vineyards in Rhenish Prussia. The 
greater part of this area has been called into viticultural 
productivity by the protective -duties which Prussia imposed 
on the exports of the small states before they joined the- 
customs union, now merged in the empire. 



CHAPTER XX. 
WINES OF AUSTRIA. 

144. WINES OF AUSTRIA. 

IN German Austria the young wine is put into new barrels 
of large size, provided with man-hole doors which are not 
pierced ; for as the wine is not drawn from the lees in spring, 
but is allowed to remain over them until sold and broken 



2O6 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

in smaller parcels, the purchasers do not like to buy casks 
which have the man-hole door pierced for the insertion of a 
tap, owing to a belief that such a condition of the cask would 
indicate that the wine had been disturbed, mixed, or tam- 
pered with. The producers, on their side, know how to 
disarm such suspicion by providing every old cask which 
they use for receiving new wine, or any wine in their cellars, 
with a new man-hole door which has not been pierced. 

In some convents and monasteries in Austria there are 
cellars filled with casks containing up to ten fuder of wine ; 
one fuder being equal to thirty-two eimer, or about 1,728 
litres, the largest cask would contain upward of 172 hecto- 
litres. Many of these casks contain wine ten and more 
years old still floating over the first lees. In 1840 Bronner 
tasted wine at Neuburg which had been eighteen years over 
its first lees, and not been racked at all. This practice 
makes wine expensive, and explains many of the short- 
comings which Austrian wines formerly exhibited. No 
private producers could accumulate their crops in this man- 
ner ; on the contrary, they are compelled or induced to sell 
their wines somewhat too early, and it is for such reasons that 
Austrian wines have not taken that place in European trade 
which their otherwise good qualities might entitle them to. 

145. RED WINE OF VOSLAU, NEAR VIENNA. 
About fifteen English miles south of Vienna, in the 
neighbourhood of Baden, are two viticulture districts, 
named from the villages of Voslau and of Gumpolds- 
kirchen, which have, during the last forty years, obtained 
some notoriety. The red wine produced in them comes 
from a particular black-graped vine, termed the Early Blue 
Portuguese. The grape is early ripening, sweet, of some- 
what larger size than the Burgundy Pineau. It is said to 
have been imported from Portugal, and to be identical with 
the Alvarilhao of the Douro district, 1 but we have not been 
able to substantiate these assertions by positive proof. The 
wines made from this grape are fit for use in a very short 

1 Odart, I.e., p. 369. 






WINES OF AUSTRIA. 2O/ 

time after they are made, and do not require a long sojourn 
in the cellar, while wines made from other grapes in Austria 
require to be kept in barrel sometime before they become 
drinkable. 

The produce of Voslau is mostly bought by the inn- 
keepers and speculators of Vienna and Baden, in the shape 
of what is called gemesch, that is to say, of grapes in a vat 
crushed by wooden stampers. The more advanced pro- 
prietors make their wines according to the best methods of 
France and Germany. 

The vines are kept near the ground, but are so pruned as 
to produce many small grapes on many branches of wood. 
The soil of the Voslau vineyards is chalky. 



146. WINES AND GRAPES OF THE TYROL. 
The wine-producing part of the Tyrol is situated along 
the valley of the Adige, beginning near Verona and running 
by Botzen up to Meran. The valley of the Adige is pro- 
tected on the north by high mountains, and represents a 
kind of basin, over which eastern and western storms h'ave 
no power, and the slopes of which are most favourable to 
viticulture, particularly where they are composed of a 
mixture of decayed chalk, gneiss, and porphyry. At Botzen 
and Meran sun and moisture vie in producing the greatest 
development of vegetation compatible with the temperature 
of the moderate zone. In ascending the Adige we find that 
with the Italian language ends the Italian mode of viticul- 
ture. With the German language commencing at Tramin and 
Neumarkt, the system called " bowers " commences, while 
that of the Italian " garlands " ceases. For some miles both 
systems are mixed, imitating the mixture of nationalities. 
At Roveredo appear the crossed stakes which prevail near 
Trieste. The garlands are trained nearer to the ground, and 
the plants are close together. At last there are no more twisted 
ropes of vine-canes, but only single canes stretching from 
stake to stake. These then also disappear, and the vines 
are kept near the ground, as at Seyssel, in Switzerland, in 
the form called " head-knob," or "willow-tree top." 



2O8 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

By the bower treatment a great quantity of wine of the 
lowest quality is produced, which is only used by the 
country people, and quite unfit for any staple trade or ex- 
port. But the German inhabitants now cultivate the vine 
after the Rhenish pattern. 

The varieties of grapes cultivated in the Tyrol are in the 
Italian part entirely Italian ; in the German part there have 
hitherto been grown only large -berried white and blue 
varieties, among them the Vernatsch. This is a black 
muscatel, known as such in France and Germany under 
the name of Aleatico ; in upper Italy, under that of Ver- 
naculo e Toscana. The grape is only fit for the production 
of so-called liqueur wines, that is to say, grape juice pre- 
served from fermentation by the addition of distilled spirit. 
Such is the Tuscan Aleatico wine, and the French Lunels, 
Frontignans, the Cape Constantia, Cyprus, and many others. 
For the production of fermented dry wines the Vernatsch is 
quite unsuitable. 



1*47. THE TYROLINGER, OR "BLACK HAMBRO" VINE 

OF THE TYROL. 

The vine most characteristic of the Tyrol, known in Ger- 
many as the Tyrolinger, or Trollinger, is that celebrated, 
and to all growers of vines in conservatories and hothouses, 
and particularly therefore to English viticulturists, most im- 
portant vine, which they know under the name of Knevet's 
JSlack Hambro, The French, who received it from the 
Palatinate, called it Frankenthal. It is the usual table- 
grape in the belt of land which once constituted the 
Austrasian empire, stretching from Holland and Belgiuml 
through South Germany, down the Danube almost to Pestrr 
Odart (/.<:., p. 367) in consequence called it "the nationa, 
grape of the Germans " ; and curiously enough speaks of it 
as a useless low vine, which he had torn out. However, it 
is certain that the Tyrolese or Black Hambro grape is of all 
eating grapes the most perfect, on account of its having 
thin husks, small pips, tolerably solid yet juicy flesh, and 
an agreeable acidity never in excess, mixed with a sufficient 



WINES OF AUSTRIA. 209 

amount of sugar and mild flavour. The bunches are never 
very large, and not so close that the grapes have not suffi- 
cient space to develop themselves. The vine is always 
fertile, and even in bad years its fruit may be used, though 
not completely ripe, or may be used in good years some- 
what under-ripe, on account of the modest amount of 
acidity. When the grape gets ripe and is allowed to hang 
a little beyond its actual period of ripeness, it yields a 
splendid wine ; but this state of ripeness is hardly ever 
reached in the places where it is cultivated for the produc- 
tion of wine. There are two celebrated vines of this variety, 
one in a greenhouse in Hampton Court garden, and one in 
the conservatory at Windsor Castle; they are very old 
stocks, and annually surprisingly fertile. 

The Tyrolese wines offer no points for observation, except 
that in late years they have been much improved, and several 
enterprising viticulturists have planted vineyards with the 
best vines of the Rheingau. A first harvest was obtained in 
1869. But the treatment in the cellar was not yet developed, 
and difficulties have to be overcome to this day, consisting 
in the obstinate occurrence of so-called diseases produced 
by parasitic fungi. We also doubt whether the transfer of 
the Rhenish Riessling will be so successful as is hoped, mainly 
because we observe how vines are, so to say, related to dis- 
tricts, and perhaps autochthonous, and only succeed under 
other latitudes by special care or favour of local conditions. 

148. THE GRAPE-CURE AT MERAN. 
The expression "grape-cure" is intended to signify the 
systematic eating of grapes on the part of patients afflicted 
with sundry chronic ailments which resist the ordinary modes 
of medical treatment, for the purpose of ameliorating their 
ailments. There are at Meran lodging-houses and hotels, 
where, in the proper season, people from many parts of 
Europe arrive and put themselves under the care of those 
medical practitioners who make a speciality of this kind of 
treatment. The patients are made to eat grapes in consider- 
able quantities frequently during the day, the largest quantity 
P 



2IO A TREATISE ON WINES. 

in the morning, and at the same time to take exercise. To 
the greater number of these patients the eating of grapes is 
more a pleasure than a privation, particularly when their 
digestive organs are not the seat of their ailment. The 
earliest effect of the eating of a certain quantity of grapes is 
purgative, but as the grape-juice nourishes at the same time, 
it is superior to the mere purging mineral waters. The selec- 
tion of grapes at Meran is not easy, as there are only Trollinger 
and Vernatsche to be had the Trollinger in a state in which 
it is still watery and acidulous, and the Vernatsche (i.e. 
Veronaccia, or vine of Verona, at Verona called Pavana) 
being also, at the early season, when the cure must be 
commenced, not sufficiently advanced in sweetness and 
concentration. The doctors of Meran have recognized the 
disadvantage that their only choice of material was between 
these two varieties, and have observed that at some periods 
their patients rather lost than gained weight, while with better 
grapes the patients mostly increase in weight during the 
treatment. 



149. WINES OF STYRIA. 

The cultivation of the vine in Styria extends from Stein- 
briick, along the Save, and from Cille to Marburg, the vine- 
yards in the Bacher mountains being particularly extensive. 
Styrian viticulture has been described by many authors in 
that country itself, but it became known to wider circles 
only through the writings of the late G. P. H. Bronner, of 
Wiesloch in Baden. The wines of the western part of the 
Gallus mountain are generally known under the name of 
the place where they are usually sold, namely, at Saurish Winer, 
a name which lends itself to the suggestion of invidious 
reflections. Styria debouches not towards the Mediterranean, 
or the northern part of the valley of the Danube, but its 
long-drawn valleys are all directed towards the east, and 
communicate with the lower part of Hungary ; as hitherto 
the sales could only take place in the direction of the river, 
and as just in that direction there was no want, the only 
market which the Styrian producer had for his wine was his 



WINES OF AUSTRIA. 211 

own country and the mountainous district of the neighbour- 
ing Alps. Nevertheless, wine is grown on 54,000 joch or 
morgen, each joch bearing 4,000 vines. Near Pettau are 
ranges of hills, so-called Cotles, nearly thirty miles in length, 
on which viticulture is carried on in the crater of the extinct 
volcano, of which each hill is the remnant. The funnel- 
shaped inside of the crater mostly measures ten morgen, but 
there are some the area of which rises to twenty morgen. The 
vines are grown on the slopes exposed to the sun ; the slopes 
turned to the north are mostly covered with forest. In the 
mostly even bottom of the crater ordinary agriculture is 
carried on. In the centre of each crater is mostly a central 
volcanic cone, on which the residence of the cultivator is 
built. The traveller who on a misty morning stands on a 
high point, and looks over these craters, sees the houses 
appear above the horizon, as if they were suspended to the 
sky and had no footing on the earth, and thus enjoys an 
apparently magical spectacle. 



150. VlTICULTURISTS OF STYRIA. 

Styria is divided into two nearly equal parts by the river 
Drave, which comes from Carinthia and flows into the 
Danube in Hungary. The part of Styria north of this river 
is entirely German, the part south of it Wendish. All the 
Wends are viticulturists, while the Germans engage here but 
little in that occupation. The wine-producing Wends are 
termed "AVeinzettel"; they live on small properties, either 
as renting farmers or as freeholders. Where the wine- 
grower is only a tenant farmer, he frequently pays the most 
curious rent or receives remuneration. The master gives him 
two cows, and finds fodder and straw; the tenant takes 
the grass from the vineyard and feeds the cows with it. 
The calf of the cow belongs to the master, the milk to the 
cultivator, but the master exacts not rarely eighteen pounds 
of butter in a clarified state. On the other hand the master 
pays to the cultivator thirty shillings per acre in cash, and 
takes half the produce, so that there is a perplexing amount 
of cross-calculation. In some parts the dung produced by 



212 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the cattle on the farm belongs for half the year to the 
master, and for the other half year to the cultivator. This 
complicated condition denotes a very elementary state of 
society, there being neither capital on the part of the pro- 
prietors nor resources of any kind on the part of the 
cultivators, and the effect of these circumstances unfavour- 
ably influences the wine produce. 

151. VARIETIES OF VINES CULTIVATED. 

Some of the vines cultivated are probably indigenous to 
Styria, which has many wild vines, e.g. on the banks of the 
little river Svan. In the Gratz district dominates the 
Bellina, by the Germans termed "Heunisch," i.e. Hungarian, 
and by the Hungarians "German." In the mountains of Lut- 
tenberg and in the vineyards of the Drave the Mosler vine 
predominates, also called Schipon, identical with the Hun- 
garian Furmint, or vine of Tokay. The Mosler always bears, 
ripens its wood, produces middle-sized grapes, which do not 
drop easily, and, when the sun is high, shrivel into raisins, 
from which, if need be, sweet wine can be made. The 
Rhenish Riessling also has been transplanted, but yields a 
fiery wine without much bouquet. In the less favoured 
part of Styria the dominant vine is the Tantovvina, which 
bears copiously, but gives a mediocre wine ; its German 
name is Mehlweiss. In the mountains of Gams white or 
yellow muscatels are grown, the juice of which is mostly 
consumed during fermentation. The Gonovitz red wine is 
made from the small round black grapes of the Kauka ; the 
red wine of the Sausal mountains is made from grapes of 
the blue Wildbacher, an abundant bearer, which gives 
tolerable grapes even when grown as a climber on trees. 
One such vine, on a pear-tree, yielded to the late G. P. H. 
Bronner, of Wiesloch, in 1866, sixty litres of very good red 
wine. The wines of the Wildbacher resemble most the 
vigorous Bordeaux varieties, the Palus. This vine is no 
doubt indigenous to Styria ; in the forests trees are here and 
there found covered by it ; it produces long canes, some ex- 
ceeding twenty feet in length : it bears every variety of 



WINES OF AUSTRIA. 21$ 

training low, like Burgundy vines, or along houses, or in 
frames, and everywhere brings great harvests. The berries 
are round, small, black, and covered with bloom. The skin 
is so thick and protected by bloom-wax, that it does not rot 
easily, resembling the Verdot of the Bordelais, and may there- 
fore hang long on the tree without detriment to its colour. 
The pruned canes, after cutting time, are thrown into the 
roads, to make them passable. Every proprietor abutting 
upon the road takes in autumn one half of the bruised and 
comminuted fragments of these vine canes, and puts them 
into his vineyard as manure. To avoid disputes, the two 
abutting proprietors sometimes agree to take the material 
alternately every other year. 

152. VINDICATION, PRESSING, AND QUALITY OF WINE. 

The production of red wine in Styria has, through the 
exertion of the oenophilist Trummer, been much improved, 
so that closed fermentation vats are used, when formerly 
only open, wide, flat wooden pans were employed. The 
bruised grapes are packed in the shape of a pyramid and 
bandaged with a long flat bandage made of the roots of the 
common juniper, and having a length of from 100 to 130 
feet. The pressure is now applied, and the spiral lines of 
the bandage are pressed the one into the other, until the 
whole of the juice is squeezed out. This method is also 
common in Andalusia and in Dalmatia. The Wends use 
concentric hoops to contain the grapes under the press. 
The presses are mostly beam-presses, there being few screw- 
presses to be seen ; the beams are up to thirty feet in length, 
the pressing beds are from ten to twelve feet square ; stones 
are hung to the ends of the beams. 

As each joch produces about twenty-five eimer of wine, 
the 54,720 jochs of vineyards in Styria give a total harvest 
of 1,367,500 eimer. The late Archduke John, quondam 
Reichsvenveser of Germany, and Dr. Hlubeck improved 
viticulture in Styria greatly during the years from 1830 to 
1850. In the Austrian exhibition of 1857 ninety-nine 
Styrian wines of good quality were exhibited ; some Styrian 



214 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

produce is made into effervescent wine by the firm of 
Kleinoschegg. The Styrian wines are naturally so good, 
that with proper treatment they might become objects of 
a considerable commerce. 



153. WINES OF CROATIA. 

The climatic "condition of Croatia favours viticulture, 
but in consequence of the want of labour the producers cul- 
tivate the vine for quantity, neglecting all attempts at 
quality. The best vine is the Moslavina, known in Hun- 
gary as Furmint, but the dominating vines are the Griin- 
hainer and the Heunisch, which cannot possibly give good 
wine. The vine arrives at its full bearing power only in the 
eighth year after being planted ; it is sunk once or twice, to 
give it a large footing. It is pruned in spring, when also 
the soil is worked ; then the vineyard is allowed to grow as 
best it can until the time of the vintage approaches. At that 
time the vineyard is a mere jungle. The vine-dressers, 
therefore, on entering the vineyard, cut their way through 
the tangled vines, and tie up what branches remain uncut, 
and in general make the vines accessible to the reapers. 
Behind the vine-dressers there go relays of women, who 
with sickles cut off the thick layer of weeds and grass on 
the ground. A Croatian vineyard, like some we know of 
at the Antipodes, is therefore a very picturesque scene at 
vintage time, and exhibits the power of nature and the 
luxuriance of the vine very well ; but its produce is neces- 
sarily of low quality. The grapes are vintaged at the period 
of their greatest volume. The presses are mostly beam- 
presses ; there are are no proper receptacles for the murk, 
but this is mixed with old vine cuttings, as brick earth is 
with straw, and pressed. The must gets hot, and when it 
has completed fermentation has mostly an acetic taste. 
It is kept in a hole dug in the earth, covered by a reedy 
thatch, and this arrangement goes by the name of cellar. 
Even better cellars below houses are too warm in summer. 
The really great viticultural capabilities of Croatia are thus, 
wasted entirely. 



WINES OF AUSTRIA. 215 

At the exhibition of Wagram in 1864 above a thousand 
specimens of Croatian wine were exhibited ; they were all 
contained in well filled, beautifully corked and labelled 
bottles. But not one specimen out of ten was free from 
serious faults ; nine out of ten exhibited the acetous flavour 
and the mouse-taste. This latter an Austrian juror of 
Neuburg facetiously termed the peculiar Croatian bouquet, 
while some Croatians themselves believed it to be derived 
from the soil. 



154. WINES OF DALMATIA. 

A traveller intending to visit Dalmatia may leave Trieste 
on board a steamer, and pass the Istrian coast and the 
bay of Quarnaro. While the steamer passes between the 
island and the mainland towards the south, the tourist will 
perceive bare rocky mountains without any vegetation; 
only here and there will he perceive some shrubs rising from 
crevices in the rocks ; if he were to draw a conclusion as 
regards the condition of Dalmatia from the appearance of 
the sea-coast, he would believe it to be a stony desert. On 
penetrating into the interior, however, he perceives that 
many valleys.intersect the rocks, the bottoms of which are 
cultivated in "various ways, while the slopes leading to them 
from the rocks are planted with vines. These vineyards 
exist altogether only by the assiduity of man. The earth is 
carried from the valleys up the steep inclines, and fixed by 
means of terraces ; and as the strong winds from the sea 
would speedily blow the earth away, every small piece of 
vineyard is surrounded by a wall not less than six feet high. 
The stones from which these walls are built are mainly the 
produce of blasting operations, undertaken to diminish the 
inclination of the territory. The vineyards are thus real traps 
to catch the sun's rays and boil the vine. By these means 
Dalmatia was able, when the oidium had reduced Italian 
wine production to one-tenth of its average, to immediately 
supply the deficiency. Since then, Dalmatian viticulture has 
been steadily on the increase. 



2l6 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

155. VARIETIES OF VINES AND THEIR CULTIVATION. 

Amongst a great variety of vines cultivated in Dalmatia, 
the Italian vines predominate, owing, no doubt, to the easy 
communication by sea with Italy. Amongst the blue 
varieties are the Hungarian Kadarka, the Crelenjack, the 
large and small Plavec, and the Modrulj. On the islands of 
Brazza, Glavusa, and Nicousa, the vines called the Vugava 
and Uva pasche predominate. The Dalmatians are parti- 
cularly pleased with the Crelenjack and the small Plavec. 
The latter gives a slight wine, but bears largely. Among 
the white varieties is noteworthy a grape called the Maras- 
chino (or Maraschina), small, long, and very sweet; it is 
cultivated particularly in the island of Brazza, and used in 
the production of the sweet liqueur wines called Maraschino. 
This must not be confounded with the liqueur which is 
drunk in Europe under the name of Maraschino, and which 
is distilled from the fermented mash of a small cherry called 
the Alarasche. The Maraschino liqueur made at Zara is an 
excellent cherry brandy, and exceeds in finesse even the 
cherry brandies (Kirschenwasser) of Alsatia. 

The Dalmatians term naturally fermented wine " sour," 
and liqueur wines with added spirit " sweet." The grapes, 
cut at the time of their largest volume, are put into bags 
made of the skins of he-goats, with the hair turned inside, 
and carried home. In this way all Dalmatian wines acquire 
the taste or flavour of the he-goat. Only in Zara and Sebenico 
are grapes carried home in panniers and other baskets. A 
third ordeal awaits the grapes during fermentation, which is 
conducted in open shallow vats. The presses are very ele- 
mentary ; the murk is kept together by a circular bandage, 
sometimes a rope made of straw. The new wine is put into 
new pine-wood barrels, and thus the ordinary Dalmatian 
wine presents a mixture of flavours, which disqualifies it for 
use by persons with an educated palate. A bottle of wine 
is sold for two pence, and we have been assured, that if all 
the faults were removed from this wine, its value in the 
locality would not rise to two pence halfpenny. The red 
wines are very dark, and so astringent, that we could not 



WINES OF AUSTRIA. 2 \J 

drink them without diluting them with their bulk of water. 
The wines going to Italy fetch only \^d. the litre. Much 
wine goes into Thessaly and Epirus. The Austrian Govern- 
ment have done much to encourage the improvement and 
extension of wine production in Dalmatia. 



156. WINES OF ISTRIA. 

There are viticultural districts between Trieste and 
Pisano, and near Rovigno and Pola. The islands of Vaglia, 
Cherso, and Lussin, also produce wine, but spoil it, like 
the Dalmatians. Viticulture at Trieste is practised as in 
Italy, and is faulty throughout ; and the wine produced 
is sour and indifferent. Of vines, the blue Refosco and 
the white Malvoisie are the most esteemed and extensively 
planted (Odart says they prevail along the shore of the 
whole Adriatic sea). The wines made near Trieste have 
all the faults of the wines of Croatia and Dalmatia. To 
obtain a glass of good wine at Trieste one must ask for 
Austrian Voslauer, Gumpolds-Kirchener, or Grinzinger. 
If the Istrians produced good wine they could export it to 
all the world, because much shipping leaves Trieste in 
ballast. 



157. WINES OF GORTZ. 

The fruit of Gortz is highly esteemed in the markets of 
South Germany, and particularly of Vienna, but the wine 
produced here is mediocre, because all vines are over- 
shadowed by fruit-trees. The tenant-farmers pay rent 
in wine, and some corn. The vines are Italian, Refosco 
being preferred. Some enterprising men at Gortz now 
produce a good red wine ; others an effervescent wine, from 
a particular grape called Ribola. The latter was, some 
years ago, yet imperfect, as the art of disgorging had not 
yet penetrated to Gortz, and the connoisseur drank the 
sparkling win* in a turbid state. A sweet liqueur wine is 
also made and exported to Turkey and Russia. 



2l8 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

158. WINES OF BOHEMIA. 

Bohemia produces annually about 50,895 eimer of wine, 
of which 19,300 are red, and 31,595 are white. The best 
wine is that of Melnik, a town situated about twelve miles 
to the north of Prague, and is made from the black 
Burgundy grape. The production of wine in Bohemia is 
decidedly on the decrease, as the climatic conditions are 
not sufficiently favourable to make it a remunerative object 
of agriculture. 



CHAPTER XXI. 
WINES OF HUNGARY. 

159. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

THE wines of Hungary were the object of much dis- 
cussion and controversy at the time when the principles of 
free trade received a generalized application in this country. 
The late Mr. Cobden used, inter alia, Hungarian wines as 
objects on which to illustrate his teaching, and relied for 
his information upon an extensive report of our then Con- 
sul in Hungary, Mr. Dunlop. The Consul, on his part, had 
to rely upon local information, which was in many respects 
delusive, and the consequence was that many erroneous 
statements on Hungarian wines became current, which found 
their final contradiction and extinction only during the last 
few years. Hungary no doubt produces much wine, and many 
varieties of it. On the occasion of the International Agricul- 
tural Exhibition at Hamburg, in 1863, a Hungarian reporter, 
Stefan Morocz, estimated the total annual production of 
wine in Hungary to be 25 millions of eimer; or, taking 
the eimer at 54 litres (it being actually 54-1527 litres), 
13^ millions of hectolitres. Of this quantity a little less 



WINES OF HUNGARY. 2 19 

than one-eighth, namely three millions of eimer, equal to 
1-62 millions of hectolitres, was supposed to be capable 
of being so prepared as to become fit for European trade. 
But of this latter amount a very small proportion is as yet 
actually so prepared; and in the year 1859 the exportation 
from Pesth, the principal market for Hungarian wines, did 
not yet amount to 100,000 eimer. 

1 60. VlTICULTURAL DISTRICTS OF HUNGARY. 

The principal viticultural districts of the kingdom are five 
in number, and may be defined as follows. 

The northern district, on the left side of the Danube, is 
the continuation in an easterly direction of the viticultural 
regions of Lower Austria and Moravia. It includes the valley 
of the Waag, in which vines are cultivated from Trentschin 
to Szered ; further, the valley of the Gran ; but is mainly- 
characterized by the Hegyalja mountain, containing the 
celebrated vineyards of Tokay and Erlau, and the less 
distinguished but fertile vineyards of the Bodrog, a river 
which comes from the Carpathian mountains, and the Samos,. 
which issues from Transylvania. 

The eastern district is confined between the Stein on the 
west, and the river Samos and Transylvania on the east ; its> 
southern frontier is the Banat. Its wines are represented- 
by the products of Erdod, Bakator, and Menes. 

The central district is situated between the Danube on the 
west, and the Theiss on the east ; its northern limit is at 
Pesth, and in the south it ends at the Woiwodina. 

The western district is divisible into two parts ; one to the 
west of the Raab river, which is a continuation of the viti- 
cultural district of Lower Austria, and is represented by the 
vineyards of Rust ; the other parts to the east of the Raab, 
and further enclosed by the Danube and Drave, including in. 
its centre the regions of the Plattensee. This part is charac- 
terized by the wines of Ofen, Somlatt, and Weissenburg. 

The southern district includes the Banat and Woiwodina ; 
in the former the Werschitz mountain has vineyards on 
many slopes. 



22O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

1 6 1. VARIETIES OF SOIL ON WHICH VINES GROW IN 
HUNGARY. 

Vines are grown mainly on slopes of hills, but also on 
plains, and even on marshy lands. The great wines are 
produced either on plutonic or volcanic land, or chalky 
soil. Thus the Hegyalja, a promontory of the Carpathians 
extending and sloping towards the south, consists mainly of 
porphyry and basalt. The best wines of Fiinfkirchen grow 
on chalky hills, called the Deindol. The Ofner wine, termed 
Adlersberger, grows on volcanic soil, which constitutes a 
part of the series of hills running along the Danube from 
Pacs-Megyer to Alt-Teteny. The wine of the mountain 
of Somlyo, or.Somlau, in Veszprim county, near the Plat- 
tensee, grows on basaltic soil. The wines which grow on 
the shores of the lake of Neusiedl, and those which grow 
round the Plattensee, generically termed " lake- wines," are 
grown on basaltic soil, which slopes from the Badacsonyer 
mountains southwards towards this lake. All the lake-wine 
of Gyorkoer grows on soil which is made up of one-third of 
chalk and two-thirds of clay. The wine of Packsdorf, in 
the county of Eisenburg, is obtained on strongly ferruginous 
soil, while the wine of Musai, in Beregh county, comes from 
a soil which is partly the product of the decay of alum-stone 
(schist). 

162. VARIETIES OF VINES AND MODE OF CULTIVATION. 

There are two dominant vines peculiar to Hungary the 
Farming or Tokay, with white grapes, and the Kadarka 
(Kadarkas) with black grapes. In the county of Baranye 
there are some extensive plantations of Burgundy Pi/ieau, 
and round Villary there is much of the Rhenish Riessling, 
the early Portugese, and the Oporto vine. At Ofen a 
black-graped vine, Sar feher, occurs intermixed with the 
Kadarka. There are also other varieties imported from 
Croatia and Lower Austria, including some degenerate Mus- 
catels, which have lost the muscat flavour. 

The Fur mint (in Hungarian lo Formint} syn. White 



WINES OF HUNGARY. 221 

Tokay, Lake-vine, Moseler, Moslavina is a strong vine, with 
woolly canes and shoots ; the leathery leaves show a thick 
felt on the underside. The bunch of grapes is large, loose, 
pendulous, cylindrical, sometimes divided in several lobes. 
The fruit-stalk is short and thin, and its node does not carry 
a collateral bunch. The berry-stalks are all long, and the 
basal enlargement has a brown margin, and fine light green 
warts. The berries are medium sized, and, when uncom- 
pressed, round, with strong white bloom ; their juice is sweet, 
and has a peculiar strong flavour. The grapes ripen early ; 
the earliest burst and discharge a portion of their juice, 
which dries up, and forms, with the rest of the berry, a shape- 
less lump, full of sugar ; these products are called " dry 
berries," and must not be confounded with the raisins of 
southern climates. The dry berries are mostly interspersed 
with fully ripe and plump, not at all passulated, berries. At 
the vintage these dry berries are separated from the plump 
ones immediately after the bunch is cut off, and collected 
in separate vessels, and further treated as will be described 
lower down. 

Nearly all the red wines of Hungary are made from the 
Blue Kadarka. Its berries are oval and of medium size, 
black, covered with bloom ; the bunches are of medium 
size. The dark green leaf, which is shiny above, and some- 
what hirsute on the underside, shows the peculiarity that its 
two extreme lobes are generally turned or twisted a little 
upwards. By this twist the Kadarka can be distinguished 
from other varieties of vines, even at a distance. To get 
fully ripe, the Kadarka requires the great heat of the Hun- 
garian summer ; it is the only black-graped vine which yields 
dry berries like the Furmint, and thus enables the viticultu- 
rist to produce the sweet wine called by the Germans in 
Hungary "Ausbruch." 

The Mode of Cultivation of the vines is that known as 
small head, or knob ; this keeps the fruit near the ground, 
and avoids the necessity of stakes for support. Nevertheless,. 
it does not yield the best quality of wine. 



222 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

163. VINTAGE AND VINDICATION. 

At Ofen (Buda) the white grapes are vintaged first, and 
the black ones afterwards. Both red and white wines are 
mostly fermented with the husks and stalks, and pressed 
after the fermentation. 150 eimer of mashed grapes (a quan- 
tity called a "gatzen") yields 120 eimer of clear wine and 
30 eimer of murk. The first drawn wine is called " sweet 
wine," and amounts to no eimer out of the above 120 ; the 
remaining 10 eimer are obtained by pressing the murk, and 
are somewhat harsh. The presses are primseval beam-presses ; 
the murk is kept together by hoops or boxes. The wine is 
preserved in large barrels, but for sale is put in barrels of 
from 162 to 270 litres each. 

As regards Hungarian wines, we must distinguish between 
such as are really thoroughly fermented grape juice, and such 
as are more or less sweetened and alcoholized, so as to be, 
or to approximate to, liqueurs. What is called " Maszlacz" 
German " Ausbruch" whether made at Tokay, Rust, or 
Menes, or other places, consists of must from plump ripe 
grapes, more or less fortified, thickened and sweetened by 
means of " dry berries." In consequence, a portion of the 
harvest is deprived entirely of its dry berries, and this now 
yields only " ordinary wine" When the dry berries are not 
removed, and are made into wine together with the entire 
harvest, and without any addition of dry berries from other 
vintages, the so-called " natural wine" or " Szamorodni" is 
obtained. Maszlacz is made of four qualities, called, one-, 
two-, three-, or four-" buttig" according to the quantity of dry 
berries added to each cask of must. A cask of wine con- 
tains ten " batten" and the addition of dry berries to produce 
the several qualities of Maszlacz, therefore, amounts to one 
butt, equal to 10 per cent, of the total volume of the murk ; 
or to two butts, equal to 20 per cent.; three butts, equal to 
30 per cent. ; and four butts, equal to 40 per cent, of the total 
murk. Such wine is always highly alcoholic, and more or 
less sweet. When five volumes or more of dry berries are 
added to the must, so that the mixture consists of equal 
volumes of must and dry berries, or so that the volume of 



WINES OF HUNGARY. 22J 

the dry berries preponderates, "Ausbruch " is formed. The 
finest quality of Ausbruch is that which runs spontaneously 
from the must-infused dry berries after they have been 
allowed to macerate a short time, and is called "Essence." 

164. CLASSIFICATION OF HUNGARIAN WINES. 

When Hungarian wines are compared with each other, 
they can be arranged in a certain series, which indicates 
their relative value. But it is not intended by this list to 
attempt a comparison of Hungarian wines with other pro- 
ducts, either as regards quality, value, or price. 

A. Wines of the First Class. 

First Order. Tokay: (i) Essence : very sweet, containing 
slight amount of alcohol, not exceeding 7 per cent, (should not 
exceed 4 per cent.), and produced by extremely slow fermen- 
tation ; must be very old. When fifty years old in bottle will 
fetch from forty to sixty-six shillings each small Tokay bottle. 

(2) Ausbruch: sweet, strong in alcohol (added); must be 
old : not rarely deposits, like the essence, sugar in crystals. 

(3) Maszlacz : of four different qualities : the quality with 
40 per cent, dry berries costs at Tokay from 120 to 1 60 thalers 
per eimer, or six shillings the ordinary wine-bottle full. 

(4) Szamorodny, or dry natural Tokay : is fiery and acid, and 
requires age to develop its qualities, which then are remark- 
able. (5) Ordinari. The total production of all qualities in 
twenty-one communes of the Tokay district is about 268,000 
eimer per annum, or about 14,500,000 of litres. The 
Mezes-Male, or Imperial Tokay, grows at Tarczal, a market 
town, and is never sold in trade. Next in quality are the 
products of Talya, Mad, Liszka, Kirsfaludy, Zsadany. 
Third in quality of so-called medium Tokays are the wines 
of Tokay town, Kerestur, Erdohenye, Toloswa, Nagysaro- 
patak (all four market towns), and of the villages Ond, 
Zzanto-Olassi, Ujheli, Sara, Golop, Zzegilong, Zombor, 
Erdo-Herwathi, Ratka, Kis-Zoronyia. Around these vine- 
yards of the third rank there is a large circle of twenty-five 
places producing annually 130,000 eimer, which form the 



224 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

fourth and last quality, and include all that can have the 
most remote title to be called Tokay-Hegyalja. 

Second Order. Menes Magyarat, county of Arad. Red 
and white Ausbruch and natural wines are produced 
annually in fourteen localities, and amount to 241,000 
eimer annually. Vinification as in Tokay district. 

Third Order. Wines of Rust, Oedenburg county. 69,000 
eimer produced annually in nineteen localities ; white, 
strong, and sweet Ausbruch and natural wines. The vintage 
is here mostly very late, some grapes being allowed to hang 
until December. 

B. Wines of the Second Class. 

(1) White Wines. Some grow at Somlau, Veszprim 
county, and are made into table and dessert wines. 
Badacsony, on the Plattensee, county of Zala : table, 
dessert, and Ausbruch wines. Neszeliny, county Gran. 
Ermelleker, county Bihar : strong table and dessert wines. 
Szeredny, county Unghu. Neograd : table wines. Krasso : 
dinner and dessert wines. 

(2) Red Wines. Erlau Visonta, termed Schiller, or 
Rubinette, Hevesh county. Szegzard, county Zolna : wine 
of fiery taste and honey-like odour. Villany, county Barany : 
red wine resembling Burgundy. Ofner Adelsberger : a 
good strong wine. Krasso. 

C. Wines of the Third Class. 

Baranya : good red dinner wines. Pesth, Steinbruch : 
white dinner wine. Hont : good white dinner wine. 
Presburg : red and white. Vagh-Ujhelyer : good red 
dinner wine. Weissenburg : good white dinner. Somogy : 
red and white. Bakator, Ermelleker, called Bratehwein : 
white. Eisenberg : good white dinner. Raab : good white 
dinner. Balaton-Fiired : white. Erdod : red and pale red 
(Schiller). Funfkirchen : white strong dinner. Miszla, 
county Zolna : white, acid. Oedenburg : white sweetish 
table wine. Paulitsch : strong good red. Neusiedl lake- 
wine : acidulous dinner wine. Simonthurn, county Zolud : 
strong sweetish red. 



WINES OF HUNGARY. 225 

The rest of the wine-producing places belong to the fourth 
class, which it is unnecessary to give a list of. Their 
products are mostly very inferior, and consumed by the 
population. What we have in the foregoing termed dinner 
or table wines, can be bought in Hungary in large quan- 
tities, varying between eighteen and thirty-six shillings per 
eimer. Clean ordinary wines can be bought at ten to 
eighteen shillings per eimer. 

165. WINES OF THE BANAT, WOIWODINA, AND SYRMIA. 
The wines of the Banat and the Woiwodina resemble the 
small wines of Hungary, and are rarely above the third 
class. The mode of procedure in vineyard and cellar are 
still more faulty than in Hungary. The Werschetz moun- 
tain in the Banat yields annually about 400,000 eimer, the 
rest of the Temeser Banat 939,500 eimer, andSyrmia nearly 
1,500,000 eimer. The free town of Werschetz is the centre 
of the most extensive viticultural district of Austria-Hungary, 
and produces from 200,000 to 300,000 eimer annually. Of 
select qualities, 150,000 eimer are constantly in store at 
Werschetz; of these, 15,000 are red, sweet, and alcholic; 
15,000 are second class, also strong and red, but not sweet ; 
15,000 eimer are sweet, pale reddish wine of the first class ; 
about 100,000 eimer generally are dry, spirituous, harsh, 
schiller-wine of the second class. Of white wine of 
good quality there are only about 8,000 eimer annually 
produced ; the rest is a very low-class product. Karlowitz 
in Syrmia produces red and white Ausbruch wine, and a 
mediocre dry wine resembling low Burgundy ; it is made 
mainly from the Magyocka (Magyarika, or early blue 
Magyar vine). There are other peculiar wines of Karlowitz. 
At this place are also produced the Vermouth liqueur, and 
the Slibowitz, or plum brandy, and exported to many parts 
of the Orient. 



226 A. TREATISE ON WINES. 



CHAPTER XXII. 
WINES OF SPAIN. 

1 66. VINEYARDS OF JEREZ DE LA FRONTERA. 1 
Territory and Varieties of Soil of the Vineyards. The 
territory of Jerez is entirely of the so-called tertiary period. 
It consists of undulating hills, with gently-inclined sides 

1 The topographical descriptions occurring in this chapter are best 
appreciated with the aid of the excellent map of the Jerez district, pub- 
lished in 1867 by Don Jorge G. Suter, the English Consul at Jerez, 
and sold by E. Stanford, Charing Cross. 

The land measure, termed the aranzada, is equal to 44'72 French 
ares, and is therefore about one-tenth larger than the English acre, 
which is equal to 40*47 ares. 

The measure of length, vara, is equal to 0*843 metres, or 2782 
feet English, and is therefore a little shorter than the English yard, 
which is equal to O'9I4 metres. 

The bota (butt) of wine or must (mostd) measures thirty arrobas, equal 
to 106-5 imperial gallons ; one arroba is equal to l6'i33 litres. 

The real is equal in value to 2\d. English ; four reals, value lod. , are 
equal to a peseta, the Spanish franc ; its value is five per cent, higher 
than that of the French franc. 

The peso is an imaginary unit of value by which wines are bought 
and sold. It is equal to 15 reals. 

For the purpose of its topographical consideration and description the 
district may be divided into nine parts, radial sections of a circle, of 
which the town forms the natural centre, and the roads which lead to 
and from it form the natural radii. Many years ago I made each of 
them the object of a special scientific reconnaissance. They are the 
following : 

1. Balbaina section and group of vineyards, N.\V. of Jerez, S.W. of 
new road to San Lucar, between it and the road to Rota. 

2. Corchuelo section, N.N.W. of Jerez, between old and new carriage- 
road to San Lucar. 

3. Macharaudo section, N. of Jerez, between the old road to San 
Lucar and the road to Trebujena. 

4. Carrascal section, N.N.E. of Jerez, between Trebujena and 
Lebrija road. 

5. Section of the plain, or north-eastern section between Lebrija 



WINES OF SPAIN. 227 

accessible to cultivation over their entire surface, and 
slightly-excavated valleys between them. The hills consist 
of a sand and clay pervaded chalk-rock, which crops out at 
their tops, or is easily reached by digging a few feet some- 
times only one foot into the disintegrated surface. It is 
mostly white, here and there coloured by some iron oxide, 
and contains chalk or carbonate of lime, clay, or silicate of 
alumina, magnesia, iron, quartz, and gypsum. The lower 
parts of the inclines of the hills and the flat valleys between 
them are covered by alluvial formations of different periods. 
These contain much clay, iron oxide, and sand, and in many 
parts pass into mere sand, more or less coloured red by 
iron-ochre, or white by clay and chalk. These chalk-rocks, 
clays, and sands give rise to the several descriptions of 
surface-soil distinguished by the Jerezanos under the denomi- 
nations of albariza, barros, barro-arenas, or arenas, and bugeo. 
The Albariza, also termed Tierra de Anafes, Tierra bianco. 
6 Tosca, is the white soil of the hills, the disintegrated ter- 
tiary chalk rock According to the analysis of Louis Proust 
{the French chemist, who lived at Madrid from the time 
of the first revolution to the Napoleonic invasion of Spain) 
the soil contains from 60 to 70 per cent, of carbonate of 
lime, a considerable quantity of clay, a little silica, and 
some magnesia. When the clay and other ingredients dis- 
appear or diminish greatly, so that the soil is little more 
than chalk, it is no longer termed " tosca " by the natives. 
The coarse mixture of chalk, sand, and clay is more 
suitable to viticulture than the finer chalk. Its colour 
is a dead white; its texture fine-grained and rough, with 
harder nodules, which appear when the mass is left to dis- 



road and Arcos road. This section I divided in two parts, one N. of 
the Seville road, the other between Seville road and Arcos road. 

6. Eastern section, between Arcos road and Hijuela de Pedro Diaz. 

7. Monte Alegre section, S. of Jerez, between the Hijuela of Pedro 
Diaz and the Carretera to Puerto, traversed by the road to the Cartuja. 

8. Torrox section, S.S.W. of Jerez, between the carriage-road to 
Puerto and the bridle-road to the same place. 

9. Carrahola section, W. of Jerez, between the bridle-road to Puerto 
and carriage-road to Rota. 



228 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

integrate under the influence of sun and water. In that 
case it breaks up a great deal. When introduced into water 
it gives out bubbles of air, and falls gradually into a loose 
pasty mass. When dried again it falls into powder-like 
particles, and does not cohere in lumps or separate by deep 
fissures. On the hills it occurs in layers, which have a 
thickness of several yards, and become thin in other parts, 
so as almost to disappear. It contains no flints. It is an 
impure chalk, and reposes upon a sandy formation. The 
greater part of the vineyards of Jerez, San Lucar, and Tre- 
bujena, are upon albariza soil. The vineyards of Paxarete 
contain it in the immediate subsoil. It is here termed "albero." 
A thousand vines planted on albariza at San Lucar produce 
about eighty arrobas of mosto; exceptionally in favoured 
portions of special territory from no to 120. 

