ON WINES, ANCIENT AND MODERN.
Several treatises have been written on wine in most European countries.
Lord Bacon, in the days of Elizabeth, did not disdain to give his
attention to the subject; and his Italian contemporary, Andrea Bacci,
the physician of the able Sextus the Fifth, has given us probably
the best history of wine in that rare and curious book, “De Naturali
Vinorum Historia.” About a century ago a Sir Edward Barry, then a
physician at Bath, and afterwards state physician to the Viceroy
of Ireland, published his “Observations, Historical, Critical, and
Medical, on the Wines of the Ancients; and on the Analogy between them
and Modern Wines.” In consequence of the interest excited by the topic,
this work, now somewhat rare, acquired a certain repute, but it does
not now stand in the estimation it did half a century ago. Much that
Barry tells us of the ancient wines is borrowed from Bacci; and there
is a great deal of useless disquisition mixed with some absurdity. The
late Dr. Henderson, a good judge of wine, and who had some excellent
wine in his cellar, published his “History of Ancient Wines” some
seven or eight and thirty years ago, in which there is a great deal of
interesting and useful information. This was followed by a “History
and Description of Modern Wines,” commenced by Mr. Cyrus Redding in
1832, and published in 1833. The work was so useful and successful that
a second edition was called for in 1835, and published in 1836.[30]
From 1836 to the past year there has not been anything very remarkable
published in England on the subject of wines. In the month of December
last Mr. J. G. Shaw published a work entitled, “Wine, the Vine, and
the Cellar,” and in January of the present year, Mr. Denman, also a
wine merchant, published a work called the “Wine and its Fruit,” more
especially in relation to the production of wine. Both of these works
are well printed and illustrated, but they really add little to what
was before known on the subject by any one who has made wine his study.
Barry tells us it was the reading of Hippocrates as a professional
duty which first led him to the consideration of the subject of wines.
Hippocrates described the various qualities of wines, and adapted
vinous mixtures to different diseases and constitutions. By lessening
the proportion of water usually mixed with wine, he made a powerful
cordial; as, by increasing the water, he obtained a cooling diluent.
It is impossible to deny that wine, taken in moderation, tends to
strengthen and excite the spirits, to cheer and comfort the languid,
and to refresh the toil-worn and exhausted. The poets of Greece and
Rome celebrate the praises of wine, and, as though the invention of
the liquor were too transcendental to be human, attribute it to the
gods--to Osiris, Saturn, and Bacchus. Anacreon calls the juice of the
grape ambrosial; and Homer himself bestows on wine the epithet divine,
πoτoν θείον.
Plato, while he would strictly restrain the use and severely censure
excess in wine, maintains with more than his usually persuasive power,
that nothing more excellent than the juice of the grape was ever
granted by God to man. It appears from the ancient historians that the
rules for the culture and preparation of wine and grapes descended from
the Egyptians to the Greeks, who improved and perfected them, and that
the Romans, in turn, became the scholars of the Greeks.
As the soil of Italy was favourable to the vine, vineyards soon
spread through the country. Italy became distinguished by the name of
_Œnotria_., and the inhabitants were called _Œnotrii viri_.
An infinity of wines were produced from the various species of grapes.
Virgil, who was as familiar with agriculture as he excelled in poetry,
says it would be as easy to enumerate the sands of the sea-shore as
the different species of wine.
Pliny carefully collected all that had been written before his time
on the subject of the vine. He describes the various species of the
_vitis_, and the mode and manner of making wines. He enumerates
the principal wines of Asia, Greece, and Italy.
Cato, Marcus, Varro, and Columella have also written on the culture of
the vine and wine-making; and it appears from the productions of these
writers that they perfectly understood the racking off into fresh casks
which had been previously impregnated with the vapour of sulphur. Out
of these authors and Palladius, Mr. Redding admits that an excellent
treatise might be formed on the grape and its products; though he
states, and truly, that on the qualities and flavour of the ancient
wines the moderns must be content to remain in ignorance.
