Chapter XX: On Wines, Ancient and Modern (2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Benedetto,
Quel claretto!”

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

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

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

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

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