Barros is the name given to quartz sand agglutinated by 
chalk and clay, and coloured red or yellowish by iron ochre. 
It forms horizontal layers of great extent along the coast, 
from the mouth of the Guadalquivir to Conil. These banks 
are traversed in all directions by fissures, filled with almost 
pure sand. The barros is never so hard that it cannot be 
disintegrated with the fingers. It is easily washed away by 
the tide and by rain, and becomes very slippery when wet ; 
but continued rain washes out the chalk and clay, and leaves 
the stones and sand on the surface. Clemente, the author 
of a celebrated work on the vines of Andalusia, believes 
the barros of Jerez to be a small portion of the immense 
formation of sandy chalk and clay which runs in one unin- 
terrupted course from the shore at San Lucar to Gibraltar. 
The vines planted upon barros give double the harvests 
produced by the same number on albariza. Near Jerez, the 
barros contains many large stones of hard grey chalk, which 
occur in layers, and are repeated at intervals down to- 
a depth of eighteen feet. It also contains fossil shells, such 
as ostrea, cardium, pecten, and others, which becomes so- 
numerous in some parts, e.g., near the Badalejo, as almost 
to constitute the bulk of the soil. Barros and sand mixed 
form the soil of the plain to the north and north-east of 
Jerez (Tierra barro arenosa). 



WINES OF SPAIN. 229 

Arenas (better, barro-arenas) form the third variety of 
soil. The pure, nearly white, shifting sand, such as occurs 
principally near the sea-shore, is only rarely found in the 
Jerez district, being limited to some localities in the East, 
towards Cuartillo, and along the road to the Cartuja. . This 
sand admits of being transformed into fruitful gardens and 
vineyards, as can be seen at San Lucar and Rota. At the 
latter place particularly I was surprised to see the work and 
care bestowed upon this mere sand, which has actually to 
be protected against the wind by frequent small enclosures, 
ridges, and deep furrows. These gardens are called nabazos. 
On such sand the vine produces as much mosto as on the 
barros, but its quality is as much inferior to that of the 
ibarros vineyards as the latter is inferior to that coming from 
the albarizas. The commonest arena mosto in these days 
is sold at about half the price of the albariza mosto. 

Bugeo is the greyish black earth which at Jerez and San 
tucar occupies the dales between, and lowest slopes of, the 
hills of albariza. It consists of clay mixed with carbonate 
of lime and fine sand, and a certain quantity of vegetable 
mould. During the heat of the summer this soil forms 
enormous fissures, and this is said to be the cause of its in- 
aptitude for viticulture. But at Jerez, as well at St. Lucar, 
there are vineyards on bugeo. They are very fertile, bring- 
ing up to six botas per acre, but the wine is coarse. 

The albariza vineyards give the finest, cleanest, and 
strongest mostos, but produce the smallest quantity. The 
barro-arenoso lands produce twice as much as the albarizas, 
and are also much easier to work, but their mostos are less 
fine and thinner. The bugeo vineyards produce as much 
as the barro arenosas, and give mostos of as much or even 
more body than the albariza mostos, but they are neither 
fine or clean ; and the bugeo soil requires much labours 
because it becomes quickly covered with weeds, and cracks 
in a manner dangerous to the roots of the vines. 

In the trade of Jerez wines are sometimes distingushed as 
.wines of the pagos de arena, wines of the pagos de barro, 
and wines of the pagos de afuera. The latter term is not a 
jgeognostic distinction at all, as the pagos de afuera have soils 



230 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

of all descriptions, and is not comparative to the other two 
terms. It simply means pagos which are out of the circle 
of the city boundaries, and at such a distance that the 
labourers from Jerez receive an addition to their wages 
for distance. 

There are few vineyards, and hardly any pagos, in which 
all the vines stand upon uniform soil ; and if a pago is 
termed of a particular soil, this is to be understood to mean 
that that soil is the prevailing, not the exclusive soil There 
are, further, a few special names for particular mixtures of 
soil. Lustrillo is a mixture of white marl and albariza and 
red barro-arenosa soil, interspersed here and there with 
strata of chalk, or gypsum. Another kind of earth, produced 
by the accumulation of old building rubbish, is termed 
Tierra de villares, or Almaduras. The names of Balejuela* 
and Lentejuela, are applied to greatly broken up albariza 
mixed with a certain material of agricultural improvement 
or bugeo. Tajon, the earthy vein in the limestone, and 
toxa, the rough earth, are forms of albariza which occur in. 
special strata. There are also stony territories which sur- 
prise the proprietors by a curious phenomenon, namely, that 
the stones have a tendency to come to the surface, of course 
by the action of the rain. But the proprietors prefer the 
mysterious to the evident, and believe that these stones are 
constantly being formed, or being worked upwards by some 
mysterious power in the earth. 

The different soils are planted with varying sets of vines, 
according to empirical traditions which do not admit of pre- 
cise exposition. In the albarizas the palomino prevails, and 
is generally mixed with a certain proportion of perruno, 
canocazo, albillo, Pedro Jimenez, and mantuo, which are 
said to impart to the palomino wine superior qualities. In 
the barro-arenosa territory the mantuo castellano prevails, 
mixed with much mollar, beba, and other vines in small 
numbers; on the sand there is a little tintilla, and much 
beba. The moscatels and Pedro Jimenez grow best in the 
black earth or bugeo. 



WINES OF SPAIN. 231 

167. CLIMATE OF JEREZ. 

The climate of Jerez is determined by its geographical 
position between the 36th and 37th degree of north latitude, 
and under the 6th degree of longitude west of Greenwich. 

The summer season is characterized by great heat and 
long-continued drought, during which most of the vegeta- 
tion, except vines, olive trees, and pines, comes to a stand- 
still, and most annuals die off. The arable land, the grassy 
plains, and the dry swamps then look like arid deserts, and 
are avoided alike by animals and man. 

The autumn and winter consist in a rainy season, and 
frost is never observed. Snow has fallen at Jerez only twice 
in this century. The first fall occurred in 1819, and no 
particulars regarding it have come to my knowledge. The 
second and last fall happened on the gth of December, 
1867. The snow lay on the ground for two days, and 
destroyed many delicate plants. The autumnal rains are 
copious, not rarely very much so. Thunderstorms of extra- 
ordinary severity appear now and then. The north wind in 
summer is dry and hot ; the west wind refreshing and agree- 
able The east wind (Levante) easily becomes a storm, 
which may continue for days without intermission, and do 
much damage to all kinds of crops. It is said that the 
vines are kept low on the ground on account of the danger 
to which they would be subjected on the part of the Levante 
if they were raised higher and fastened to poles. 

1 68. EXTENT AND POSITION OF THE VINEYARDS. 
The vineyards are estimated to have a surface of 14,000 
aranzadas, or 6,287 hectares. They are grouped round the 
town of Jerez in a manner which is best appreciated by 
inspection of the map. The districts to the N. and N.E. 
of Jerez are perfect plains, whereas those to the N.W., W., 
S., and S.E. consist of a series of more or less round hills 
and hillocks, separated by glens and dales. The hills are 
mostly covered with vines all over, whereas the glens are 
mostly not stocked with vines, but with fodder plants, or 



232 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

used for growing the strong reeds (caiias) which are em- 
ployed for making the stakes for young vines, and the fork- 
like supports for fruit-laden branches, and give their names 
to the dales themselves (canadas). Like land everywhere 
else in Europe, the whole of the cultivated land round 
Jerez is divided into sections bearing distinctive names, so- 
called pagos. These pagos, again, consist of several fields 
or properties; only rarely one entire pago, still more rarely 
several pagos, also form a single property. The pagos are 
very unequal in size; many are entirely covered with 
vineyards. 

For a list of the Jerez pagos reference may be made to a 
brochure on the viticulture and trade of Jerez, by D. Diego 
Parada y Barreto, which appeared in Jerez in 1868. 

169. THE BALBAINA DISTRICTS. 

The district of Balbaina is perhaps the oldest viticultural 
pago in the neighbourhood of Jerez. It lies in a north-west 
direction from Jerez, on both sides of the new road to 
San Lucar, mainly between that road and the road to 
Rota. It consists of five great divisions, of which three only 
belong to the community of Jerez, while two owe municipal 
allegiance to Puerto de Sta. Maria. The Jerez Balbaina, 
properly so called, lies on the north-west, or right side of 
the San Lucar road, past San Julian, and includes Cande- 
lero and the Llano de las Tablas. South-west of it lies the 
largest part of the district, termed Balbaina alta, to dis- 
tinguish it from the contiguous Balbaina baja, of the Puerto 
vineyards. Farther to the north-west, also on the left of the 
road to San Lucar, is the pago of los Cuadrados, with the 
contiguous Balbaina of Puerto, properly so called. 

Balbaina, with Balbaina alta, and including the Puerto 
Balbainas, comprises more than twelve hundred aranzadas 
of vineyards. Its soil is albariza and bugeo ; its vines are 
palomino, perruno, canocazo, albillo, Pedro Jimenez, and 
mantuo, and its mostos are held in great esteem. The 
most reputed vineyards are the Canas, la Campanilla, del 
Arcon, and del Sargento mayor. Jerez monasteries once 



WINES OF SPAIN. 233 

held a great part of this district, and a particular plantation 
they termed the vineyard of God. Candelero, which is 
contiguous to Balbaina towards San Julian, is a pago of 
about eighty aranzadas, in the valley which bears its name. 
The soil is for the greater part bugeo, and its vines are palo- 
minos. A special vineyard in the pago also bears its name. 
North-west of Balbaina, and bordering upon the Canas, is 
the Llano de las Tablas, a pago of forty aranzadas, border- 
ing in the north upon Marihernandez. 

Just across the San Lucar road is Balbaina alta, a vast 
expanse of green hills and dales. The first sub-pago nearest 
to Jerez is Sida, a pago of forty aranzadas, with albariza 
soil, planted with palomino and Pedro Jimenez. Noted 
vineyard, la Miranda. Sida derives its name from that of 
an old Jerez family. Farther on is the Canada de Huerta, 
a pago with bugeo soil, and palomino vines. It borders 
upon the Gallega group of pagos, and upon the Rincones, a 
pago with albariza, bugeo, and lustrillo soil, and palomino 
stock. At the southern end of Balbaina alta, and close to 
and at the right of the road to Rota, is the pago Cruz de 
Husillo. 

At the north-west end of Balbaina alta, and opposite los 
Cuadrados, we find the pago of Plantalina, forty aranzadas 
of bugeo and lustrillo soil, with palomino prevailing. Far 
to the north-west is the pago of los Cuadrados, two hundred 
aranzadas, with albariza and bugeo soil. The palomino 
reigns. A noted vineyard is la Soledad. Close by is the 
pago of las Peonias, with a good vineyard of the same 
name. 

In this neighbourhood I observed a beautiful plantation 
of albillos. These vines are not ordinarily kept on separate 
plots of ground, like the palominos, or Pedro Jimenezes, but 
grown interspersed in uncertain numbers with the prevailing 
varieties. The Albillo castellano ought to be particularly 
good for wine making, as will appear from the following 
description. It is a slender vine, with many canes, lying on 
the ground, of a silver-grey reddish colour, small palmate 
leaves, with heart-shaped sinuses, green, but a little reddish 
when first developed, falling late; the bunches are pyramidal, 



234 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

of middle size ; no side bunch ; stalk very short ; does not 
shed unripe berries. The ripe berries are very sweet and 
juicy, and are easily emptied of their contents. The juiciness 
of the grapes is their most striking characteristic. Clemente 
says that each bunch may be considered as a bagful of mosto. 
The ants are great friends of these grapes. Mosto weighed 
ii and 12 B. on September i5th and igih. It readily 
passes into wine of the quality called fino, but is less good 
for olorosos, and rarely produces amontillados. 

There are two other varieties of albillo, which are less 
frequently planted in the Jerez vineyards than the former, 
they are : 

Albillo pardo, also termed Uva pardilla, has leaves which 
are more rough than those of the other varieties of albillo, 
its grapes are of a yellowish-green, light colour, less mild, 
and taste more sour, than that of the other albillos, but 
capable of yielding finos. 

Albillo negro. Not frequently planted. Differs from the 
white albillo by the black colour of its grapes, its thinner 
husks, and larger bunches. Its canes are also lighter, and 
the leaves less incised and almost entire. 

I also observed some Jaenes, vines which may be supposed 
to bear their names from a more northern province of Spain. 

Jaen negro. Stock of middling size, with many short, 
greyish-red canes, small leaves of lively yellowish-green 
colour. They bear many dense bunches of medium size, 
round, blackish-red grapes, with hard skins, though fleshy. 
Mosto weighs eleven to twelve B. Jaen bianco, also termed 
Garilla, is analogous to the former, but its grapes are white. 

v 

170. NEW PLANTATIONS, YOUNG VINEYARDS, MAJUELOS 
Modes of working established Vineyards. The soil is 
mostly prepared by deep digging, trenches being drawn, 
and the top earth filled in while the deep soil is brought up. 
These turnings are more than a vara in depth. They are 
generally effected in July or August, and if the soil turned 
up be lumpy, it is left to the atmosphere for a year without 
any plantation. Th* young vines are produced mostly from 



WINES OF SPAIN. 235 

canes, rarely from rooted vines prepared in a nursery. Their 
distance from each other is from a vara and a half to two 
varas in every sense, so that each vine has a surface of four 
square varas allotted to it. This large extent of surface is 
necessitated by the peculiar mode of turning and working 
the earth, to be described hereafter. The canes to be 
planted are a vara in length, and are sunk into the ground 
in three different methods. Either a hole a vara in depth 
is dug for each, and after insertion of the cane, filled up 
{plantation par hoyes); or the vineyard is traversed by 
ditches, which, after the canes have been laid in, are filled 
up (plantacion por cajones). The last form is that which 
employs iron bars for making narrow holes in the ground, 
in which the canes are inserted (plantation por barras). 
During the early years the young vines are kept surrounded 
by hollows so as to catch all available water. In the second 
and third year they receive a support in the shape of a cana 
or strong reed, and begin to show fruit. They are then cut 
in a manner to establish the permanent four-armed stocks, 
and in the eighth year they begin to bear rich harvests. But 
it is not until the fifteenth or twentieth year of their growth 
that they produce the best wines. Up to that time these 
plantations are termed majuelos, only with the eighteenth 
to twentieth year they reach their majority, and then are 
termed vinas. 

The growth of young vines is very vigorous indeed, 
particularly in rainy seasons. The first shoots are very long 
and thick. In dry seasons they come to an early standstill, 
and many die. Such partial losses in young, and also in old 
vineyards, are mostly replaced ^ by layers, slips so-called 
mugrones. 

A single layer or slip is made in the ordinary manner,, 
described in the seventeenth section of this Treatise, if the 
object is to produce a single new vine from an old one. 
The burying is very deep, and the point of the cane projects 
in the bottom of a deep excavation, intended to collect as 
much water as possible, and to allow the new cane to be 
gradually covered up by earth, so that it may have a deep 
footing. 






236 A TREATISE OX WIXES. 

But when several layers or slips are required from one 
vine, the latter is buried in a pyramidal hill of earth, termed 
voga. Its four arms are allowed to project, and to grow from 
the four inclined sides of this hill, and all fruit is suppressed. 
The canes now grow much more vigorously, because they 
are fed by the stock itself, as well as by the numerous new 
roots which they develop in the voga. They may therefore 
be laid down in the winter following their growth, and in 
that case are only detached from the mother-stock in the 
winter following their growth ; or they, or some of them, 
may be detached entirely in the first winter and used as 




Fig, 36. The "Yoga," pyramidal hill of earth, for multiplying a 
vine fourfold. 

rooted plants. After the largest have been detached, the 
vine is disinterred, and again puts out new branches. 

171. ANNUAL LABOURS IN VINEYARDS. 
The labours are all performed by men, and on no single 
occasion have I observed women or children to be employed, 
even in vintage time and for light work. The working day, 
which during vintage time lasts from sun-rise to sun-set, is 
interrupted by two periods allotted for meals and repose. 
For breakfast, one hour is given ; and for dinner and siesta, 
two hours. The labourers are paid for the day, practically 
of nine hours, and I have not learned that there are any 
who work by piece and contract. They receive the wages 



WINES OF SPAIN. 237- 

mentioned below, and five cigarettes a-day. During the 
time of active labour, particularly poda, chata, cava bien, 
and vintage, the men stay in the vineyards; they mess 
together, and their food, consisting mainly of arranque, is 
prepared for them by the common cook or housekeeper 
\casero). In cold weather they sit, during the time of 
meals and repose, around a great bonfire of vine and reed 
canes, which is lighted in a pit of masonry specially arranged 
for that purpose in one of the sheds of the vineyard. The 
smoke escapes through a long slit in the highest part of the 
roof. The labours which are performed upon the vines and 
vineyards in the course of the year, are the following : 

Poda. The pruning, or cutting back of the vine, to main- 
tain its shape and fertility, is performed during October r 
November, and December. Some viticulturists work the 
earth before, some after, the poda. 

Alumbra, or Chata, consists in digging and dressing the 
land in such a manner that there is a large square basin 
round each vine, which may catch the rain-water. As the 
vines are from 1-5 to r8 metres apart, in every sense these 
basins are more than a square metre in width, and one-third 
of a metre deep. This work begins in October. When the 
digging is not so much a formation of basins, in case the 
rains were early and copious, as a stirring, it is termed chata^ 

Hechar Mugrones is the work of making layers or slips. 

Resposicion de Marras is the replacement of dead vines. 

Deserpia is the removal of suckers projected by the roots. 

Desbragar (desbarbar) is the taking off of the highest 
roots, day or dew roots, which, particularly in young plants,, 
become exposed by the chata. 

Cava bien is the great digging and refilling of the holes- 
(cierra) made by the chata. This is performed in February, 
after the rains are over, and before the new growth starts. 

Castra is the operation of taking off all superfluous shoots- 
and buds previous to and immediately after blossom-time. 

Golpe lleiio is a digging of the ground after the grape is- 
formed, and before the branches of the vines have become 
entangled with each other, sometimes even as early as the 
end of April or beginning of May. 



238 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Levantar varas is the operation of supporting branches 
after the grapes have begun to get heavy, by little forks 
made of canes or wood. These supports are not higher 
than the stocks of the vine, and, consequently, the branches 
are kept in a horizontal position. 

Vina is a light digging of the surface of the land, per- 
formed in the latter part of June, to destroy the weeds. 

Recastra is the second removal of superfluous shoots. 

Revina is another hoeing at the end of July, to remove 
weeds (also termed aschalado). 

In August the vineyards become covered with the corre- 
guela, or running weed, a kind of convolvulus, whose roots 
grow very deep in the ground, and run quickly through 
great distances, reproducing the plant at the surface with 
great rapidity. Another common weed is the castanucla, a 
kind of cyperus. The removal of these weeds in August is 
termed agostar. 

The vineyard from this time is merely protected by watch- 
men until the vintage. 

Vendimia, the vintage, begins on the yth or 8th of Sep- 
tember, mostly with great regularity, in the best situations. 
It lasts until the i8th or 2oth when regular, when interrupted 
by rain it may last till the end of the month. Generally it 
is a most rapid operation. 

The vintagers (vendimiadores) receive three pesetas a day 
in money, and have a sleeping room, and mats of rushes 
.(enea) provided for them. The pressers (pisadores) receive 
also three pesetas per day, and, in addition, for each bota 
of mosto pressed one peseta and half a bottle of wine; once 
during the entire vendimia each pisador gets a basketful of 
:grapes (un capache de uvas) or five reals instead. 

The removal of the mosto, or wine, from the vineyard to 
the bodega in Jerez costs for each bota about thirty reals 
for all distances below and up to one league. Above one 
league the cost is forty reals per bota. When the removal 
is by mules the vehicles used are carros, when by oxen, 
carretas. I have also seen mules laden with a bota full 
of mosto each, and believe the practice to be cruel and 
.dangerous, and happily rare. 



WINES OF SPAIN. 239 

The day's work of a man is called peonada. The price 
paid for the peonada of each kind varies according to years, 
weather, and the labour market. In bad years and during 
bad weather, the day's labour is less valuable, and therefore 
paid less highly than in good years and fine weather. I 
witnessed a strike for higher wages in a vineyard at an ap- 
proaching rain. The capataz defied the men, and the rain 
passed off. In 1865 labour was so dear that the chata, 
which ordinarily costs 14 reals per day per man, actually 
had to be paid as high as 38 reals. 

A proprietor of a large well-kept albariza vineyard calcu- 
lated the cost of his labour per annum, including vintage, 
to be from ^15 to ^16 per aranzada, or on the whole one- 
twelfth of the amount of capital sunk in the vineyard. A 
generally accepted estimate brings the cost of labour to one 
real per vine per year. 

Manuring is never employed, partly because it is not 
frequently necessary, partly because the proprietors believe 
it to be injurious to the grapes. It is difficult to understand 
this, but the fact remains, that in albariza vineyards, which 
have been uninterruptedly planted with vines for 300 years, 
as shown by documents of tenure, no manure is ever em- 
ployed. In such vineyards there are, however, barren and 
bald places, which baffle all attempts to replant the vine. 
They may possibly be chemically exhausted, and here 
manure should be tried. It is probable that the system of 
catching the rain-water may act as chemical manuring, for 
it cannot be doubted that the heavy rains of winter bring 
much of the constituents of sea-water from the near Atlantic, 
and in this a portion at least of the salts required by the 
vine. 

Nowhere in this district have I seen vineyards cultivated 
by the plough, but all labours were done by the arms of 
men. On the whole, the labours upon the ground are the 
most serious of any which I have witnessed anywhere. But 
they seemed out of proportion to the amount of care be- 
stowed upon the vine, and the ripening grape in particular 
seemed to me mostly neglected in an unaccountable man- 
ner. The consideration occurred to me that the bounty of 



24O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

nature is here so great that man has no necessity for hus- 
banding the produce, but if he loses a considerable part of 
it he can, with the remainder, still make up a profitable 
account. 



172. PRODUCTIVENESS OF VINEYARDS. 

Albariza legitima is believed to produce, on an average, 
from i to 2 botas per arranzada. The dark and arenas 
soils produce much more, namely, four or five botas, but 
the must is coarse. This depends mainly upon the quality 
of the vines, which, for the lower lands, are chosen from the 
richest bearers. It was stated to me that the arenas grapes 
commanded a uniform low price, and that therefore an 
agriculturist would do better to grow quantity rather than to 
grow fine vines, unless indeed he did not sell his grapes but 
his wine. The best parts of a Balbaina vineyard give from 
ten to eleven botas per aranzada. Other pieces give only a 
half to one butt, and some parts give nothing. 

Competent estimates bring the average production on all 
kinds of soil to three botas per aranzada, or ninety arrobas 
for every 2,000 vines. If we assume the entire area of the 
vineyards of Jerez as 14,000 aranzadas, and of these 12,000 
to be in bearing, there would be an average annual pro- 
duction of 36,000 botas, or 1,080,000 arrobas of mosto. 
The average price of mosto maybe assumed as 75 pesos, 
or 1,100 reals per bota, and the value of all the vintages is 
therefore about 40 millions of reals. Now, as the 14,000 
aranzadas all require labour at the rate above detailed 
(though only 12,000 return at the time), and as the wages 
for this labour, paid to a population of more than 10,000 
men, amount to between 20 and 30 millions of reals, the 
interest and profit annually reaped by the proprietors of the 
Jerez vineyards amount to from 10 to 20 millions of reals. 

173. PRICES OF VINEYARDS. 

The usual price for average good vineyards is from 15,000 
to 1-8,000 reals say 150 to 180 guineas per aranzada. If 






WINES OF SPAIN. 241 

the albariza were less absolute, and the vineyard were to 
enclose places with dark earth, its price would be less. Old 
vineyards fetch higher prices than young plantations. Young 
vineyards do not reach first-class value before the twentieth 
year. The grapes of young vineyards are mostly worked 
up into vino de color, or into dulce. While some vineyards 
increase in price (an example which cost 7,000 reals per 
aranzada in 1833, in 1871 had a value of 37,000 reals) 
others remain stationary, some lose in value; thus a large 
vineyard of 80 aranzadas was a few years ago sold for about 
;i 6,000 ; it had been established only about twelve years, 
and is believed to have been sold at a loss, although by 
otherwise firm hands. Most vineyard property around 
Jerez about 1860 had risen to very high prices, but the later 
years have depressed all prices greatly. This is due to 
political circumstances, and also to the fact that proprietors 
have ceased to take personal interest in their vineyards. 
Consequently returns diminish, and the satisfaction of per- 
sonal success disappears. While twenty or thirty years ago 
every proprietor (not always resident in his vineyard) would 
go to the vineyard during the entire vintage time ; now-a- 
days none superintend their vintages, and the consequence 
is everywhere visible in dilapidation, deterioration, and 
neglect. 

Second-class vineyards are sold at 8,000 reals per aran- 
daza. The total value of the vineyards of Jerez is estimated 
at 210 millions of reals. 

In 1819 the barro-arena vineyards were held in greater 
value than the albarizas. An aranzada of vineyard in the 
pagos of Carrascal or Macharnudo, which have the greatest 
fame now a-days, was then not much more than from 3,000 
to 4,000 reals, while an aranzada of vineyard in Toleze, San 
Antonio, or Peliron, fetched 7,000 reals and more. A care- 
ful consideration of all the conditions of the Jerez districts 
will show that the barro-arenas soil is economically the most 
suitable for viticulture. The albariza is being exhausted 
beyond redemption, unless the proprietors resolve to bring, 
at least, mineral manure into their vineyards. In fact, the 
albarizas are dear because fashionable ; but if the barro- 
R 



242 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

arenas were planted with the same select stock, they would 
produce the same quality, and much more quantity, than 
the albarizas, and therefore obtain a ready market. 

The pagos of the Corchuelo and Afiina group are situated 
to the north-west of Jerez, beginning at a distance of about 
three kilometres, and extending for about five kilometres 
over the entire space between the old and new roads to San 
Lucar. They are conveniently reached by either of these 
roads, or by a field-road running between them direct from 
Jerez to Corchuelo (the Camino de las Vinas). Close to the 
town are the vineyard pagos of Picaduena and Miraflores, 
the latter remarkable for containing on its commanding 
height the splendid reservoir of the waterworks which sup- 
ply Jerez with water from the distant mountains (deposito 
de las Aguas de Tempul). These pagos include about eighty 
aranzadas of barro-arena soil, and are planted with mollares, 
mantuos, and the uva calona, the fruit of which is mainly 
used in the shape of verdeo, that is to say, eaten fresh. 
Close to them is a third small pago, Serrana, on the right of 
. the road del Calvario, which separates it from Miraflores ; 
it belongs to the barro-arena class. 

The pago las Salinillas is an albariza hill stocked with 
palomino, and surrounded by swampy territory impregnated 
with salt, furnishing the name to the pago, next to Mari- 
cuerda. The soil is partly albariza, partly bugeo ; its. vines 
mainly palomino. Its surface is from fifteen to twenty 
aranzadas. In the direction of Corchuelo is the pago of 
Rui Diaz, of one hundred aranzadas, with the noted vine- 
yard la Lebrijana. To the south lies the pago of Corta- 
dedo, bordering upon Obregon and Rui Diaz. Its extent is 
ninety aranzadas, with bugeo, albariza, and lustrillo soil, 
planted with palomino. 

The pago, el Corchuelo, is circumscribed by the pagos of 
Rui Diaz, Cortadedo, Obregon, and Cantarranas, and the 
lane of Afiina. It comprises three hundred aranzadas, and 
its soil is what is termed lustrillo, being rocky and lumpy 
albariza, bugeo, and barro-arena mixed, just the same as is 
found in the pagos of Cuartillo and Majada alta and some 
others. Prevailing vines are the palominos, with perunno, 



WINES OF SPAIN. 243 

Pedro Jimenez, mantuo, canocazo, and albillo. Its products 
vary in quality. Noted vineyards are la Recobera, los 
Desaboridos, and others. The name of the pago is some- 
times connected with corcho (cork), and corchuelo may have 
signified a plantation of cork trees (alcornbques) . The word 
also signifies blockhead. 

Close to Corchuelo is the pago of Cantarranas, which 
borders to the west upon San Julian, and comprises 
two hundred aranzadas. Its higher parts have albariza, 
its lower ones bugeo soil. r lhe predominating vine is 
palomino. 

174. PRINCIPAL VINES MOST COMMONLY CULTIVATED AND 
THEIR DISTRIBUTION IN THE PAGOS. 

The principal vines which are most commonly cultivated 
in the albariza and bugeo districts are the following : 

Pedro Xitnems. This vine gives mostos of all kinds, but 
is mainly reputed for the sweet liqueurs, conventionally 
called wines, which are made by mixing the juice of its sun- 
dried grapes with spirit. This dulce is also used for 
sweetening the ordinary sherries. The stock is large ; the 
canes are the most erect amongst all varieties of vines in the 
district. When weighted with a full harvest they sink to the 
ground, but after the vintage become again upright. The 
leaves are quite smooth, and not woolly or hairy ; medium 
to small, lobed or irregularly incised, and possess reddish 
greenish yellow nerves. By the erect position of the canes, 
and the yellowish colour of the foliage, a stock or vineyard 
full of this vine can be easily recognized at a distance. The 
grapes are not very large, greenish white, and bloomy, the 
sweetest of all grapes ; the bunches not very large, but yet 
of southern dimensions. The mostos are from 12 to 15 B., 
without assoleo, but rise to 22 B. after about ten days' 
exposure to the sun. 

The legend that this vine had been brought by one 
Pedro Ximenes from the Canary Islands and Madeira to the 
Rhine, and had thence been transplanted to Spain, was first 
published by the German author F. J. Sachs ("Ampelo- 



244 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

graphia," Lipsiae, 1661, 8vo). It has since made the round 
of literature, and is an established, but nevertheless coYn- 
pletely erroneous tradition. Odart says characteristically, 
that this story might flatter a German, but could make 
a Frenchman only smile. For if Pedro Ximenes had taken 
away any of this vine from the Rhine, he must have taken 
all. The vine is not found on the Rhine. It is a large- 
graped vine, which would never ripen in any German vine- 
yard. The fallacy ought therefore to be discarded. 

A less frequent variety of the foregoing vine is the Pedro 
Ximenes Loco a. name reminding us of the French la folle 
blanche. It is also termed soplona, the tale-bearer, informer ; 
names for which the reasons are not assigned. Stock strong ; 
canes horizontal ; leaves not provided with reddish nerves ; 
bunches and grapes large, and of slightly rough taste. 

The most esteemed of all the vines of the Jerez district is 
the Palomino, also named Palomino bianco, Listan commun, 
Tempranilla, Orgazuela, Alban, and Ojo de liebre. The 
^tock is strong, the canes are thin and long, and numerous, 
reddish grey, or \vhitish red ; leaves medium-sized, equal, 
dark green on the upper, woolly on the lower face. The 
blossoms come early, and develop into large bunches. 
The grapes are of medium size, of a greenish waxy colour 
and bloomy appearance, becoming very much bronzed when 
struck by the sun, which spoils their quality; they give 
mostos of 14 and 15 B. The wine obtained from it 
develops mostly into fino, but not into oloroso. This vine 
is the most common on the albariza soil of the Jerez 
district. 

A very delicate variety of the foregoing vine is the 
Palomino negro, also termed Centella. Similar to foregoing, 
but with black grapes ; very fine taste ; little grown ; used 
for vino de color. 

Perruno. Strong stock, with many erect, straight reddish 
grey canes, irregular shining leaves, many large bunches, 
with small, round, translucent grapes, of bronze yellow 
colour. They are very late and hard, not too sweet, and 
have astringent husks. The mostos have 12 B., and are 
good for olorosos of high flavour. 



WINES OF SPAIN. 245 

Perruno ne^ra differs from the former mainly by its black 
grapes : it is not utilized for the production of wine at Jerez. 

The Anina road separates the pagos of Marianez, Cerfate, 
Orbaneja, Anina, Cerro, del Marmol, and Montana on the 
northern, from Marihernandez, Montana, San Julian, and 
Zarzuelo on the southern side of the group. 

Marianez is a pago of twenty aranzadas, between Anina 
and Corchuelo, and bordering upon Cantarranas, Cerfate, 
and Marmol. Its heights are albariza, its lower parts bugeo. 
Cerfate is situated at the entrance of the pago of Anina, close 
to the Cerro de Orbaneja. It has fifty aranzadas, and its 
soil and plantations are like those of Anina. Close to the 
old San Lucar road, and separated from it by the opposite 
pago of Amarguillo, which I shall describe in connection 
with the Macharnudo group, is the Cerro de Orbaneja. 
The Cerro borders upon Anina, Cerfate, and Marianez, is 
150 aranzadas in extent, its soil is albariza and bugeo, and 
other earth in the lower parts, and its principal vine is palo- 
mino. On the right of my road lay Anina, stretching 
towards the San Lucar road, bordering upon Orbaneja, 
Cerfate, and Marihernandez in the west. Its territories 
are partly bugeo, partly albariza, and partly villares, that 
is to say, soil formed by the destruction of ancient habi- 
tations. Its area is one thousand aranzadas, on which the 
ubiquitous palomino predominates. Prominent vineyards 
are del Aljive, del Alamo, del Caribe. Close to Anina is 
the Cerro del Marmol, twenty to thirty aranzadas in extent, 
with a rocky subsoil, whence its name is derived. 

The most north-western end of the Anina group is formed 
by the pago of Montana, two hundred and fifty aranzadas in 
extent, with soil varying between bugeo and albariza. In 
the south-west it borders upon the pago of Marihernandez, 
which in the east touches San Julian, and in the south abuts 
upon Balbaina. It has eighty aranzadas, and bugeo prevails 
on its surface, although the summits are albariza. I returned 
by the Hijuela de Candelero, keeping on my left the pagos 
of San Julian and Zarzuela. The latter lies between Cande- 
lero and Cantarranas, and has lustrillo, bugeo, and albariza 
soil. Its vines are palominos, mantuos, and albillos, San 






246 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Julian has 300 aranzadas, and stretches from Zarzuela to 
the new road to San Lucar. Its soil is good albariza, its 
wines are mainly palominos, with interspersed perrunos, 
albillos, canocazos, mantuos, and Pedro Jimenez. It yields 
wines of the first quality. 

Passing out of the Candelero road into the old San Lucar 
road, the topographist passes the last pago of this group, 
completing the list, namely, the Cerro de Obregon, eighty- 
five aranzadas in extent, a plantation of albariza and bugeo 
soil. Along San Julian and Balbaina this road exhibits to 
the eye some good long and deep sections of the albariza 
territory, the white hard rock, softer surface, and overlying 
white or coloured bugeo earth. 

The Cerro de Santiago is a pago of more than 200 aran- 
zadas, bordered to the west by the old San Lucar road, and 
in the north passing directly into Macharnudo bajo. Its 
soil is albariza, and it contains the noted vineyards del 
Capitan and de la Trinidad. In a north-west direction is 
the pago of Dona Juana, bordering upon the bye-road del 
Alferez Tuerto, the low arable lands between Macharnudo 
bajo and the pago of Amarguillo. The name of this latter 
is derived from a spring of bitter water in proximity to the 
pago. Its vineyards are divided into two patches, situated 
on the right or eastern side of the old road to San Lucar, 
which road separates them from the pagos of Anina and 
Orbaneja. In the north, Amarguillo passes into Valcargado, 
Pelado, and Tizon. Its soil is, for the greater part, bugeo, 
its vines are palominos and moscatels. From a height one 
sees the pago of Puerto escondido, isolated between Amar- 
guillo and the Cerro del Pelado. Its extent is seventy aran- 
zadas of lustrillo soil, its vines are palomino, perruno, Pedro 
Jimenez, moscatel, albillo, and mantuo. On the right of 
the San Lucar road, past Amarguillo and Puerto escondidc 
between Tocina, Tizon, and Valcargado, one sees the Cerrc 
del Pelado, with albariza heights, bugeo in the lower pai 
and palomino prevailing on its ninety aranzadas. Farther 
the north-west, close to the Cerro del Pelado, is the 
of Tizon, with 200 aranzadas of albariza and bugeo soil 
and planted with palominos. Between Tizon and Amar- 



WINES OF SPAIN. 247 

guillo, close to the latter, is the pago of the Tocina, 100 
aranzadas in extent, with soil varying between lustrillo of 
albariza, bugeo and barro-arena. Its vines are palominos 
and mantuos, and of its vineyards the most noted is the 
one del Garrotal, also named del Canonigo. East of Tizon, 
north from our point of view, and stretching towards Mach- 
arnudo, we see the pago of Valcargado, with a surface of 
i oo aranzadas, bugeo and albariza soil, and palomino vines. 
East of Valcargado and bordering upon Macharnudo bajo 
is the pago of Tabajete, of sixty aranzadas, with albariza and 
bugeo soil planted with palomino. We take the road which 
borders this pago to the east and divides it from Machar- 
nudo bajo, termed Hijuela de Tabajete, and then turning 
towards the east take the Hijuela alta, which separates 
Macharnudo bajo in its entire length from the isonymous 
high pago. Thus we are in the midst of what is termed 
comprehensively Macharnudo, perhaps the greatest pago of 
Jerez, having more than 1,500 aranzadas of vineyards. In 
the east it abuts for several kilometres upon the Trebujena 
road. 

Its soil is mostly white plastic albariza, with interspersed 
low-lying bugeo districts. Its vines are palomino, perruno, 
Pedro Jimenez, albillo, moscatel, canocazo, and mantuo ; 
palomino forms half the set. It yields excellent wines. 
Noted vineyards are those of la Compania, and Domecq's, 
originally planted by Haurie, 400 aranzadas in extent. 

175. PRUNING OF THE VINES. 

The cutting instrument used for pruning is termed hoz de 
poda. The long part, boca, bears the oblique cutting edge 
with which the canes are cut downwards. The peto is 
a kind of light hatchet, and used as such upon trunks and 
dry old wood. In cold weather this hoz not rarely breaks 
the branches, particularly of young vines, therefore upon 
such advanced viticulturists now perform the poda by means 
of the secateur. Each established vine is generally so 
trained that it carries four anns on a low trunk. Ideally 
these arms should be at right angles to each other, but 






248 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

as the vines have no supports, and the branches are heavily 
dragged down by the fruit, they are mostly wonderfully con- 
torted. Long fruit-branches may bear from ten to twelve 
eyes. The three remaining arms are mere stumps of old wood, 
which, if any, have but one or two eyes left to them. There 
is here a curious mode of cutting through the node of the 
cane without considering the eye close by. When the fruit- 
branch has been borne by one arm during one year, it is in 
the following established on the next arm to the left, and the 
arm with the obsolete fruit-branch is cut down to a stump. 
In this manner the fruit-branch travels round the vine 
like a game of cards, from right to left, once in four years. 
This cycle is observed in the whole land of Sherry. 



Fig. 37. The " Hoz de Poda," or pruning knife and hatchet. 

After the pruning, the vines look so mutilated and 
stumpy, compared to their former richness in branches, 
that the uninitiated can scarcely comprehend the manner of 
their recovering the autumnal appearance. This was 
strongly felt by an English visitor, who expressed his 
fear of what might happen if the pruned vines should take 
it into their heads not to grow again, and caused him to ex- 
claim anxiously, " Y si no mete? " 

The pruning is always effected with the intention of 
causing the branches to grow towards the ground ; therefore, 
stumps which are directed towards the earth are preferred to 
those which are turned upwards. When old wood is so 
situated that its cutting off might endanger the fruit-branch, 
it is left. This is the result of the use of the coarse instru- 



WINES OF SPAIN. 249 

ment, the hoz, above described. I have not heard of the 
use of saws, which in the Gironde now everywhere accom- 
pany the use of the secateurs. 

In old vineyards young vines are practically all produced 
by slips. In new plantations the vines are produced by 
canes, or by rooted plants trained in a.plantera, or nursery. 
The new stocks are always planted in a deep hollow, which 
is gradually filled up. When the plant has obtained a good 




Fig. 38. Vine pruned for spring growth. 

size, and consists of a good strong cane, it is cut for estab- 
lishing the foot, that is to say, whereas before it was cut 
close to the ground, now it is cut at a height of one foot 
from the ground. Two eyes only are left to it at the top, 
from which two canes grow. These two canes are in the 
next autumn cut so as to leave two spurs of two eyes each. 
Out of each eye a new cane is produced, and these-four canes 
furnish the four permanent arms of the vine. At the top of 
the primary stem a little dead wood is left to indicate the 
spot at which the primary cane was cut from the establish- 
ment of the foot. This little stump is. curiously enough, 



250 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



never removed by the vine-dresser. Here I also noticed 
some striking cases of the diseases affecting the vine in 
Xeres ; the most remarkable of them is the agena the 
insolation, or sun-stroke of the leaves, which causes them to 
die in part or entirely. Many leaves in 187 1 showed this effect 
in the shape of black or brown patches of dead tissue. This 
agena also affected the grapes, and gave to many of them a 
nice golden brown face, a feature considered a prime 
quality in the chaselas of France, and termed dore (gilt). 
But the grapes so affected at Jerez are always inferior, and 




Fig- 39- Vine in the second, third, and fourth year. 

never attain either the sweetness or aroma of pale greenish 
grapes which have ripened in complete shade of the leaves. 
The agena affects young vines more than old ones, and 
causes great havoc in nurseries (planteras). 



176. RARER VARIETIES OF VINES. 
The Abejera derives it name from the preference shown 
to it by the bees (abejas). It has a thick foot, with many 
canes, of silver-grey, yellowish colour, partly hanging, partly 
standing erect. The canes have many laterals. The leaves 
are entire, or nearly so, somewhat rugose, and of a pale 
green colour on their surface, and woolly on the underside. 
The branches are pyramidal, the grapes green, juicy, and 



WINES OF SPAIN. 25! 

sweet, less cloying than those of the albillo castellano, 
which, in other respects, it much resembles. It occurs 
in Espera as the exclusive stock of vineyards or patches. 

The Agracera, distinguished by the agraz, or acid taste of 
its grapes, which is said to make it useless for the production 
of wine. It is a late-ripening vine, forms flowers until the 
end of the spring, and ripens some of its fruit only in 
November. Its grapes are very large, black or violet ; the 
bunches are mostly small, and poorly provided with grapes. 
Sometimes, however, when the vine is planted in good soil, 
they become large and close grained. It is almost ex- 
clusively grown in espaliers. The stock is slight, the canes 
are numerous, and have many branches ; their colour 
is greenish-white, and sometimes reddish. The leaves are 
small, shining, dark green, and almost smooth. They 
remain long on the vine. 

The Agracera de soto is a variation of the foregoing. Its 
grapes are less black and less acid, and ripen earlier than 
those of the ordinary agracera. It also resembles a little to 
the melonera. It is more suitable for wine (say the 
Jerezanos) than the other two varieties, because it is 
less acid. 