We know, for instance, that the light and delicate Setine, was the
favourite wine of Augustus; that it is commended by Martial, Juvenal,
and Silius Italicus, who pronounces it to be worthily reserved for
Bacchus himself, “ipsius mensis seposta Lyaci.” I am not, however,
quite so sure as Dr. Barry that it was the wine so much recommended
by St. Paul to Titus for strengthening the stomach. “It was grown,”
says Henderson, “on the heights of Sezza,” and though nota strong
wine, possessed sufficient firmness and permanence to undergo the
operation of the _fumarium_; for Juvenal alludes to some which was
so old that the smoke had obliterated the mark of the jar in which
it was contained. The process which these wines underwent in the
_fumarium_ gave to them a greater transparency and more early maturity.
This method had been long known to the Greeks, their αποθηκη being
equivalent to the Roman _fumarium_. The ancients were perfect adepts
in these methods of forcing wines, and they used for the purpose plain
and burnt salt, bitter almonds, the whites of eggs, and particularly
isinglass. But when wines were more than usually foul, they added sand,
or marble finely powdered. Salt water, also, was frequently used to
depurate and preserve wine. This discovery is said to have been owing
to a slave’s having drunk part of a cask of wine committed to his care
and concealed the fraud with sea water; the wine thus falsified was
found to be superior to the wine of the same growth contained in the
other casks. The Romans were but children in the art of adulteration,
when compared with the Greeks. Palladius gives several receipts which
were used by the Greeks for improving the flavour, colour, and strength
of their wines, and likewise to give to new the qualities of old wine;
in one, a mixture of hepatic aloes had a considerable share. Cato
favours us also with a curious receipt for making an artificial _Chian_
wine with the _Falernian_. He directs that the sea-water should be
taken up at a great distance from the land, and that it should be kept
in casks for some time before being used.
The _Cæcuban_ wine is described as a generous, strong-bodied wine,
which would keep, but which would affect the head if taken in quantity:
in a word, it was a heady liquor, which the modern French would call,
as they do the _vin de Jurançon_, “_capiteux_.” Like most heady wines,
too, it required long keeping ere it was ripe. It was one of the
favourite wines of Horace, and was generally reserved for important
festivals:--
“Antehac nefas depormere Cæcubum
Cellis avitis.”
The far-famed _Falernian_ was grown about the bases of hills. Galen
observes that were two sorts of _Falernian_, the dry and the sweetish.
The latter was only produced when the wind continued in the south
during the vintage. Martial dignifies _Falernian_ with the epithet
immortal:--
“Addere quid cessas, puer, immortale Falernum?”
But, although the name of the _Falernian_ be familiar in our mouths as
“household words,” nothing is known of its taste, flavour, or colour.
It is, however, described as a strong wine, that would keep long, and
so rough, that it required to be cellared a great number of years
before it was sufficiently mellow.
The wines of the _Mons Falernus_, however, always preserved a superior
character. Tibullus places them under the superintending care of
Bacchus. Silius Italicus gives them a preference over the Asiatic and
Greek wines; and Virgil, in bestowing smooth, flowing praises on the
_vinum Rhæticum_, says, it must, nevertheless, yield the palm to the
_Falernian_.
Among the lighter wines of the Roman territory, the _Sabinum_,
_Nomentanum_, and _Venafrum_, were among the most popular. “The first,”
says Henderson, “was a thin table wine, of a reddish colour, attaining
its maturity in seven years. The _Nomentanum_, a delicate claret wine,
is described as coming to perfection in five or six years.” Among the
Sicilian wines, the _Mamertinum_, which came from the neighbourhood
of Messina, and is said to have been first introduced at public
entertainments by Julius Cæsar, was light and astringent.