The pago el Almocaden lies along the right side of 
the Trebujena road, opposite high Macharnudo. The 
road is here also termed the cross-road or thoroughfare 
of Almocaden, as if this pago were situated on both sides of 
the road. Its soil is albariza, with palomino mainly, mixed 
with some mantuos, moscatels, and others. The principal 
vineyard is that of Matamoros. The name of Almocaden is 
Moorish, and signifies captain or chief of troops guarding 
the fields. To the right is the pago of Cuadros, fifteen to 
twenty aranzadas of vineyards upon the rivulet of the same 
name, abutting on the road to Trebujena, between it and 
that of Carrascal. The soil is bugeo, with some albariza, 
mainly planted with palomino. Carrascal is a pago of seven 
hundred aranzadas, enjoying great reputation. Carrascal 
means a forest or plantation of evergreen oaks ; it may, 
therefore, be assumed that these preceded the vines in this 
pago. The soil on the heights is albariza, in the lower parts 



252 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

bugeo. Its predominant vine is palomino, with some 
canocazo, Pedro Jimenez, and albillo. It yields fine mostos 
and superior dulces. It forms the centre of the group of 
pagos which lie between the road to Trebujena and that to 
Lebrija. It contains large vineyards, and amongst them 
that of Amoroso and that of the Corregidor. 

Amoroso lies on a lower hill, surrounded by a circle 
of higher ones, and therefore well protected from inclement 
winds, particularly the dreaded levante. It produces the 
amoroso sherry, which is well known and frequently 
imitated. Some time ago, I saw an advertisement of a 
London wine merchant, stating that he had fine amoroso, 
that he did not know why it should be called so, but it was 
much liked, and therefore, etc. He and his customers 
will perhaps thank me for the information, that Amoroso 
was the name of the original proprietor and planter of this 
vineyard, who lived at the beginning of this century, and is 
remembered as a contributor to the work of Clemente. But 
for this reason the name might be considered objectionable, 
particularly as the Italians play much with the root of amor 
in the names which they give to many of their vinous pro- 
ductions, such as amorino, amoroso, amoretto, and others, 
all of which occur not unfrequently on labels. 

The vineyard contains some palomino negro, which is 
generally used for dulce, or vino de color. The vineyard of 
Romano is to be noted, because it used to be ornamented 
with a great growth of Marvels of Peru (Suspiros), with 
white, red, yellow, and violet flowers. Some yellow flowers 
were piebald, one-eighth of their entire petal being red. 

177. VINTAGE THE LAGAR PRESSING THE GRAPES 
PISA. 

The gatherers, or vintagers, all men, select the best grapes 
for dulce, to be dried on the platform. Each has a box 
(tineta\ with a strap of esparto fixed on one side, by which 
the box is hung over arm or shoulder. 

The full tinetas are taken to the platform, and their con- 
tents emptied on mats. The next operation is the removal 



WINES OF SPAIN. 



253 



of the main stalks, which is effected by cutting the side- 
branches of the bunches away from the stalks by means of 
knives. This is done for dulce only, and not for other wine. 
The buildings are, by their size and convenience, well adapted 




Fig. 40. The "Lagar,' er platform for treading and pressing grapes. 

for vino-poetic purposes. In a large hall are the sleeping 
mats of the labourers, the pit for their nightly bonfire, and 
the copper for boiling the must. In a large shed behind this 
are the lagares, in number adapted to the size of the estate,, 
and a hydraulic press. 






254 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

The lagar used in Andalusia is a large square wooden 
trough, in which the grapes are trodden and pressed, but 
never fermented. It differs, therefore, greatly from the 
Portuguese lagar, which is mostly of stone, and serves for 
treading and pressing as well as fermenting the mosto, at 
least during the initial most stormy period. The platform 
or even bottom of the Jerez lagar is a square of about three 
yards on each side. The sides of the trough are from 
eighteen inches to two feet high, and slope inwards towards 
the bottom. The top of the trough measures, therefore, 
about three and a half yards in each direction. In the centre 
of the platform a wooden or iron screw is fixed perpendicu- 
larly. This is about seven feet long ; it carries a heavy nut, 
to which strong levers are attached, this entire piece from 
end to end being about two yards in length, The necessity of 
getting this piece out of the way of the workmen, when they 
are treading and manipulating the grapes, causes the 
enormous length of the screw for while only the lower half 
or third of the screw is actually used for pressing grapes, the 
upper half or two-thirds serves to screw up the nut and levers 
to a height above the heads of the workmen. The lagar is 
raised above the ground about a yard or more, and slightly 
inclined in the direction of the side, where there is a spout 
for the juice to flow off. Sometimes the lagar is raised 
sufficiently high to allow a bota to be placed under the spout 
and receive the juice directly. But more commonly the 
spout delivers the juice into a tub, even when the lagar is 
high enough to allow the bota to be placed directly under its 
spout. Of such lagares there are generally a number kept 
ready in the building attached to each vineyard. In some 
vineyards, of which I knew the dimensions, I counted that 
one lagar was kept for every eight or ten aranzadas of vine- 
yard, so that on each lagar there would be made from thirty 
to forty botas of mosto during each vintage. 

The grapes are spread on the lagar, and immediately 
dusted over with burned plaster of Paris ( Yeso). Perhaps 
from twenty to thirty pounds of plaster are thus employed, 
enough in any case to precipitate all tartaric acid and leave 
a large excess of sulphate. Two men (pisadores\ lightly 



WINES OF SPAIN. 255 

clad in short breeches, wearing leather shoes, the entire soles 
of which are covered with heavy iron nails, now tread the 
"grapes in the lagar. The treading proceeds first in one 
direction, and then at right angles to it, over the entire lagar. 
The juice does not run from the lagar while the trodden 
grapes are lying spread, but begins to flow when they are 
heaped up in one corner and patted with the shovel. New 
grapes are now spread over the lagar, and trodden, and 




Fig. 41. The murk bandaged with esparto band, previous to pressing. 

shovelled aside; and this is repeated until a sufficient 
quantity has been treated to give a bota of mosto and a 
quantity of murk sufficient for a pressing, and for leaving a 
dry cake of sufficient size. The trodden murk is now heaped 
up around the screw, which stands in the centre of the lagar, 
and is with great labour and difficulty worked up into a high 
conical heap. The lagar is swept, and all is carefully 
collected. To see the pisadores building this pie with the 
shovel, and ever and anon patting it with the hands, cutting, 
bending, and adjusting it, and then see the murk bulge out 



256 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

here and yonder, and require a new effort on the part of the 
pisadores, reminded me greatly of the efforts of boys to con- 
struct a snow man in thawy weather. At last, however, the 
column stands, and is now ready for being bandaged. A 
long band, made of esparto grass, three to four inches broad, 
is wound round the cone of murk from below upwards in a 
spiral direction ; both ends are fastened by being clenched 
between two rounds of the band itself. Frequently the 




Fig. 42. Pressing of the bandaged murk with the screw. Juice 
flowing. 

windings are not uniform, so that no spiral result is obtained. 
When well built, the structure resembles much the representa- 
tion of the tower of Babel in Merian's picture Bible. About 
fifteen rounds of the band are required to cover a cone about 
a yard in height. The top of the murk is covered with a 
plate, over this passes the nut of the screw to which the 
levers are fastened, and the murk is now compressed by turn- 
ing the nut downwards. As this proceeds the murk gives 
out juice, and the spiral circles of the esparto bands are 
pressed, the upper ones behind or inwards of the lower ones* 



WINES OF SPAIN. 257 

At last the labour of turning the screw becomes severe. To 
overcome the friction of the plate, the men have to jerk their 
bodies violently, and as they might thereby lose the grasp 
of the levers and fall, they tie their hands to the levers. 
When the murk is compressed so that the two men jerking 
simultaneously at the levers can no longer move the screw, 
the pressing is complete. The cake is allowed to remain in 
this compressed state for a time and is then removed. 

Some now subject the entire murk, distributed on mats, 
to a second compression in hydraulic presses ; others remove 
the stalks by working the murk on sieves, treat the murk 
with water and then compress between mats, others, again, 
simply pour water on the murk and press it between mats. 
The product is not put with the must or used for wine, but 
kept and fermented by itself and ultimately taken to the 
distillery. 

The juice which runs from the most inclined part of the 
lagar through a spout passes through an iron-wire sieve, of 
the shape of an oval basin, hung over the end of the spout 
to retain pips and husks, and then flows into a tub (fina), 
whence it is ladled by flat spoons resembling bankers' money 
shovels, into jugs, and from them poured through a finer sieve, 
placed inside a wide funnel (embudo), into the butts. 

This mode of pressing is highly laborious, and yet does 
not yield a dry cake of murk. Its only advantage is that it 
is not strong enough to press juice out of the stalks ; but, as 
no care is taken to exclude the last portions of juice from the 
husks, which are always harsh, from the mosto, this feebleness 
is only a partial protection against the coarse elements of the 
murk. We can judge of this process better by comparing it 
with the method of pressing used in the Champagne. Here 
the must is collected in four or five different stages and mixed 
consciously only, i.e. after trial of each portion by gustation, 
with the distinct object of obtaining the finest and purest 
juice and excluding acerbity. Compare also with the Jerez 
mode of pressing, that which is used in Styria and Dalmatia, 
and the description of good wine-presses as used in the 
Gironde. 



2$8 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

178. FURTHER DESCRIPTION OF PAGOS, THEIR 
SOILS AND VINES. 

The pago nearest to Jerez reaching from the Lebrija road 
to the Sevilla chausee is the Cruz de las Caballeras. 
Thirty aranzadas of barro-arena are here planted with man- 
tuos and mollares. United to this is the Pie de Rey, a pago 
of eight or ten aranzadas. Farther N.N.E. lies Bogar, (or 
Bogas), a baro-arena pago of ninety aranzadas, extending 
from the Ducha to the Sevilla road. 

About one and a half kilometres from Bogar, in the direc- 
tion toward Ducha, on both sides of the Ducha road, and 
looking towards Carascal on the west, and Val de Pajuela on 
the east, is the pago of Dona Rosa, barro-arena with some 
albariza, about thirty aranzadas in extent. Its vines are 
mantuos and mollares. The most extreme pago in this 
section on the Sevilla road, and stretching on its eastern side 
to the railway, bordered on the N.E. by the Canada ancha is 
Val de Pajuela, a barro-arena pago of one hundred aran- 
zadas. On it mantuo predominates. 

The second section of the north-east district lies between 
the Sevilla road and the Arcos road. The pagos nearest to 
Jerez are Jarreta, pago of barro-arena near cemetery, between 
the road de la Zanja and the carriage road to Arcos. Here 
also lies Membrillar, close to the rivulet of the same name ; 
its extent is about forty aranzadas. Laguna del Jabonero is 
a pago which may have been a swamp in which soda-plants, 
yielding ash fit for soap-making, grew. A part is occupied 
by the cemetery. Close to it and the cemetery is the Peral 
del Cangrejo, a pago of barro-arena, and close to this, bor- 
dering upon Jarretta, is Peliron, barro-arena, forty aranzadas 
in extent. Close to the Peral del Cangrejo is the pago of 
Cuatro Novias, barro-arena, thirty aranzadas. It borders 
upon the suburbs of Jerez. 

On the right side of the Sevilla road, between this and the 
road De la Zanja, below Valdepajuela, lies the la Zanja, and 
a side-road called of Largalo, lies the barro-pago of Santo 
Fe, barro-arena, twenty aranzadas in extent. Between the 
long narrow lane which runs almost parallel with the Sevilla 



WINES OF SPAIN. 259 

road, called Callejon de arena pago of Largalo, with a surface 
of 200 aranzadas. Close to this, and in the direction of Las 
Abiertas, is Pelona, a barro-arena pago. Here also is Per- 
ceba, a barro-arena pago of twenty aranzadas, planted with 
mantuos and mollares. 

The most eastern pago, situated close to the high-road to 
Arcos, between the olive-groves of Alcantara and land be- 
longing to the Cortijo de la Penuela, is the pago of Alcantara. 
It gave its name to the Marquisate of that name, which was 
bestowed in the seventeenth century upon the Jerezano D. 
Agustin Villavicencio. Its soil is albariza, its surface one 
hundred aranzadas the palomino predominates upon it. 
Its most notable vineyard is that called of the Cartuja, for- 
merly the property of the monastery of that name on the 
Guadalete. The last pagos of this group to be described are 
the Abiertas de Caulina vineyards, in the plain of Caulina, 
forming the extreme E.N.E. end of the group, and bordering 
upon the Llanos de Caulina. They extend from the Arcos 
road to the Callejon de la Zanja, and are traversed by the 
railway. On the north they are bounded by Santa Fe, on the 
south by El Pinar. Their soil is barro-arena, their vines are 
mantuos and mollares, and their surface is one hundred and 
forty aranzadas. 

179. FURTHER DESCRIPTION OF JEREZ VINES. 

The vines most commonly grown in this and the following 
district are the mantuos, mollares, the ferral and beba. I 
subjoin a short description of them and of their subordinate 
varieties : 

Mantuo Castellano. This vine occupies one-half of the 
Jerez vineyards. Its stock is strong; its canes are nu- 
merous and large; at the thick end they are greyish red, 
towards the point whitish red; the leaves are yellowish 
green, and reddish when they are shed ; they are of medium 
size, entire, and woolly on the lower face. The numerous 
bunches are large ; the grapes large, equal, of good taste, 
and ripen a fortnight later than those of the palomino ; they 
rot easily in rainy weather. They are peculiarly consistent, 



260 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

without being hard, as if the juice was shut up in many 
small receptacles. Many dark stones make the grape dis- 
agreeable to eat. Its mosto is very heavy, ranging from 
9*7 to 14 B, and developes into wines termed finos. 

Mantuo de Pila. The canes are somewhat irregular ; the 
grapes hard ; sweet, but late ; this lateness necessitates that 
they should hang on the vines beyond the time of the 
general vintage, which causes them to be inconvenient 
grapes for wine-making, if not kept by themselves. Its 
name is derived from Pila, the town in the province of 
Seville. 

Manluo morado. Similar to the other mantuos, but 
differing by the violet colour of its grapes. 

Mantuo Cordovi. Whitish strong canes ; leaves yellowish 
green ; grapes large, bronzed, and translucent. 

Mantuo lacren, ladrenado, or layren. Name derived from 
the Arabic, of problematical meaning. Similar to the 
former ; its grapes are less translucent and later ripe ; its 
bunches more pyramidal. 

Canocazo. Arabic name, signifying soft mild grape. Is 
also termed mollar bianco. The stock is strong, its canes 
are numerous and straggling, some being upright, others on 
the ground, hanging in all directions ; they are thick, and 
of a greyish red colour, with some yellow admixed. The 
large leaves are almost entire, yellowish green ; the branches 
are large, with many grapes, and giving a mosto of from 
11 to 12 B, which produces high-flavoured olorosos. 
When well dried in the sun it may be advantageously com- 
bined with Pedro Jimenez for duke. 

Mollar negro, also termed Seirillano. Stock middling; 
canes numerous, hanging, greyish red ; with large and 
almost round leaves of yellowish green colour, which become 
red before the fall. The bunches are large and numerous, 
the grapes black. Very commonly grown in Jerez, and 
used for verdeo. Mosto weighs from 9 to 14 B. 

Ferrar, also ferral. Stock strong, with few short, thick, 
erect canes, of a greyish red colour. Leaves yellowish 
green ; bunches large ; grapes nearly black, large and very 
late. In unfavourable years and conditions the husks 



WINES OF SPAIN. 26l 

remain violet, even green, though the contents are quite 
sweet. It should be grown on espaliers in protected places, 
upon the so-called extension system, with many branches, 
like the so-called Hambro' vine of English conservatories, 
the Tyrol grape, to which it has much resemblance. It is. 
supposed that from the richness in branches (when it is 
grown on espaliers) the Arabic nameferrar is derived. Its 
mosto is not very heavy, Clemente finding it 8-5 B. I have 
observed it at 14 B, from very ripe ferrars. Clemente says 
that its must was not good for wine, as it was too acid. 
This has been so often repeated, that it is now generally 
believed ; but it is an error. The nonsuitability for wine 
of the ferrar arises from its liability to form scud immediately 
after fermentation, and to shed its colour and lose quality. 
As regards acidity, it must not be forgotten that what in 
Andalusia is acidulous, would be very sweet indeed even in 
the Gironde. 

The last of the favourite vines in this district is the Beba. 
Its stock is of middling size, with canes which are red, and 
have the silver-grey hue; they sink to the ground. The 
leaves are large, and appear whitish, owing to a downy 
covering ; in shape irregular, palmate, lobed, and of uneven 
surface. The bunches are pyramidal, and dense, and the 
grapes are large and hard, and frequently bronzed. They 
are late, and therefore are suitable for being hung up for 
later use, or for being transformed into raisins. Large 
quantities are sold as verdeo. As I have repeatedly used, 
and shall have again to use this expression, I give some 
explanation of its meaning. Verdear is the selling of fruit 
for the purpose of its being eaten fresh, or transformed into 
other products. Thus it is said that the inhabitants of 
Velez transport to Malaga, in the month of July, "para 
verdear," or " para verdeo," 250 mule loads of sugarcane. 
The grapes which are sold as such at Jerez are termed 
"verdea," but it does not follow that they are all eaten. A 
portion, no doubt, is made into wine, although produced 
and sold, in the first instance, as verdeo. (See Clemente, 
p. 136, footnote i.) 

Calona. This vine has a medium-sized stock, and few 



262 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

straight and erect canes. The leaves are almost entire, 
unequally punctured, and of a yellowish green colour. The 
bunches are large, the grapes large and white, tasty, but 
sour ; this is indeed indicated by its name, which is Arabic 
and indicates acid or vinegar. It is an early grape and 
used for eating. Its black brother, the Calona negra, also 
termed Carchuna, has yellower leaves than the former, and 
large thick black grapes. They are sweeter and earlier than 
the white ones, and liked for eating. 

The Uva de Loja belongs to the class of datileras, has 
numerous straggling canes, and small and light yellowish 
leaves. The grapes are large and frequently two-winged ; 
when single they are conical ; the berries have thin husks, 
and are good for raisins and for eating. The name is derived 
from the town of Loja. 

A kind of vine, not frequently grown here, and possibly 
identical with the Malvasia of Greece, is the Malvasia. 
Canes erect, short, whitish red. Leaves large, irregularly 
lobed or palmate ; grapes transparent, white, very delicate 
to eat, sweet, and early, but with a thick skin. Comes from 
Cataluna. Another interesting vine is the Vigiriega cominun. 
Middling-sized stock, many canes, and yellowish leaves, of 
middling size, almost entire and round. Bunches few; 
grapes almost round, greenish white, and very sweet, being 
good for mosto and for eating. A variety of it is the still 
more rare Vigiriega negra, black, and much less sweet than 
the former. 



1 80. CLASSIFICATION OF GRAPES, IN THE ORDER OF 
THEIR QUALITY FOR MAKING WINE. 

Pedro Jimenez the finest grape, little grown in Jerez, 
mostly used for dulce ; sweetest grape. 

Palomino the dominating vine ; produces finos and 
amontillados ; made pure. 

Perruno produces high-flavoured olorosos. 

Mantuo castellano solid fleshy grape. 

Mantuo de Pila late grape. 

The foregoing alone form sets in vineyards. 



WINES OF SPAIN. 263 

The following never form sets, and are not prized for 
wine : 

Beba esteemed for eating. 

Cafiocazo scarce ; produces high-flavoured olorosos. 

Ferral, Mollard, and Palomino Negro are used by pro- 
prietors for making vino de color, as if from white grapes, 
not red. The ferral and mollar are rejected by the pur- 
chasers of partidos. 

Almufiecar and Albillo the most juicy or fluid of grapes. 

The proportion in which any of these vines are reared in 
vineyards may be seen under the description of each district. 
For common vineyards no proportion can be stated. I 
inspected some crops while they were being emptied on the 
lagares (September 15, 1871), and found them to consist of 
a mixture of the following grapes, enumerated in the order of 
their apparent frequency : Beba, Mantuo Castellano, Palo- 
mino, Albillo, and Mollar. 

181. EASTERN, SOUTHERN, AND WESTERN GROUP OF 

PAGOS. 

The eastern group comprises the section between the 
Arcos road and the Hijuela de Pedro Diaz. The first pago 
out of Jerez by the Arcos road is that of San Antonio, 
situated close to the town, upon the drain or sewer de los 
Alunados, between the carriage-road to Arcos, or footpath 
del Badelejo on the one and the footpath of the Cana- 
leja on the other side. Its extent is thirty to forty aran- 
zadas ; its soil is barro-arena, its vines are mantuos and 
mollares. On the south-east of, and close to the former 
pago, is that of the Pozo de Ramos, twelve aranzadas in 
extent. It is close to Jerez, and approached by the long 
narrow lane La Manga del Toril. Its soil is barro-arena ; 
its vines are mantuos and mollares. East of San Antonio, 
and bordering upon the road of Badalejo, is the mantuo- 
bearing pago of Barbadillo. Between this, the Arcos road 
and the pago El Pina, is that of Cabrestera, forty aranzadas 
in extent. In this group also lies Garrido, a pago of about 
twenty aranzadas, and Piedra del Mirabel, ot thirty aran- 



264 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

zadas. Continuing by the Badalejo road, we meet on the 
left the large pago of El Pinar, which bears its name from 
a plantation of pines contained in it, and includes one 
hundred aranzadas. On its north side this pago is bordered 
in its whole length by the Arcos road, in the east it borders 
upon the Caulina plain and Badalejo. South of El Pinar, 
and on the right of the Badalejo road, is situated the long 
pago of Canalejo, confined on its south side by the road of 
the same name, with fifty aranzadas of vineyard, The name 
is probably derived from criadero de canas, Canaveral, or 
more probably from canaleja, a drinking trough. The soil 
of all the foregoing pagos, when not differently characterized, 
may be assumed to be barro-arena, and to be planted with 
mantuos and mollares. 

East of the Canaleja is the small barro-arena pago of 
Catalana, forming a compact mass of vineyards, with the 
larger pago of Badalejo. This is situated where the Canaleja 
and Badalejo roads join, and, branching off from the road 
to Cuartillos, make a semicircular loop towards the Arcos 
road, winding round the eastern end of El Pinar, already 
described. The pago lies close to the rivulet of the same 
name, which flows in a southern direction towards the 
Guadalete, and joins its waters, profuse in the rainy season, 
almost nil in dry summertime, with those of the Guadalete, 
at a point between the Cartuja and the bridge close by. 
The name of pago and river is spelt by Suter in his map 
" Albaladejo," so that we have here an Arabic article pre- 
fixed, and some letters transposed. The spelling which I 
adopt seems justified by the probable derivation from the 
Arabic guadalec or guadalejo, derived itself from guada,. 
fiver. The soil of this pago is barro-arena, with much 
chalk, containing great numbers of fossil marine shells of the 
tertiary period. The mantuos prevail, and their products 
are esteemed. The total area of the vineyards amounts to 
forty aranzadas. To the south-east of the pago and rivulet 
of Badalejo is the isolated pago of Culebra, with twenty-five 
aranzadas of barro-arena soil, planted with mantuos and 
mollares. 

Due east of Jerez, and about ten kilometres distant, is 



WINES OF SPAIN. 265 

Cuartillos, forming, with Majada, an isolated group of im- 
portant vineyards. It comprises about four hundred aran- 
zadas of lustrillo soil. Its vines are palominos, perrunos, 
albillos, mantuos, and bebas. The most noted vineyard is 
that de las Animas. Majada, also termed M. Alta, measures 
twenty aranzadas, and resembles Cuartillos in soil and 
plantation. 

Returning to Jerez from a visit to the plain round Cule- 
bras, I passed the pago, which from a neighbouring flowing 
spring is called Fuente de la Teja. It is situated at the 
eastern end of the group of vineyards which are enclosed be- 
tween the road of the Canaleja and that of Pedro Diaz. It 
passes westward into the pago of Pedro Diaz, thirty aran- 
zadas of barro-areno soil, and is also blessed with a living 
spring of the same name. From this pago all the way to 
Jerez the vineyards lying along the Hijuela de Pedro Diaz, 
belong to the pago of San Jose, barro-arena vineyards of forty 
aranzadas surface, with the mantuos and mollares usual in 
this district. 

The plains all round this eastern district are, if not barren, 
at least mainly uncultivated. Their soil is clay and sand, and 
suffers from stagnation of water in winter and drought in the 
summer. They are covered by groups of palmitos, and 
were adorned, when I first saw them, with numberless 
squills in full bloom. Herds of cattle were roaming over 
them. I was informed that before the Revolution 0^1833 
these lands were the property of the commune of Jerez. In 
consequence of the revolution a plan was started in Jerez to 
cure the poverty of the labouring population by giving them 
lands. The public lands were divided, and somehow dis- 
tributed amongst the citizens. The plots were large enough 
for separate settlements, or the establishment of small 
farms. But not a single one of the new proprietors was 
found to settle on, or even work, the newly acquired land. 
Some sold it on the evening of the day on which they had 
received the boon, for more or less of wine or money, an 
arrobe of wine being no uncommon price for an entire lot 
of several aranzadas. A few monied persons and land- 
owners in the neigbourhood acquired the whole ot what had 






266 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

been the common land, for a ridiculously inadequate price ; 
and thus the community was not only cheated of its pro- 
perty, but the mass of its poor inhabitants were deprived of 
the greater part of the common land on which their animals 
had, during a great part of each year, found their sub- 
sistence. 

The first pago close to the south side of Jerez, bordering 
upon the plain of San Telmo, is that of Mancebia, a small 
vineyard, of one aranzada, in bugeo soil. Where the road 
to Monte Allegre branches off that to the Cartuja there is 
situated the pago of Pozillos, fourteen aranzadas in extent, 
with barro-arena soil, and planted with mantuos and mol- 
lares. In the angle formed by the Monte Allegre and 
Cartuja road is situated the barro-arena pago of Barrial. 
Not far off is the farm of Vallesequillo, on barro-arena soil, 
with orchards and vineyards. In this part the soil is 
remarkably red when freshly worked, paler when long ex- 
posed ; some parts are almost reddish brown, and the 
colour changes frequently with the situation. To the east 
of the pagos just mentioned, between the Hijuela de Monte 
Alegre and that of Pedro Diaz, lies the pago of Manjon, or 
Majon, twenty aranzadas in extent, with barro-arena soil, 
and the vines appropriate to it. Contiguous to this is the 
Llano del Moral, a barro-arena pago, of from fifteen to twenty 
aranzadas. To the south-east of these pagos, and occupy- 
ing almost the entire space between the road to the Cartuja 
and that of Pedro Dias, is the important pago of Monte 
Allegre, of about four hundred aranzadas. It is divided in 
its middle by a road bearing its name. Its soil is in one 
part barro-arena, in another portion plastic albariza. The 
dominant vines are mantuos with interposed bebas, mollares, 
and palominos. The point of Monte Alegre close to the 
Cartuja is termed Cabeza de la Azena, and contains twenty 
aranzadas of barro-arena soil. 

To the south of the road to the Cartuja, between it and 
that to the Granja, lies the pago of Buena Vista, which de- 
rives its name from certain high hills in its midst, whence a 
fine view of the old monastery, and of the valley of the 
Guadelete is obtained. It comprises about sixty aranzadas; 



WINES OF SPAIN. 267 

its soil is barro-arena, with some chalky underground ; the 
prevailing vines are mantuos. More towards Jerez, and ta 
the west of Buena Vista, we see the ten aranzadas of the 
pago of Flamenco, traversed by the three roads of the Car- 
tuja, la Granja and Solete. The Cartuja road separates it 
from the Moral, and the Granja road from the pago of 
Geraldino. This pago is, in its turn, circumscribed by the 
road to the Granja and that to the Solete. It contains 
twenty aranzadas of barro-arena, and is planted with man- 
tuos. The name is said to have been selected in honour of 
a Jerez naval man, who fought with unsuccessful glory at 
the naval battle of Cape St. Vincent. At the southern 
extremity of Buena Vista, and close to the Guadalete, 
we find the pago of la Granja, with a farm of the same 
name, to which its main vineyard belongs. The road 
which leads to it bears the name of Camino de la Granja. 
It is thirty aranzadas in extent ; its soil is barro-arena, and 
its vines are mantuos, mollares, and others. 

West of la Granja, and between it and Solete, is the 
barro-arena pago of Lazo. It is a long strip of land, with 
twenty aranzadas of vineyards, abutting in the north upoa 
the Granja-road, in the south upon that of del Rio viejo. 
The last of the large pagos of this district is that of Solete,, 
due south of Jerez. It borders in the west upon the Car- 
retera del Puerto, in the east upon the pagos of Lazo and 
Geraldino, and is traversed by a road which bears its name, 
and farther west by the railway to Cadiz, running parallel 
with the road. Its soil is barro-arena, and its vines are 
mantuos and mollares. 

On the outskirts of the district above described are yet a 
few small pagos, which may be conveniently here enume- 
rated. S.S.E. of Jerez, and at three leagues' distance from- 
it, is the pago Torre de la Cera, of forty-two aranzadas, 
with albariza soil. In the same direction from Jerez, but at 
a distance of five leagues, near the ex-convent del Valle,. 
is the pago of Parrilla, of forty aranzadas. 

The road to the Cartuja is a quagmire of sand and dust, 
with here and there a fragment of macadamized road. 
a remnant of a better past. 



263 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

The Toirox group of vineyards, sometimes also called 
group of las Anaferas, is situated S.S.W. of Jerez, in a 
pentagonal space, bordered to the N.N.W. by the Trocha 
de Jerez al Puerto, on the W.S.W. by the Canada del 
Carillo, and the northern slopes of the Sierra de San 
Cristobal. On the N.E. it is skirted by the carretera 
del Puerto a Jerez, the railroad from Cadiz to Sevilla and 
the Rio Guadelete, three roads which run close together at 
the former port of Jerez, el Portal. The entire group is 
within five kilometres from Jerez, and is easily reached 
by the Puerto roads mentioned, or by either of two field- 
roads, the Hijuela of Torrox or that of las Anaferas. 

The pago of Torrox is S.S.W. from Jerez, in the place 
where formerly was a laguna of that name, abutting upon 
Gibalcon, and giving its Moorish name to the entire group. 
Its extent is two hundred aranzadas, its soil albariza, with 
bugeo in the lower parts. The vines are palomino, mantuo, 
Pedro Jimenez. To the east of this, and due south of 
Jerez, lies Gibalcon, a pago with an Arabic name, and 
fronting towards the cerro del Fruto and San Telmo. 
Extent, ninety aranzadas; soil, albariza; vines, palomino 
and mantuo. Next to the former two pagos, and almost in 
the centre of the group, lies the pago of Cibullo, being 
albariza with some bugeo, fifty aranzadas in extent, and 
mainly planted with palomino. 

The pago nearest the river and railway is that of Parpa- 
lana, one hundred and sixty aranzadas in extent. Its soil 
is white plastic earth, with bugeo in the lower parts. Vines : 
polomino and Pedro Jimenez intermixed with peruno, cano- 
cazo, albillo, and mantuo. Noted vineyards : Nuestra 
Senra de la Merced, Perla de Parpalana, borders upon la 
Calderera and Bonaina. The former is an albariza pago, with 
sixty aranzadas of palomino, but Bonaina has more bugeo 
soil, fifty aranzadas in extent, and is also stocked with 
palomino. To this district also belongs the pago de Galera, 
a strip of land lying between the river Guadalete and the 
carriage road to Puerto, extending from the Portal to the 
olive-grove del Duque. Its soil, of which only half an 
aranzada is as yet planted with vines, is exclusively bugeo. 



WINES OF SPAIN. 269 

The pago o. this group, which is third in importance 
and most distant from Jerez, is las Anaferas. It borders 
upon the Canada (brook lined with reeds) del Carillo, and 
the pagos of Cibullo and Torrox. Its soil is white albariza, 
of so plastic a nature that it can be carved with a knife, 
like soap, and is in that state worked into portable little 
stoves for charcoal, over which the common people cook 
their dinners. From these stoves the pago derives its name. 
The palomino predominates on its ninety aranzadas. 

Bordering upon las Anaferas is the pago termed after the 
brook Canada del Carrillo, fifty aranzadas, with albariza in 
the high and bugeo in the low portions. On the outskirts 
of the group we have yet to notice the pago of Colores, 
situated on the right of the bridle-road from Jerez to Puerto. 
It measures twenty aranzadas, with bugeo soil and some 
albariza. Its stock consists of mantuos and palominos. 
Close to it, on the left or south side of the same road, is the 
pago of Matacardillo, about fifty aranzadas in extent. 

South of las Anaferas and of the Canada del Carillo is 
the pago of the Sierra de San Cristobal. The vineyard is 
situated on the northern slope of this mountain. Its soil is 
bugeo, some albariza, and arena, products of the disintegra- 
tion of the sand and chalk-rock which forms the mass of the 
hill. The soil on the whole is therefore lustrillo. Extent,, 
fifty aranzadas ; vines, mantuos and palominos. 



182. MOSCATELS. 

Close to el Portal is the Vega del Moscatel. It forms 
about six aranzadas of vineyards in bugeo soil, on which 
choice varities of moscatels are cultivated, amongst them 
the following : 

Moscatel gordo bianco, also termed romano and flamenco. 
The stock is strong, the canes are yellowish, like those of 
reeds, the leaves small and entire, or almost so, and the 
grapes are large, and have the peculiar flavour. 

Moscatel gordo morado, similar to foregoing in shape, but 
its grape is violet, and the canes somewhat greyish-red. 

Moscatel meniido bianco, also termed morisco andyfw, is a 






270 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

more delicate plant than the former ; its canes are intensely 
greyish-red. The grapes are small and very sweet, and give 
the best moscatel wine, or rather, sweet liqueur. 

Moscatels require dark territory ; even in this warm 
climate their flowers set very imperfectly, but the grapes 
which become developed at all attain a high degree of 
perfection. 

Farther towards Jerez, to the east of Gibalcon, bordering 
upon the side-road of las Coles, and the carriage-road to 
Puerto, are yet two small pagos, the Cerro de Paez, a single 
vineyard of from six to seven aranzadas, with barro-arena 
.soil, and pago de Palmosa, a small vineyard with bugeo soil. 



183. DENSITY OF JEREZ MOSTOS. 

Many a sherry-drinker has heard the oft-repeated tale, 
that in the south the grapes are so sweet, so highly charged 
with sugar, that the mosto made from them is unable to 
consume the whole of it, and remains sweet, to some extent, 
even after fermentation has produced the ordinary quantity 
of alcohol. This tale is often made to justify or explain the 
sweet taste of sherry, and the large amount of distilled spirits 
which is added to it. 

In the "Treatise on Wine," of Thudichum and Dupre", 
p. 638 et seg., a special chapter is devoted to the comparison 
of the density of Jerez must with the specific gravity of 
must produced from different wines in various countries 
and years. This comparison led us to the conclusion that 
sherry is not naturally stronger than the principal wines of 
France and Germany ; that it Is able to consume the whole 
of its saccharine matter by natural fermentation, and become 
natural wine, and, if properly treated, does not require 
either plastering, or the addition of brandy, spirit, or boiled 
must. 

I have been able to confirm this conclusion by many 
observations made at Jerez upon mostos.as they came from 
the lagars, and subsequently fermented in the bodegas. 



WINES OF SPAIN. 



2/1 



Out of 103 mostos, at the average temperature of 70 
Fahr. : 

i showed specific gravity 10-75 Baume'. 
1 1 -oo 

n'25 

1 1 '33 



6 

z 
24 

16 

12 

4 

14 

6 

4 

7 



12 OO 
I2'IO 
12-25 

12-50 

12-75 

13-00 



14-00 



All these mostos came from the mantuo castellano grapes 
(grown in barro-arena soil) and transported to the bodegas 
on mules' backs during the time from September 2oth to 
October and, that is to say, very late in a very hot Jerez 
season. The grapes had, indeed, been subjected to such a 
heat that many were shrivelled, and others transformed into 
dry raisins. These latter do not influence the specific 
gravity of mostos made on the lagar, but are mostly lost to 
the wine-makers. When the dry murk is subsequently cast 
into the roads, or carried to the dung-heaps or fields, one 
can see numbers of poor children rummaging it, and picking 
out these raisins. I state this in order to show that the 
mostos above described were really highly concentrated 
liquids, which is indeed also shown by the specific gravities 
themselves, to all those who know that Spanish musts 
fluctuate between specific gravity 9 and 14 as extremes, and 
are more frequently near the lower than the higher figure. 

I next observed eight mostos which were made from 

. assoleated grapes, and showed specific gravity 13-3 ; 13-5 ; 

four= 14; two = i4'25. Each bota received six arrobas of 

brandy of 40 Cartier, whereby the soecific gravity was de- 



2/2 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

pressed by six or seven degrees. Of mostos made on 
October 2nd, from long-dried mantuo de pila, two showed 
15, one 1 6, and one 17 Baume. The heaviest mosto I 
observed at all at Jerez had 22 B, and came from Pedro 
Jimenez grapes exposed to the sun during ten days, from 
September 5th to i5th. All these heavy mostos were ex- 
pressly prepared for dulce, and were not allowed to ferment 
at all, but had their fermentation prevented by the addition 
of one-fifth of their volume of alcohol. 

I found the best palomino mosto from albariza soil, on 
many samples, weighed between September nth and soth, 
to have a specific gravity of 13 B. All these mostos, as 
well as the mostos of mantuo castellano from barro-arena 
soil, fermented readily and rapidly, and in the space of ten 
days or so, had completely lost all sugar, and were new, 
dry, thoroughly fermented wines. Thus it is shown, by 
overwhelming evidence, that the assertion so frequently 
made to screen the true nature of sugared and brandied 
wines is untrue. Sherry wine is never sweet, except when 
it is expressly and intentionally sweetened by makers and 
exporters. Sherry is so sweetened, and coloured, and 
brandied, in order to cover the natural defects of the taste ; 
and no sherry of any claim to quality is ever sugared or 
coloured, because the makers know very well that pale, 
dry wine, with the least possible amount of alcohol, is far 
more valuable than the cooked and drugged, coloured sweet 
and hot liquids. 

184. SULPHURING AZUFRADO. 
The wines in Jerez are all plastered. But the common 
wines are not only plastered, but sulphured in addition. 
For this purpose a complicated apparatus is employed, con- 
sisting of the following parts. A vat, closed on all sides, 
of the size of a bota, is raised upon a stand, so that its 
bottom is about breast-high ; to the side of this is attached 
a little furnace in which the sulphur matches are burned. 
The fumes of the sulphurous acid are conducted by a tube 
to the top of the vat, and then diffuse in its cavity. The 



WINES OF SPAIN. 2/3 

mosto is kept in a reservoir under the vat, mostly buried in 
the ground, and is repeatedly raised to the top of the vat 
by means of a pump. It is spread out in the vat in the 
form of a fine shower by means of a rose, or sieve-like dis- 
tributor, and in falling becomes impregnated with the 
sulphurous acid. The matches which are burned are made 
of broad cotton bands, and the products of the imperfect 
combustion of these bands are, of course, also admixed 
with the must. The quantity of sulphur thus burned to im- 
pregnate each bota amounts to one-third of a pound, or 
more than five ounces, and this will yield more than ten 
ounces of the sulphurous acid gas, and ultimately nearly a 
pound of sulphuric acid. As the plastering introduces 
several pounds of sulphuric acid into each bota, it is now 
explained why some descriptions of sherry contain from 
three to five pounds of sulphuric acid. The acid introduced 
with the plaster is in a combined state, but that introduced 
by sulphuring is ultimately contained in the free state. 

The sulphuring process has the effect of somewhat retard- 
ing fermentation, in warm weather one, in cooler weather 
two days. The process also lasts a little longer than in 
must not sulphured. The freshly fermented wine has an 
awful smell and taste of brimstone and rotten eggs, and 
contains considerable quantities of sulphuretted hydrogen 
and other products of the reduction of sulphurous acid. 

The object of sulphuring is said to be to prevent the wine 
from running into the acetous fermentation. We believe, 
however, that the main effect of sulphuring the mosto is 
the destruction, partial or entire suffocation, of the fungus 
of scud or viscosity, as it is called in wine, a fungus which, 
when it invades fresh sweet must, destroys the sugar, and 
prevents true alcoholic fermentation. Incidentally the 
free acid of the wine is increased in quantity, and thus 
approaches more to the condition of unplastered mosto. 
It seems also that sulphured wine becomes clear more 
quickly than unsulphured. In return for this advantage, 
the sulphured wine remains in the objectionable state of 
contamination with sulphuretted hydrogen for a very long 
time; and after oxydation of this remains turbid from 



2/4 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

finely-divided sulphur, which is removed with difficulty 
ouly. The sulphuring deteriorates the taste of the wine, even 
after complete oxidation of the sulphur to sulphuric acid, 
and for this reason producers and extractors never sulphur 
the better classes of wine, but only the low common quali- 
ties. 



185. TEMPERATURES OF FERMENTING MUSTS. 
On September zist, when the temperature of the outer 
air was 76-5 Fahr., I ascertained the temperature of fer- 
menting palomino mostos to be 90 Fahr. When the casks 
lay in a warmer place, their temperature rose to 92 and 93 ; 
when in a cooler, it fell to 85. Thoroughly fermented 
mostos about twelve days old showed 74-5. When the 
casks were laid up in rows three high, called andanas, 
I found that the lower rows quickly assumed an even tem- 
perature of about 75, while the temperatures of the middle 
rows was about 80. The third or top rows varied between 
81 and 92. The highest temperatures were found near 
open windows. I have no doubt that, although these botas 
completed their noisy fermentation on the even ground, 
they carried a portion of the heat acquired by fermentation 
up to the andana, and that the entire heat cannot be placed 
to the account of position. But a certain portion of the 
heat is, no doubt, communicated by the hotter air in the 
upper strata, which in the day-time rose to 97, and at night 
fell to 74. Now, here is the easy explanation of the obser- 
vation, that so much wine at Jerez and in other parts of the 
south passes immediately from the vinous fermentation into 
the acetous. The temperatures of the casks of one of the 
top rows observed were the following: 87, 90, 87-5, 88, 
90, 88, 90, 92, 9 1 -3, 76. All these casks had just com- 
pleted their fermentation, and were turbid, but beginning to 
deposit their yeast. They were lying in warm places, and 
following in a certain measure the lead of external 
changes of temperature, and kept near their actual tempera- 
ture by the heat of the air in the day-time, which at this 
period (the middle of September) was excessive, that is to 



WINES OF SPAIN. 2/5 

say, much higher than in ordinary years. All the casks 
were with vacua, that is to say, not filled by a least one-sixth 
of their capacity. Under these circumstances, it is, in 
my opinion, impossible that they should not directly suffer 
at least some acetous fermentation ; indeed, the wonder is, 
not that they form vinegar, but rather that any escape from 
this contamination, and remain sound wine. This stage is, 
indeed, the most dangerous one for Jerez wines, namely, the 
time from cessation of the fermentation, at which the wine 
has a temperature of 90 to 96 Fahr., and is turbid, to that 
time at which the wine has reached 75 and less, and, 
not being disturbed by external fluctuation of temperature, 
has desposited its yeast and become clear. The danger is 
generally diminished by the addition of spirit. But it is well 
known that much spirit hinders the development of wines, 
and has, therefore, to be avoided. Now, as by the exclusion 
of air in hot seasons the acetification of wine can be 
prevented, a great part of the necessity for adding so much 
spirit to wine is done away with. Consequently, the wine 
is in a position to become more quickly developed, and, 
being developed, it may be either left in its natural state or 
brandied for the taste of consumers desiring to have it thus 
treated. 

The fermented wine remains stacked in the andanas of 
the bodega until it is pretty clear of floating yeast, which is 
mostly in January or February. It is then racked (desliado), 
and some brandy is added to it. Finos receive half an 
arrobe per bota. Common wines receive from one to one 
and a-half arrobes, of 40 Cartier. On the whole it may be 
said that the better the wine, the less brandy is added to it. 
Those botas which have become bad are sent to the still, 
and those which are retained are marked, if they have de- 
veloped any specific qualities, or left unmarked if they 
remain doubtful and on trial. If a wine goes wrong in any 
of several ways, the only remedy applied to it is brandy, 
never any change in its other chemical or in its physical 
conditions. 



2/6 A TREATISE ON WINES. 



1 86. STAGES OF WINE, AND QUALITIES. 

Mosto is not only the freshly pressed juice of the grapes, 
but the name is retained for all fermented wine up to the 
time of the first spring racking. Vino d'un anno is wine 
which approaches or has passed the age of one year. 
Quantities of wine of this quality are generally termed 
anadas. A regular heavy Jerez wine from albariza soil 
remains, as a rule, in an unripe state for several years, and 
then gradually becomes fino. It remains so from the 5th 
to the 8th year, and then may pass into amontillado ; when 
continued in open casks, and allowed to develope, it re- 
mains in this state from the Qth to the i4th year, and then 
passes into oloroso ; this condition lasts from the i5th to 
the 2oth year, whereupon the wine becomes secco ; this is, 
properly speaking, a passed wine, all its qualities are ex- 
hausted and gone : it is more properly termed passado. In 
other parts of Spain very old secco is sometimes called 
rancio, but in Jerez this word is not used in the same sense, 
but signifies a rancid, bad, sour, and mousy wine. From 
stout fino all subsequent qualities may be obtained directly 
by accidental development. The wine, as it were, skips a 
stage or two, and becomes either oloroso or secco, without 
having been in the amontillado stage at all. 

When distinguished according to quality simply, wines 
give rise to the following names : 

Palma. The fine, dry, wines in the second and third 
year are thus called. They may yield amontillado in time. 
Some extractors say that- the amontillado obtainable from 
palma is thin, and never becomes oloroso. Others mark 
the amontillado by the sign of the palma. 

Double palma signifies the same general qualities as the 
former, but more general and ripe. 

Treble palma is the highest intensity of this modification, 
essence of amontillado. 

Palo cortado, the broken stick, or cut stick, the mysterious 
sign for oloroso. 

Double palo cortado> a better wine than the former. 



WINES OF SPAIN. 2?/ 

Treble palo, the highest perfection of oloroso, " Oloroso 
muy viejo." 

Some place the oloroso before the palma as to quality. 
Probably the palma speaks more to the taste, the palo cor- 
tado to the nose. 

Out of a large number of butts of wine from the same 
vintage and vineyard, only a small number develope into 
any of the above qualities. The largest quantity remains 

Raya, or rayea, the third quality of wine. This in its 
natural state is sound and dry, but without prominent 
qualities. Perhaps three-quarters of all albariza sherry is 
raya. It is the bulk of the sherries exported to and drunk 
in England. This quality (raya pnmera) resembles in 
colour and dryness, but does not equal in merit, old secco. 

Dos rayas is a common wine, not clean, but affected with 
some fault or other. 

Tres rayas signify wine which nobody will buy refuse. 
Thus it will be seen that with raya the multiplication of the 
sign goes along with the increase of badness, while with 
palma and palo cortado the multiplication signifies increase 
of good qualities. 

Vinagre, wine which is more or less affected by acetous 
fermentation. 

The sign of a grating signifies wine destined for the 
distillery. 

The foregoing distinctions yield nine different qualities of 
wine. Of all wine produced in Jerez only a small propor- 
tion reaches the highest quality, and it was the opinion of 
one of the first extractors that there were not 200 butts oi 
treble palo in Jerez at the time of my visit. These signs 
and distinctions are mainly used by the extractors for their 
guidance in buying, and during maturing, and are not 
generally applied to wines as shipped. 

187. THE CRIADERA. THE SOLERA. 
This name signifies a kind of nursery, in which wines 
are placed which have already arrived at a certain quality 
in the partido. The partido is the entire " parcel ; " that is 



2/8 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

to say, the total number of casks of one vintage from one 
particular vineyard. When this partido has been dissolved 
into its separate qualities, either by the proprietor or pur- 
chaser, these qualities are now added to other quantities of 
similar quality, or are simply laid by their side to undergo 
their probation. We will assume a hundred botas of palma 
to have been selected from ten different partidos. The 
hundred casks may all develop equally, or all unequally, 
or only a number may take the normal development ; the 
others may go back before having their character perma- 
nently determined. This result is attained and observed in 
tfie criadera. The name is derived from the idea that the 
wine while thus situated grows. The extractors say that 
they grow the wine, which has to be interpreted, that they 
stand by while the wine undergoes its changes for better or 
for worse, and observe and register these changes from time 
to time. If the wine shows signs of an unfavourable kind 
it is treated with some spirits, but no other application or 
regimen is applied to it. When wine in the criadera has 
attained certain desired qualities it is either arrested in its 
career and prevented from changing any further by receiving 
its full complement of spirits, or it is taken to the soleras. 

A number of botas, which are kept together, and as far as 
possible supplied with wine of similar character, are termed 
a solera. This institution has for its object to enable the 
extractor to supply constantly good wine of the same general 
quality, or, at all events, wine which differs no more in the 
variation of years and seasons than can be disguised by 
careful mixing. If, therefore, a solera, say of amontillado, 
consists of sixty butts, and the sales of the extractor have 
diminished their contents to one-half, then he has to supply 
thirty butts to make up his solera. These he must obtain 
either from his own criadera or from that of others. 

Now suppose that in the criadera of a hundred butts of 
palma assumed in the previous paragraph, thirty had turned 
into amontillado, then the extractor would probably dis- 
tribute these thirty butts over his solera of sixty butts, and 
have it complete; but if he obtained only ten butts of 
amontillado in his criadera he would distribute these ten 



WINES OF SPAIN. 2/9 

over his entire solera, and the butts of the solera would 
contain a void of one-third of their capacity. On the con- 
trary, if the extractor were to sell thirty botas of his solera, 
consisting of sixty, he would not sell half the number of his 
casks ; but he would draw from each of the casks half a 
bota, arrobe by arrobe, and distribute them equally over the 
botas about to be sold. The criadera, therefore, and, still 
more, the solera, in one sense, destroys all individuality of 
wine as to origin and year. When large soleras have to 
be made up from numerous small partidos, they represent, 
of course, a mixture of an infinite variety of wines ; and old 
soleras represent a mixture of small residues from a great 
number of years, the latest addition being probably the 
largest in quantity. All the deposits which the wine forms 
while in the soleras are, in the practice of some extractors, 
left in the butts. I was informed by an extractor that he 
once bought the entire and only solera, consisting of 1,000 
butts, of an old Cadiz house, who made only one quality of 
wine. Each cask contained about four gallons of black 
deposit, which was carefully moved with the wine when it 
was taken to Jerez. These deposits must not be of yeast, 
or they will be injurious. Later deposits are said to im- 
prove the wine, and the stirring up of olfl deposits in soleras, 
e.g., during the addition of wine from the criadera, has a 
tendency to clear the wine. So say some extractors. Others 
have no belief in these deposits; they mostly consist of 
drowned mycoderma vini, and their significance as such 
must be nil, because they are dead, and unable to effect the 
change ascribed to the living ferment. 

1 88. COLOURS OF SHERRIES ARROPE, COLOR OR 
VINO DE COLOR, DULCE. 

All young sherry wines which are produced from sound 
grapes are very slightly coloured greenish-yellow. With 
advancing age they get a little more yellow, but the fines 
and amontillados are, on the whole, pale, and it is only the 
olorosos which become as dark as amber. The seccos are 
amber to brownish. I assume all such wines to be genuine 



280 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

dry, free from sugar and boiled mosto. Now, as colour in 
good wine is an undoubted sign of age (colour in young 
wine indicates that there were rotten grapes employed 
amongst others), and as many people believe that age is the 
highest quality to be desired in wine, the greater part of the 
occupation of the Jerez wine trade consists in imparting to 
young common wines a sham colour, by means of which it 
may pass as aged. But as, happily, the finos, amontillados, 
and olorosos are highly valued in the pure state, they are 
scarcely ever coloured by extractors who understand their 
business. The Englishman of position drinks raya, of ten 
or twelve years of age, and it is to the imitation of this that 
many efforts are directed. In this process the following 
agents are employed. 

The plastered must, as it runs from the press, is boiled in 
a large copper, which is mostly fixed in a building in the 
vineyard. While boiling it is constantly skimmed, and the 
impurities and syrup adhering are thrown with the refuse, to 
be fermented and distilled. Seventy-six arrobas of mosto, 
fresh from the press, yield ultimately, by evaporation, seven 
and a half arrobas of skimmings, and fifteen arrobas of 
arrope. When five butts have been reduced to one, which 
takes from fou teerf to eighteen hours, the mass is constantly 
kept stirred to prevent burning at the bottom of the copper, 
and promote evaporation. It is now a dark brown or 
reddish syrup, in thin layers. The colour is due to caramel, 
produced by the united action of heat and acid. Its taste 
is partially aromatic, partially bitter and nasty, owing to the 
concentrated mass of sulphate of potash which it contains, 
as the result of plastering. It is sometimes so acrid as 
to blister the tongue of delicate persons who taste it. The 
arrope is not used by itself without preparation, but is 
always transformed into a dilute menstruum. 

To one bota of common wine about eleven gallons of 
arrope and a quantity of spirit are added and dissolved by 
agitation. By adding varying quantities of this colour to 
other wine the shades are produced. Brown sherry receives 
about 25 gallons of this vino de color to the bota. The 
pale brown (sometimes also termed pale) receives about 



WINES OF SPAIN. 28 1 

20 gallons. A butt of golden sherry requires 15 to 17 
gallons of vino de color ; and the least coloured, called 
pale (i.e., golden), receives 7 gallons of colour. It is 
perhaps due to this large addition of colour and of boiled 
matter in the shape of vino de color, that this " golden " 
sherry can be shipped with about 34 per cent, of proof 
spirits, while " pale " sherry, with the smallest amount of 
colour, is said to require 40 per cent, to 42 per cent, proof 
spirit. 

In exceptional cases vino de color is made by boiling 
mosto down to one-third, and adding spirit to the coloured 
liquid. 

All vino de color, and wine made with its aid, fluoresces 
green. This is easily observed when the wine is exposed 
to the direct rays of the sun in an otherwise dark place. 
Natural wine never fluoresces in this manner, but requires a 
cone of concentrated sunlight for showing fluorescence ; 
then it is pale green, nearly white, whereas that of color is 
green. 

Natural good wine has a mild sweetish taste, without 
containing sugar. But common wines have no such taste, 
and are therefore mixed with sugar. The most genuine 
sweetening material is mosto preserved in spirit, termed 
dulce. To produce the best dulce, either Pedro Ximenes, 
the sweetest of grapes, or palomino, is selected. The grapes 
are exposed to the sun until they begin to shrivel, and then 
they are trodden and pressed. I examined a mosto made 
from palomino assoleadas, that is grapes which had been 
strongly passulated in the sun, and found its specific gravity 
to be 22 Baume. The first and later runnings, when the 
grapes had been more crushed, had the same specific 
gravity, although the men working the press believed that 
the many raisins contained in the grapes would make the 
mostos heavier. The sugar of true raisins is never extracted 
by mosto in the short time during which this is in contact 
with them. Therefore, unless raisins are picked out from 
amongst the plump grapes, and treated separately, they are 
lost in the murk. Murk from which mosto for dulce has 
been pressed, is treated with water and pressed in an 



282 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

hydraulic press, and then yields a mosto of full 15 B. 
But this is not of good taste, and goes to the refuse vats to 
be distilled after fermentation. The sweet thick mosto to 
be made into dulce is mixed with one-fifth of its bulk of 
spirit of 40 Cartier strength, so that a bota of dulce consists 
of 24 arrobas of mosto and 6 arrobas of spirit. According 
to my observation it has then from 8-5 to 9 B. specific 
gravity. It is not subject to fermentation, but forms a 
deposit ; and when decanted from this becomes clear, 
amalgamated, and a little darker by age. Old dulce (dulce 
muy viejo) is frequently drunk as a liqueur, and the working 
men take a glass of it the first thing in the morning, a 
practice which they call tomar la manana. 

By the addition of such dulce, the various kinds of mixed 
sherry receive their sweetness. No sherry of any kind 
contains a sufficient amount of sugar to have a sweet taste 
of itself. In fact, all wine in Jerez which has fermented 
is perfectly dry and free from sugary taste. Grapes not 
passulated by assolation yield always a mosto, which fer- 
ments perfectly, and never any sweet wine. Mostos of as 
much as 22 B. require twenty per cent, of strongest alcohol 
to be protected from fermentation. The ordinary sherries 
receive of such dulce as much as may be required by the 
taste of the customer. It is found by chemical analysis 
that the sugar thus imparted to wine amounts to from one 
to four per cent, of the total weight of the wine. In some 
bodegas the common dulces are kept in closed casks in the 
open air, in order to let them be heated by the sun. Much 
colouring and sweetening material is now made from 
cane-sugar, and is preferable to the arrope, as it is 
not saturated with sulphate of potash. The sugar, when 
mixed with wine, is quickly transformed into grape-sugar, 
and the caramel is identical with that of the arrope. 

I here summarize once more what I have already partly 
discussed in connection with mosto, namely, the obser- 
vation on the vacua in botas as affecting wines. The casks 
containing the wine are at no time filled up to their bung- 
hole, but there is always an empty space left, to which the 
air has free access. This space is called vacio. The wine 



WINES OF SPAIN. 283 

is allowed to ferment in seasoned botas, of from 37 to 38 
arrobes, and in these a vacio of from 5 to 6 arrobes is 
customary, so that after two gallons of lees are abstracted 
and a little brandy added, a full bota of clear wine may be 
obtained after the first racking. In butts of 30 arrobes the 
vacio amounts to from 3 to 4^ arrobes. This empty space 
causes the wine to offer a great surface to the action of the 
air ; the surface favours all kind of change, the best and the 
worst, according to the external temperature. In warm 
weather, the mycoderma vini is quickly developed, also the 
mycoderma aceti> and the wine changes with great rapidity 
from fino to vinegar, to mousetaste, to basto, or amon- 
tillado. All these varieties are observed side by side, or 
one above the other, in the same lot of originally identical 
qualities of wine. This vacio, together with the changeable 
temperature of the bodegas, is the great danger of Jerez 
wines. No doubt by its means these wines mature quicker in 
a low temperature, though even here it is dangerous, as we 
know, from the Arbois vaults. But in hot weather the wines 
go quickly to their ruin if not suffocated by and pickled in 
brandy. It would, therefore, probably be advisable that the 
practice of the vacio, at least in summer time, should be 
abolished, and only be adopted during the time from 
October to March. 



189. EVAPORATION OF WINE FROM CASKS. FLOR. 

All wines kept in wooden casks diminish in quantity by 
evaporation, partly through the wood, partly through the 
corks and the bunghole. Young wines lose less than 
old ones. The former are estimated to diminish by 2^ per 
cent, the latter by 3 per cent, per annum. Some extractors 
maintain that all wines become stronger in alcohol by- 
keeping, but I am not aware that this has been proved by 
reliable experiment. 

With'the expression Flor the extractors signalize the whitish 
fungus which grows on the surface of wine; the Germans 
term it Kahn ; botanists give it the name of Mycoderma 
vini. In November, 1871, all the wine of that year which 



284 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

I examined (and I examined many hundreds of botas) was 
covered with this mould. On expressing my astonishment 
to the extractors that they allowed their wines to lie with a 
vacio and to be covered with this mould, they admitted that 
it was an unfavourable feature if the flor appeared on mosto 
or young wine yet on the first lees ; but they said they liked 
the flor on wine after the first racking, or on the anadas, or 
wine in criaderas and soleras. They said that wine, other- 
wise sound and growing flor, developed best. It is not 
easy to understand why, or how the fungus should be 
unfavourable at one and advantageous at another time. 
Flor is most commonly associated with the amontillado 
development, rarely with the oloroso stage. But I have 
also seen it together with mouse and other nasty tastes, and 
spoiled wine. But this might be defined as a case of mixed 
ferments ; the effect of the flor was spoiled or neutralized by 
collateral objectionable ferments. The German wine- 
makers consider kahn their greatest enemy, and carefully 
prevent its formation. All countries producing red wines 
avoid its formation on these wines, as it completely spoils 
their purity and high taste. Only at Arbois, in the Jura, 
is wine allowed to be covered with mycoderma vini, as 
we know from Pasteur's description. This chemist also 
made it probable that the flor absorbed oxygen from 
the air, and gave it to the wine, but not so as to form 
vinegar. This latter function he attributes to the vinegar 
plant, or mycoderma aceti, which he found frequently mixed 
with the wine-plant, and observed also that it displaced and 
drowned the wine-fungus. At Arbois the wine is kept in 
cold, deep cellars, with vacios in the casks, which are never 
filled up. The moulds are never removed. Many casks of 
wine perish by becoming vinegar ; some, however, assume 
an admirable development. This quality is said to stand in 
a direct proportion to the development of flor. But here 
the proof of the flor causing the good development is also 
wanting. On the whole this subject requires a scientific 
investigation. 



WINES OF SPAIN. 285 



190. SCUDDINESS, VISCOSITY, NUBE AND OTHER 

DISEASES OF WINE. 

- A white pertinacious turbidity of wine is called scuddinesSy. 
and the matter causing the appearance, scud. It is not 
necessary that the matter should be in the shape of clouds 
(nube) when the liquid is moved in a glass ; but this kind of 
scud is the most unfavourable. Most of these turbid con- 
ditions of sherry cannot be removed except after the addition 
of large quantities of brandy. Indeed, scud is the main 
cause of the brandying of wine. No other wines being sub- 
ject to such pertinacious turbidity as sherry, I made a special 
study of this matter, and found that the extractors comprise 
under the one name scud a considerable variety of con- 
ditions of turbidity. I distinguished the following varieties : 

The albuminous scud. This is due to suspended albuminous 
matter in a fine state of division, and occurs after fining with 
white of egg. Removable by Spanish earth. 

The bacteria and vibriones scud. This arises in new wine 
of feeble alcoholicity, and is counteracted by sulphuring. 
This is the most dangerous scud, as it leaves indelible traces 
of its presence in the wine, and is itself difficult to remove. 

The tartrate of calcium scud. This is the whitest scud, 
and deposits gradually as a white deposit, but a cask of wine 
affected with it would perhaps not become entirely clear 
before some years. 

The sulphide of potassium scud. This is caused by the 
sulphate becoming reduced in the wine in the absence of 
oxygen, and the production of peculiar sulphur compounds. 

The reduced sulphur scud. This is caused by the reduc- 
tion of sulphurous acid in sulphured wines. Sulphuretted 
hydrogen is first formed, and causes the wine to stink horri- 
bly ; then this gas is gradually oxidized and deposits finely- 
divided sulphur, which is one of the most difficult turbidities- 
to remove. This scud is regularly found in all Portuguese 
white (and not rarely red) wines during their first year, and 
sometimes does not disappear until the third year, or some 
time after all the sulphuretted hydrogen has been oxidized,. 



286 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

and all sulphurous acid has been oxidized or otherwise 
decomposed. 

While the albuminous and vibrionic scuddiness are re- 
movable by ordinary reasonable treatment and fining, the 
tartrate of calcium and sulphate of potassium scuds are the 
result of plastering, and most difficult to remove without 
brandy. The reduced sulphur scud, and the stinking quali- 
ties of wines, are the products of the sulphuring which some 
wine-makers adopt to protect their wine from acetification, 
or to give it more acidity, if that should be required. 

191. FININGS. 

Animal Charcoal. Much turbid and putrid evil smelling 
wine is treated at Jerez with animal charcoal. There are, 
indeed, extractors who use charcoal as the sovereign remedy 
for all evils. Putrid and evil smells can be removed from 
spoiled wines by charcoal, but the clearing such wines is 
only a temporary success. The wine dissolves phosphate of 
calcium out of the charcoal, and this is deposited from the 
wine subsequently in minute quantities and reproduces the 
turbidity. 

Much wine is fined with blood, which is put warm into 
the bota. The albumen precipitated by the alcohol causes 
the turbidity to be enveloped, and drags it to the ground. 
Jullien's powder consists of dried blood. Blood mostly 
leaves a little hematin in the wine, and makes it darker. 
It also leaves some acid albumen and the salts in the wine, 
not rarely also the particular smell which is peculiar to the 
blood of all animals. 

Meat is also used for fining wines; slices of steak are 
merely hung up in the wine, and their albumen is extracted, 
and causes a precipitate. 

Most commonly albumen from eggs is used for fining the 
brandied wines. Fifteen to twenty whites, together with a 
quantity of common salt, are put into a bota and stirred. 
After that a quantity of Spanish earth, in the condition of a 
smooth thin paste, is added and stirred. The mixture is 
-allowed to stand, and the wine becomes clear. In this case, 



WINES OF SPAIN. 287 

also, the formation of a heavier and copious precipitate drags 
down the lighter slight impurity called scud. Milk, so fre- 
quently used in this country for clarifying sherry, is not used 
at Jerez. 

In general, the difficulty of clarifying Jerez wines per- 
manently is very great, and is said to be the principal reason 
for the addition of so much brandy to wine as we observe 
in it. 

192. TINAJAS. CASKS. 

The wines of all southern provinces of Spain, particularly 
those of Montilla, used formerly to be made and kept in 
tinajas^ buried in the ground of the bodega. The tinajas 
were either large earthenware vessels, containing about a 
hogshead each, or they were constructed of bricks and 
cement. I have seen both forms in the Jerez district, and 
believe them to have been here also the general receptacles. 
In a vineyard I saw a large tinaja used as a dog-kennel ; 
and in a shed at San Lucar I saw several tinajas of brick 
and cement, holding six botas each, in a disused but hardly 
dilapidated state. The dangers of these vessels are well 

represented in the legend about Don 's Sheep. Don 

was a celebrated producer or extractor of wine at 

Montilla. His reputation grew, it is said, out of one par- 
ticular tinaja, and the beginning of the rise was marked by 
the disappearance of a family sheep, a merino ram. After 
the lapse of years the celebrated tinaja which had made the 
fortune of the house, had at last to be cleared out, and in 
its muddy deposit were found the fleece and skeleton of the 
unlucky carnero. It is said that, in imitation of this remark- 
able event (a discovery without intention), the montillanos 
to this day are in the habit of putting the entrails of sheep 
into their wine. But whether this is true or not I cannot 
say from my own experience ; I know, however, that sheep's 
blood, and that in a warm state, is often put into these 
wines. 

We are now in a position to appreciate why botas and 
bodegas do not fit one another. In olden times wines were 



1 



288 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

kept in tinajas, underground, which, in a covered space, is 
virtually in a cellar. When tinajas were discarded and 
botas adopted, burying was discontinued. The necessity 
of providing for export and transport antiquated tinajas; 
but the bota exposed wine more to the influence of heat and 
air. It is curious to speculate what anxiety this change 
must have given to the producers. But the enormous con- 
venience of the wooden cask conquered the tinajas and their 
security. Now, the necessity for security must send the 
botas underground, and they will therefore have to go, not 
into the bare earth, where the tinajas were, but into vaults, 
to remain accessible and movable. 

Jerez casks are mostly made of Memel oak staves, and of 
Canadian oak staves. One bota now costs 9 dols., equal to 
36*. ; but in productive years the price sometimes rises to 
15 dols. and 16 dols. 

i cask 5 dols. = 2os. 

1 3 = 12* 

T 2 ii - 8j. 

barrille (^arrobas) 8s. 

2 arrobas 55-. 

i arroba $s. 

The practice as regards the treatment of new casks differs 
greatly. Some cause the casks to be burned inside when 
the staves are being bent, but do not steam the casks. 
Some extractors, possessed of steam-boilers and every neces- 
sary apparatus, have abandoned the practice of steaming 
casks, as either unnecessary or hurtful to the wood. Other 
extractors do not burn, but steam the casks. A third series 
of houses both burn and steam their casks. All these 
gentlemen, however, agree in soaking the inside of their 
casks with water for a very long time, and frequently re- 
newing this water, until it remains both colourless and taste- 
less. 

The new wine, of good quality, is here mostly fermented 
in old casks, which are retained in the bodega and never 
sold. But the rich proprietors lend new casks to less for- 
tunate producers, to ferment their wine in ; after the spring 



WINES OF SPAIN. 289 

racking and sale the seasoned casks go back to the pro- 
prietors. 

' 193. BODEGAS AND WANT OF CELLARS. 

A cellar is an apartment underground, so constructed as 
to withdraw its atmosphere from the fluctuations of tem- 
perature of the external air. The necessity for such apart- 
ments is felt more by the inhabitants of rigorous climates, 
with severe winter frosts, than by those of southern countries 
with mild winters. Accordingly the knowledge and practice 
of building cellars is more developed in the north than in 
the south of Europe. Cellars have been most developed in 
their application to beer and effervescent wines, so that the 
best are met with in Bavaria and the Champagne. In Bavaria 
they fulfil a twofold purpose. The beer is fermented as well 
as preserved in them after fermentation. Owing to the low 
temperature the fermentation is slow ; it need not be quick, 
as exposure to the air does not injure the beer at that low 
temperature. But the exposure to air has the advantage of 
ripening the beer by oxidizing and precipitating the dissolved 
albuminous matters. For these reasons the thin or light Bava- 
rian beer keeps better than stronger beer prepared by ordinary 
hot fermentation, when both are similarly exposed to air and 
heat. The cellars of the Champagne country are not so 
much used for fermenting the must as for fermenting the 
wine a second time after it is drawn into bottles to give it the 
mousse. This fermentation might take place in any apart- 
ment above ground, and for it the cellar is not absolutely 
requisite. But the equable temperature of the cellar is re- 
quired for the deposition of the yeast formed in the bottles ; 
in other words for the perfect clearing of the effervescent 
wine. 

In Jerez, and generally in the south of Spain and Portugal, 
there are no cellars such as I have defined above. The 
wines are always made, fermented, and kept in buildings 
above ground constructed for the purpose, and termed 
bodegas in Portuguese, adegas. These structures are fre- 
quently of very large size and rather lofty, but they have 



2pO . A TREATISE ON WINES. 

many windows and doors, and their roofs are made of two 
layers of tiles, resting upon wooden rafters. The tiles next 
to the wood are flat, like large bricks ; the tiles facing the 
sky, however, are corrugated, and so laid as to form parallel 
ridges and furrows. The two layers are fixed upon each 
other with mortar. Now, this roof conducts the heat of the 
sun with great facility, and radiates it easily into the space 
of the bodega. The bodegas, therefore, are very hot indeed ; 
during the daytime their oppressive condition is only miti- 
gated a little by draughts of air. In the night they become 
cool again. The wines in the botas follow all these changes 
within certain limits. They become cool at night, warm in 
the day though they never reach the extremes of the air. 
The botas which lie highest on the andana which may form 
the third or fourth tier from the ground, are the most 
affected : those in the second tier less, and so on to those on 
the ground, which are the steadiest in their temperature. 
Those botas also which lie near apertures and windows are 
liable to great changes of temperature. Accordingly, it is 
often found that the upper tiers contain the greatest and the 
lower tiers the smallest proportion of spoiled wine. Botas 
near windows are frequently spoiled, and all this is just 
as it ought to be. Scud, mousetaste, and vinegar threaten 
constantly every bota. With anxious mien the capataz tastes 
the wines and marks the changes. This basto of to-day was 
new amontillado a week ago ; these fines are all in danger 
of becoming vinegar. He snakes his head while observing 
all, and cannot alter it ; he does not know the reasons for 
these ruinous changes ; he consoles himself with the few 
palmas which he can inscribe here and there, puts brandy 
over the heads of the naughty children, and condemns the 
worst of them to the still. But he has no power over the 
changes of his wines, either for good or evil, simply because 
he cannot regulate their relation to air and temperature, and 
such regulation he cannot possibly effect because he has no 
cellar. It is unquestionable that the great mass of Jerez 
wines is greatly deteriorated, some even ruined, owing to the 
absence of cellars. I need hardly include in this category 
of ruined wines, those which require and receive brandy for 



WINES OF SPAIN. 291 

being preserved from Rectification and fermentation, in order 
to prove my proposition, but everybody admits that brandy 
deteriorates wines, more particularly those of good quality, 
and therefore the fact of wine having been brandied is sup- 
pressed and disguised by every possible means. 

How different would be the case if the Jerezanos were 
possessed of proper underground cellars, where their products 
might be maintained at the average temperature of the earth 
in that region. I ascertained what that temperature is in the 
usual manner, by taking on October 3rd the temperature of 
three deep wells : 

Pozo in a cooperage 64073 F. 

Ditto en casa de Don N. ' 64033 F. 

Ditto en casa de Don M 64 33 F. 

Consequently a good underground cellar in Jerez ought to 
have the average temperature of 645, with a very light 
increase in summer, owing to the heat radiated into it by 
windows and doors. But never would the temperature reach 
70, or fluctuate between 70 and 85, as I have observed it to 
fluctuate in bodegas in September. The temperature in 
those buildings must be very high in summer, but had never 
been ascertained by the thermometer. 

In such cellars the Jerez wine would undergo a perfectly 
normal developement. It would ferment thoroughly, would 
not be liable to the acetous or mousy change, and would be- 
come clean in a short time. It might be left to develop 
with the vacio, for at the low temperature the contact with air 
would be hardly dangerous, probably beneficial. It would 
probably be always beneficial, for as all betas would be under 
identical conditions, they could not fail of producing iden- 
tical results. In any case, I am conviced that with cellars 
the Jerezanos would produce 90 per cent, of fine wine, where 
now they produce 10 per cent. To this some of the ex- 
tractors have objected that if they were to change their style 
of growing the wine ("growing" is here used as an active 
verb by the extractors, who also speak of " rearing " and "edu- 
cating," whereas their only action consists in standing by and 
seeing the wine behave and misbehave, " kick," and mark the 



2Q2 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

result with chalk upon the barrel), they ran the risk of failing to> 
produce any of those very fine qualities which constituted 
their reputation and main profit, and of depressing their 
wines to one common low level. To this the answer was 
that the mass of their wines was at a very low level indeed, 
that half their wine had to be exported at ^15 per bota, 
and that ^30 per bota was a high average to assume for the 
total export, and that of fine wine at^ioo, about which so 
much boast was made, not two hundred betas were annually 
exported from Jerez. That the loss of these very high wines, 
if it were a necessary consequence, which I by no means 
admitted, of a change of vinification, would be very small 
compared to the loss the enormous loss inflicted upon the 
average wines by the faulty condition of the bodegas ; for as 
an example it was notorious in the fortnight following the 
harvest of 1871 all wines suffered an immense depreciation 
owing to the great heat, which caused them, yet hot from an 
active fermentation, to pass at once into the acetous fermen- 
tation, (the loss in money value which the Jerezanos suffered 
during that fortnight was something like a quarter of a million 
of pounds sterling). If these wines had fermented in cellars, 
or had been put into cellars after their fermentation, this 
deterioration could not have occured, and the cellars would 
in one fortnight have repaid the cost of their construction. 

This is a matter entirely apart from the question of the 
vacio. To prevent misunderstanding, I point out that I am 
quite convinced that wines ripen quicker with the aid of the 
vacio than without that wines ripen quicker in warm air 
than in cooler air. But warm air and vacio together force 
the wine to go wrong, and compel the addition of brandy. 
Warmth without the vacio does not easily spoil wine, and 
vacio without warmth is a safe condition for Jerez wine. 
Therefore, the Jerezanos, by transferring their wines to 
cellars, would only insure themselves from loss, although 
their wines, if left altogether in the cellars, would ripen a 
little more slowly than in the bodegas. But what would 
compel them to leave their wines always in the cellars ? 
Having got them clear and cool, having timed them over 
the dangers of great autumnal and summer heat, what 



WINES OF SPAIN. 293 

would prevent them from placing the wines in the bodegas 
for the temperate months of the year, October to April ? 
Why should they not in this respect do as the Champagne 
makers do, transport their wines to that cave which is most 
suitable to their then condition ? Surely, to introduce the 
conditions of certainty into these operations is a desirable 
thing, and not an innovation to be dreaded, and it can 
by no means alter the character of their wine except for the 
better, and, therefore, can affect their trade only in the sense 
of expansion. 

194. NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF VITICULTURE AND OF 

THE TRADE IN WINE AT JEREZ. 

It is probable that viticulture in Jerez is not of very great 
antiquity. In Roman times no wine seems to have been 
made there, while the provinces of Catalonia and Valencia 
produced plenty. The first reliable historic evidence of the 
existence of vineyards at Jerez dates from the year 1268, 
when Alonzo el Sabio, after having defeated the Moors, 
rewarded forty of his knights by giving to each of them 
vineyards in bearing, as the document of donation preserved 
in the archives of the municipality at Jerez has it "sex 
aranzadas de vina" and land on which they might plant 
vines " sex aranzadas de tierra para majuelo." It does 
not appear in which district these vineyards were situated, 
but an Arabic document, a diary of the field operations 
of the Moorish army, published by the Royal Academy of 
History, recites that in 1285, when General Jusuf laid siege 
to Jerez, he encamped the body of his army between the 
river Guadalete and the town, in vineyards and gardens. 
This is the place where up to this day we find the greater 
number of Jerez gardens, and a great number of vineyards. 
The army was ordered to cut down the vines in the vine- 
yard during the fourth, fifth, and sixth days of May, in order 
to clear the fields for the encampment, from which we may 
conclude that the vineyards had considerable extension. 
The vineyards presented to the knights in 1268 amounted 
to 240 aranzadas, and if they had planted their fields, might 



2Q4 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

have risen in 1285 to double that number. Probably there 
were other proprietors besides these knights. The vines 
which the Moorish general ordered to be destroyed were in 
the shape of cepas, the low stocks at present in use, and 
parras, or vines nailed up to walls and espaliers, with which 
the properties were surrounded. From those times dates a 
Castilian proverb, which is said to have originated as 
follows : Diego Perez de Vargas was pruning his vines,, 
when the King Alonzo el Sabio happened to come by, 
and entering the vineyard began to collect the cut-off 
branches. On Vargas expressing his astonishment, the 
King is said to have replied, "a tal podador, tal sarmenta- 
dor," meaning that the labourer was by no means too good 
for the bricklayer, in this case. In the fourteenth century, 
the Jerez vineyards seem to have been neglected, mainly in 
consequence of epidemics of pestilence ; in 1402, Enrique 
III. expressly forbade their destruction by the proprietors. 
But after that the cultivation of the vine took a fresh start, 
and in 1431, when the inhabitants of Jerez and Puerto 
de Sa Maria agreed upon the boundaries of their relative 
communes, and recorded them in documents, they men- 
tioned the enclosures of the vineyards of Barbaina and of 
La Gallega. 

In the fifteenth century vineyards were also fully esta- 
blished at San Lucar, and in a manuscript from that period, 
preserved in Madrid, it is related that they were dug round 
in March. 

The Jerez wine of the fifteenth century, which was the 
most esteemed, was red wine ; for on September i3th, 1410, 
the town council of Jerez, desirous of making an important 
present (un presente grande) to Alonzo Nunez de Villavi- 
cencio, the Alcade Mayor of Jerez, who was then assisting 
at the siege of Antiquera, sent him ten arrobas of the best 
red wine. In 1456, the town council, in expectation of the 
visit of Enrique IV. to their town, ordered that all persons 
who had wine to sell, should sell the best of red, as well as 
white, at the price of six maravedis the azumbre. Nowadays, 
says a modern writer, " the mode of making red wine is no 
longer known at Jerez ; and the wants of its population and 



WINES OF SPAIN. 295 

its traders are supplied by the viticulturists of Valencia, 
Catalufia, and La Mancha. The maravedi of the fifteenth 
century is supposed to be equivalent to fifteen maravedis in 
the present day ; consequently the arroba of wine was fixed 
in 1456, at a little more than 21 reals; the bota of 30 
arrobas, therefore, at 42 pesos (a peso being the imaginary 
unit by which all wine in Jerez is bought and sold, equal to 
15 reals). This price is almost the same as in the present 
day. In 1479 tne harvest failed, owing to rains in May 
and continuous Levantes and great heat, and the azumbre 
of wine rose to 40 maravedis, which is equal to more than 
141 reals the arroba, and 282 pesos the bota. Such prices 
were, in subsequent years, only realized once, namely in 
1863, when all extractors believed the Millennium had 
begun. 



195. VINEYARDS OF SAN LUCAR DE BARRAMEDA. 
The situation and extent of the vineyards of San Lucar is 
best appreciated by an inspection of the map of Consul 
Suter. They are mainly situated upon albariza hills, and 
are worked upon the same principles as the Jerez vineyards. 
But at San Lucar all vineyard labours throughout the year 
are performed a fortnight earlier than at Jerez. The vintage 
is in the beginning of September, when the grapes are in 
a much less ripe state than that in which a fortnight later 
they are harvested at Jerez. This is probably caused by 
the proximity of the sea, which in September brings rains 
and winds, both of which are destructive of ripe and over- 
ripe grapes. The wines are mostly " listanes," the same as 
those which at Jerez are termed palominos. Vinification is 
the same as at Jerez ; plastering, vino de color, dulce, and 
brandy are used to make up the semblance of sherry. But 
there is a speciality produced at San Lucar, which may be 
termed the parallel to the Jerez amontillado, namely, the 
so-called manzanilla de San Lucar. This wine has a 
particularly nice, though thin flavour, while young; with 
age it becomes very dry, and somewhat bitter. It has the 
character of all wines made from somewhat under-ripe 



296 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

grapes, and becomes fassado at less than one-third of the 
age of genuine sherries. It should always be termed 
"manzanilla de San Lucar" in full, to distinguish it from 
the wines of Manzanilla, an important viticultural district 
not far from Seville. The production and trade of San 
Lucar are in the hands of growers or cosecheros, holders, or 
almacenistas, and extractores, or shippers, as at Jerez. In 
the viticultural pagos of El Merino on the east, and La 
Malaya on the west of the new road from Jerez the vine- 
yard labours begin immediately after the harvest. The 
vines are kept even lower on the ground than at Jerez. 
Close to San Lucar are orange-groves of great beauty. In 
San Lucar I visited several bodegas, among others that of 
an old gentleman who was supposed to possess the oldest 
wine in the place. I heard him relate that in 1804 he had 
in his bodega three botas of vino de color, which were, to 
his knowledge, at least twenty years old. These three botas 
had since then, by simple evaporation, become concentrated 
to one. It was sold in my presence for ninety pounds 
sterling. I looked upon this so-called wine as merely a pickle 
of sulphate of potash, caramel, and spirit, from which the 
soul of wine had fled ages ago. In the same old bodega in 
which this relic was kept I also observed some of the 
underground tinajas of 130 arrobas, or six botas capacity 
each, executed in brickwork, which in former ages used to 
receive the wine. They had evidently been disused for 
generations, and now served as the playground of a nu- 
merous colony of rats. 

Fine Manzanilla de San Lucar, ten years old, will obtain 
a price in. loco of 300 pesos, equal to ^45 per bota. Good 
wine, three years old, will sell at 140 pesos, or ^21, per butt. 
On the whole, the San Lucar wines on an average command 
less than half the average price of Jerez wines. The wines 
in the bodegas are not highly brandied, but they do not 
come to England in that state. They are always suffocated 
in spirit before shipment. 



WINES OF SPAIN. 297 

196. THE ALGAIDA AND ITS INDIGENOUS VINES. 

The Algaida is a forest of about 9,000 aranzadas in ex- 
tent, on the south bank of the Guadalquivir, to the east of 
San Lucar. It is reached by a long journey, along the sandy 
and marshy banks of the river, through fields and forests, 
and over uncultivated plains of vast extent. It is surrounded 
by swamps (tnarismas) and during the rainy season is itself 
inundated to a great extent. The soil consists partly of 
clay, partly of sand, and in many parts it contains deserts 
of pure sand. It is planted mainly with the sea-pine (Pinus 
maritima), but contains also groups of the silvery elm, and 
large tracts are covered with shrubs of lentiscus. Almost 
its entire border, and many large and small open spaces in 
its interior, are lined with the wild vines, first described by 
Clemente, which were the principal object of my excursion 
to the spot. 

I was accompanied by some friends, and we engaged two 
foresters to guide and guard us, all being well armed. There 
are no roads whatever, and paths, beaten by the herds of 
goats of the distant villages, exist only round the circum- 
ference and in the shrubby parts. In walking along I soon 
perceived some wild vines covering an oleander bush ; further 
on, wild fig-bushes and trees in numbers. Then more vines, 
much pulled about by men and beasts. When, after a long 
walk, I arrived in a part where white silver-elms form a large 
continuous group, I found vines covering the whole of large 
fir-trees ; there were at the same time brambles and sarsa- 
parilla in blossom, creeping up shrubs and trees. From a 
formidable rampart of brambles, covered with vines, one of 
my companions fetched some vine branches upon which 
were (on October i3th) eight bunches of blossoms. By 
this means I was enabled immediately to diagnose and to 
demonstrate, that these garanonas, as the Spaniards term 
the wild vines, are really indigenous wild plants, and not 
stray children of vineyards; for all the flowers had the 
stamina recurvata, which we know to be the characteristic 
of the female type of the dioecic wild vine, and no erect 
stamina; and the recurvation was so strong and typical 



298 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

that I observed several stamina which had grasped the little 
cap ordinarily pushed off the bud, and kept it closely pressed 
to the flower-stem. As often as I bent it back so as to cover 
the umbilicus, the stamen returned again with the cap, and 
showed its nature. 

Such flowers are represented in figs, i, 2, and 3, p. 6, of this 
treatise, and the account there given of the indigenous vines 
of European countries is confirmed in all essential particulars 
by the foregoing observation in the Algaida. Some vine 
leaves were red, indicating black grapes. The shepherds 
and goats had not left a single berry on this side of the 
forest. We were informed by the foresters that the shep- 
herds not only eat these wild grapes, but make wine from 
them. After a long struggle through miles of forest, brush- 
wood, and brambles, through sand and difficulties of every 
kind, I at last came to the place described by Clemente : 
" In this place the vines form impenetrable thickets, mag- 
nificent banquetting halls, most graceful pavilions, grottoes, 
places, covered walks, winding footpaths, crossed walks, 
labyrinths, walls, arches, pillars, and a thousand other 
original and indescribable caprices." This description, which 
dates from the year 1803, is literally true in the present 
day. From a large tree I took a vine branch fifty feet in 
length. Many other canes of the same size were hanging 
down, and forming a perfect screen, in the shade of which I 
rested for some time to admire the phenomenon. 

We then passed miles upon miles of vines ; at last we 
struck across the sandy interior of the side of the forest 
on which flows the Guadalquivir. A march of two hours 
through loose sand brought me to a part where all the forms 
of wild vines were found, round a swamp, in their most in- 
tense concentration. A wild fig-tree was covered with a 
wild vine full of grapes. They were small and black, acidu- 
lous, but good to eat. The vine was much affected by the 
oidium. The swamp gave me a good idea of the circum- 
stances under which the fossil vines described in the Treatise, 
pp. 14-15, were living. At Salzhausen, the fossil vine leaves 
are found together with the leaves of a fig-tree. The vines 
are growing in such masses in this forest, that the foresters 



WINES OF SPAIN. 299 

estimated the quantity of wine which could be made, if all 
the grapes could be collected, at a hundred botas. It is 
probable that these garanonas have, by cultivation, yielded 
the black palomino, also called tempranillo of the south, 
identical with the graciano of the Ebro valley. The doctrine 
which I advocated some years ago, in a paper printed in 
vol. xviii., p. 109 of the "Journal of the Society of Arts,'" 
namely, that the peculiar wines of the great viticultural dis- 
tricts of Europe were derived from wild vines indigenous to 
these districts, and not imported into them by the agency of 
man, has thus obtained an important confirmation. 

197. VINEYARDS OF ROTA. TINTILLA DE ROTA. 
*The soil of the Rota district is almost pure sand. All 
the celebrated Rota vegetables and fruit, as well as the 
tintilla, are indeed grown upon sand thrown upon the shore 
by the sea. The parcels of land are all surrounded by sand- 
walls, and these latter are fixed by stockades of reeds, the 
well-known canas. The parcels are mostly small, or, if 
large, are frequently subdivided by such reed-palings, to 
break the force of the wind and keep the sand in its place. 
The wines in the bodegas of Rota I found to be of three very 
different qualities. The first quality, the principal product 
of the vineyards of Rota, is the tintilla. This is not wine in 
the ordinary significance of the term, but more of a syrup, 
made from passulated grapes or raisins by a peculiar process. 
The black grapes of the tintilla vine are dried in the sun, 
taken off the stalks, and put into upright barrels open at the 
upper end. Must, which has been evaporated to the con- 
sistence of a fluid syrup, arrope, is now put over the raisins, 
and the mixture is allowed to stand and macerate, the tops 
of the casks being covered with mats. The raisins now 
become disintegrated, until the mass is like a jam. More 
arrope is added from time to time ; in January the mass is 
trodden on the lagar and pressed. The resulting thick,, 
dark, reddish brown liquid is the tintilla. No spirit, as I 
was informed, is added to it at any time, and therefore the 
finished tintilla, which is said not to ferment, ought not ta 



300 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

contain any alcohol. But on tasting the product of 1870, 
in one of the bodegas, I found it to be in a slightly effer- 
vescent state, producing the well-known prickly sensation 
on the sides of the tongue. And on subjecting a quantity 
of old solera tintilla to distillation I obtained 5-89 percent, 
by weight of alcohol, or 12 '87 per cent, of proof spirit. 
Another specimen of tintilla from another bodega contained 
.5-6 per cent, by weight of alcohol, equal to 12 per cent, of proof 
spirit. It is therefore certain that the tintilla of Rota contains 
alcohol, and that this is probably the product of a very slow 
fermentation. But some vendors in this country add spirit 
to the tintilla and thus transform it into a brandied counter- 
feit. On subjecting a quantity to distillation with oxalic 
acid it yielded 0-228 per cent, of acetic acid, another 
specimen o - 2 per cent., which, considering the process by 
which the wine is obtained, is not excessive and not hurtful. 
Distilled with some caustic potash the tintilla yielded an 
alkaline distillate, containing ammonia and compound 
-ammonias, easily recognized by the peculiar and disagree- 
able smell. The existence of these ammonias is accounted 
for by the long maceration which the albuminous matters of 
the raisins undergo in the casks while moistened with 
arrope. Although the tintilla is made from black grapes, it 
does not contain the red or blue colouring matter of their 
husks, for this would require much alcohol and acid for 
their extraction ; as the alcohol is not added and is not 
produced until after the juice is separated from the husks, 
the colouring matter remains behind. The great amount of 
.sweetness and the flavour of dried grapes, together with the 
mass of extractives and the little alcohol in juxtaposition to 
the free acidity, make the tintilla an article of the class of 
agreeable, drinkable sweets. A bota full of the best quality 
costs at Rota about ^40, but the current price of the 
great bulk of the produce is about 20 to 24. per bota. 

The second product of importance of Rota is vino de 
color. The tinto grapes are plastered, pressed, and the 
white must is allowed to ferment. Another quantity of the 
.same white must is evaporated to the consistence of a syrup, 
and is added to the fermenting natural must, and the 



WINES OF SPAIN. 30 1 

mixture completes its fermentation. Then spirit is added 
in larger or smaller quantities. This vino de color has a 
horrible taste, and is, in fact, undrinkable. Its principal, 
perhaps only use, is for mixing with pale country wines, to 
give them the external falsified resemblance to the similarly 
prepared brown, pale, and golden sherries. 

The third quality of Rota product, and the one which 
approaches nearest to wine, is the tinto, or tent of English 
authors. It is made by fermenting the juice with the husks, 
and thus becomes a truly red wine. I have tasted tinto 
thoroughly fermented, dry, free from sugar and adventitious 
spirit, which was really delicious, and showed what tinto- 
might be if properly prepared and left alone. But such is 
not to be, for it is not to the taste of the wine merchants, 
who want Rota tent with burning spirit and lots of sweet. 
This treatment completely ruins the peculiar fine flavour of 
this wine. The tinto grape of Rota therefore fares like the 
same grape of Tarragona. It is misused for the production- 
of imitations of port wine and sold to the British public as- 
Spanish Port. The inmates of hospitals and other charitable 
institutions are its principal consumers. The prices of this 
wine at Rota varied formerly between ^4 and ^9 per 
butt. As Catalonia can undersell Rota in this particular 
article, the manufacture of Rota has had to endure great 
competition, and may, perhaps, cease entirely. 



198. WINES OF THE VAL DE PENAS. 
The wines produced in this district, mostly red, were, up 
to a late period of this century, preserved in hides as of old. 
But some enterprising wine-merchants brought casks and 
coopers to the Mancha, and now its wines go by rail to 
Cadiz, and thence come to this country. The white varieties 
have all been treated with gypsum, the red ones mostly, but 
some escape it. These wines are commendable for their 
generally good quality and low price. 



302 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

199. WINES OF CATALONIA. 

Catalonia yields annually 20,000 butts of wine, which is 
mostly red, and shipped to England as a cheap drink for 
the general public. The plain of Ampurdan is covered 
with vines, and of many other parts of this province four- 
fifths of all cultivated land is occupied by viticulture. 
Catalan wine is shipped largely also to America. 

200. WINES OF VALENCIA, BENICARLO, ALICANTE. 

Valencia wines are perishable, and therefore have no 
great reputation. They are mostly grown in the plain, only 
small quantities on suitable hill-sides. The bulk of these 
wines, stated to amount to 100,000 butts annually, a 
figure which is probably in excess of reality, is distilled for 
brandy, of which 600,000 cantares, or 2, 130,000 gallons, are 
annually produced. Owing to the perishable nature of the 
wine, stocks are not kept longer than a twelvemonth. 

In the district of Benicarlo, a town situated about sixty 
miles to the north-east of Valencia, and Vinaroz, near the 
mouth of the Ebro, wine is made in the ordinary way, but is 
fortified, less for home use than for exportation. Here, also, 
little stock is kept, each year's produce being generally sold 
for exportation before the new wine is made, so that the 
emissary of the English Board of Trade, in 1861, could not 
obtain samples of natural wine from former vintages. The 
wine for export is brandied twice as strongly as that used in 
the country, namely up to thirty-two per cent, proof spirit. 

At Alicante, a town about ninety English miles south of 
Valencia, much wine is produced, both on hill sides and in 
the plain, from a kind of vine which occurs in a black and 
a white variety, and passes under the name of Alicante in the 
outer world, but at Alicante is termed Tintilla. It has a 
large loose bunch, hanging by a long stalk, which forms the 
axis and does not form wings or strong branches. The 
berries are fleshy and juicy and provided with a thin skin, 
and resemble much those of the black Hambro', the Tyrol 
vine so well known in this country. The black Alicante 
is immensely fertile, steady in blossom, but ripens late, so 



WINES OF SPAIN. 303 

that it yields good wine only in the best situations even in 
its home. The black Alicante, and its paler variety, the red, 
are the vines the juice of which forms the basis of most 
Spanish wines. It is largely cultivated in the south of 
France. In the Dordogne it is termed Benicarlo; in Pro- 
vence, Mourvede ; on the east side of the Pyrenees, Mataro ; 
in some other places, Tintillo ; at Malaga, Alicante ; and at 
Jerez and Rota, Tintilla. The reader may find the argument 
for these synonyms in Odart's " Traite des Cdpages," pp. 513 
and 531. The white Alicante ripens earlier than the blue, 
but is much less cultivated. Alicante wines also are fortified 
to at least thirty-two per cent, before exportation. 

The wines of Valencia, Benicarlo, and Alicante, being 
rich in colour, are made up to imitate port wine, and even 
the casks are made up to resemble port-pipes in size and 
appearance. A very large proportion of these wines finds 
its way to France, for the purpose of being blended with 
other wines which are themselves deficient in strength and 
colour. 



201. WINES OF GRANADA, MALAGA. 
The wines of Granada are better known under the name 
of wines of Malaga, the centre of the renowned viticultural 
district called Axarquia. The hills bearing the vineyards 
consist of clay and schist, superposed on limestone. The 
more solid schist is termed " herizza" that which easily 
disintegrates " lantejuela " or "pizdrra ;" the latter forms the 
most suitable soil for viticulture. The climate of the district 
is so favourable, that the vine almost becomes a perennial 
evergreen, and bears three crops of grapes every year. The 
first harvest takes place in June, and is transformed into 
raisins exclusively. The second harvest takes place in Sep- 
tember, and yields a dry wine somewhat resembling sherry. 
The last vintage takes place in October and November, and 
gives the particular wines known as Malagas. Of Malaga 
wines the following varieties are distinguished, i. Pedro 
Ximenes, in reality a dulce. 2. Colour-wines, i.e. solutions 
in wine of must boiled down to brown syrup : these are used 



304 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

to impart the amber-colour, the Pedro Ximenes to give 
sweetness to the Malaga wine of trade. 3. Muscatel, also a 
dulce, i.e., must preserved in spirit ; of this two varieties are 
distinguished, Malaga- Muscat, and "drip" or " tear" Mus- 
cat. 4. Dry wines resembling sherries, which are made up 
into "Malaga" as just related. 5. Malvoisie, resembling 
Madeira. 6. Tintos, coloured, mostly very dark, sweet and 
alcoholic wines. 7. Cherry wines, being liqueurs made with 
the juice of acid cherries, so-called morellas. The dry wine 
is brandied up to 37-5 per cent of proof spirit ; the sweet 
wines do not much surmount 30 per cent. 

The amount of wine annually produced in the Malaga 
district is 80,000 arrobas, or 2,666 butts. Of these the 
greater part is exported, mainly to America. Much, also, 
goes to England, and the wine for both countries is prepared 
in the same manner. 



202, WINES OF ARAGON AND OTHER PROVINCES OF SPAIN, 
MAJORCA, MINORCA. 

Aragon produces dark-coloured, strong-bodied wines of 
good taste and flavour, from the celebrated vines, the 
Grenache of Sabayes and the Carinena and delivers them 
up to the trade of Saragossa. Navarra does not admit 
of much viticulture; the vineyard of Roncesvalles alone 
supplies a local want. Galicia produces a little good wine 
for exportation at Ribadavia and Tuy. In Biscaya much 
wine is produced for the people, but is quite unfit for 
exportation. New Castile, with the Mancha, produces be- 
sides the lightest and least-coloured but most agreeable 
wines of Spain, already mentioned above under Val de Penas 
and the muscat of luencaral, near Madrid. Near to these are 
the wines of the Spanish Tagus, from Arganda del Rey 
above Madrid to Talavera de la Reyna. Murtia produces 
thick rough wines, of which those of Cartagena sometimes 
come up to common sorts of Alicante. 

The island of Majorca produces a Malvasia wine, which 
is exported by way of Palma: and Minorca produces a 
dark red wine round Alcyor, which is not exported, as on 



WINES OF SPAIN. 305 

sea it spoils in bottles and casks ; while the " alba flora," 
a light white wine with some bouquet, bears keeping and 
exportation. 

The wines of Spain are, on the whole, of good quality, 
but are easily and quickly spoiled in part by unskilful and 
unscientific treatment. They are subject to many accidents, 
caused by fungi, so-called diseases, which destroy their 
value; and to counteract these or their results, the pro- 
ducers use plaster, sulphurous acid, boiled plastered must, 
brandy and sweet must preserved in alcohol, so-called 
dulce. These admixtures, however necessary some of them 
may be in default of better means of preservation, are 
deteriorating the naturally excellent qualities of the wine. 
As regards plastering, some Spanish oenologists have strongly 
protested against the practice, and termed it an adulteration 
and a fraud. However this may be, the wine is deteriorated 
thereby, while the practice is so universal that it must have 
some deep reason at present unknown. It is not unlikely 
that it was discovered by the practice of keeping wine in 
underground cisterns of masonry, of which the binding and 
lining material is plaster of Paris. Of course the plaster 
itself does not dissolve in the wine, but it removes the 
tartaric acid, and substitutes sulphuric for it ; the sulphate of 
potash thus produced remains in the wine and gives it a 
bitter taste. When this can be once avoided by improved 
modes of vinification, the wines of Spain will be much 
better and much more valuable than they at present are. 



306 A TREATISE ON WINES. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
WINES OF PORTUGAL. 

203. VINEYARDS OF THE ALTO DOURO. 
THE vineyards of Jerez are so beautiful and productive that 
they might well be termed the vineyards of Venus. Undu- 
lating hills, easily accessible from all sides, are covered with 
a luxurious growth of vines, which every September finds 
heavily laden with an enormous mass of luscious fruit. A 
poetical enthusiast might call these hills the very breasts of 
nature. Very different is the aspect and condition of the 
vineyards of the Alto Douro. Here all is rock, gorge, 
almost inaccessible mountain, precipice, and torrent, while 
over, or along, all these rude features of nature are drawn 
countless lines of stone walls by which man makes or sup- 
ports the soil in which the vines find their subsistence. 
When opposite Tua, I had counted 150 stone-built terraces, 
one above the other, covering the rock which rises almost 
out of the waters of the Douro, I thought that if Jerez was 
the vineyard of Venus, this Alto Douro vineyard must be 
termed the vineyard of Hercules. 

The vineyards of the Alto Douro may be visited from 
Oporto. It is convenient to travel in a hired carriage, 
particularly when the traveller desires to make cenological 
studies by the road-side. In former times when the great 
exodus of British merchants to the vineyards took place, 
the hire of a carriage and pair was, as a rule, eight pounds 
sterling for the single journey. This journey was often 
described after the manner in which the Phoenicians related 
the dangers of their sea-voyages ; along it were supposed to 
be found defiles like those of Scylla and Charybdis. My 
surprise was therefore agreeable when I drove to the very 
foot of the vineyards on a beautifully constructed macada- 



WINES OF PORTUGAL. 307 

mized road, while the scenery during the whole journey 
surpassed in beauty many of the reputed great sights of 
Europe. Indeed, the rise from the side of Amaranthe up 
to the watershed of the Douro valley is not surpassed by 
anything I have seen in Switzerland, the Pyrenees, or the 
mountains in central and southern Spain. The ascent 
should be made on horseback, while the carriage is being 
drawn up by the steady bullocks, which take half the labour 
from the carriage-horses. 



204. VINES OF THE PROVINCE ENTRE DOURO E MINHO. 

During the entire journey up to the water-shed the 
observer sees no vineyards, properly so-called, but he sees 
all round the houses and villages, along the roads, along the 
margins of woods, vines creeping up trees, and competing 
with their foliage for air and sunshine. I observed only 
black grapes on these vines, and all those which I tasted 
were very acid and astringent. From them is made the 
beverage called " green wine " (vinho verde), from its resem- 
blance to wine made from unripe fruit. The fruit is, in 
fact, unripe, and, moreover, never becomes ripe in any year, 
owing to its being grown high up in the air. I have not been 
able to ascertain what kind of grapes and wine these vines 
would yield if they were cultivated in good situations and 
low on the ground. On the whole, what I saw gave me 
the impression that these nondescript vines, which I also 
observed in forests and in woody valleys, covering shrubs 
and brambles, were like the vines of the Algaida, described 
in a former chapter, true children of the soil, indigenous 
plants, which, with a minimum of help on the part of man 
in the shape of pruning, produce an enormous quantity of 
harsh fruit, having the same relation in taste to the wine- 
berry as a crab-apple has to a fine French pippin. The 
vinho verde is only produced in this province of Entre 
Douro e Minho, and no other wine, particularly none of the 
quality produced in the Alto Douro, termed " vinho maduro," 
ripe wine, is here grown. 



308 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

205. SOIL OF THE ALTO DOURO DISTRICT. 
The river Douro, in Portugal, flows through a valley 
with precipitous sides, mainly formed of a clay-schist for- 
mation. This reposes upon or alternates with granite, and 




Fig- 43- Vines ascending a tree, such as produce the vinho verde in 
Entre Douro e Minho. 

the latter rock not rarely appears on the heights form- 
ing the water-sheds. The clay-schist forms the viticultural 
soil, for many reasons. It is easily broken into parallel 
slabs, with which terraces can be built, so-called dry walls, 
requiring no mortar or other binding material ; it is easily 
disintegrated by the atmosphere, and forms a clay soil. 



WINES OF PORTUGAL. 309 

which retains the water with pertinacity, and allows it to 
sink deep into the fissures of the schist, where also the 
roots of the vines are able to follow to great depths. The 
granite, on the other hand, lacks most of these properties ; 
it does not easily break up, and becomes very dry in summer, 
and then is generally situated so high above the level of the 
sea that the vine becomes excluded from it by the coldness 
of the climate resulting from the elevation. A great part of 
the soil of the wine districts could not be planted with any 
other crops ; the valleys bear a few strips of land used in 
maize cultivation ; here and there are some olives. Corn, 
and a few fodder plants are grown on the mountains above 
the wine region. It is the vine, and the vine alone, which 
has made the rocks of the Alto Douro a cultivated part of 
the earth's surface. 



206. TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

The topography of the Alto Douro is best understood 
with the aid of the maps which have been elaborated by the 
late Baron Forrester. The largest and most beautiful of 
them has, I believe, never been published for sale, but only 
printed for private distribution by the baron. A useful 
copy, on a reduced scale, was published by Parliament in 
1852, in the Report of the Committee on Import Duties on 
Wines. The limits of the cultivation of the vine are on 
this map marked by a red line, which includes what 
was formerly the district under the surveillance of the so- 
called Agricultural Company. The cultivation of the vine 
is most extended, and as regards the production of a par- 
ticular class of wine, most successful, on both sides of the 
river Corgo, a tributary of the Douro, coming from the 
north. The district west of the Corgo, usually called the 
Lower Corgo, has the most ancient cultivation. This begins 
at a distance of about forty-two miles English above Oporto, 
and occupies the triangular space between the Douro and 
Corgo. The part east of the Corgo, ending near the river 
Taah, is termed the Upper Corgo. On the south of the 
Douro there is also a strip of mountainous territory planted 



3IO A TREATISE ON WINES. 

exclusively with vines, but it is much narrower than the 
district on the north bank. On the whole it may be said 
that the vineyards of the Alto Douro extend over a piece of 
mountainous country thirty English miles in length from 
east to west, and ten miles in width from north to south. 
The part of the district above Tua, which contains several 
excellent though relatively new vineyards, is now frequently 
termed the Douro Superior, as distinguished from the Alto 
Douro. 



207. MODES OF PLANTING AND TRAINING THE VINE. 

In the Alto Douro one can see nearly all the varieties of 
culture side by side, but the prevailing mode is a rational 
low cultivation. Near and below Regoa there are yet 
many espaliers, forming covered walks, about two yards 
high, over which the vines are trained ; all these give bad 
grapes and bad wine. Above Regoa they disappear entirely, 
and the vines are trained low on the ground, but the pruning 
is not so methodical as at Jerez, and consequently with the 
age of the vine its bearing part rises higher, sometimes a 
yard above the ground. Grapes grown at that height 
mostly remain sour, and, particularly in dry years, form acid 
raisins, which spoil the wine from the lower fully ripe grapes. 
The viticulturists renew such vines by forming layers or 
slips, bending the highest branch towards the ground, draw- 
ing it through a trench, and allowing it to project at a 
distance. The young vine is never separated from the old 
stock, and the old stock is never allowed to grow branches ; 
such old loop-shaped vine-trunks, projecting from the earth, 
and destitute of leaves, are seen in great numbers, particu- 
larly in old vineyards. There are vines trained to stakes, 
as in France and Germany, and vines trained without them ; 
in some vineyards the vines were planted through holes in 
the perpendicular walls; but it appeared that many so 
planted had died from drought and heat. 

The operations on the soil are not so methodical as at 
Jerez. There is an excavation made round every vine in 
autumn to catch the rain-water; at the same time the vine 



WINES OF PORTUGAL. 311 

is pruned. Each of the two or three, or more, main branches 
of the vine is allowed two or three eyes for the bearing 
branches, and a spur of one eye with the subsidiary small 
eye for the growing of wood. All the vineyards are kept 
carefully free from weeds, so that the sun has free play in 
heating the soil. 

The Douro vines have this peculiarity in common, that 
their fruit is not large-sized like the grapes of Andulasia, 
nor small-sized like the grapes of Burgundy or the Rhine, but 
medium-sized like those of the paludal vines of the Gironde. 



208. VINTAGE AND MODES OF VINDICATION. 
The Vintage in the Alto Douro begins at the earliest on 
the 2oth of September, and ends about the loth of October. 
The vineyards in low situations, close upon the Douro, are 
the earliest to harvest, and even then the grapes are some- 
times over-ripe, so as to be partially passulated ; the latest 
vintages are in the third or top region of the slopes. The 
vintage is executed by men and women, all from Gallicia, 
hence termed Gallegos. These also do all the other labours 
on the ground required throughout the year ; the settled 
population of Portuguese is too small in numbers, and too 
sickly for heavy work ; for the entire district is extremely 
unhealthy. The Gallegos receive on an average seven pence 
per day in money, and food, which, however, does not 
include bread. The daily food consists of a pound of 
salted dry cod, of which large quantities are imported into 
Portugal from Newfoundland, and of a quart of a kind of 
soup, consisting of cabbage leaves, beans and lard, boiled in 
water. The Gallegos of each vineyard not only mess 
together, but also sleep together in the same shed, and any 
attempt to separate the sexes is immediately followed by 
protests, and, if these are unheeded, by an exodus. The 
women assist in the collection of the grapes only, but the 
disintegration of the grapes, their pruning, &c., is all done 
by men. 



312 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

209. THE LAGAR, THE PRESS, TREADING THE GRAPES, 
FERMENTATION. 

The receptacle in which the grapes are collected while the 
vintage is proceeding, in which the grapes are mashed, ex- 
tracted, and pressed, is termed a lagar. It is always built of 
stone, generally granite, more rarely slate or masonry. In 
size it varies, so that it may hold the grapes for only a 
few pipes of wine, or for many up to 10 and 16. In the 
large vineyards there are, therefore, lagars of several sizes, 
so that they are immediately adapted for large and small 
harvests. The shape of the lagar is mostly square or 
oblong, its depth about 2 feet, or a little more, and its 
sides vary in length between 3 yards and 8 or 10 yards. 

Over and across each lagar is fixed one of the old- 
fashioned lever or beam presses, of which the sketch gives 
an idea. Such presses do yet occur in Wiirtemberg, but 
they are not any longer in use on the Rhine. 

After the lagar has received its full complement of 
grapes, or as much as it can conveniently hold during the 
entire operations of vinification, a number of Gallegos, with 
their legs bared to the upper thighs, go on to the lagar and 
tread the grapes into pulp. This operation lasts from 
twenty-four to forty-eight hours without interruption, the men 
being changed from time to time for refreshment and rest. 
During or after this ' operation fermentation begins, and 
proceeds, according to temperature, quicker or slower, but 
it is hardly ever very tumultuous ; more frequently it falls 
below the necessary energy, owing to the stone walls of the 
lagar abstracting too much heat. In that case, as many men 
as can stand in the lagar are put on to it, and they are kept 
slowly stirring the mass with their feet until they have com- 
municated so much heat that the fermentation can again 
proceed alone. When the fermentation has so far pro- 
gressed that the amount of alcohol formed counter-balances 
the specific gravity of the remaining sugar so far as to bring 
the glucometer to the zero point, the fermenting mass is 
again trodden by the Gallegos, this time in order to extract 
the colouring matter from the husks. When the wine is as 



WINES OF PORTUGAL. 313 

dark as may be desired, and a sample runs over a white 
plate so as to leave streaks of thick, dark red dye behind, 
fermentation is considered complete. The wine is now 
drawn off by a pump, syphon, or tap, or through a hole in 
the bottom of the lagar, the exit being guarded by some sort 
of strainer, and run into a large wooden cask, which may 
hold from five to thirty pipes, and is termed a "tonnel." 
From four to eight volumes of brandy, of about 40 Cartier, 
are added to every hundred volumes of wine, and the 
mixture is left to clarify itself by gravity. 




Fig. 44. Beam or Lever Press, as used iu the Allo Douro. 



210. REMARKS ON THIS MODE OF VINDICATION. 

The mode of making port wine is extremely unclean, and 
the proceedings are very crude and elementary ; neverthe- 
less, so good a product is obtained that its faults are, as it 
were, drowned in its good qualities. The great object of 
the wine makers must be to produce good and durable wine 
with only so much alcohol as shall not be injurious to the 
wine drinker. This cannot be said to be the case with the 
ordinary thick, heavy, so-called loaded ports of 40 to 42 of 



3 H A TREATISE ON WINES. 

proof spirit, and for this reason whole classes of society in 
Britain have ceased to drink any port wine whatever. Yet 
good port wine is one of the most wonderful productions of 
the earth ; and I am sure, when vinification in all its 
branches and variations shall be once fully understood on 
the Alto Douro, it will produce such excellent red wines as 
hitherto have not been exported from the Peninsula. 

211. ELDERBERRY AND LOGWOOD. 
It is said that port wine is coloured with elderberries and 
other dyes, and sweetened with jeropiga and treacle, besides 
being dosed with brandy; but I have been unable to find 
any evidence of this, at least as regards Alto Douro wines. 
Elder trees are very scarce in the Alto Douro, and I can in 
this respect fully confirm the statement of Mr. Consul 
Crawford. Moreover, the Alto Douro wine, of a good year 
at least, is so deeply coloured, in fact, so excessively loaded 
with colouring matter, that it cannot by any means require 
any addition of colour; the elderberries exported from 
Oporto are really used for colouring other wines than port 
wine, particularly the Spanish ports, Mountain ports, Cape 
ports, and Sicilian red wines which are carried to England, 
and thence exported to countries where people buy wine 
rather by the name it bears than by any quality it possesses. 
It is also not rarely stated, upon the evidence of Mr. Cyrus 
Field, in the report of the Parliamentary Committee of 
1852, that port wine is now and then coloured red by means 
of Brasilwood, commonly called logwood ; but this is a 
great error, as it is quite impossible to dye wine of any kind 
with logwood for the colour of logwood is purple only in 
alkaline solution, and not in acid, in which it is only tawny. 
Moreover, it is very astringent, a quality which almost all 
port wine possesses in excess. Logwood is never used in 
trade for dyeing anything purple, and the large quantities of 
logwood shipped to Europe are nearly entirely consumed in 
the production, by means of iron mordants, of firm black 
colours on many kinds of tissues ; and, although it may 
occur that particular artists in mixing and counterfeiting, 






WINES OF PORTUGAL. 315 

dye some pipes of white wine with elderberries, and give 
them astringency with logwood, nevertheless I believe that 
such products would commercially not pay the cost and 
trouble of their production, and are, at all events, only an 
exceedingly small fraction of the wines which constitute the 
bulk of the exports from Oporto. I am, therefore, of 
opinion that the sooner we dismiss these prejudices and 
errors regarding elderberry and logwood in port wine, the 
better. 



212. WHITE VARIETIES OF WINES PRODUCED IN 

THE ALTO DOURO. 

Many thousand pipes of white wine are annually made in 
the Alto Douro, and exported mainly to Russia and Ireland 
very little goes to England. These wines are not distin- 
guished either by the grapes from which they are made, or 
by the qualities which they obtain in the course of their de- 
velopment. The great qualities of Jerez wines are dependent 
upon a few dominant species of vines, sweet wines are de- 
rived from the Pedro Jimenez ; high-flavoured amontillados 
and finos, from palomino ; oloroso qualities from mantuo 
castellano ; Rota wines owe their important characteristics 
to one vine, the tintilla. In a similar manner the wines of 
Burgundy come from one kind of grape, that of the pineau; 
and Rhine-wine is characterized by the Riessling. But the 
Alto Douro white wines are not thus characterized ; they are 
not produced from any dominant vine, or vines, but are the 
product of the commixture of a great variety of fruit from 
frequently heterogeneous varieties of vines, amongst them 
the arinto, boal, verdelho, codega, malvasia fina, estreito, or 
rabo de ovelha, carnal, Donna Branca, gouveio estimado, 
moscatel. Of these the rich bearers, yielding coarse musts, 
termed castas grossas, are most favoured by the growers, and 
the result appears in the wines. The white grapes are not 
grown in the best situation, but only in second and third- 
rate vineyards. The Alto Douro wine districts, as a whole, 
may be considered as consisting of hills only, without any 
valley-bottoms between them ; the declivities of the hills, all 



3l6 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

supported by numerous terraces, as described, may be con- 
veniently divided into three zones. The lowest zones, 
nearest to the river and its tributaries, produce the first 
class of red wines ; the second zones, occupying the middle 
of the slopes, produce the second-class; and the upper 
zones, situated near the top of the hill, or covering the tops 
of the lower hills, are mainly planted with white vines. These 
latter are also planted on the lower zones of the higher lying 
valleys away from the Douro. The white grapes are, like 
the red ones, fermented with the husks and stalks, and in 
this particular the vinification differs from that of most ojher 
wine countries; for in these, white musts are generally 
pressed out of husks and stalks before fermentation. In 
consequence of this practice the Alto Douro white wines 
acquire an astringency frequently amounting to harshness. 
This may make them more firm and less liable to spoil, but 
it greatly prolongs the time necessary for their maturation. 
They are also arrested in their fermentation by the addition 
of brandy, and, not being so sweet or so fully ripe as the red 
musts, require more frequent admixture of artificial saccha- 
rine ingredients, such as arobe, jeropiga, or sugar. In con- 
sequence of this they acquire no very high vinous character, 
even when kept long in bottle. On the contrary, they fre- 
quently develop in bottle a heavy disagreeable odour, termed 
bottle-stink, which can only partially be removed before the 
wine is placed on the table by decanting the wine and ven- 
tilating it, so that the air may influence the wine, and dispel 
or oxidize the bad smell. This is also a fault of many of 
the red ports, which they acquire by being bottled at im- 
proper periods and while in an improper condition ; the 
cleaner the wines are when bottled the less they develop of 
this bottle-stink, and perfect Alto Douro wines have not, 
and ought not to have, any of it. 

213. TRANSPORT OF ALTO DOURO WINES. 
Many of the vineyards are so situated that no animal can 
be led to them, and their produce has therefore to be carried 
to the lagares on the backs of men. Many of the lagares, 



WINES OF PORTUGAL. 317 

again, cannot be reached with vehicles, and the wines made 
on them have therefore to be transported downhill on the 
backs of animals ; and as it would be impossible to use casks 
for that purpose, the wines are carried in bags made of the 
skins of animals. These wine skins are called " odres." An 
odre is made from a goat-skin, and is taken from the dead 
animal in such a manner as to injure it in the least possible 
degree. The hair is only shortened, not removed, and the 
hairy side is turned inwards. This is done in order to leave 
the epidermis or scarf-skin intact on the surface of the thick, 
strong, leathery skin ; for this scarf-skin is very impenetrable 
to moisture, whereas mere leather would be very penetrable. 
The skin is made more impenetrable and imputrescible by 
being covered over the entire inside with semifluid pitch, or 
wood tar. I have seen thousands of these bags in use in the 
Alto Douro. Some merchants in this country seem to think 
that these odres are a matter which must be kept a secret 
from the lovers of port wine ; and it happened to me, at a 
meeting of the Committee on Wines, of the International 
Exhibition, in Kensington, that, when speaking about these 
odres, I was flatly contradicted by a port wine merchant, 
and told that there was no such thing used in the Alto 
Douro. And yet I had, but a month before, seen strings of 
horses, mules, and donkeys, each carrying two of these odres 
full of wine, in the establishment of the partner of this very 
wine-merchant who so vehemently contradicted me, and had 
seen the wine from the odres poured into the tonels of the 
partner, whence no doubt it found its way to Oporto in due 
course. The odres are also used in Spain, as is popularly 
known from the romance of " Don Quixote," by Cervantes. 
A tourist who, during vintage time, travels in Italy, Spain, 
or Portugal, may frequently see a number of these skins, 
mostly distended with air, hanging up, either to be prepared 
for use, or to be washed after use. They frequently impart 
a pitchy taste to the wine, which is never got rid of; when 
made from the skin of he-goats, they also communicate the 
goat-flavour. In Spain odres are frequently made from 
pig-skins. 

When the wine is collected in the tonels in the adegas 



318 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

attached to the farms, it is ready for the travellers of the 
mercantile houses, who now taste, select, and buy. The 
wine is left in the adegas, until, in winter time, the water inj 
the river Douro is high enough to admit of loaded barges 
travelling to Oporto. The wine-merchants from Oporto 
then send up their wine-casks, some filled with brandy (I! 
have seen many casks of Berlin shape, with Berlin brands in' 
the adegas of the Alto Douro, and therefore believe that 
much Berlin spirit is put into port-wine), the brandy andi 
wine are mixed, put into the casks, returned to the river,! 
and shipped to Oporto. The manner in which the wine- 
casks, all of the size called pipes, holding 116 gallons, are 
brought down the hills to the river, is very remarkable. 
They are brought on strong carts, each laden with one pipe 
only at a time, and drawn by two oxen. The carts are of 
the rudest but most solid construction, and the oxen are of 
the finest breed, large and very powerful. The labour which 
these oxen perform in bringing such a pipe of wine down 
the stony, rocky, horrible mountain roads, is really a most 
astonishing performance of muscular work. The wheels of 
the carts are fixed to the axle-tree on which the top of the 
cart rides by two forks. This arrangement causes much 
friction, by which a creaking noise is produced, which can 
be heard at great distances, particularly at night. The more 
noise an axle-tree makes the higher it is valued, and the 
peasants vie with each other for the possession of the cart 
which makes the greatest noise. 

At last the wine in the pipes arrives at the river-side, and 
is shipped in boats to Oporto. The manner in which these 
boats are loaded and steered is well represented on the map 
of Forrester. Arrived in Oporto, the wine is carted to the 
sheds, called lodges, and stored. The treatment which it 
receives there mainly consists in the addition of brandy from 
time to time ; the brandy is kept as low as possible, in order 
not to increase the expense more than is necessary. The 
last and principal dosing with brandy is only inflicted justi 
before the wine is shipped. If the wine is not sweet enough, 
a quantity of jeropica is added; this, when legitimate, con- 
sists of sweet must preserved by the addition of one-fifth ofi 



WINES OF PORTUGAL 319 

its volume of brandy of 40 Cartier, and therefore corre- 
sponds to the Jerez dulce. If in bad years, or from any other 
cause, the colour of the wine is not so deep as may be wished, 
some deep-coloured wine is added ; and some elderberry 
may be used now and then, but, as already stated, this is 
not frequently used in making up Alto Douro wine. Those 
wines which are not mixed with anything except brandy, not 
even with other wines of similar quality, but of different 
origin, are called vintage wines, and are kept by themselves. 
Their date is preserved, and they are made much of by the 
merchants. Those wines which are not kept by themselves, 
but are mixed with other qualities, the product of different 
zones and different years, are termed factory-ports, and con- 
stitute the great mass of the wines exported. 



214. CHANGE IN THE TASTE OF THE PUBLIC AS 

REGARDS PORT. 

Much has been written and said regarding the injurious 
character of strongly-brandied port wine, and in consequence 
the more polite classes of society have almost entirely turned 
from port wine, and do not drink it any longer. I have 
been present at dinners to which ten or twelve gentlemen 
sat down, and not one took port when it was brought round. 
An Oporto merchant in London gave a dinner party to 
twenty gentlemen, and not one of these was found to drink 
even a single glass of the merchant's own best vintage wine. 
If this antipathy should continue, it might, perhaps, aid in 
the reduction of the brandy in port wine to below delirium 
tremens point. (This disease is common among spirit 
drinkers, and those who consume much strong port; it 
cannot be produced by drinking natural wines with less 
than twenty-six degrees of proof spirit, even in large quan- 
tity.) I have no doubt that when the objection, namely, 
excess of brandy, shall have vanished, many cenophilists 
and persons of good taste will return to port, the natural, 
full-flavoured, fine-coloured, invigorating, and wholesome 
wine, which, as regards bouquet, body, vigour, and lasting 
qualities, and as regards its wonderfully exhilarating effect 



32O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

upon body and mind, is not surpassed by the red wines of 
any other land. But, it must be observed that, although 
some classes in England have ceased drinking port, others 
have taken to it, and in consequence the trade in port wine 
has not at all diminished, but has rather increased. The 
fact is, the port which was formerly generally bought by 
gentlemen, clergymen, noblemen, etc., and laid down in 
their cellars to mature for years, is now mainly bought by 
publicans, tapped, and sold in glasses at 4^. each. This is 
the case, not only in this country, but in America, and even 
in Newfoundland. The fishermen there, a great proportion 
of whose fish is consumed in Portugal, in return get a 
quantity of this port wine, and ease the difficulties of their 
climate and situation by enjoying this most delicious drink. 
The price of port wine in the district varies between 
fourteen and fifteen milreis per pipe of 636 litres. In 
Oporto, ^15 to 20 is an average price of good factory 
port. Fine wines and old wines rise to ^80 per pipe. 

215. WINE COUNTRY OF THE BAIRRADA. 

This is a very new wine country, but probably in the 
course of time it will develop into something of impor- 
tance. The Bairrada lies between Oporto and Lisbon, 
rather to the south of Coimbra. The Portuguese Railway 
runs through the middle of it. The wine grown in the 
middle of the district, which includes both red and white 
varieties, is called vinho de embarque, or that which may be 
exported, whilst that grown in the outer belt, and its 
prolongation towards the north and the south, which is not 
fit for exportation, but is used in the country, or distilled 
for brandy, is called consumo. The soil there is chalky, of 
the so-called lias formation. The wines of that country are 
frequently taken to Oporto, and there made up into common 
class port wines by a small admixture of Alto Douro wine. 
They are brought to London mainly for the purpose of 
being re-exported to the colonies, and many butts of them 
go to Russia and to America. The wines are peculiar in 
this, that though dark coloured when young, they quickly 



WINES OF PORTUGAL. $21 

lose their colour, and in four or five years, if not assisted 
by other means, they get so pale as to resemble old port. 
But they also lose their quality, and therefore they cannot 
be advantageously reared and kept by themselves. That 
arises again from the want of consideration for the principles 
of cenopoesis; and because there is in the Bairrada no 
dominant grape, but the peasants who grow these vines mix 
up every sort of grape they can lay hold of, and the conse- 
quence is a want of character and firmness in the product. 
The grape mainly grown there is the baga, which means 
berry. It is a small-berried, dark-coloured grape. There 
is also grown a little of the souzao and a little of the bastardo, 
which gives some flavour, but there are no coloured grapes 
like the mourisco or tinta, or tinta Francisca. There is also 
a white wine, made, as in the Alto Douro, from the boat and 
ten other vines ; and the jeropiga, or sweet juice made by 
mixing spirit with sweet must, is largely produced, and 
further abafado, or must stopped in the middle of its fer- 
mentation by spirit, etc. Must is sometimes boiled down, 
and to the syrup is added brandy. Then there is also 
made arobe, which is the juice of the grape itself boiled 
down to a thick syrup, either alone or in company with a 
quantity of quinces, apples, and other fruit. I quote from 
the Government report of Portugal, where it is stated the 
arobe can be of two kinds, viz., simple and compound. 
The first is the concentrated must produced by the action 
of heat; the second, or compound arobe, is made with 
sugar and quinces, apples, and other fruits. I have been 
very careful to lay before my readers accurate information, 
to eliminate that which is erroneous, and to know and state 
only that which is true. Now these practices are not at all 
done with the purpose of imposing upon the customer. 
They are the results of dire necessities and difficulties in 
the vinification, such as it would really require the highest 
skill and science to obviate; for the poor peasant has no 
means and no scientific guidance, but simply the help of a 
copper and a little brandy. 



322 A TREATISE ON WINES. 



2 1 6. THE VINEYARDS AROUND AND NEAR LISBON. 

VINEYARDS OF COLLARES. 

There is a quantity of wine grown round Lisbon. It is 
called termo, from being grown within the bounds of Lisbon, 
but there is not much of it, and it does not constitute an 
article of commerce, and therefore need not further detain 
our attention. Along the Tagus, south-west from Lisbon, 
there is that beautiful village Carcavellos, which once had 
a very flourishing production of from 1,300 to 1,500 pipes 
a year, and still enjoys a reputation, though the production 
is now entirely destroyed. It was one of the first fields 
invaded, by the oidium, and some years ago the whole pro- 
duction did not amount to five pipes, for most of the vine- 
yards had died out. 

Going along the shore of the Tagus, and turning north- 
wards round the mountain of Cintra, we come to the 
celebrated vineyards of Collares. They can also be reached 
by coming down the valley from Cintra, and perhaps that is 
the most agreeable way of getting there. The vineyards of 
Jerez are situated on undulating hills of chalk. Those of 
the Alto Doui;o are rocky, but those of Collares are situated 
on sand, thrown up by the billows of the Atlantic. Owing 
to the shifting nature of this land, the peasant proprietor is 
obliged to adopt some device to keep his vineyards and his 
wine too. The vineyard is divided into a number of small 
parcels, of the size of an ordinary sitting-room, each of which 
is surrounded by a hedge of green reeds or canas. The 
doors which lead from one to the other are also formed of 
these living reeds, so that when you pass from one depart- 
ment to another you bend the reeds asunder with the hands, 
and walk through, and -the curtain of reeds closes of itself 
behind you. In spite of this precaution, when after a windy 
night the owner of the vineyard comes to look at his vineyard, 
he often finds his vines covered up with sand, and he is 
obliged to dig them out. But this apparently barren and 
unpropitious soil yields a very excellent product. The soil 
is constantly moist, the heat of the sun strikes it all day long, 
and the vines lie on the ground, in immediate proximity to 



WINES OF PORTUGAL. 323 

pure sand. The result is the excellent wine of Collates. 
Some of the red wine is made from a grape called the ramisco, 
and from that only. The qualities of this wine are based 
upon one dominant vine, and it is for that reason that it has 
such good substance. It quickly matures, is uniform, greatly 
improves in bottle, and will keep, although its alcoholicity is 
one of the lowest, being only between eight and ten per cent. 
It is a very firm wine also, as it requires no spirit to be added 
to it. It has a flavour of its own which cannot be compared 
with any other, derived entirely from the ramisco grape. It 
is a most agreeable and wholesome wine. About 1,500 
pipes are made in the district, and the whole is consumed at 
Lisbon, 



217. VINEYARD OF BUCELLAS. 

Passing from Collares to Cintra, and thence inland, we 
come to the vineyard of Bucellas. It is said that the 
Bucellas wine is made from the hock grape, alleged to have 
been transplanted there by the Marquis of Pombal. All 
over Portugal the Marquis of Pombal is remembered as a viti- 
culturist, and a man who took great interest in the promotion 
of viticulture and wine making. I have gone through pretty 
well all the vineyards there, and have asked many experienced 
persons, but have not been able to find any hock grapes there 
whatever. The only grape grown there, from which the 
genuine Bucellas is made, is the Arinto. At first sight the 
Arinto has a little similarity to the hock grape called Riess- 
ling, as it is small-berried, but it is dissimilar in other 
respects, particularly by its possessing a large bunch. It 
reminds me of the grapes on the south slopes of the Alps, 
and has nowhere the small size of the grapes indigenous to 
the Rhenish countries. Its wine somewhat resembles hock 
in preserving a little sweetness in good years, and, on the 
other hand, in being excessively sour in bad years. The 
Lisbon wine-store keepers add sugar and brandy to the 
Bucellas, and transform it into the semblance of a low-class 
sherry. They add boiled must to it just before bottling it, 
and the consequence is that a thick brown crust deposits on 



324 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

one side of the bottle. This artificial product has no trace 
of the original high flavour, refreshing, acidulous, wholesome 
nature, of true Bucellas wine. 

218. WINES OF TORRES VEDRAS LAVRADIO. 

Torres Vedras is a celebrated name in the history of the 
British army. A good many thousand pipes of wine are grown 
there, but owing to the disregard of the principles I have 
mentioned, and owing to the fact of the wine being made 
from mixed grapes, it acquires no particular quality, and, 
though apparently good to drink in the first year or two, in 
the third year it falls off and loses its quality, although it 
does not spoil. 

Wines of Lavradio. Of the many names for which Por- 
tugal had a reputation in the vitilogical world, there remains 
yet to be mentioned Lavradio, which lies on the Tagus, 
nearly opposite Lisbon, and produces a mild, though some- 
what sweetish, but to some people very agreeable wine. 
It requires very careful keeping for several years, but after- 
wards acquires all the fine properties of the natural and finer 
Alto Douro wines. If it were more scientifically treated, 
and if there were more of it, the Lavradio would soon 
acquire a high reputation. 



219. GENERAL FEATURES OF PORTUGUESE WINE MAKING. 
In the Alto Douro, as well as in the Bairrada, and 
everywhere else in Portugal, all the wine is made in 
the lagars, peculiar troughs, made of stone mostly, but 
sometimes of wood, in which the wines ferment. They 
are very large, about six yards square, and, though in 
good years that entails no disadvantage, in years when 
the heat of the season is excessive, or when the harvest is 
interrupted by rains, the lagar entails every disadvantage 
which injuriously affects the wine. Sometimes the lagar 
is partly filled, a quantity of grapes being heaped in one 
corner; then rainy weather comes, and the grapes are 
allowed to lie in the corner for a week ; then, perhaps, 



WINES OF PORTUGAL. 325 

the vintage is continued, and new grapes perhaps more 
rotten than the first are thrown in, and the lagar is filled 
up. During that time, if the grapes were ripe, a partial 
fermentation would set in. If the mass were heated, a 
portion would ferment, and the air having access, it would 
produce a process of decomposition. Then when the wine 
is made it has to be sulphured, not only for the purpose of 
preventing the acetification, which has begun already under 
these unfavourable circumstances, but to destroy those 
fungi which in every Portuguese white wine declare them- 
selves almost from the moment it is made, producing scud 
and viscosity. The wines when made are not put into 
cellars, but are all kept above ground, in large casks or 
tonels, and these are never full. In a good year they may 
be three parts full, whereas in a bad year they may be only 
one-third or a quarter full, and there is always a greater or 
a smaller surface of wine exposed to the air. Then if in 
these sheds the temperature rises very high, the surface 
being covered by mould, a quick acetification takes place. 
At Bucellas, I was in the shed of a poor woman, whose 
only property consisted of a vineyard, and of a shed and 
tonel of wine, worth, perhaps, ^60. She had not tasted it 
for a long time, and when I tasted it, I told her it was 
vinegar. I shall never forget the face of the poor woman 
when she tasted her wine, and she said, " Yes, it is vinegar." 
So throughout the place, owing to the absence of under- 
ground cellars, where the wine can be kept away from the 
excessive heat in the summer, and owing to the omission of 
proper precautions in the making of the wine owing, 
further, to the poverty of the people, who can only afford 
to buy one great vessel in which they keep their wine, 
being unable to buy new casks of a smaller size, which they 
could fill to the bung, and thereby prevent the air getting 
at the wine when hot and in a dangerous state owing to 
these disadvantages, and to the peculiar climate, there are 
produced masses of fungi in all Portuguese wines, just as 
there are in the Jerez wines. These are called nube, and 
when these small microscopic fungi, visible only by the 
microscope magnifying 600 diameters, grow more numerous, 



326 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the wine becomes at last thick and viscous, and is called 
gordo. Then the wine acquires this horrid mouse taste, 
which is the destroyer of many of the most beautiful Jerez 
wines. The finest Jerez wines are liable to have this 
horrible mouse taste, and the merchants will tell you that if 
wine gets a mouse taste, it will become a good wine ; but 
that is rather a paradoxical assertion. Out of 100 butts 
of wine having mouse taste, perhaps about ten good ones 
are obtained, but a vast quantity never recover, and these 
the extractors send to the still. At Bucellas I saw in the 
sheds of a marquis twenty large tonels full of thick, horrid 
tasting, sulphury, abominable liquid, which nobody could 
ever guess would in the course of a year or two transform 
itself into potable wine. When the wine merchant gets 
this wine he treats it according to his science, for it 
need not be wholly lost, but can be purified by chemical 
means. It is simply a process for taking out the dirt, 
bad colour, and fungi ; although it is very unpromising 
at first, by means of a little chemical operation a perfectly 
nice, clean-tasting fluid is produced, and all the mouse taste 
is gone. 

The power of these fungi is so great that in some Portu- 
guese vintages not only a portion of the must is concentrated 
to increase the sweetness, but the producer is actually 
obliged to put the whole of his must into the copper, and give 
it a boiling up, in order to kill the fungi. He does, in fact, 
on a large scale with his must that which M. Pasteur at Paris 
has proposed as a general principle for the purpose of pre- 
serving wines, namely, heat the wine so as to kill the spores, 
and thereby set up a healthy fermentation, whereas otherwise 
there would have been a diseased fermentation, and conse- 
quently a very bad product. 

Wine fungi. Plants live on carbonic acid, water, and 
ammonia and salts, and fungi are no exception to that rule. 
It is frequently said that fungi do absorb compound materials 
that they are not dependent upon the carbonic acid in the 
atmosphere, as other plants, but that they do, as it were, like 
animals, devour compound food. That may be the case 
with regard to some which live in the air, but those which 



WINES OF PORTUGAL. 327 

live in fluid do not do so, for when the carbonic acid is with- 
drawn by other means than heat the fungi cease to live, sink 
to the bottom, and are inert : that is to say, they are killed 
or suffocated, and do not live much longer, and consequently 
it is proved that the nube fungi require for their existence 
the presence of carbonic acid. And it is for this reason 
evidently that they are present in the largest quantities in the 
youngest wine. The younger the wine the more nube, and 
the older the wine the less carbonic acic it produces and the 
quicker the nube goes down. Every Jerez merchant will 
tell you that any wine which succeeds at all cures itself. It 
requires no particular process for getting rid of the nube. 
The flor also cures itself, provided the wine has at least twenty- 
nine degrees of proof spirit. This flor is a fungus on the top 
of the wine, which requires a large quantity of carbonic acid 
in order to live. Remove the carbonic acid, and the fungus 
dies. That has not been understood, but the practice has 
been based strictly on that plan. If the wine containing 
this nube be strongly shaken, the fungi condense, and sink 
to the bottom. The evolution of the carbonic acid escapes 
attention ; however, if the wine, after having been shaken, 
be analyzed, it is found that a large quantity of carbonic acid 
has been evolved. If the wine be put under the air-pump, 
the carbonic acid be exhausted, and air excluded, the wine 
will in a short time be clear and sound. The communications 
of the highest importance offered by M. Pasteur will make 
the producer of wine independent of all these accidents. 

There is a peculiar affection now and then incident to the 
wines of the Alto Douro, called the agredcce, or sweet-sour; 
the Viscount De Villa Maior, in his work on wines, mentions 
the vinagre disease ; the amargo, or bitterness ; the gordura 
(which, according to my opinion, is only a continuation of 
the nube disease) ; and then he gives the agredoce, which, he 
states, is a form of disease different from the first four, which 
spoils port wine. The agredoce is not always a particular 
disease, it is a transformation of a part of the alcohol into 
vinegar in such port wine only as contains from two to 
three per cent, of sugar which was not previously fermented ; 
thus a wine is obtained which tastes on the one side of 



328 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

vinegar and on the other side of sugar, in fact, a compound 
which, if it was a little sweeter, one might very well drink as 
people do raspberry vinegar. It is not at all like the bitter- 
ness of Burgundy wines, which arises from a totally different 
cause. This is one form of agredoce ; another arises from the 
production in sweet wine of lactic acid ; this latter is less de- 
trimental to the taste of the wine, as lactic acid tastes purely 
acid or sour without any special flavour. 

Portugal in itself, poor, yet climatically highly endowed, is 
capable of producing a variety of the most beautiful grapes, 
and a variety of wines, which, if properly made, would not be 
surpassed by those of any other country. The people are 
good-natured, industrious, and hard-working, and they have 
what is very agreeable to a person who comes from this 
country, a great regard for an Englishman. If these good 
people would continue to plant their vineyards with particular 
sorts of grapes, such as have been proved in the great Alto 
Douro districts, in Bucellas, or Collares, to be so excellent ; 
if they were to abandon that horrid practice of making sweet 
and cooked wines ; if they were to study the conditions by 
means of which they might avoid the natural climatic diffi- 
culties which produce fungi and acidity ; if they introduced 
more cleanliness into their sheds, and if they were to have 
their cellars underground ; if they were to avoid large tonels 
and adopt small casks, I have no doubt Portugal, one of the 
most essential English vineyards, would produce other wines 
besides port, which would be of the greatest use hygienically 
and socially to this country. We have a great trade with 
Portugal in other respects, taking there our manufactures, 
and bringing away in return large quantities of produce, 
cattle, grapes, figs, apples, and a variety of other articles too 
numerous to mention ; and an improved quality of wine 
would find in this country a very ready and grateful market. 



WINES OF THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS. 329 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

WINES OF THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS, MADEIRA, 
THE CANARIES, AND THE AZORES. 

220. WINES OF MADEIRA. 

WHEN the Portuguese had discovered Madeira in 1418, 
they forthwith set about to destroy the forest with which the 
island was covered. The settlers were occupied seven years 
in the destruction of the trees on the south side of the island 
round the bay, now called "of Funchal." In their place 
they planted, inter alia, vines imported from Cyprus and 
Candia. 

Soil. Madeira is a relatively new production amongst 
islands; it consists of a basis of tertiary chalk, whereby it 
is demonstrated to have been part of a larger island or 
continent now submerged ; even this base would also have 
been submerged and destroyed had it not been overlaid, 
and, so to say, preserved, by vast masses and countless layers 
of eruptive products of a now dead volcano, the ruins of 
which, some 6,000 feet in height, pass under the name of 
the Pic Ruivo. The basalts, trachytes, tufas, and different 
later lavas form mounts and hills with steep slopes, many 
and deep ravines; these rocks disintegrate under the in- 
fluence of rain and sun, and become a soft stone (pedra 
mo//a), which is now easily transformed into a gritty soil, in 
which all kinds of plants grow readily. The territory slips 
easily, and requires much support for access and cultiva- 
tion. 

221. VARIETIES OF VINES AND THEIR CULTIVATION. 
The Malvasia, said to have been brought from Candia 
and Cyprus, is supposed to yield the best Madeira wine, so 



33O A TREATISE ON WINES. 

called, but it is cultivated less frequently than the Vidogna, 
a vine resembling the Chasselas, and yielding dry wine. In 
smaller proportion are grown the Bagoual, the Sercial or 
Escanagao, the Muscatel, and the Alicante. These bear 
white grapes ; but the following produce black grapes, which, 
with the exception of the Tinta, are all used for making 
white wine : the Batardo, the Negramal (perhaps the same 
as Tinta), and the Ferral. The latter is a grape quite unfit 
for wine making. The vines are mostly fastened to espaliers 
of wood and reeds, from three to six feet in height ; some- 
times trained in arbours, with grapes hanging overhead; 
in other parts the vines are trained on pollards ; all these 
elevated trainings produce mediocre grapes. 

Vinification is effected as in Portugal, lagars, presses, 
transport, etc., all being the same. The must, carried in 
barrels or bags of goat-skins, is carried to the cellar of the 
wine maker and there fermented in barrels. Must is called 
vinho in mosto, meaning wine as yet in the state of must, 
while after the first fermentation and settlement of the 
yeast it is called vinho in limpo, wine in a clear state. 
The must receives some-addition of brandy at once, as it is 
rather watery, and would not keep by itself; after racking 
the wine receives more spirit; a month later it is again 
racked and receives a third addition of spirit. During the 
process of preparation the wine is placed in magazines, which 
can be heated, and are called stoves (estitfas), and left there 
for some weeks or months. This process assists the forma- 
tion of ether and softens the wine by oxidation, but it has 
the probably much more important effect of destroying any 
fungi which are capable of making the wine scuddy, or of 
otherwise changing it unfavourably by viscosity, bitterness, 
or acetification. The maturation also succeeds well, if the 
wine be sound, by the aid of heat and motion, as imparted 
to it by a sea voyage as merchandise to the West Indies, 
Hindostan, Java, or China. Wine which has thus been made 
to travel was termed, technically, East India Madeira. 

Madeira Wine is a more or less amber-coloured liquid 
of a peculiar, agreeable, though weak flavour ; in it lives the 
genius of the Malvasia and Vidogna grapes. The Sercial 



WINES OF THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS. 331 

also contributes its particular qualities, namely, astringency r 
and with this some lasting powers ; but the roughness im- 
parted thereby retards its maturation. Most Madeira is dry, 
i.e. free from sugar, and is therefore suitable for being pre- 
served with less brandy than sweet wines. The best qualities 
improve in barrel during ten years, and in bottle during 
another ten ; but these periods are now shortened by art 
and the estufa. The red wines of Madeira are not distin- 
guished by quality, and their production is small. 

The best vineyards of the south side are the property of 
the royal family of Portugal, and their products do not occur 
in commerce. The district yielding the best salable wine 
is the Pago de Pereira. Vineyards of the second class are 
Calheta, Porto da Sol, Ribeira Brava, Cama de Lobos,. 
Estreto, Santo Martinho, and Santo Antonio. The wines- 
on the northern side of the island are used mainly for dis- 
tilling brandy from them. The most notable vineyards in. 
this part are those of Porto da Cruz, Santo Jorge, Ponta 
del Gada, Portomoniz, Santo Vincente, and Seycal da Norte.. 
Before 1852 Madeira produced annually about 20,000 pipes 
of wine, and in good years 30,000 ; but then the vine-fungus, 
the oidium, destroyed the entire harvests, and subsequently, 
the vineyards. No wine was made up to 1857, a calamity 
which involved an annual loss of a quarter of a million- 
sterling. Since 1860 the vine has gradually been replanted,, 
and the oidium repressed. The territorial law of Madeira 
is one of great complication, which makes the purchase and 
sale of land, if not impossible, at least very difficult. This, 
is is alleged as another of the causes which have mad? 
Madeira sink to the present low economical condition. 

222. WINES OF THE CANARIES AND THE AZORES. 

These volcanic islands, comprising TenerifTe, Canaria,. 
Lanzerote, Fuerteventura, Gomero, and Ferro, produce wine 
from the Malvasia and Vidogna grapes. The wines from, 
the latter are dry, and similar but inferior to Madeira,. 
The Malvasia is a sweet liqueur wine, and, like Madeira, 
tastes of pineapple, a perfume probably derived from that 



332 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

fruit. Canary sack of former times was the sweet white 
wine of these islands, "vino secco" or "seccato," so 
called because it was made from grapes which had been 
dried and passulated to a certain extent before vinification. 
Before 1852 most Canary wine was sold as Madeira ; at the 
present day it is transmuted into " sherry " by being vatted 
with small quantities of wine of the Palomino grape. 

The Azores formerly produced much wine, the island of 
Pico alone 5,000 pipes annually; the sweet Malvasia was 
called vino passado, the Vidogna secco. Most of these wines 
were sold to North and Central America and to Brazil. 
The islands suffered the fate of Madeira, and now produce 
less wine, but many other exportable products of agriculture. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

WINES OF ITALY AND OF THE BALKAN 
PENINSULA. 

223. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON ITALIAN WINES. 
ITALY is very active just now in promoting its agriculture; 
there are many viticultural societies throughout the penin- 
sula, and they organize exhibitions and lotteries to sell the 
produce which is brought to them ; but all these efforts will 
avail but little before viticulture, as a whole, is placed upon 
a more rational basis, and grapes are grown near to the 
soil, instead of, as now, high in the air. Italian wines, 
including those of Sicily, are singularly destitute of flavour, 
and in those which have any it is too often artificial, and in 
the white varieties produced by aromatic resins or gums. 
This artificial flavour I have, however, never found in the 
-sweet and brandied wines of Sicily. The Marsalas, though 
brandied up to 36 proof-spirit, and sweetened with raisins 



WINES OF ITALY AND BALKAN PENINSULA. 333; 

or condensed must, are ordinarily not plastered, and appa- 
rently not provided with extraneous flavours. Lately, some 
new kinds of Sicilian wines have been introduced into 
England which deserve commendation. 



224. WINES OF PIEDMONT AND THE ISLAND OF 
SARDINIA. 

Of these wines those of Asti and Chaumont have acquired 
a reputation. Only second to these are the wines of Alba 
and Montferrat. We found some Piedmontese wine, which 
we obtained directly from Turin, inferior and dear. The 
effervescent wine (spumante) mostly had fungi in the bottles-, 
the red were all in a state of fermentation, frisky (Italian 
fresco] and turbid ; some retained a peculiar biting taste 
after complete clearance. A number of red wines are 
made from the Grignoli grape, and named Grignolinos ; the 
better qualities of these have great merit. The Grignoli 
vine is closely related to the Carmenet of the Gironde on. 
the one, and to the Kadarka of Hungary on the other. 

At many places of the island of Sardinia Malvasia wines 
are produced ; at Sorso, Posa, Alghiere, and Naxo ; those 
produced at Caunonas, Monai, and Garnaccia are exported. 
The wine of Giro resembles the Tinto of Alicante. 



225. WINES OF TUSCANY. 

The best Italian wines are produced in Tuscany, not 
only because the climate favours viticulture, bat because 
the former government, and many intelligent members of 
the nobility, paid attention to the improvement of the vine- 
yards and of vinification.'- 

At Monte Pulciano, between Sienna and Rome, the 
Aleatico, or red Muscat vine, is extensively grown, and 
furnishes the liqueur wine known under that name ; similar 
wine is made at Monte Catini, in the Val de Rievole, 
and at Ponte a Moriano. The wine is purple in colour, 
sweet, and slightly astringent. A good red wine is made at 



334 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Chianti, near Sienna, from a peculiar grape At Arcetri, 
near Florence, was prepared the best Verdea, or green wine, 
so-called from its colour : it is reported that Frederick the 
Great favoured it by his patronage. The Trebbiano is a 
golden-coloured syrup, produced from grapes passulated on 
the vine by torsion of the stalk. The vine is termed Treb- 



The nobles of Florence, like those of Vienna, sell their 
wines By retail from the cellars in their palaces, in fiascos, 
or flasks, of the well-known Florentine pattern, containing 
about three quarts each. The wine is not corked, but 
covered with a small quantity of olive-oil, which is either 
flung out, or soaked out with tow previous to the pouring 
out of the wine. 



226. WINES OF LOMBARDY, VENETIA, CENTRAL AND 
SOUTHERN ITALY. 

In these provinces the vines are grown on trees, mutilated 
for the purpose, on the margins of cultivated pieces of land, 
or in rows intersecting them. The grapes consequently grow 
high in the air, and although they look picturesque make 
very bad wine. The wine which one can get to drink in the 
plain of Venetia is always very poor; it is not dark red, 
owing to the imperfect ripening of the grapes, it has a very 
.astringent taste, contains very little extractive, little alcohol, 
much acid, and is destitute of any vinous flavour. It is an 
exceedingly cheap drink to quench the thirst in summer and 
winter. The indolence which has laid hold of the popu- 
lation of the peninsula, the result of centuries of oppression, 
misrule and superstition, favoured by the ease with which life 
can be carried on, affects viticulture here as throughout 
Italy, and proves the truth of the sorrowful but hardly 
hyperbolic words of Matteucci : " Este in Italia ni studio 
. ni lavore." 

In the former papal state are produced the wines of 
Orvieto, and the Muscat of Albano and Montefiascone. At 
Naples a wine called Lachrymse Christi is produced at the 
/oot of Vesuvius. Although reported to be the strongest 



WINES OF ITALY AND BALKAN PENINSULA. 335 

wine produced in the district, a sample obtained from a 
grower contained only 18*9 per cent, of proof spirit. 

The wines of Gallipoli and Taranto are produced in the 
province of Puglia or Terra d'Otranto. These wines receive 
mostly an addition of spirit, but we have had perfectly 
natural Taranto ; it was sold at first at a reasonable price, 
but this was raised and the wine went out of the market. 



227. WINES OF SICILY. 

... The light amber of brown Sicilian wine exported in large 
quantities passes under the name of the exporting town of 
Marsala. This place is situated near the western termina- 
tion of the northern coast of Sicily. The vineyards extend 
along the coast towards the east and west in a band of 
upwards of twenty miles in length and twelve broad. The 
soil is a mixture of chalk and clay, coloured yellow or reddish- 
brown by oxide of iron. The varieties of vines are not 
scientifically defined, so that Odart does not mention any. 
To conclude from the nature of the wine they must be many, 
and are cultivated mainly for the production of quantity. 

All the wine shipped from Marsala is strongly brandied, 
but it is generally not plastered. Much of it is sold as such, 
but large volumes are mixed with a little sherry and sold 
as "Amontillado." 

Red wines are also grown in the island, and being of low 
price, are exported to other parts of Italy and to America. 
Faro, grown in the neighbourhood of Messina, contains from 
1 8 to 23 per cent, proof spirit. Near Mount Etna is made 
the wine of Terre Forte, in vineyards formerly held by 
Benedictine monks; this is mostly brandied up to 30 per 
cent, proof spirit, and, according to Redding, has a taint of 
pitch. 

The total quantity of wine produced in Sicily has been 
stated to be 200,000 pipes, which is probably greatly exag- 
gerated. Probably the one-fifth of this quantity believed 
to be fit for exportation represents the quantity of marketable 
wine actually produced much nearer than the larger figure. 
The Marsala pipe contains 93 gallons. There are less than 



336 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

300,000 gallons of Marsala consumed annually in England ; 
its consumption has increased by one-fifth beyond the 
quantity, which was imported before the reduction of the 
duties nearly thirty years ago. 



228. WINES OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA. 
The productions of these countries are not suited for the 
use of western Europeans, as they are impregnated with tar, 
as a means of their preservation. On Mount Athos (Hagion 
Oros) German monks have introduced some better mode of 
vinification. Wines which pass into commerce are produced 
in Macedonia in the following places : Chatista, Fiorina, 
Kuprio, Castoria ; in the district surrounding the lake of 
Ochrida ; in the plain of Serres ; at Piliori, Crotova, and in 
the valley of Resne. In Thessaly : at Larissa, Cachia and 
Arta. Much simmered wine for the use of Mahommedans 
is made in the village of Galistas, on the slope of Mount 
Bernos. Albania produces much red and white wine, which 
keeps without the assistance of pitch. 



229. WINES OF GREECE. 

A mountainous country composed of schistose, chalky 
and volcanic ranges, with slopes in countless valleys, with a 
climate tempered by the neighbourhood of the sea, and 
engendering the most beautiful seasons, would seem to be 
an ideal territory for the culture of the vine. But these 
advantages were counterpoised by the liability to the occur- 
rence of terrible earthquakes ; by meteoric influences which 
denuded the mountain-sides of cultivable earth; by exhaus- 
tion of the soil in consequence of the ceaseless export of its 
produce to foreign lands; by the absence of labour, live 
stock, and manure ; and the want of security from 
brigandage, which kept the population in terror and 
uncertainty. In consequence of these deplorable conditions, 
which have been only partially remedied during the last 
thirty years, the production of wine in Greece, which was 



WINES OF GREECE AND GREEK ISLANDS. 337 

considerable at the time of the supremacy of the Venetians, 
has sunk to a relatively insignificant amount. But the 
production of currants is still a highly important branch of 
Greek agriculture. 

230. VINES CULTIVATED IN GREECE. 

The currant-vine Vitis Corinthiaca, also called Apyrena y 
the stoneless, and from its product, in Italian, uva passa, is 
mostly grown as a shrub, on a strong stem, without support. 
The bunches of its grapes are long, loose and pendulous, 
and carry small unequal berries ; the berry stalks themselves 
are long and thin. The berries are the smallest of all 
grapes, have a thin husk and contain no stones. The 
several varieties of the plant are recognized by the colour 
of the grapes. The commonest is yellowish-green with a 
strong grey bloom. Odart, however, believes the black 
variety to be more commonly cultivated for commerce j a 
third variety is violet. This vine is also much cultivated in 
Italy and Asia Minor. The raisins termed currants are 
produced by twisting the stalks of the ripe bunches, and 
letting the grapes dry in the sun. 

Another Greek vine is the Greco, so termed by the 
Italians, the red variety of which is also grown in Corsica, 
where it is called Barbirono (Odart, I.e., p. 553). A third 
is the Cipro, the vine peculiar to Cyprus. Its berries are 
large, and while unripe are round at the insertion of the 
stalk, and pointed towards the umbilicus ; but when ripe 
they have the shape of acorns, and are dark blue with few 
points. The bunch is large, long, and has mostly short 
branches. The white and black Moscada of Greece are 
identical with the Muscatels of Frontignan. The Malvasia 
exists in several varieties, not yet well diagnosed from each 
other. The Sultana is cultivated for its stoneless raisins, 
but not on so large a scale as in Asia Minor. The most 
important vine for the small islands seems to be the Assyr- 
ticon, which prevails in Santorin. Besides these there are 
cultivated in Greece about sixty varieties of vines, of which 
names and descriptions are not yet accessible. 
z 



338 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

231. VINDICATION. 

Vinification in Greece is very imperfect, so that the wines 
contain more volatile, i.e., acetic acid, than any others. 
Many wines last only through the winter, and in summer 
turn to vinegar. To avoid this result the proprietors still 
adopt all the objectionable preservatives of antiquity : smok- 
ing with wood smoke, or vapour of resins, such as mastic, 
olibanum, cloves, Rhodus wood, Bucharis-Tagh, and lab- 
danum ; the Commendaria (Cyprus) wine is said to get its 
flavour from those resins, gums, and spices, which are sus- 
pended in the wine, enclosed in a bag ; pitching the barrels ; 
adding turpentine and pine-cones; addition of gypsum, chalk, 
salt, and of tannin, particularly in the form of hypericum per- 
foratum, a resino-tannous plant, which is said to conserve 
and to colour wine yellow. Most wine has also the taste 
and smell of the goats, in the hides of which it is kept or 
transported. In Cyprus and other parts, jars, pitched in- 
side, are still in use, but in Santorin and other islands, 
barrels are becoming more frequent. The several parts of 
Greece produce, according to the "Journal des Travaux de 
la Societe franchise de Statistique universelle," the following 
kinds and qualities of wines : Akarnania produces wine at 
Arta, Limni and Komboti. Ancient Greece proper, Livadia, 
has its principal vineyards near Lepanto, Chseronea, Megara, 
and on the slopes of Mount Poligouna ; second-class vine- 
yards are near Koskina, and in one of the valleys of Mount 
Helikon. Not far from Athens is Mount Hymettus, known 
by its bees and honey ; the wine bearing its name is grown 
in the plain surrounding the mount. Near Megara, twenty- 
seven miles west of Athens, upon the frontiers of Livadia 
and Morea is the port of Cendura, from which much wine, 
and large quantities of currants are exported. Upon the 
isthmus is situated what remains of Korinth, the ancient 
town known by games and currants, often destroyed by 
earthquakes. 

The northern part of the peninsula of Morea, Achaia, has 
extensive vineyards near Patras, Blattero, Voltizza, and 
Kalavrito. Near the latter town is the monastery of Megas- 



WINES OF GREECE AND GREEK ISLANDS. 339 

pileon, where the monks make and keep wine in large 
quantities, some of their tonnels holding from 7,000 to 
15,000 litres. In the county of Elis, circle of Gartonin, 
much red and white wine is made; the best wine of the 
Morea is made near Pergos, and amounts to 100,000 barrels 
annually. Red and white astringent wines are produced 
near Barbacena and Budschaka, on the left bank of the 
Alpheus. Schiron, near Palacropolis, produces currants and 
wine of 280,000 piastres annual value. Argolis, east of 
Achaia, has vineyards near Argos, and in the valley of St. 
Giorgio, twelve miles from Argos ; Nauplia, or Napoli di 
Malvasia, the place whence Malvasia wines derived their 
name, was nearly destroyed during the Greek wars of inde- 
pendence, and produces but little wine in the present day. 
Arcadia, in the centre of the Morea, produces annually 
15,000 barils of wine, value 150,000 piastres. The largest 
vineyards are in the valley of Phokia, 18 miles north of 
Tripolizza. The district of the latter town, known as 
Tripolis, produces 15,000 barils of wine. A similar quantity 
is produced in the vineyards near Androuna and Nisi, to- 
gether with 600 barils of brandy. The promontory of 
Modon, west of Koron, produces 2,000 barils, value 20,000 
piastres. The south-east of the Morea, Lakonia, makes 
much Malvasia, particularly at Misitra. The wines are 
mostly only third class, and much below. 

232. ISLANDS OF THE GREEK ARCHIPELAGO, SANTORIN, 

IONIAN ISLANDS, CANDIA, RHODES, CYPRUS. 
The Islands of the Greek Archipelago producing wines or 
raisins are in this order from north to south : Scopolo, Sciati, 
Skyro, Negroponte, Andros, Tine, Zia, Myconi, Thermina, 
Naxos, Amorgo, and Santorini. Near Skyro (Syra), a red 
wine, Como, is grown, and Scio (formerly Chios) produced 
more wine formerly; the "nectar" of Merta is bitter and 
astringent. Samos exports grapes, raisins and wines, amongst 
the latter a Muscat. Zea, or Zia, is ancient Cos. Of 
Tenedos the only production and trade is in wine, and it 
sends annually 100,000 barils to Constantinople, Smyrna, 



340 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

and the Euxine for Russia; all table wine in the East, 
wherever wine is drunk, is called Tenedos. 

Santorin, ancient Thera, a series of islands, consisting of 
fragments of a volcanic ring, and its centre craters, produces 
much wine. There are sixty varieties of vines cultivated, but 
the dominant vine is the Assyrticon. Some of the vines are 
large-bunched. The quantity produced is said to amount 
to 9,000 pipes ; it is principally exported to the Black Sea, 
and supplies the wants of the interior of Russia. The wines 
of these islands were for a time much spoken of in this 
country, probably as the result of the accounts of enthusiastic 
travellers, but their eastern course has not thereby been 
diverted. 

Ionian Islands. The red wines of Corfu, of which 33,000 
barils are annually produced, are light; a liqueur from 
raisins produced here is called Rosolio. Cephalonia produces 
upwards of 40,000 barils of red wines of the fifth class. 
Zante produces dry and sweet wines, amongst the latter a 
liqueur, made from currant grapes, called Jenerodis. Thiaki 
(Ithaca) produces 6,000 barils of currants, and Sta. Maura 
50,000 annually. All wines made in the Ionian Islands are 
plastered. 

Candia ancient Crete, produced formerly a kind of 
Malvasia wine, stated by A. Baccius (" Naturalis Vinorum 
Historia," Romse, 1696, fol., p. 331) to have amounted to 
200,000 barils annually. But this production is now much 
reduced, and of the viticulture, e.g., of the monastery of 
Arcadi, now in ruins, there remains only the monument of 
the fine vaulted cellars, now disused. The best vineyards 
are near Kanea, Kisamos, Spacchia and Kandia. 

Rhodes produces sweet luscious wine from large grapes. 
Here, as in Malaga, three harvests can be annually obtained. 

Cyprus. The vineyards of Cyprus are on the slopes of 
hills, covered with flinty stones and blackish ochreous earth. 
The prevailing vine is the Cipro, already alluded to above. 
The wines produced are of three classes. The first class 
consists of the wines of the Commandery of the Knights 
Templars, and is made in the vineyards near Paphos, in the 
district of Orni. It is fermented and matured in about 



WINES OF ASIA. 34! 

40,000 earthenware vessels, oi the ancient shape of amphorae, 
of which each holds from ten to twelve litres. The wine is 
of a dull red colour, and becomes tawny by age, or of a 
golden yellow, a little sweet, with an astringent by-taste, fiery, 
of great and peculiar flavour and bouquet, supposed to be 
imparted to it by the introduction of resins and spices sus- 
pended in bags in the amphorae. The second-class wines 
are sweet Muscats, made mainly at Arnodos. The third 
class are common red wines, which speedily shed their 
colour. Two centuries ago this island exported 365,000 
cuses (or guzes) of wine ; sixty years ago the export had 
fallen to 65,000 cuses. Cyprus wines are shipped mainly 
from Larnaka, the southern port of Cyprus, to Venice and 
Livorno. At Venice much Cyprus wine is still drunk. 
The Cyprus wine measures are the cass, equal to i^ English 
gallons, or 4-73 litres; and the carica, equal to 10-414 
litres. The baril repeatedly mentioned in the foregoing, is 
the Venetian barilla, equal to 64 boccalis (beakers), or 
64-3859 litres, or 1 4-171 12 English imperial gallons. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
WINES OF ASIA. 

233. WINES OF CAUCASIA. 

THE production of wine in Cachetia amounts to 2,000,000 
of eimer annually ; the price of good red is one abass (seven- 
pence) for one tunga (five bottles) ; common wine is sold at 
from five to six kopecs, or twopence per tunga. The natives 
keep the wine in skins of buffaloes and goats, with the hair 
turned inside, and pitched with black naphtha or asphalt ; 
better class proprietors keep the wine in earthenware vases, 
of the size of hogsheads, which are buried in the ground. 
The vines are being improved by new varieties introduced 
from the Russian plantations in the Crimea. 



342 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

Georgia produces wines at Tiflis, Signack, Elizabethopol, 
Gandjea, Mokozange, Vachery and Tscheniedaly. At 
Tiflis the vines peculiar to Shiraz are grown, and viticulture 
is mainly in the hands of vintners from Suabia or their 
descendants. 

Mingrelia, Imeritia, Armenia, and Shirwan also produce 
wine; the best Mingrelian is that of Odischi, In many 
parts German colonists are settled, who produce wine in 
casks, and realize good prices. The produce is estimated to 
amount to 7,500,000 bottles. 

The Caucasian wines are mostly colourless, like water : 
the red ones are only pale red, and lose their colour while 
assuming a bitterness, thus resembling some Burgundies 
and their diseases. Much of the Caucasian wine is distilled 
for brandy, of which Cachetia alone produces 20,000 hogs- 
heads annually. A society " for the manufacture of Cham- 
pagne from indigenous grapes," carries on a considerable 
trade in such wine throughout Russia up to St. Petersburg. 

The marine, wine and general trade of Caucasia, which 
formerly was considerable, has been completely destroyed 
by the Russian blockade, which was kept up for more than 
a generation, for the purpose of aiding in the subjection of 
the Circassian people. This conquest has now been effected, 
but the trade of the east of the Euxine has not been restored. 



234. WINES OF PERSIA. SHIRAZ AND ITS VINES. 

The ancient traveller Strabo relates that in the district of 
tne coast of the gulf of Persia called Makine, the vine grew 
in swamps, and was cultivated in these morasses by people 
who placed baskets of earth into the water, in which the 
vines were planted. The vines in these baskets were as 
detached from the land as flower-pots in a conservatory, 
and were now and then carried out of reach from the shore 
by floods or winds. In such a case the cultivators replaced 
them again to their former positions by long poles. Such 
paludal cultivation of the vine can also be seen in Egypt. 

In Persian legends frequent references are made to King 
Dchemshid as having raised the accidental discovery ot 



WINES OF ASIA. 343 

wine to a method of making and keeping it. As he was 
fond of eating grapes he caused great vessels full to be 
collected in order to enjoy them beyond the season. But 
they ran into juice, and boiled so suspiciously that it was 
believed a new poison had been discovered, and the liquid 
was put aside for appropriate use. Gulnare, the beautiful, 
one of Dchemshid's seven hundred wives, grew melan- 
choly and resolved to take her own life. She selected the 
new poison as the means for self-destruction, and drank 
a long draught, which became a deep one when she found 
that the supposed poison, contrary to expectation, tasted 
very nice. The poison soon acted, however, and Gulnare 
sank on her couch and fell asleep. Awaking to despair, 
she doubled the draught, sought destruction in vain, but 
found happiness in frequent small sips of the suspected 
liquid. Shah Dchemshid discovered the effect of the 
condemned grape juice upon his mistress, tried a draught, 
approved, and henceforth was the patron of wine. 

The wines of Persia most renowned in ancient times were 
those of Ariana (Iran), Bactriana (Turan), Hyrcania, (Ma- 
zanderan), and Margiana (Chorassan). Their reputation 
survived for some time the introduction of the Islam. All 
the fertile parts south of the Caspian still produce wines, 
but their reputation is now overshadowed by that of the 
wines of Shiraz, in Ferdistan. 

The vineyards of this celebrated place are situated on the 
lower ranges of the Zagros mountain, which runs from the 
gulf of Persia to the Caspi Lake ; the best of these are 
situated at the foot of the mountain to the north-west of the 
town. The vines are mostly trained low on the ground, 
and are rarely tied to stakes ; some are trained over stone 
walls, up on the one side and down on the other, the latter 
being drawn down by stones tied to the ends of the canes. 
At Casvin the vine-growers irrigate the vineyards annually, 
twenty days after the feast of Nokooz, or about April loth, 
and the clayey soil thus treated retains sufficient moisture 
to last throughout the period of vegetation, which is rainless. 
There are twelve principal varieties of vines. 

The Kishmish, Sultanieh of the Turks, carries a beautiful 



344 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

large bunch of white grapes ; the berries are oval, of medium 
size, have a tender, thin husk, no kernels, and are of an 
agreeable acidulous taste ; they serve for the table, and the 
production of raisins and of wine. 

The Damas yields a black grape, from which the finest 
full-bodied and durable red wine is made. The Samarkand 
occurs in several varieties, some of which bear bunches up 
to twelve pounds in weight. The Richbaba (Rish baba), 
the principal or dominant vine, has large berries, without 
seeds ; according to Pallas, the name was derived from the 
cylindrical form of the bunch, and the compressed state of 
the berries. The Askery has small berries. The Imperial 
of Tauris is juicy and delicate. Besides these a great 
number of variously and strikingly coloured grapes are 
grown, of which the names are given by Odart (I.e. p. 584, 
et set?.), after a communication made by a Persian ambassa- 
dor to a Due Decaze. They have been described by many 
travellers, e.g., Pallas, Chardin, Olivier, Ker Porter. Odart 
does not mention either the Damas or the Imperial of 
Tauris, and we apprehend that these names were introduced 
in the Russian vineyards in the Crimea, and are not Persian. 
The wfne of Shiraz is fermented in large egg-shaped vases 
of earthenware, four feet high, and holding 250 to 300 litres, 
or more than a hogshead. The vases are glazed inside and 
out, covered with purified mutton tallow, and are kept 
buried in the earth in cool cellars. The made wine is 
bottled in glass flasks holding from four to five (old Paris) 
pints; the bottles are stoppered with hard-pressed cotton, 
covered^ with wax, enclosed in matting, and packed in 
boxes holding ten. It is a little harsh on first gustation, 
but gains upon the palate by habitual use; this refers to 
wine as drunk in Persia. The red Shiraz now and then 
brought to this country has always been fortified with spirit, 
and perfumed with peculiar resinous matters, which at first 
suit the European palate as little as does the rose-flavoured 
confectionery of Turkey. There are also white liqueur 
wines, with peculiar perfumes, made at Shiraz. The wines 
of Shiraz are sold in Persia by weight. A popular proverb 
considers them as essential to happiness : " Who will live 



WINES OF AFRICA. 345 

merrily should take his wine from Shiraz, his bread from 
Yesdecast, and a rosy wife from Yest." Next to Shiraz as 
wine-producing places are Teheran, the capital of the Shah, 
Yezd, (Yest), Shamaki, Gilan, Casvin, Tabriz and Ispahan. 
All these places are situated on the slopes of mountains. 

The wines of Persia are mostly consumed in the country, 
and only a portion is exported to Hindostan, China and 
Japan. Through the influences of Mahometanism, the 
consumption and production of wine in Persia has much 
decreased ; nevertheless wine and spirit drinking are done 
in secret, and with the usual result of the Sunday drinking 
of intolerant populations. The Persian of to-day buys his 
wine from the Gueber, Jewish or Armenian grower, who is 
licensed upon payment of a tax. The wine is frequently 
mixed with raki and saffron, or the extract of hemp, which 
is added to make small quantities more intoxicating. In 
the East the idea prevails yet, that the use of wine legitimately 
terminates in intoxication, a fallacy which was yet prevalent 
with us a few generations ago. We may therefore hope to 
see it superseded by that amelioration of customs, which ha*s 
changed the ethics of Western banquets. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
WINES OF AFRICA. 

235. WINES OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 

VINES ; MODE OF CULTIVATION. 

AT the southern cape of Africa, originally called by its 
discoverer "The Stormy Cape," but renamed by his King "of 
Good Hope," vines were first planted by Dutch settlers under 
the governorship of Jan van Riebeck in 1650. Their 
knowledge of viticulture being deficient, they omitted to 
select the most suitable situation, and this error has operated 



34-6 A TREATISE OX WINES. 

against the wines of the Cape for almost two centuries. 
Governor Riebeck is related to have imported vines from 
the Rhine, France, Spain, Greece, Madeira and Shiraz. In 
the best situations the muscat of Frontignac prevails, and is 
kept pure, its grapes serving for liqueur wines only. Most 
expanded are perhaps the German Riessling giving white, and 
the Burgundy grape giving red wine. Two not otherwise 
defined vines pass under Dutch names, the Groene-druyf, 
(green grape) and the Steen-druyf (stone-grape) : probably 
the former is the Sylvaner, and the latter synonymous with 
Riessling; for Odart, (I.e. p. 593), says, that they both came 
from the Rhine. The Haenapop (has no pip) is easily 
recognised as the Persian Sultanieh, which yields the stone- 
less raisins. Odart gives a mistaken derivation of this name, 
from hanap, meaning a large pot or crock. 

The modes of cultivation are those usual in the countries 
from which the vines are derived. During the dry season 
the vines must be irrigated, or they drop their fruit. The 
vineyards of Constantia are regularly irrigated. The vine- 
yard proprietors have to combat many enemies, Kaffirs being 
the worst thieves; the grapes are devoured by wild dogs, 
Cape badgers, monkeys, and sometimes enormous flights of 
birds, which do not only devour, but damage and defile what 
they do not eat. The ordinary agricultural boer takes little 
care in vinification ; but he is also in a difficult situation : 
he must import foreign casks, because Cape wood of any kind 
is unsuitable for wine-barrels ; to carelessness he adds absurd 
practices, such as hanging up freshly killed meat in the 
fermented wine, or adding spirit in the shape of indigenous 
brandy called Cape-smoke, from its being contaminated with 
the flavour of the smoke from the fire by which it is distilled, 
like Scotch Whiskey. Only when the wine has passed into 
the hands of the exporter begins its transformation into 
Cape-brands. 

236. QUALITIES OF CAPE WINES AND IMPORTATION INTO 

ENGLAND. 

The sweet pale-red Constantias are liqueur wines of the 
second class ; they soon lose the muscat flavour, but gain 



WINES OF AFRICA. 347 

ripeness instead. A simmered wine called Kokwyn, made 
from muscat grapes, resembles Malaga, and belongs to the 
third class. The red wines called dry Pontac and Burgundy, 
made from the relative grapes, sometimes become wines of 
the .third class, but mostly remain below the fifth class. 
The Cape Hock of the village of Paarl in the valley of 
Drakenstein is a very characteristic wine, which belongs to 
the fourth, sometimes the third rank of white wines. The 
unnamed wines of South Africa are also red and white, the 
latter being dry. When properly prepared they have none 
of the so-called earthy or slaty taste so often complained 
of; it is probable that these and other faults are the result 
of their being made in too many instances by the unaided 
efforts of ignorant Kaffirs or other negroes. 

In 1859 the importation of Cape wine into England had, 
owing to the favour shown to the Colonies by the mother 
country in the imposing a much lower import duty upon it 
than upon European wines, risen to 781,581 gallons. After 
the reduction of the wine-duties in 1860, the importation 
fell in 1862 to 182,282 gallons, or from io'84 per cent, of 
the whole imports of wine in 1859 to i'8 per cent, of the 
imports in 1862. This wine was not consumed as such, but 
worked up into the similitude of sherry and port and sold to 
whoever would buy it. There is no reason, however, why 
the Cape should not produce and bring to Europe good 



237. PRINCIPAL VITICULTURAL DISTRICTS AND ESTATES 
IN THE CAPE COLONY. 

Stellenbosh, a considerable wine district north of False 
Bay, received its name from a former governor, Van der 
Stell, who acquired large portions of territory in that locality, 
then covered by bush, and constructed a reservoir in the 
mountains to irrigate his farms and vineyards during the 
dry season, and to grind his corn in a mill by the side of 
the wine stores. 

Drakenstein, a settlement north-east of Stellenbosh, was 
founded by a colony of French refugees after the revocation 



34^ A TREATISE ON WINES. 

of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Land more suited for the 
growing of corn was planted by them with vines. The 
Dutch farmer imitated the example, but the produce ac- 
quired no reputation. On the western side of the valley of 
Drakenstein stands the village of Paarl, surrounded by a 
fertile tract of land, and especially distinguished by a curious 
mass of granite surmounted by a number of large pebbly 
stones like the pearls of a necklace, to which it owes its 
name. Here the best white wines of the Cape Colony, so- 
called Cape Hocks, are produced. 



238. THE CONSTANTIAS. 

The Dutch governor Van der Stell, made three planta- 
tions of vines at the Cape, and named them after his wife 
Constantia, with distinguishing adjectives High Constantia, 
Great Constantia, and Little Constantia. The vineyards 
are situated at the eastern base of Table Mountain, about 
eight miles from Cape town, and midway between False 
and Table Bays, all upon very gentle slopes, just sufficiently 
inclined to admit of the distribution of water by irrigation 
channels. The dominant vine is the red muscat of Fron- 
tignan, which gives to all Constantia wines their peculiar 
character. There are also a few other varieties of vines 
grown here, but with the exception of the Rhenish Riessling 
they yield no characteristic products. The vineyards have 
a surface of about 250 acres, or 101 hectares, and produce 
annually from 700 to 800 hectolitres of wine. The product 
is treated as at Frontignan, and owing to its good quality 
and limited quantity, its price is well maintained. Another 
notable estate near Constantia, is Witteboom, which also 
produces red muscats. Seal Island in Table Bay also pro- 
duces some good wines. 

239. WINES OF MADAGASCAR. 

This island possesses an indigenous vine, which the 
natives declare to bear a poisonous fruit; probably the 
effect of this grape is similar to that of an American vine, 



WINES OF AFRICA. 349 

the husk of the berries of which inflames the lips; ripe 
Riessling also causes the lips to burn. Some Frenchmen 
made wine of that grape, and found it quite innocuous, so 
that the irritating matter, like that of the manioc, disappears 
in the preparation of the product. The inhabitants of Isle 
de France and Bourbon cultivated the vine only as an orna- 
mental shrub in the garden, and did not multiply it in vine- 
yards, as they found vinification to be impracticable. 

240. WINES OF MOROCCO. 

In the north-west of Africa the vine is cultivated down to 
33 lat. The grapes grow larger and sweeter, and are mainly 
reared on espaliers in the air, to produce shaded walks ; what 
business viticulture there is resembles that of Andalusia, 
including the hedges of agave and of prickly pear cactus. 
There are seven varieties of vines, one with very large berries, 
called " hen's eggs," supposed to be identical with the Spanish 
teta de vaca. Wine is made by Jews only, is light and 
acidulous, kept in large earthenware jars and in skins, and 
does 'not keep beyond one year. The best and largest 
amount of wine is made at Uadnum, Tarodante, and 
Tangiers. 

241. WINES OF ALGERIA. 

In 1860 there were only about 220 hectares of vineyards 
in Algiers, but in 1870 their area in Oran alone had risen to 
3,200 hectares. The wines resemble the small wines of 
Languedoc. Viticulture has been somewhat extended since, 
particularly after the collection of vines made by Chaptal 
was transferred from the garden of the Luxembourg at Paris 
to Algiers. 

242. WINES OF THE NILE VALLEY. 

In ancient times the valley of the Nile produced the wines 
of Arsinoe, Mendes, Koptos, and Mareotis; its Delta the 
liqueur wine of Sebenytus, of which latter large quantities 
were exported to Rome; since the spread of Islam only 
grapes and raisins are produced. 



350 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
WINES OF AMERICA. 

243. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

WITH regard to viticulture in America we have to record 
this remarkable fact, that vines from Europe do not succeed 
in that country, and that long continued and often repeated 
experience shows, that to produce grapes and wine in America 
of any quality, recourse must be had to indigenous vines. 
In California, European vines seem to grow, and bear fruit, 
but it lacks the essential quality of specificity ; the wines 
made on the west coast have no flavour. 

Viticulture has of late years not progressed much in 
America even on the Ohio, which was termed the Rhine of 
North America, and where there were some 1,550 acres of 
vineyards under cultivation. At St. Louis some very good 
effervescent wine was made and even brought to London. 
But the supply was soon exhausted, and none of it has been 
seen since the American Exhibition. 

244. INDIGENOUS VINES OF NORTH AMERICA. 
In 1830 Prince counted more than eighty -eight varieties 
of American wild vines, but of these only a few were culti- 
vated either for making wine or for eating as fruit. The vines 
were also described in a monograph by Durand, translated 
into French by M. des Moulins. In consequence of the 
ravages of the oidium and the phylloxera French viticulturists 
turned their attention to American vines, which were said not 
to be liable to the attacks of these vegetable animal parasites. 
But no good wine could be obtained from any of them, and 
the only way of utilizing the immunity of their roots from the 
phylloxera was to graft European vines upon American stems. 
This was, however, so costly and slow a process, that it could 
be only rarely adopted. 



WINES OF AMERICA. 351 

The American vines are either polygamic or dioic. In 
Thudichura and Dupre's " Treatise" a full description of ten 
varieties will be found : of which the following are the more 
important ones, (i.) Vitis Labrusca L. termed in America 
fox-grape or northern fox-grape. The berries are large, purple- 
black in colour, and have nearly the same taste and flavour 
or odour as black currants ; they ripen at the end of August 
or beginning of September. In the wilderness it is a very 
handsome climber, and rises to the tops of the highest trees. 
Under cultivation its berries become round and large, even 
of the size of damsons ; but the pulp always remains tena- 
cious and does not easily melt in the mouth ; on pressure 
it slips as an entire lump out of the hard thin skin and has 
to be crushed expressly. It is assumed that from this V. 
labrusca a variety of hybrid vines have been produced, 
namely the Isabella, Catawba, Schuylkill, Alexander, Eland's 
grape and others. The Labrusca is not subject to the oidium, 
even when its branches intertwine with those of ordinary 
vines covered with the fungus. (2.) Vitis cestivalis, 
(Michaux) Summer grape, Chicken grape, Little grape. 
There are two varieties of which one goes by the adjective 
of the genuine, the other by that of the sinuated. The former 
has berries of a saturated sky-blue colour, smaller than that 
of the Labrusca. Although it is called summer-grape for 
reasons unknown, it ripens only in October. It is found in 
the Atlantic region, on the Mississippi and beyond. The sinu- 
ated variety has small sky-blue berries of an agreeable but 
austere taste. It is found in the South Atlantic region up 
to Louisiana, where it is called Pine-wood grape. It does 
not climb so well as the Labrusca. From it the Delaware 
grape is derived. 

The Vitis Caribaa was named by Decandolle. It has 
large, purple-black, little juicy, sour berries, and is very 
common in the Antilles ; it also thrives in Florida, South 
Arkansas, and Mexico. (4.) The Vitis Candicans (Engel- 
mann) is the Mustang grape of New Mexico, Texas and 
Arkansas. The grapes are purple-black, the husks contain a 
very red and extremely acid juice, the pulp however has a 
softer, not burning taste, and is eatable. The vine, as a 



352 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

parasitic climber, is a great plague of the countries in which 
it lives, as it destroys the greatest trees in forests and planta- 
tions. It is a great bearer; a plant of eight years yielded fifty- 
four gallons of juice ; the must is, however, so acid, that each 
gallon requires the addition of three pounds of sugar, and 
the made wine requires the addition of some spirit to make 
it keep. The wine thus obtained is good, strong-bodied, 
agreeable to drink, and nicely coloured. Of this vine, 
several varieties are known, some of which have a red pulp, 
others a white pulp, all having purple-black husks. The 
wild plants are dioic, the males bear no fruit ; they acquire 
an enormous size, stemstwo feet in circumference, and extend 
their branches over five or six trees, seventy to eighty feet 
high. In Texas it reaches such a great size that stems of 
eighteen to twenty inches in diameter have been cut down. 
When the grapes are ripe, they seem to cover all the foliage 
as a black mass ; their taste is detestable, owing to an acrid 
principle contained in the husks, which inflames the lips and 
the mucous membrane of the mouth. When this husk is 
peeled off, the pulp, which remains as a solid lump, may 
be eaten without evil effects (5.) The Vitis Calif ornica 
has small black berries of agreeable taste ; it is common in 
California, Sonora, and the eastern part 'of New Mexico. 
The five varieties of vines described in the foregoing have 
leaves which on their underside are woolly, or felted, as if 
with a spider's web. The following varieties have leaves 
which are either quite smooth on both sides, or slightly 
downy on the underside. (6.) Vitis Cordifolia, so called 
from the heart shape of its leaves (Michaux), inhabits the 
whole of the Atlantic region ; it occurs in two varieties, the 
genuine, and the one which lives on the banks of rivers. 
The former is also termed fox-grape, winter and frost-grape ; 
it forms long bunches not very full of berries, which latter 
are small, black and late, have thin husks, and are of an 
acid taste like that of black currants. The vines overgrow 
entire trees, and while they were plentiful, flights of wild 
turkeys frequently settled upon them to eat their fruit. The 
second variety, the riparia, by French immigrants into 
Texas termed Vigne des Battures, is a sweet-scented grape, 



WINES OF AMERICA. 353 

more acid to the taste, with blood-red juice; it becomes 
softer in taste after having been frozen, as do sloes ; each 
grape contains only one seed. It blossoms in May, and its 
flowers have the odour of mignonette ; the male plant used 
to be termed Vitis odoratissima while it was believed to be 
an independent species. (7.) Vitis rotundifolia (Michaux) 
termed by Americans Bullace, Bullet grape, Scuppernong, 
southern fox-grape. Its small leaves have a shape some- 
what between a kidney and a heart ; its bunches are small, 
the berries have a great odour, a purple, sometimes amber 
colour, a hard skin, and an agreeable taste. It is cultivated 
for the table, and for wine-making in Virginia, Florida, Texas 
and North Mexico, passing everywhere under the name of 
Scuppernong. To the north of the Potomac it remains 
sterile, and is frequently destroyed by the frost. 

A third section of American vines are characterized by 
erect or decumbent shoots, without the climbing faculty. 
(8.) Vitis mpestris (Scheele) commonly termed mountain 
grape, has heart-kidney shaped leaves, small purple-black 
berries, which ripen early and have an agreeable taste. Grows 
in chalky soil on the banks of rivers in Texas and Arkansas. 
(9.) The Vitis monticola (Buckley) has also short branches, 
compound strong bunches, with large, closely set, white or 
amber-coloured berries. It is said to have the most agreeable 
taste of all American grapes ; it grows in Texas. (10.) The 
Vitis Lincecumii (Buckley) passes in Texas under the name 
of post-oak grape, or pinewood-grape : its berries are purple- 
black, sometimes amber coloured ; they have an agreeable 
odour and ripen in August. It grows in Western Louisiana, 
Arkansas and Texas, and its name was given by Buckley in 
honour of the Texas doctor Lincecum. 



245. VINES CULTIVATED IN NORTH-AMERICA. 
Viticulture in America is probably not yet typical, though 
adapted to local conditions ; it has certainly hitherto not been 
very extensive. The vines cultivated are hybrids of native 
with foreign vines, and several are of excellent quality. We 
quote the Catawba, found wild along the Arkansas, cultivated 



354 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

since 1802, first by a major Adlum; nineteen-twentieths of 
all the vines of Ohio are Catawbas. The wine made from 
it is good, it can be produced effervescent. Such as we have 
obtained in England, directly from St. Louis, was strongly 
flavoured with, apparently, elder flower. Longfellow wrote an 
enthusiastic poem in praise of Catawba wine. (2). The 
Cape grape, also termed Alexander or Schuylkill Muscadel, 
is indigenous to the environs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 
its must always requires an addition of sugar. (3). The Isa- 
bella is indigenous to South Carolina. In Ohio it is fre- 
quently injured by frost, while on the shores of lake Erie and 
in the neighbourhood of New York it bears amply and ripens 
well ; it is cultivated for the table only, as it requires sugar 
to acquire a sufficient alcoholicity in its wine. The wine 
resembles light Madeira. (4). Bland 1 s Madeira gives a good 
grape for eating, but the vine is too delicate for cultivation 
even in Ohio. (5). The Ohio or Cigar-box vine yields a hand- 
some, black, soft, melting grape, with small berries ; its wine 
is dark red, and has little perfume when young, but acquires 
some by age. (6). Lenoir yields a sweet and well-flavoured, 
melting, black grape. (7). Missouri the same, but is more 
suitable for wine-production than the former. (8). Norton's 
seedling has a small soft berry, but its wine is of inferior 
quality. (9). Herbemonfs Madeira has small black berries, 
to which, as to No. 9, the name is by no means appropriate ; 
the wine, though of a rosy colour, resembles Manzanilla in 
taste. (10), Minor's seedling is a muscat, useless for wine, 
(n). White Catawba is much inferior to the red; it has not 
been tried for wine. (12). The Mammoth Catawba is a large 
variety of No. i. (13). The Saippernong does not succeed 
north of the 35 lat. 

246. RISE OF VITICULTURE IN AMERICA. 

The name of Longworth is associated with the history of 
the development of viticulture in America; he it was who 
made extensive experiments with European vines, and found 
them unsuitable, even the indigenous vines were found to de- 
generate quickly, and not to obtain any very high age. The 



WINES OF AUSTRALASIA. 355 

vineyards were mostly cultivated by Germans from the 
Rhine-country; many were farmed by the viticulturists 
at the rent of half the vintage. At Cincinnati an acre of 
good land could be made to yield a profit of from 50 to 100 
dollars. 

It will thus be seen that viticulture in America has to 
contend with many difficulties. We studied the subject 
in detail some years ago, but have not to report any great 
progress since. The Chicago exhibition will have afforded 
a good opportunity for summarizing the present condition 
of viticultural affairs. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
WINES OF AUSTRALASIA. 

247. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

THE founder of viticulture in Australia was an early 
colonist of New South Wales, of the name of Busby ; he 
obtained 574 varieties of European vines, from France, and 
secured the grant of an experimental garden from the go- 
vernment at Sydney. Other enterprising men then took up 
the subject, e.g., James Macarthur, and Patrick Auld. They 
were followed by many gentlemen of property, who were de- 
sirous rather of producing fine and creditable wines, than of 
obtaining large or immediate profits. Many cultivated the art 
as an interesting scientific experiment. Thus viticulture ex- 
panded in Australia and gradually assumed large dimensions. 
The generally favourable climate of Australia is' not 
invariably favourable to the vine, on account of the 
severe droughts and heavy rains to which it is alternately 
exposed, and which destroy other crops as well as vines. In 
December the growers desire some rain, which they term 
vintage rain ; but when rain falls upon the nearly perfected 



3 $6 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

grapes in February, that makes them swell and burst, lose 
their juice, causes them to rot, and destroys much of the 
harvest in a short time. 

The condition of viticulture in Australia is most fully and 
correctly represented in the annual reports of the several 
Vineyard Associations. We would ask our readers to consult 
these rather than those reports which have no authentication 
at all. Products from a new country must be judged not only 
absolutely by reference to established standards, but also 
relatively with reference to their capability for improvement, 
if faulty or imperfect. We have said long ago, that by ap- 
plying this principle to Australian wines, we had come to 
the result, that many good qualities had already been ob- 
tained ; that, if the process of vinification were better, these 
qualities would be greatly enhanced j that many wines, evi- 
dently made from excellent grapes, are spoiled by faulty 
preparation, or by want of proper nursing during maturation. 
To prove these points, we gave vouchers from Australian 
literature, mercantile, journalistic, and private, from official 
reports on Australian exhibitions, etc. Time has fully borne 
out these notes, and their continued correctness can be 
proved any day by the comparison of mercantile articles 
with well-established models. 



CHAPTER XXX. 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON WINES. 

248. RATING OF THE WINES OF THE WORLD. 
THE most important practical distinctions of wines are 
marked by their relative prices. According to these, wines 
become beverages or luxuries for use on festive occasions. It 
has been proposed to call table wines all those which can be 
sold in this country at prices varying from twelve to thirty 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON WINES. 357 

shillings per dozen bottles. Wines at prices varying between 
thirty and sixty shillings per dozen we will, in accordance 
with commercial custom, term fine wines, and those at 
prices above sixty shillings cabinet wines. The fine and 
cabinet wines are so limited in quantity, and so much 
sought after, that they can never have a wide area of useful- 
ness. But amongst the table wines there are excellent 
qualities fulfilling all the hygienic and gustatory conditions 
demanded for comfortable and wholesome living. The 
great bulk of all the wines of Jerez, Oporto, Lisbon, Bar- 
celona, Valencia, Alicante, Cette, Bordeaux, of the Rhine, 
of Austria and Hungary, etc., are, commercially speaking, 
cheap wines. We may read of high prices in the lists ot 
sherry exporters, such as ^1,000 per butt ; but these par- 
take of the nature of romance, as the objects, if there were 
any of such an ascertained value, never change hands. 
The great mass of sherry is exported at 15 per butt, and 
the average value of all sherry exported is ^28 per butt. 
The same applies to Oporto. The mass of port wine is 
exported at a price somewhere between 22 and ^25 per 
pipe, and the finer wines at ^"50 to 80 are few and 
far between. And so it is with all the places mentioned. 
The great bulk of their exports consists of cheap wines. 
There are exporters who pretend not to sell cheap wines, 
but they sell them in fact in large volumes, while omitting 
to place their names amongst the brands on the barrels 
in which they sell them. It was upon the importation into 
England of low-priced natural wines that the attention of the 
legislature was directed when the duty was reduced in 1860; 
to this object the attention of enterprising wine-merchants 
was directed, who have thereby opened a new era in the 
English wine trade, and broken the aristocratic pretensions 
with which the dealing in wines was formerly surrounded. 
Wines of all qualities can now be had from one shilling per 
bottle upwards, and the agitation carried on for so many 
years in the interest of temperance and free trade has 
resulted in great public benefit, the full extent of which has 
however to be obtained by further exertions. 

A classification of wines is always a process of the utmost 



358 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

difficulty because opinions are liable to be governed unduly 
by the element of taste, and not by all the elements from 
which a valuation has to be elaborated. It might be said 
that prices were a sufficient classification of wines, but this 
is not really so, as prices are inflated by many fallacious 
elements, including past reputations. What can be more 
disproportionate than the prices and the qualities of the so- 
called dry champagnes, the prices enhanced by an abnormal 
impost, which disarranged the settlement of 1860. With 
the import duty increased the nastiness of many of the 
products of the Marne as well as the lower priced ones of 
the Loire. Another objection to any kind of classification, 
on however broad a basis of recognized distinction, is the 
fact that it is liable to cause much displeasure to the owners 
or vendors of qualities not rated at cabinet value. We have 
observed this vivacity of sentiment particularly on the part 
of foreign and colonial exhibitors, whose products we had 
to report upon. Further, a classification of wine would 
have to specialize so many places and years in districts 
which are liable to great variations in their products, that 
the result would be unintelligible. There are years in which 
the products of vineyards ordinarily passing as first growths 
are of the sixth and seventh class, and out of such accidents 
no average can be constructed. 

We would place sherry at the head of all wines, had we 
not to admit that it is. deteriorated by plaster, brandy, 
colour and dulce, Jerez wines and their congeners have 
the greatest future, on account of their equability and in- 
trinsic vinous quality. They only wait for another reform 
like that to which a Scotchman treated them when he sub- 
stituted pale and dry for the brown and sweet concoctions ; 
when he discovered and purified the amontillado flavour. 
Let us hope that another reformer may succeed in turning 
aside the plaster and brandy which now denaturalizes this 
splendid product of viticulure. We would claim only a 
second place for wines of the Alto Douro or port wines so- 
called, were they not much deteriorated by the quantities 
of brandy with which they are mixed. No doubt port has 
properties which make it a peculiar product ; it is full 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON WINES. 359 

of extractive, apart from the fruit sugar, and therefore 
requires treatment differing in some respects from that 
which will mature the thinner wines with less extractive. 
Nevertheless it is much denaturalized by the large quantities 
of brandy which it receives, and which disqualify it for use 
for so long a time as to cause its cost to exceed its value. 
The wines of the Gironde are superior to the former two 
classes, by the absence of brandy and other admixtures ; 
but they are inferior in body, that is to say, in extractives 
apart from alcohol and vinosity, and are not rarely very 
acid. With these rank Champagnes of the better years, 
white Burgundies and wines of the Rheingau ; now follow 
the red wines of Burgundy, Macon and Beaujolais ; then 
the white wines of the Palatinate. Now follow Greek, 
Austrian, and Hungarian wines, Tokay excepted, of which 
the sweet, thick varieties take a place by themselves, as not 
being wines in the sense here defined ; but the szamorodnies 
are comparable, and take a place after those previously 
mentioned. Any rating of wines has to be based upon the 
absolute qualities, total quantities of product, prices, average 
success in years, absence of variability and of faults, in 
short, upon the average result of a consideration of all the 
factors which make a wine of the greatest use to the 
greatest number at the least cost. 

It is a general experience that the stronger wines are 
preferred in winter, while the natural wines are sought after 
in summer, when the others are avoided. This is caused 
by the excessive stimulating qualities of the alcohol, popu- 
larly termed heating, which are not very useful at any time, 
but bearable in cold weather. Similarly it is found that 
delicate persons cannot bear brandied wines, but are able 
to digest and to be benefitted by natural wines. All 
these conditions have been so ably put forth by many 
members of the medical profession, that we need not dwell 
upon them at length, but can leave to the public the care 
for still more softening the rough drinking habits which 
past generations left over to us. 

All wine imported into the United Kingdom, pays a 
customs' duty, which for natural unfortified wine, and for 



360 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

wine fortified up to 30 per cent, of proof spirit, has been 
fixed by Parliament as is. per gallon. The law has most 
liberally defined as natural wine all wine which contains less 
than 26 per cent, of proof spirit, equal to 12 per cent, of abso- 
lute alcohol by weight, and 14-6 per cent.of absolute alcohol 
by volume. All wine which contains more than that propor- 
tion of spirit, or alcohol, is assumed to have received an addi- 
tion of distilled spirit, or of wine containing distilled spirit, and 
was charged with a customs' duty of zs. 6d. if it did not sur- 
mount in its alcoholic strength 42 per cent, of proof spirit. 
But this arrangement was altered some years ago to this ex- 
tent, that the 26 per cent, limit was raised to 30 per cent., so 
that 4 per cent, of proof spirit in wine may come into the 
country duty free. But the advantage concerns only a small 
proportion of the wine imported. For no one would think of 
raising Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Hock, and other 
natural wines to anything like 30 per cent, proof spirit, and 
on the other hand, this strength is insufficient for any sherry, 
port, Madeira, or other southern wine of their kind. And 
this was the main reason for which the anomaly was acceded 
to. The relaxation is abused mainly in this way, that Spanish 
white wines are imported at a strength just below 30 per cent, 
of proof spirit, and afterwards mixed with wines imported at 
the highest alcohol strength, compatible with the zs. 6d. 
duty, so that a wine of 36 per cent, proof spirit, supposing 
equal parts of the weak and strong to be mixed, will 
have paid only is, gd. import tax instead of zs. 6d., equal 
to a gain of more than ^4 sterling per butt. All alcohol 
above 42 per cent, of proof spirit is charged the same duty 
per degree as distilled spirit, i.e. IDS. 6d. per gallon of proof 
spirit. Another anomaly was inflicted upon the system of 
wine taxation adopted in 1860, namely, the increase to 5*. 
a dozen of the import tax on sparkling wines ; this raised 
the price of sparkling wines very much beyond the addition 
of the 5-f. per dozen bottles ; and acted as an almost for- 
bidding increase of the price of the cheap effervescent wines 
from the Loire, which are imported at prices, in the River 
Thames, beginning at ijs. per dozen, and rising to 28^. 
Upon protest being raised on behalf of these -wines, the 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON WINES. 361 

impost upon them was limited to 35. per dozen. Of course, 
the actual price also rose, and the quality deteriorated, and 
the policy of Mr. Goschen has produced only disadvantage 
to the community, and a very trifling increase to the takings 
of the customs. 



249. ACTIVE INGREDIENTS OF WINE. 
The great uniform power in wine, as in all so-called intoxi- 
cating liquids, is of course alcohol ; and the main effect upon 
the body is produced by alcohol, and in direct proportion 
to its quantity. Equal amounts of alcohol, whether taken 
in strong or dilute admixture, will cause nearly equal effects, 
but dilute beverages will produce the effect quicker than 
strong; for these latter require more time for their absorp- 
tion. Alcohol is, however, by no means the only active 
ingredient of wine ; were it so, mere alcohol would by this 
time have superseded wine altogether. Pure alcohol, in- 
deed, in a state of drinkable dilution, is not a desirable 
beverage at all. It acquires its highest attractiveness by 
the presence of that union of flavours produced by the fer- 
mentation of grape juice, called vinosity, and represented 
mainly by the ananthic ether, the wine-flower or bouquet 
ether, described in an earlier chapter. A number of other 
ethers no doubt contribute to the sum of the effects, but the 
cenanthic ether is the specific one, without which wine has 
no existence. This ether, and its helpmates, have a very 
remarkable effect upon the organs of taste and smell, which 
results in pleasure, and a desire to drink the liquid exhaling 
the odour; and again when drunk, the ethers produce an 
effect of a pleasureable kind besides, and independent of the 
effect of the mere alcohol. It is for these ethers, and their 
combination as bouquet, that the high prices are paid for fine 
wine. Brandied wines never can rise to the quality, in re- 
spect of bouquet, of the natural wines, for although they 
contain the cenanthic and other ethers, their olfactory effect is 
overcome by that of the newly added brandy. It is for this 
reason that few persons accustomed to sherry and port ever 
scrutinize their wines with the nose for the pleasure of the 



362 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

bouquet, as all connoisseurs unfailingly do with Burgundy 
and Hock, or Claret ; but rely upon broad gustation for the 
satisfaction of the taste and upon alcoholicity for effect. 

Amongst the evil effects of wines, and spirituous drinks 
made with distilled spirit, several have been ascribed to the 
undue admixture with the beverages of alcohols of a more 
complicated composition than common or ethylic alcohol. 
Thus amylic alcohol, or the oil obtained by the distillation of 
dregs, called fusel oil by the Germans, is believed to cause 
great excitement and to aggravate to madness the evil 
effects of the habitual use of distilled spirit. Apart from the 
fact that fusel oil can be removed from any spirit by charcoal, 
as Dobereiner showed early in this century, and that the art 
of distillation is so far advanced as to admit of and mostly re- 
sult in the production of almost chemically pure alcohol, 
which, owing to the absence of any kind of flavour, is termed 
silent spirit, it must be remembered that the production of 
fusel oil in wines occurs only under circumstances of the 
lowest uncleanliness, and, as regards natural wine in general, 
is not a question of practical importance. But as regards 
wine to which spirit is added, if the spirit be produced from 
potatoes, and not carefully purified, the introduction of some 
fusel oil might be possible. We believe, however, that the 
mere interest of the trader would prevent such an impurity 
from being introduced, for it would infallibly diminish the 
value of the wine by a greater sum than that which would be 
saved by the difference between a pure and an impure 
spirit. 

There are effects of wines upon the nervous system which 
are as yet unexplained. Thus, to some men otherwise accus- 
tomed to the use of various wines, the higher kinds of white 
Burgundies do cause excitement of the heart ; the modern 
Champagnes also cause palpitation to many who formerly 
enjoyed the natural Champagnes, and used them to advantage; 
this arises from the fact that their alcoholicity is high out of 
proportion to the amount of their extractives. Champagne as 
now drunk in England is mostly a brandied liquid. Burgun- 
dies are liable to be a little brandied, even as regards the 
higher qualities, but the higher qualities of Hocks, or Bor- 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON WINES. 363 

deaux wines are never brandied; and this circumstance 
makes these wines particularly valuable for hygienic use as- 
well as medicinal purposes. 

Red wines contain an astringent element, which is a useful 
agent in hypercatharsis, and, on the contrary, is the cause 
of persons of slow peristaltic habit being obliged to avoid 
them. The astringency may act as a tonic upon some ; it is 
the more likely to do so if it be combined with that peculiar 
colouring matter of red wine which contains iron as an element 
of its chemical constitution. But even of this only little is 
assimilated, and most of it is found in the detritus as dark 
sulphide of iron. 

Red wines are liable to cause a feeling of acidity in the 
stomach to some persons ; we have known such idiosyncrasy 
to appear and disappear at varying ages of the persons who 
manifested it ; white wine suits such persons better. Again, 
we have known both white and red wine to become obnoxious 
to certain conditions of life, and in such cases diluted 
distilled spirits were the most suitable substitute for the dis- 
continued wine. Beer disagrees with such persons still more, 
for reasons no doubt connected with the peculiar action of 
hops, and the fact that beer is a far more suitable medium 
for the propagation of many kinds of fermenting bacteria than 
wine, and wine more so than dilute spirit 

Wine with excess of natural acidity surmounting five pro 
mille expressed as tartaric acid, is neither pleasing to the 
taste nor agreeable to the digestion. That such acidity can 
be removed by plaster of Paris, without making the wine 
absolutely flat, has no doubt contributed to the use of 
gypsum, as well as chalk. Wines treated with gypsum have 
a slightly cathartic action upon delicate persons, and there- 
fore this effect must be noticed in given cases of intestinal 
disturbance. We have never known port wine to be plastered ; 
sherry always is ; and the wines of the Mediterranean 
countries, even the natural red and white ones, certain sort& 
of Marsala excepted, generally are plastered. 

The extractive matters of wine, apart from sugar and 
glycerol no doubt have a distinct stimulating action upon 
the nervous svstem^ analogous to the extractive agents con- 



364 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

tained in meat, milk, and vegetable juices. Their quantity 
is greatest in wines of the best years, and these are the most 
potent and wholesome. In old wines extractive matters have 
accumulated by concentration, and this circumstance is the 
main cause of the value of age in wine. 

The philosophy of the use of wine as illustrated in history 
is a subject so large and important that it would occupy a 
separate treatise of the size of the present one. Its intimate 
connection with the life of most nations is demonstrated by 
the frequent symbolic use in religious observances. This 
can only be explained by the long-continued observation of 
its beneficial effects, as derived from its active ingredients ; 
and for this reason antiquity sought after good wine as much 
as do modern nations. 



250. USE OF CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF WINE. 
The use of chemical analysis of wine for the purpose of 
sale and barter may be said not to exist. Wines have been 
made for ages, and developed to their present high state 
without any application of chemistry; they have been bought 
and sold by the test of mere gustation. Even now producers 
and sellers of wine do not use or employ chemical analysis 
for ascertaining any quality of the object of their trade, 
except with regard to alcoholicity, for this governs the 
amount of import duty they have to pay in several countries. 
Nevertheless chemistry could be of great value to wine 
producers if it were properly applied at the suitable con- 
juncture, particularly with reference to the remedial measures 
required by the accidents of faulty seasons and abnormal 
fermentations. We will take excess of natural acidity of the 
must as an example of a case in which chemistry might be 
useful. The amount of acid having been accurately ascer- 
tained, the amount of anti-acid required to be added to the 
must, in the shape of potash, would be given by a chemical 
equation. Or the chemical data would furnish the basis 
for the application of the process of Gall to must of excessive 
acidity. But while such an adjustment of the elementary 
properties of the raw material to be fermented has been 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON WINES. 365, 

developed to a high state of perfection in the brewing Oi 
beer a process which is now literally in the hands and under 
the absolute direction of chemists in the production of wine 
such interference is looked upon as akin to adulteration and 
denounced with sycophantic ardour, We hope that this 
erroneous conception of the role of chemistry in vinification 
may be discarded, particularly in view of the many empirical 
remedies which are applied to wine to correct faults which 
are the result of the neglect of chemical rules at the earlier 
stages of preparation. 

One of the empirical processes most frequently employed 
in the making of wines in districts round the Mediterranean 
is the addition of plaster of Paris or gypsum to the must. 
We will now assume it not to be a mere adulteration intended 
to remove acidity from wine, and improve its colour to the 
standard cochineal red. We will also admit that it may be 
a question whether the removal of all tartaric acid, which 
is the main effect of plastering, may not be equivalent to the 
removal of a material from which certain fungi can produce 
compounds injurious to the quality of the wine ; or, putting 
it quite generally, whether the removal of the tartaric acid 
may not protect the wine from a possible deterioration, 
greater than that which the abstraction of the acid inflicts 
on its part. Now it has been ascertained that when this 
danger is over, and the wine is made, its taste is greatly 
deteriorated, as compared to natural wine containing the 
tartar, by the presence of the free sulphate of potash, and 
it has a bitter and metallic taste. It has therefore been 
attempted to remove from such wine the sulphuric acid, 
and substitute instead the tartaric acid, which it naturally 
contained ; in other words, to restore to the wine its natural 
composition. The removal of the sulphuric acid is easily 
effected by baryta, but as that might be objected to on 
account of some remotely possible toxic effects, the sulphuric 
acid should be taken out by strontia, which is absolutely 
innocuous, and at the same time the potash should be 
re-combined with tartaric acid. A deposition of the excess 
of tartar then would clarify the wine, and after a short 
repose the product would be fit for use. In this process 



366 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

chemistry proves its usefulness, but it also proves the 
necessity for great caution. For it was found by experiment 
that some wines do contain not only sulphate of potash, as 
the result of the plastering, but, in addition, sulphate of soda, 
which was no doubt added as such, and these wines, when 
treated as just stated, do not only deposit tartar, but retain 
tartrate of sodium in solution, and are at least not improved 
by the process, for while bi-tartrate of potash is precipitated 
by alcohol, bi-tartrate of soda is not so precipitated. 

Chemical analysis might inform the wine maker of the 
amount of extractive in his wine, upon which the ultimate 
development and durability to a large extent depend. It 
might inform him more precisely than mere taste of the 
presence of fermentable sugar and of its quantity, and 
thereby aid him to put his wine in a state of preservation from 
the risk arising therefrom in the shape of secondary fermenta- 
tion after the bottling. 

But at present chemistry is mainly applied to wine for the 
sorry purpose of what, owing to its exaggeration, we cannot 
help comparing to sycophancy. The discovery of the addition 
-to must of any kind of sugar has attracted the highest 
ingenuity of food analysts so-called, who strain gnats out of 
their scientific solutions while allowing camels to pass 
through their filters. It would be preferable if so much 
ingenuity and work were applied to the enlargement of 
general scientific knowledge rather than to the tracing of 
petty remedies which a poor producer applies to his inferior 
products in order to give them a chance of being sold at any 
price. We have always been surprised that analysts who 
denounce a little salicylic acid as an adulteration never 
apply themselves to the plastered sherries ; that they do 
not even discover the wines the acetic acid of which has 
been neutralized by chalk, or the sweet wines the lactic acid 
of which has been neutralized in the same or some other 
way. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON WINES. 367 



251. USE OF WINE TO THE HEALTHY AND SICK 
IN YOUTH OR AGE. 

There are some classical phrases to denote superfluous 
attempts, such as "carrying owls to Athens" or "coals to 
Newcastle." We would consider it equally redundant were 
we to say anything in praise of wine and its effects in general. 
A late professor of hygiene made a series of elaborate experi- 
ments upon a healthy guardsman, from which it seemed to 
follow that the use of wine was of no appreciable advantage to 
him. Some disciples of this professor went further, and 
endeavoured to prove that alcohol did not only not raise the 
temperature of the body but lowered it. Now warming a 
body does not include the raising of its natural temperature, 
and it is certain that wine does not produce fever heat. But 
wine can warm a body which feels, or is what is popularly 
termed cold, by stimulating the heart to action, and the mind 
to vivacity. It may not make him think better, but it will 
make him think quicker j it will exhilarate the healthy, as it 
will allay pain and spasms of the sick, and reinforce the 
wounded or exhausted. 

The experiments in which alcohol was made to lower the 
temperature were performed on corpora vilia truly so-called, 
old, hardened drinkers, who were allowed to soak ad libitum, 
and then had their temperature measured. Of course it was 
depressed by the paralytic action of the toxic excess, but not 
very considerably. The effect was in fact known as necessary 
before the experiment, which proved only once more that 
when alcohol is made to act as a poison by excess, even 
upon persons habituated to excess, it still produces toxic 
effects. Such experiments also are " coals to Newcastle," for 
classic antiquity knew as much, and then the knowledge is 
of no use to anyone whatever. However interesting by its 
external precision, it is liable to serve as a basis for false 
inductions. 

The foregoing experiment was not made with wine at all, 
not even with such as contains more than double the amount 
of spirit which wine can naturally attain, but with distilled 
alcohol, mere brandy. It therefore does, in reality, not illustrate 



368 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

the question which we are considering in any direct manner, 
though it does' so indirectly. We believe that with natural 
wine, with an alcoholicity of less than 20 per cent, of proof 
spirit, the effect exhibited by these old topers would not be 
obtained at all. For there are certain peculiarities by which 
even the evil effects of wine are limited to its comparative 
advantage. Thus we have never known of an authentic case 
of delirium tremens produced by the drinking in whatever 
excess of natural wine. It was indeed this well-known 
immunity of wine drinkers, on the one hand, from, and 
liability of spirit drinkers, on the other hand, to the tremor 
cum delirio potatorum, which induced, in countries where wine 
is a daily popular beverage, the belief that the alcohol of dis- 
tilled spirits was different from that of wine, or was mixed with 
a poison not present in wine, which many identified with the 
amylic alcohol, or fusel oil. Further, the habitual con- 
sumers of natural wine enjoy a remarkable immunity from 
gout, gravel and calculous diseases arising from the uric acid 
diathesis. Such immunity does not accompany the use or 
abuse of fortified wines, and goes the farther out of sight 
the greater is the amount of added alcohol. We therefore 
meet with men who present all the symptoms of chronic 
alcoholic intoxication, whose only beverage is sherry, and 
gravely maintain the mysterious nature of their complaint by 
assuring the physician that they never touched distilled spirits, 
not knowing or forgetting that the full half, or more than 
half, of the alcohol contained in their wine consists of 
distilled spirit. 

The great physiological question of the use of alcohol in 
the body has in years gone by engaged my attention, and I 
endeavoured to answer it by serious experiment. A number 
of young men, engaged in athletic exercise in the open air, 
consumed a certain amount of wine of known strength, 
at reasonable intervals, with the precaution of avoiding all 
excess and any and every symptom of intoxication. It 
was ascertained by physiological analysis that 99 per cent, 
of alcohol were oxydized in the body, while about half a per 
cent, was exhaled by lungs and skin, another half per cent, 
re-appearing in the renal emunction. This proved therefore 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON WINES. 369 

that the teaching of animal chemistry, according to which al- 
cohol in the body was oxydized and produced power, was cor- 
rect ; the then teaching being faulty only in this respect, that 
it was supposed that the power produced was limited to heat ; 
the theory caused the non-nitrogenous substances like fat, 
starch, sugar and alcohol to be called heat givers ; but more 
extensive research showed that the power which they yielded 
was more general, and that while a portion might be heat, 
another undoubtedly was mechanical energy, and another, 
again, nervous. These experiments, which I was the first 
to institute, have been repeated since by others, always with 
the same result, and it is now generally admitted that alcohol 
is food in the true sense of the word. 

Beer has an effect upon the body which is distinctly diffe- 
rent from that of wine ; it is no doubt an alcoholic liquid 
produced by fermentation, but it contains, at the same time, a 
principle of great sedative power nearly related to that of 
opium, namely hops. There is therefore between the alcohol 
on the one, and the lupulous principles on the other, a kind 
of antagonism, which, perhaps, neutralizes a portion of the 
effect of each in the first instance. As the composition of beer 
so is its effect upon the digestive organs more complicated than 
that of wine. It contains more extractive matter, in the shape 
of dextrine, sugar and salts, than wine, and by this means 
affords a material for the more copious development of 
bacteria in the intestinal canal, which wine, if at all, offers 
only in a much lower degree. The extract of hops is as 
powerful a sedative as that of poppy, particularly for the pro- 
duction of drowsiness and sleep, but it has not the anaesthe- 
tical effect of the latter. Its sedative effect shows itself in 
the lowering of all the higher nervous energies long before 
the arrival of alcoholic effects ; wine has sedative effects by 
its alcoholic effects alone, and by these only at the later 
period of its action. 

Distilled spirits have this danger in their use, that, in the case 
of insufficient dilution, they can be drunk in a more concen- 
trated form than is good for the body. On the other hand, 
they develop the effects of alcohol in its purest form. Rum 
formerly possessed this advantage over other distilled spirit, 



370 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

that if unmixed with whiskey it was certainly free from 
amylic alcohol, so-called fusel oil. The progress in the art 
of distillation has imparted this quality to other spirits as 
well. Brandy from French cheap wines not rarely contains 
fusel oil to this day, and French chloroform made from such 
spirit is highly impure, from the admixture of chlorinated 
amylic products. But the finest French brandy, Cognac, 
made from the wine of ihe/otte blanche is the most ideal, the 
finest perfumed, and most wholesome of distilled spirits. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 
DISEASES OF VINES AND OF WINES. 

252. DISEASES OF VINES AND THEIR TREATMENT. 
MOST of the abnormal conditions, so-called diseases of 
plants? particularly of vines, of which we have any precise 
knowledge, are of a parasitical nature, that is to say, caused 
by the settlement of living organisms of the nature of plants 
or animals upon the surface or in the tissues of the plant ; 
drawing their nutriment out of the tissues of the vine, crippling 
or destroying them, and leading eventually to the death of 
the entire plant. 

Thus a fungus of the mushroom type, an agaricits, the 
mycelium of which settles upon the roots of many forest 
and cultivated trees, and while its cycle of life was little 
understood, was called rhizomorpha, in some years infests 
many vines, and either makes them permanently sick and 
atrophic, or destroys them entirely. The French vignerons 
term it Blanc des Racines ; it has been observed also in 
the Vaudois, on the lake of Constance, and on the Rhine. 

1 The reader who may desire concise information on the Diseases of 
Plants should consult the author's " Cantor Lectures " on that subject, 
delivered before the Society of Arts in January and February, 1887. 



DISEASES OF VINES. 371 

Chestnut and apple-trees not rarely fall victims to the 
rhizoctonia, or root-killer. 

Of the mildew fungi or blights, the Erysiphes (Hedw.) a 
division of the Pyrenomycetes, comprising at least seven 
genera, and in these more than thirty species, the best known 
and most terrible is the oidium of the vine, known after its 
discoverer, the Gravesend gardener Tucker, as Oidium 
Tuckeri. It lives on the outside of the green parts of the 
vine, sends suckers, so-called haustoria, into their tissues, and 




Fig. 45. Vine-leaf, covered and crippled by the oidium. 

thus gradually destroys them. The leaves shrivel, crumble up 
and die ; the young shoots become atrophic and cease to 
grow ; the young grapes cease to grow, or shrivel and die, 
the larger grapes burst, lose their contents, or rot and die. 
These changes are represented by the accompanying sketches 
after Du Breuil. 

Most viticultural countries were visited by this plague 
during several decades of the present century. The wine 
production of Madeira, for example, was for years entirely 
destroyed; in that island 10,000 butts of wine were at one 



372 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



time produced annually ; a few years after the invasion of 
the oidium no wine at all was produced. In Portugal I 
have seen the vines of entire districts, such as Carcavellos, 
Bucellas, and others destroyed by that calamity. It has 
been found that the presence of sulphur in a finely divided 
state is fatal to the oidium, and by the use of such sulphur 
only have the wine-producing lands been liberated from 
this plague. Du Breuil's work contains many illustrations of 
the manner in which the sulphur may be distributed over 





Fig. 46. A piece of vine- 
shoot covered with patches of 
oidium. 



Fig. 47. A bunch of grapes, 
dwarfed or fissured and burst 
through the agency of the oidium. 



the vines, but they are all more or less laborious or imper- 
fect. The genius of a French gardener invented a machine 
for sulphuring which is at once cheap, convenient, and 
efficient. It consists of an inner retort filled with water, 
and an outer retort filled with sulphur, both fixed in a 
portable little stove heated with charcoal. The coal fuses 
the sulphur and causes it to distill; the sulphur vapour 
causes the water to boil, and the steam carries the sulphur 






DISEASES OF VINES. 3/3 

vapour with violence out of the cauldron. A man walking 
with this apparatus along the vines as quickly as he can, 
and keeping about a yard away from them, will cover the 
plants in all their finest details with an exceedingly fine 




Fig. 48. Wingless female phylloxera, yellow, spotted, greatly mag- 
nified ; dorsal aspect. 

layer of condensed steam and sulphur. The process is 
beautiful and safe, and one application is always effectual. 

Of animal parasites affecting vines the most celebrated 
and dreaded is the Phylloxera vastatrix (Planch.), (the 
devastating leaf- dryer), an insect belonging to the aphidia, 
e;enus of green-fly, producing galls on leaves and roots; 



374 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

but damaging the vine only by the infliction upon the roots. 
This insect was discovered to be the cause of the most 
destructive vine disease by Planchon, in 1868, after it 
had ravaged many vineyards since 1863. Asa Fitch 
had previously discovered an insect which produces 
galls on the leaves of the vine, and which is now known 
to be reared out of the early egg of the winged female 
of the phylloxera, which does not hybernate. The 
life history of the phylloxera, if we start from the golden 
yellow, wingless female, the large spotted creature repre- 
sented in Fig. 48, is the following. This female, sitting on 





Figs. 49 and 50. Phylloxera of the roots : left specimen presents 
dorsal, right one ventral, side. The stinging organ is well seen. 

the root, lays thirty to forty eggs, out of which the young 
creep in about eight days. Each of these now begins to 
multiply by parthenogenesis, and may produce up to eight 
generations in one summer. One female may therefore 
have a parthenogenetic progeny of thirty millions of indi- 
viduals in one summer. They all remain on the roots on 
which they have been produced, and by stinging them and 
sucking their juices they produce galls and nodosities. 
The last brood at the end of summer, termed nymphs, or 
puflas, have beginnings of wings. These creep out of the 
earth, shed their skin several times, and become fully winged 
individuals. Their wings are four in number, large, and 
when the animals are at repose, lie flat on the body, as 



DISEASES OF VINES. 



375 



represented in Fig. 51. (The figures are after Oliveira, 
junior, of Oporto.) These winged nymphs now fly, and 
deposit eggs upon the leaves of vines; the eggs are four in 
number, and of different sizes ; the larger eggs develop into 
wingless females, the smaller eggs into wingless males. 
This development ensues in little galls formed on the under- 
side of the vine-leaf, as represented in Fig. 52. When the 




Fig. 51. Winged female Phylloxera, presenting ventral side. 

wingless animals are mature, they copulate, whereupon each 
impregnated female puts down one large winter egg in a 
crevice of the bark of the vine. In spring this egg develops 
to a wingless female, which descends to the roots, and pro- 
pagates on them within the earth by parthenogenesis as 
above described. The destruction effected by this parasite 
can be estimated by the fact that, while during the four 
years from 1875 to 1878, included, the average yield of the 
French vintage was 1,275 million gallons, the three vintages 



376 A TREATISE ON WINES. 

from 1882 to 1885 decreased at a greater rate than 100 million 
gallons a year, so that the production of wine in France fell 
to little more than half of what it was before the spread of 
the phylloxera. The animals are most certainly destroyed 
by inundation ; when that is impossible, sulphide of carbon 




Fig. 52. Vine-leaf, from underside, with galls of phylloxera. 

is forced into the earth by an injector, and is said to produce 
the death of the parasites. 

Of the shield lice, or coccina, a variety of which is the 
Coccus cacti, or cochineal insect, a species, called vine 
louse, or vine bug, Coccus vitis, is common in England on 
vines grown in conservatories ; it settles on old wood, 
covered with loose bark ; to prevent its existence and multi- 
plication, the vine trunks have to be scraped clean of the 



DISEASES OF WINES. 377 

bark and to be painted with milk of lime and tobacco 
infusion. 

There are some higher insects which effect local damages, 
but are never epidemic One of these is the Ettmolpus, 
a beetle a third of an inch in length, the larvae of which eat 
the vine-leaves. Another beetle of similar size, but pro- 
vided with a strong, stinging organ on its head, is the 
Attelabe ; the female fixes its eggs on a vine-leaf, and by 
stinging it in many places, causes it to roll up spirally and 
house the egg; it also stings thick green branches, and 
causes them to shrivel and die. A third beetle noxious to 
vines is the Altica oleracea (Geoffrey), altise of the French, 
which gnaws buds and grape-stalks. 

The larva of a small moth, French Pyrale, eats young 
leaves and grape-stalks at blossom-time, enveloping them in 
a fine veil of netting ; it appears a second time when the 
grapes are nearly ripe, covers them again with its silk, 
bites stalks, and eats into the grapes. This animal is much 
dreaded by French viticulturists. But compared to oidium 
and phylloxera, all other parasites of the vine are of rela- 
tively small significance. 



253. DISEASES OF WINES, THEIR PREVENTION AND 
CURE. 

Wines are liable to be spoilt by many natural causes, all 
being the result of the action of fungi which live in must or 
wine as their material of nutrition and medium of propagation 
and multiplication. They were recognized and described 
both as to their life-history and effects mainly by Pasteur. 
Some are the result of the occasional failure of human in- 
terference, such as sulphuring, plastering, and fining with 
albumen, as described already on p. 285. 

The acetous jerment transforms alcohol into acetic acid, 
wine into vinegar; for the development of its full action 
it requires much air, as its effect is the result of oxydation. 
Wine must, therefore, be protected from the access of the 
acetous fungi not only, but also from extensive contact with 



37^ A TREATISE ON WINES. 

air. Even a small proportion of acetic acid will spoil the 
flavour of wine. 

The scud or viscosity ferment multiplies with terrific energy 
in must, transforms it into a milky-white tasteless liquid, 
destroys all sugar, and completely crowds out the torula 
of alcoholic fermentation. It seems that sulphurous acid 
is the best preventive of this destructive change ; the acid 
does not kill the fungus or spores, but paralyses them, and 
allows time for the true alcohol yeast to develop and trans- 
form the sugar into spirit. This is antagonistic to the scud 
fungus, but does not kill or prevent its development on a 
minor scale. When the scud or viscosity fungus attacks 
wine in barrel or bottle it forms in long threads, which 
cotton together, and give to the wine the appearance of 
jelly. It also develops some acetic acid, and wine which 
is once invaded by it, does but rarely recover. It is this 
dangerous ferment, mainly, which requires the addition of 
brandy to southern wines to preserve them. It is also not 
improbable that the removal of tartaric acid from wine by 
gypsum acts as a hindrance to the development of this 
fungus. But the plastering neither destroys the fungus, 
nor prevents its development entirely ; it only modifies the 
growth and prevents the appearance of a little acetic acid as 
a decomposition product, in this case not of alcohol, but 
of tartaric acid. Common, low qualities of must in Spain 
and France require sulphurous acid, plaster and brandy, to 
be protected from the principal ravages of this dangerous 
fungus. 

The bacillus muris, or mouse taste ferment, produces a 
peculiarly disagreeable flavour in wine, which is closely 
resembling to the smell of a residence of mice. It may 
spoil the best wines, but its ravages are mitigated by the 
fact that, with time and ripening, the fault may disappear 
in the main. But the affection always retards the usability 
of the wine by two years. 

The fungus of bitterness attacks red wines more than white ; 
it also causes them to shed their colour. Burgundies are 
most liable to its development ; of white wines the Manza- 
nillas of St. Lucar sometimes show its traces. 



DISEASES OF WINES. 379 

The mycoderma vini is a fungus which grows on the surface 
of wine and destroys its ethers in so remarkable a manner 
as to make the best wine flat to taste in a short time. By 
keeping the barrels always quite full, and allowing no ullage, 
the formation of this fungus is entirely prevented. 

JFlor, or mycoderma montillanum, is a ferment which, like 
the mycoderma aceti, requires to float on the surface of wine, 
and to have plenty of air for its existence ; the wine must 
also be of a certain alcoholicity to exclude the vinegar plant, 
which can "crowd out," i.e., overwhelm by greater numbers, 
the Montilla plant. When grown on the surface of good 
wine, as a pure cultivation, the mycoderma montillanum pro- 
duces the flavour known as Amontillado, formerly rejected, 
but now considered as a very high development of white 
Spanish wines. 

Agredoce is a disease of South French and Portuguese 
sweet red wines. It is of two kinds, one in which the 
acidity accompanying the sweetness is caused by acetic acid, 
and another in which it is caused by lactic acid. The latter 
is the most incurable, as it continues to act in the presence 
of sugar, a certain amount of alcoholicity notwithstanding. 
This disorder also afflicts many white wines of the Gironde, 
of Barsac and Sauternes. 

The prevention of these so-called diseases is entirely in 
the hands of the wine makers ; it is also in their power if 
they would only apply the teaching of science. This teach- 
ing affords the means of arresting these parasitic changes 
wherever they may show themselves. 



INDEX. 



ACETIC acid, occurrence and for- 
mation, 56, 66. 

Acid, butyric, 68 ; caproic, 68 ; 
formic, 57, 68 ; malic, 65 ; 
oenanthic, 69 ; propionic, 68 ; 
propylic, 57 ; racemic, 64 ; 
succinic, 65 ; tartaric, 64 ; va- 
lerianic, 68. 

Acidity of must, regulation, 50. 

Acids, estimation of, 69 ; fatty, 
separation of, 68 ; in wine, 63 ; 
from alcohols, 56. 

Africa, wines of, 345. 

Albariza, white soil of Jerez, 227. 

Albuelis, Elbling vine, 204. 

Albumen, quantation of, used 
for fining, 91. 

Albuminous matters, presence in 
wine, 91. 

Alcohol, amylic, 56 ; butylic, 56 ; 
caprylic, 56 ; estimation of, 59 ; 
ethylic, 54 ; formation of, 54 ; 
physical characters, 55 > P r< > 
pylic, 54 ; state of, in wine, 61. 

Alcoholometry, 57 ; by dilato- 
meter, 61 ; by distillation, 57, 
58 ; by ebullioscope, 60 ; by 
Tabarie's method, 59 ; by va- 
porimeter, 60. 

Aldehydes, acetic, 56 ; in wine, 57 ; 
in spirits, 63. 

Algaida, indigenous vines of, 297. 

Algeria, wines of, 349. 

Alicante, wines of, 302 ; grape- 
vine, varieties of, 303. 

Alsatia, wines of, classification, 
186 ; vines cultivated in, 186. 



Alto Douro, description, 308; 

lagar, 313 ; vines cultivated in, 

310 ; wines of, 314 ; wine 

presses of, 313. 
America, general observations, 

350; cultivation of vines in, 

353 ; foreign vines in, 354 ; 

varieties cultivated in, 354 ; 

wild or indigenous vines of, 350. 
Ammonia, estimation of, 91 ; in 

sap, 21 ; in wine, 91. 
Analysis of wines, 57. 
Aragon, wines of, 304. 
Archipelago, Greek, wines of, 339. 
Armenia, wines of, 342. 
Aroma of wine, 77. 
Aroph (aroma philosophorum), 78. 
Ash of wine, 94. 
Asia, wines of, 341. 
Assmannshausen, vineyard, 197 ; 

vines cultivated at, 198. 
Atlantic islands, wines of, 329. 
Australia, climate of, 355 ; general 

remarks on, 356 ; history of 

viticulture in, 355. 
Austria, Lower, wines of, 205. 
Azores, wines from the, 331. 

BADEN, wines of, 194 ; govern- 
ment of, 195 ; viticulture as 
described by G. Bronner, 195 

Balkan peninsula, wines of, 336. 

Banat, wines of, 225. 

Beaujolais, classification of wines 
and topography of, 145 ; train- 
ing of vines, 146 ; vines, and 
vintage of, 146. 



382 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



Beer, comparison of with wine, 
369. 

Benicarlo, wine of, 302. 

Berthelot, theory and estimation 
of ethers, 75. 

Bitartrate, estimation of, 70. 

Black Hambro vine, 208. 

Blayais, viticulture of, 125. 

Bodega, definition of, 289 ; treat- 
ment of wines in, 291. 

Bohemia, wines of, 218. 

Bouquet of wine, 77. 

Brandy, varieties, 184 ; produc- 
tion, 185. 

Bucellas, village anJ vineyard, 
323; wine, 323. 

Bugeo, clay soil in Jerez, 229. 

Burgundy, 150 ; cultivation of 
vines in, 153 ; presses and press- 
ing, 159; topography, 151; 
treatment of wine, 159; vatting 
and fermentation, 157 ; vines of, 
152, vintage in, 155. 

CACHETIA, wines of, 331. 
Canary sack (secco), 332. 
Candia (Crete), wines of, 340. 
Canes, propagation of vines by, 

2 5- 
Cape of Good Hope, districts of, 

345 ; historical notes on, 348 ; 

vines, vintage and vinification, 

346; wines of, 347. 
Carbonic acid, absorption of in 

champagne, 1 79 ; production by 

fermentation, 48. 
Carmenere vine, 100. 
Catalan, called Spanish port, 302. 
Caucasia, wines of, 341. 
Chalon-sur-Saone, Cote de, 149 ; 

vines and wines of, 149. 
Chalons -sur-Marne, champagne 

vaults of, 163. 
Chambertin, wine of, 151. 
Champagne, carbonic acid in, 179; 

adjustment of acid and alcohol 

in, 1 73 ; breakage or casse, 1 74 ; 

cellaring and fining wine in, 



172 ; corking and finishing, 
175 ; cultivation of vines in, 
1 66; disgorging of bottles, 175; 
drawing into bottles, tirage, 
174; fermentation in bottles, 
174; fining, 173; history of 
discovery of, 178; liqueuring, 
175; mousse of, 179; pressing 
and fermentation, 171 ; pressure 
in bottles, 179; provining, 166; -> 
soil of, 161 ; topography of, 
160; treatment of claret in, 
173 ; vines of, 167 ; vineyards 
of, 163 ; vintage in, 169 ; spark- 
ling, 177; varieties of, 177; 
cremant, 177; grand mousseux, 
177 ; mousseux, 177 ; non-mous- 
seux, 177 ; sparkling ceil de 
perdrix, 177 ; still, 177. 

Charente, department of, 183 ; 
brandies, eau-de-vie, of, 184 ; 
wines of, 183. 

Chateau-neuf-du-pape, 141 ; vines 
of, 141 ; vineyard and wines of, 
142. 

Chateau, Lafitte, 1 10 ; Latour, 
no; Margaux, 108 ; Yquein, 

120. 

Coccus vitis, vine-bug, 376. 
Cognac, brandy, 184; mode of 

manufacture at, 184 ; vines used 

in making, 183. 
Collares, vineyards and vines of, 

322. 

Colouring matters of wine, 87. 
Constantias, wines from the, 348. 
Consumo, Portuguese wine, 320. 
Cotes, or hillsides of the Gironde 

121. 

Crete (Candia), wines of, 340. 
Crimea', wines of, 341. 
Croatia, cultivation of vines in 

214 ; wines of, exhibited a 

Agram, 215. 
Cruchinet vine, 100. 
Crushing of grapes, 43. 
Cutting or pruning of vines, 28. 
Cyprus, wines of, 340. 



INDEX. 



333 



DALMATIA, cultivation of vines 
in, 215; maraschino, cherry- 
liqueur, 216 ; vintage and vini- 
fication, 216; wines of, 216. 

Densities of musts of Jerez, 271. 

Dextro-tartaric acid, 64. 

Diseases of vines, 370 ; wines, 
377- 

Distillation of wine for quantation 
of alcohol, 57. 



EAU-DE-VIE of Cognac, 184. 

Ebullioscope, 60. 

Elbling vine, 204. 

Elder-tree on the Douro, 314; 
flower, flavour of, in wine, 204 ; 
berry, for colouring wine, 314. 

Ellfeld, or Eltville, 198. 

Entre-deux-mers, viticulture of, 
124. 

Ermitage, vines cultivated, 143 ; 
vineyard of, 143. 

Estimation (quantation) of acids, 
63 ; albumen, 91 ; alcohol, 59 ; 
alkalies, 94 ; ammonia, 91 ; ash, 
94 ; bitartrate, 70 ; chlorine, 
94 ; ethers, 74 ; extractives, 93 ; 
glycerol, 86 ; malic acid, 71 ; 
mineral constituents, 94 ; phos- 
phoric acid, 71 ; succinic acid, 
71 ; sugar, chemical, 83 ; sugar, 
optical, 83 ; sulphuric acid, 95 ; 
tannin, 92 ; tartaric acid, 70 ; 
total residue (solids), 94. 

Ether acetic, or aceto-ethylic, 72 ; 
aceto - propylic, 73 ; butyro- 
ethylic, 73 ; cenanthic, 73 ; tar- 
taric, 65, 74. 

Ethers, compound, 57 ; compound, 
in wine, 72 ; fixed, 72 ; volatile, 
72. 

Ethylic alcohol, 54. 

Eumolpus, parasitic beetle on 
vines, 376. 

Extractives in wine, 93. 

Eyes (buds), grafting of, 28 ; pro- 
pagation by, 25. 



FERMENTATION of must, 48 ; of 
wine in bottles, 174. 

Ferments of disease, or fungi, 377. 

Fossil vines and grapes, 10. 

France, wines of, 96. 

Franconia, cultivation in, 192 ; 
Leiste, the, 193 ; Stein, the, 
194 ; topography of, 192 ; viti- 
culture near Wurtzburg, 194. 

Frankenthal grape, 208. 

Frontignac wine, 136. 

Fungi of vines and wines causing 
disease, 326. 

Furmint, vine of Tokay, 220. 

Fusel oil, or amylic alcohol, 56 ; 
effects upon the body, 362. 

CAMAY, vine, 147 ; Nicholas, 
vine, 146 ; petit, vine, 146 ; 
Picard, 147. 

Card, department, wines of, 131. 

Geisler's vaporimeter, 60. 

Geographical distribution of vines, 
n. 

Georgia, wines of, 342. 

Germany, wines of, 186. 

Gironde, wines of the, 96 ; wines 
of the hillsides or cotes of, 121. 

Glycerol (glycerine) in wine, 86. 

Goertz, wines of, 217. 

Graefenberg vineyard, 198. 

Grafting, compound inarching, 27 ; 
by eyes, 28 ; in grooves, 28 ; 
simple inarching, 28. 

Granada, wines of, 303. 

Grape-cure at Meran, 209. 

Grape-mill for crushing, 43. 

Grapes, 22 ; acid and sugar in, 
during ripening, 22 ; chemical 
constituents of, 22 ; fossil, 10 ; 
mashing of, 43. 

Graves, in the Gironde, 114; clas- 
sification of vines of the, 115 J 
cultivation in the, 115 ; fermen- 
tation in, 118; red wines of, 
116; topography, 114; vines 
cultivated in, 117; vintage in, 
117; white wines of the, 1 16, 12O, 



384 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



Greece, general remarks on, 336 ; 

quantity of wine, 338 ; vines, 

viticulture etc. , 337 ; wines of, 

varieties, 336. 
Greek Archipelago, islands of, 

339- 
Grenache noir, vine, 126. 

HAMBRO black grape, 208. 

Hesse, north of Maine, 195. 

Hesse, Rhenish, 191 ; Rhenish, 
area of vineyards, 191 ; Lieb- 
fraumilch, 192 ; Niersteiner, 
192. 

Hochheim, topography of, 202 ; 
vines planted at, 202 ; vinifica- 
tion at, 203. 

Holy Ghost wine, 194. 

Hungary, classification of wines 
of, 223 ; cultivation in, 220 ; 
Kadarka, blue grape, 220 ; soil 
of, 220 ; topography of, 218 ; 
vines, varieties of, 220 ; vintage 
and vinification in, 220 ; white 
Tokay vine (Furmint), 220. 

IMERITIA, wines of, 342. 

Inarching, compound and simple, 
27, 28. 

Indigenous vines of the Algaida, 
297 ; of America, 350 ; of Eu- 
rope, 4; of the Rhine valley, 

4,. 5- 

Inosite, a sugar in wine, 217. 
Italy, wines of, 332. 

JEREZ, vineyards and wines of, 226. 

Jeropiga, of Portugal, 321. 

Johannisberg, description and his- 
tory, 200; vines and produce, 
201. 

KADARKA, blue grape of Hun- 
gary, 220. 

LANG UEDOC, or Midi, 131; brandy 
(trois-six) of, 137; muscat wines 
of, 136: remarkable growths of, 



134 ; topography of, 131 ; train- 
ing of vines, vinification, etc., 
132. 

Lavradio, wines of, 324. 

Layers or slips, propagation by, 26. 

Lisbon wine, 322. 

Loire, valley of, 181; cultivation 
in, 182 ; vines and wines of, 181. 

Lombardy, wines of, 334. 

MACEDONIA, wines of, 336. 

Macon, town of, 146. 

Maconnais, the, 146 ; classification 
of growths of the, 148 ; cultiva- 
tion in, 147 ; production and 
soil of, 147 ; varieties of wines 
of, 148. 

Madeira, island of, 329 ; wines of, 

33- 

Maine, lower. See Hochheim, 202. 

Majorca, wines of, 304. 

Malaga, wines of, 303. 

Malic acid in wine, 65. 

Manuring of vines, methods of, 24. 

Manzanilla, de San Lucar, wine, 
2 95- 

Maraschino, grape-vine, 216 ; 
cherry-brandy, 216. 

Marcobrunn, vineyard, 200. 

Marsala in Sicily, 335 ; vineyards 
and wines of, 335. 

Marshes of the Gironde, 124. 

Mashing of grapes, 43. 

Measures, various Spanish, 226 ; 
of capacity, Rhenish ; English ; 
French ; Portuguese ; Spanish. 

Medoc, classified growths of, 108 ; 
consumption of wines of, 112; 
cultivation in, loi ; general sta- 
tistics of, 97 ; methods of sale in, 
112; prices of wines of, 112; 
topography of, 97 ; vines and 
viticulture, 98 ; vintage and vi- 
nification, 104. 

Meran, grape-cure at, 209. 

Merlot, grapevine, 99. 

Mescle,the fertile and the sterile, 7. 

Meunier or miller grape vine, 182. 



INDEX. 



385 



Mineral constituents of wine, 15, 

18; matter abstracted from land 

by vines, 19. 
Mingrelia, wines of, 342. 
Minorca, wines of, 304. 
Montpelier brandy (trois-six), 137. 
Morea, vines of, 338. 
Morocco, wines of, 349. 
Moselle, river, vineyards of, 203 ; 

area of, 205 ; sparkling, 204 ; 

topography, 203 ; vines and 

wines of, 204. 
Must, acidity of, adjusted, 50 ; 

density of, from various grapes 

of Jerez, 271; plastering, 52; 

sugar of, adjusted, 50. 
Mustang, American grape-vine, 

35 1 - 
Mycoderma aceti, 66. 

NAPLES, wines of, 334. 
Nassau, vineyards of, 196. 
Nile Valley, wines of, 349. 

OI'DIUM TUCKERI, 372. 

PALATINATE, area of vineyards, 
1 88; kammerbau training, 189; 
mixture of vines in the, 190 ; to- 
pography, 188 ; vines and wines, 
190. 

Parasites, animal of vines, 372. 

Paratartaric acid, 64. 

Pedro Ximenes vine, 243. 

Persia, vines and wines of, 342. 

Petiot's process of vinification, 51. 

Phylloxera vastatrix, 372. 

Piedmont, wines of, 333. 

Pinching of vine-shoots, 31. 

Pineau or Noirien vine, 152. 

Plastering of must, 52; of wine, 52, 
365 ; probable objects of, 53. 

Port, Spanish, 302. 

Port wine = Oporto wine, produc- 
tion and qualities, of, 316 ; 
transport, 316 ; value, 320 ; 
vinification and vintage, 311; 
white, 315 ; varieties of, 319. 



Portugal, wines of, 306 ; Alto 
Douro wine, 308 ; Bairrada dis- 
trict, 320 ; brandy, addition to 
wine, 318 ; Bucellas wine, 323; 
Consumo wine, 320 ; cultivation 
of vine in, 310 ; Jeropiga added 
to wine, 322 ; wages in, 311 ; 
wines of, other than port, 315. 

Presses and pressing, 44. 

RACEMIC acid in wine and grapes, 
64. 

Rauenthal, vineyards of, 198. 

Rheingau, general description, 196; 
history of wine in, 196 ; Riessling 
vine in, 197 ; varieties of vines 
in, 197 ; vinification in, 197. 

Rhenish Hesse, wines of, 191. 

Rhenish measures of capacity, 203. 

Rhenish Prussia, 203. See Moselle. 

Rhodes, wines of, 340. 

Rhone, cote du, wines of, 140 ; 
valley, topography of, 140. 

Riessling, grape-vine, 197. 

Rota, Tintilla de, 299. 

Rothe Berg, Rheingau vineyard, 
198. 

Roumanian wines, 336. 

Roussillon, cultivation in, 126; 
Maccabeo, wines of, 129; Mai- 
voisie, wines of, 129 ; Muscat, 
wines of, 129; shipments from, 
131 ; vines and wines of, 125, 

Riidesheim, vineyards and wines, 
202. 

SACCHAROMETRY, chemical, 83 ; 
optical, 83. 

San Lucar de Barrameda, vine- 
yards, 295. 

Santorin, wines of, 340. 

Sap of vines, 21 ; force of rising, 

21. 

Sardinia, wines of, 333. 
Sauternes district, viticult. statis- 
tics, 116; vines and wines, 116. 
Sauvignone, grape-vine, 116. 



386 



A TREATISE ON WINES. 



Schirwan, wines of, 342. 

Scud fungus in wine, 377. 

Secateur, for pruning, 122. 

Seed, propagation of vines by, 24. 

Semillon, grape-vine, 116. 

Shiraz, topography, 342 ; vines, 
vinification, 343. 

Sherry, colour of, 279 ; densities of 
musts of, 270 ; fashions in, and 
history of, 193 ; modes of making, 
276 ; plastering, 52 ; districts of 
growth of, 226 ; stages of, 276 ; 
sugaring and boiling must, 279 ; 
sulphuring, 272 ; treatment in 
bodegas, 274 ; varieties of, 276. 

Sicily, wines of, 335. 

Smell, or bouquet of wine, 77 

Soil for viticulture, 23. 

Solera wines, 277. 

Solid constituents of wine, 95. 

Spain, area of Sherry vineyards, 
226 ; density of musts, 270 ; 
Port wines, so-called Spanish, 
302 ; wines of its provinces, 226 

__ to 302. 

Spirit, silent, 62. 

Spumantes, Italian effervescent 
wines, 333. 

Stalks of grapes, separation of, 42. 

St. Emilion, district and vineyards, 

122. 

St. Peray, Ardeche, vineyards and 
vines, 142. 

Steinberg vineyard, 198 ; annual 
sale of wines, 200 ; cabinet, 200. 

Styria, vines and wines, 211 10213; 
social condition, 211 ; Wild- 
bacher blue grape-vine, 212. 

Sugar of cane, 82 ; estimation of, 
83 ; fruit, or levulose, 81 ; grape 
or dextrose, 80 ; invert, 82. 

Sulphuring of must and wine, 272. 

Syrmia, wines of, 225. 



TABARIE'S method of alcohol 

quantation, 59. 
Tannin in grapes and wine, 93. 



Tartaric acid, 64 ; dextro, and 

levorotatory, 64 ; estimation of, 

69 ; para (tartaric acid), 64. 
Teinturier (Dyer) grape-vine, 88. 
Temperature of fermenting musts, 

274. 

Teneriffe, wine from, 331. 
Tent, or Rota Tent, Tintilla de 

Rota, wine, 229. 
Tessa, areometer of, 184. 
Thera, wine of (Santorin), 340. 
Thessaly, wine of, 336. 
Tokay, white wine of, 219. 
Torres Vedras, wines of, 324. 
Traminer vines, 190. 
Turkish islands, wines of, 340. 
Tuscany, wines of, 333. 
Tyrol, black grape of (Hambro), 

207 ; cultivation of vines, 207, 

208. 
Tyrolinger, black Hambro vine, 

208. 



VAL DE PENAS, wines of, 301. 

Valencia, wines of, 302. 

Venetia, wines of, 334. 

Verdot, grape-vine, ioo. 

Vine, organic chemical ingredi- 
ents, 2O ; cultivation, general 
principles of, 28 ; cultivated, 
origin of, 9 ; cutting or pruning, 
29 ; fossil, 10 ; geographical 
distribution, II ; ditto, as influ- 
enced by soil, 1 8 ; propagation, 
methods of, 24, 25 ; pruning of, 
29 ; sap of, 21 ; support of, 30, 
31 ; training after Guyot, 28, 
32; treatment during vegetation, 
30. 

Vines, classification of wild, 8 ; 
cultivated in France, 37 ; indi- 
genous of Europe, 4; ditto, of 
America, 350 ; inflorescence of 
wild, 6 ; origin and descent, 2 ; 
selection of varieties, 33, 36; 
wild, 4. 

Vineyards, improving of, 24. 



INDEX. 



3S7 



Vintage, general course of, 38 ; 
modes of, 40. 

Viscosity fungus in wine, 377. 

Viticulture, effects on soil, 19 ; 
general principles of, 23 ; in 
England in Mediaeval times, 13. 

Vitis aestivalis (vine), 351 ; cali- 
fornica, 352 ; candicans (mus- 
tang), 351 ; caribsea, 351 ; cor- 
difolia, 352; labrusca, 4, 351; 
Lincecumii, 353 ; monticola, 
353 J rupestris, 353 ; teutonica 
(fossil), II ; vinifera, 2, 3. 

Voslau (Austria), red wines of, 
206. 



WENDS, viticulturists (Weinzettel), 

211. 

Wildbacher, grape-vine, 212. 
Wine fungi, in diseases of wines, 
326. 



Wine making, Gall's process, 51 ; 
Petiot's,5i ; presses; 44; French, 
45 ; Spanish, 46 ; Portuguese, 
48 ; The'nard's process, 51 ; use 
of at various ages, 367. 

Wines, of Atlantic isles, 329; Aus- 
tralasia, 355 ; Austria, 205 ; 
Cape of Good Hope, 345 ; 
France, 96 et seq. ; Germany, 1 86 
et seq. ; Greece, 336 ; Hungary, 
218; Portugal, 306; Sicily, 
335 ; Spain, 226 ; active ingre- 
dients of, 361 ; classification of, 
357 ; rating of the world's, 356 ; 
red, 363 ; taxation of, 359 ; 
white, 362 ; plastering of, 365. 

Woiwodina, wines of, 225. 

Wiirtemberg, wines o r , 194. 

Wurtzburg castle, cellars of, 193. 

XERES (or Jerez) wines of, 226 : 
description of pagos of, 226. 



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Orleans. Trans, by J. MelBsh and 
Anna Swanwick. u. and is. 6d. 

Schlegel (F.). Lectures and Miscel- 
laneous Works. 5 vols. y. 6d. each. 

(A. W.). Lectures on Dramatic 

Art and Literature. 3.?. 6d. 

Schopenhauer's Essays. Selected and 
Trans, by E. Belfort Bax. y. 

On the Fourfold Root of the 

Principle of Sufficient Reason and 
on the Will in Nature. Trans, by 
Mdme. Hillebraad. y. 

Schouw's Earth, Plants, and Man. 
Trans, by A. Henfrey. y. 

Schumann's Early Letters. Trans, by 
May Herbert, y. 6d. 

Reissmann's Life of. Trans, by 

A. L. Alger. 3^. 6rf. 

Seneca on Benefits. Trans, by Aubrey 
Stewart. 3^. 6d. 

Minor Essays and On Clemency. 

Trans, by Aubrey Stewart, y. 

Sharpe's History of Egypt. 2 vols, 

y. each. 
Sheridan's Dramatic Works, y. 6d. 

Plays, is. and is. 6d. 

Sismondi's Literature of the South of 

Europe. Trans, by T. Roscoe. a 

vols. y. 6d. eaoh. 
Six Old English Chronicles. 5;. 
Smith (Archdeacon). Synonyms and 

Antonyms, y. 
Smith (Adam). Wealth of Nations. 

(Belfort Bax.) 2 vols. y. 6d. each. 

Theory of Moral Sentiments. 

y. 6d. 

Smith ( Pye ). Geology and Sci ipture. y, 

Smollett's Novels. 4 vols. y. 6d. 

each. 

Smyth's Lectures on Modern History. 
2 vols. y. 6d. each. 



10 



ALPHABETICAL LIST OF BOHtf'S LIBRARIES. 



Socrates' Ecclesiastical History. y. 
Sophocles. Trans, by E. P. Coleridge, 

B.A. y. 
Southey's Life of Nelson. s s - 

Life of Wesley. 51. 

Life, as told in his Letters. By J. 

Dennis, y. 6d. 

Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History. 51. 
Spinoza's Chief Works. Trans, by 

R. H. M. Elwes. 2 vols. y. each. 
Stanley's Dutch and Flemish Painters, 

5* 

Starling's Noble Deeds of Women. 55. 
Staunton's Chess Players' Handbook. 

y. Chess Praxis, y. Chess Players' 

Companion, y. Chess Tournament 

of 1851. y. 
Stockhardt's Experimental Chemistry. 

(Heaton.) y. 
Strabo's Geography. Trans, by 

Falconer and Hamilton. 3 vols. 

y. each. 
Strickland's Queens of England. 6 

vols. y. each. Mary Queen of 

Scots. 2 vols. y. each. Tudor 

and Stuart Princesses, y, 
Stuart & Revett's Antiquities of 

Athens, y. 
Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars and of 

the Grammarians. Thomson's trans. 

revised by T. Forester, y. 
Bully's Memoirs. Mrs. Lennox's 

trans, revised. 4 vols. y. 6d. each. 

Tacitus. The Oxford trans, revised. 

2 vols. 5J. each. 
Tales of the Genii. Trans, by Sir. 

Charles Morell. 5^. 
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. Trans. 

by J. H. Wiffen. y. 
Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying. 

y. 6d. 
Terence and Phsedrus. Trans, by H. T. 

Riley. y. 
Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, and 

Tyrtaeus. Trans, by Rev. J. Banks. 

5*- 

Theodoret and Evagrius. y. 
Thierry's Norman Conquest. Trans. 

by W. Hazlitt. 2 vols. y. 6d. 

each. 



Thucydides. Trans by Rev. H. Dale. 
2 vols. 35. 6d. each. 

Wheeler's Analysis and Summary 

of. 5*- 

Trevelyan's Ladies in Parliament, is. 

and is. 6d. 
Ulrici's Shakespeare's Dramatic Art. 

Trans, by L. Dora Schmitz. 2 vols. 

y. 6d. each. 
Uncle Tom's Cabin, y. 6d. 

Ure's Cotton Manufacture of Great 

Britain. 2 vols. y. each. 
Philosophy of Manufacture, js. 6d. 

Vasari's Lives of the Painters. Trans. 
by Mrs. Foster. 6 vols. y. 6d. each. 

Virgil Trans, by A. Hamilton Bryce, 

LL.D. 35. 6d. 
Voltaire's Tales. Trans, by R. B. 

Boswell. y. 6d. 

Walton's Angler, y. 

Lives. (A. H. Bullen.) y. 

Waterloo Days. By C. A. Eaton. 

is. and is. 6d. 
Wellington, Life of. By 'An Old 

Soldier.' 5*. 
Werner's Templars in Cyprus. Trans. 

by E. A. M. Lewis. 3-r. 6d. 
Westropp's Handbook of Archaeology. 

5* 
Wheatley. On the Book of Common 

Prayer, y. 6d. 
Wheeler's Dictionary of Noted Names 

of Fiction. y. 
White's Natural History of Selborae. 

& 
Wieseler's Synopsis of the Gospels. 

5*- 
William of Malmesbury's Chronicle. 

5* 
Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and 

Provincial English. 2 vols. y. each. 
Xenophon. Trans, by Rev. J. S. Wat- 
son and Rev. H. Dale. 3 vols. y. ea. 
Young's Travels in France, 1787-89. 

(M. Betham- Edwards.) y. dd. 

Tour in Ireland, 1776-9. (A. W. 

Hutton. ) 2 vols. y. 6d. each. 

Yule-Tide Stories (B. Thorpe.) y. 



New Editions, fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. each net. 

THE ALDINE EDITION 

OF THB 

BRITISH POETS. 

'This excellent edition of the English classics, with their complete texts and 
scholarly introductions, are something very different from the cheap volumes of 
extracts which are just now so much too common.' St. James'* Gazette. 

' An excellent series. Small, handy, and complete.' Saturday Review. 



Akenside. Edited by Rev. A. Dyce. 
Beattie. Edited by ROY. A. Dyce. 
*Blake. Edited by "W. M. Rossetti. 

Burns. Edited by G. A. Aitken. 
3 vols. 

Butler. Edited by R. B. Johnson. 
2 vols. 

Campbell. Edited by His Son- 
in-law, the Kev. A. "W. Hill. With 
Memoir by W. Allingham. 

Chatterton. Edited by the Rev. 

W. W. Skeat, M.A. 2 vols. 
Chaucer. Edited by Dr. R. Morris, 

with Memoir by Sir H. Nicolas. 6 vols. 
Churchill. Edited by Jas. Hannay. 

2 vols. 

*Coleridge. Edited by T. Ashe, 

B.A. 2 vols. 
Collins. Edited by W. Moy 

Thomas. 
Dryden. Edited by the Rev. R. 

Hooper, M.A. 5 vols. 

Goldsmith. Edited by Austin 

Dobson. 
*Gray. Edited by J. Bradshaw, 

LL.D. 
Herbert. Edited by the Rev. A. B. 

Grosart. 
*Herrick. Edited by George 

Saintsbury. 2 vols. 

* Keats. Edited by the late Lord 

Honghton. 
Milton. Edited by Dr. Bradshaw. 

3 vols. 

Parnell. Edited by G. A. Aitken. 

Ihese volumes may also be had bound 
ami back by Gleeson White, 



Pope. Edited by G. R. Dennis. 

With Memoir by John Dennis. 3 vols. 
Prior. Edited by R. B. Johnson. 

2 vols. 

Raleigh and Wotton. With Se- 
lections from the Writings of other 
COURTLY POETS from 1540 to lf>50. 
Edited by Ven. Archdeacon Hannah, 
D.C.L. 

Rogers. Edited by Edward Bell, 
M.A. 

Scott. Edited by John Dennis. 
5 vols. 

Shakespeare's Poems. Edited by 

Rev. A. Dyce. 
Shelley. Edited by H. Buxton 

Forman. 5 vols. 

Spenser. Edited by J. Payne Col- 
lier. 5 vols. 
Surrey. Edited by J. Gregory 

Foster. 
Swift. Edited by the Rev. R. 

Hooper, M.A. 3 vols. 
Thomson. Edited by the Rev. D. 

C. Toovey. 2 vols. 
V a ugh an. Sacred Poems and 

Pious Ejaculations. Edited by the 

Rev. H. i.yte. 
Wordsworth. Edited by Prof. 

Dowden. 7 vols. 

Wyatt. Edited by J. Gregory 
Foster. 

To lie followed by 

Cowper. Edited by John Bruce, 
F.9.A. 3 vols. 

Kirke White. Edited by J. Totter 

Briscoe. 
Young. 2 vols. 

in Irish linen, with design in gold on side 
and gilt top, 3s. 6d. each net. 



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