The Greeks were fonder of wine than the Romans, and were supplied
with a greater variety. Among the earliest of the Greek wines, of
which we have any distinct account is the _Maronean_, “probably,” says
Henderson, “the production of Ismaurus, near the mouth of the Hebrus,
where Ulysses received the supply which he carried with him on his
voyage to the land of the Cyclops. The _Maronean_ was a black, sweet
wine, and from the manner in which Homer sings its virtues, the quality
must have been indeed superior. The _Pramnian_ a red, but not a sweet
wine, of equal antiquity. It was a potent and durable liquor, and
must have somewhat resembled port. It was, however, in the luscious,
sweet wines that the Greeks surpassed their neighbours. These wines
were the products of the islands of the Ionian and the Ægean Seas,
where the exquisite climate and a suitable soil gave to the fruit a
peculiar flavour and excellence. Lesbos, Chios, and Thasos, seems,
according to Henderson, to have contended for the superiority; but
several of the other islands, such as Corcyra, Cyprus, Crete, Cnidos,
and Rhodes, yielded wines which were much esteemed for their sweetness
and delicacy. The Thasian and some of the Cretan wines were peculiarly
fragrant. Athenæus calls the former οινος ανθοσμιος.”
The Greeks, _gourmets_ as they were, did not confine themselves to the
indigenous growths. They were familiar with the produce of the African
and Asiatic wines, of which several enjoyed a high reputation. They
drank of the white wines of Mareotis and Taenia, in Lower Egypt; of
the wine of Antylla, the produce of the vicinity of Alexandria; of
the sweet wine of Lydia, in Asia Minor; of the Scybellites, so called
from the place of its growth in Galatia, also in Asia Minor. The
Greeks, like the Romans, drank all their wines, especially those of the
stronger kind, very largely diluted with water, for their common drink.
Plutarch has mentioned three different kinds of mixtures. The πεντε,
or five, consisted of three parts of water and two of pure wine; and
the τρια, or three, of two parts of water and one of wine; the fourth
consisted of three parts of water, and one of wine.
Athenæus mentions a mixture called πεντε και δυο, which consisted of
five parts of pure wine and two of water.
The recent Greek wines, which were meant for more immediate use, were
kept in goat-skins. But, even in Homer’s time the Greeks were well
acquainted with the art of preserving their best and stronger wines
in wooden casks, or hogsheads (which he calls πιθοι), until they had
attained a proper maturity.
As to the Gauls, it is certain that, six centuries before Christianity
was introduced, they knew the use of wine; for, when the Phocæans came
to found Marseilles, Petta, the daughter of a king of the country,
presented, according to Athenæus, to Euxenes their chief, a cup filled
with wine and water. But who first planted the vine in Gaul, and who
first cultivated it there? It would be difficult to answer these
questions. According to Justin and Strabo, it appears that the Phocæans
were not only the first to introduce the vine among the Gauls, but the
first to learn them to cut and cultivate it. Pliny, on the other hand,
says it was a person named Elicoa, who, having made some money at Rome,
and wishing to return to his country, carrying with him wine and dried
fruits, sold them to the inhabitants, exhorting them to the conquest
of the flowing, fruitful land that produced such liquor. Cicero tells
us, that one of the most lucrative of commercial transactions among
the Gauls was the exportation of their wine to Italy. Columella counts
these wines among the number rendered necessary for consumption in
Rome,--“Nobis e transmarinis provinciis advehitur frumentum, ne fame
laboremus; et vindemias condimus ex insulus Cycladibus, ac regionibus
Beticis Gallicisque.” Diodorus Siculus, however, maintains that it
was the Italian wines that were consumed in Gaul, and states the
Ultramontane dealers who carried them gained immense sums in this
commerce. Possidonius, an author contemporary with Diodorus and Cicero,
and who had travelled in Gaul, is cited by Athenæus to prove that it
was only the richest of the nation that drank wine, which they imported
from Italy or the territory of Marseilles.
There is some reason to believe that the vineyards of Burgundy are
as old as the Antonines. In the beginning of the fourth century, the
orator Eumenius speaks of the vines in the territory of Autun, which
were decayed through age, and the first plantation of which was totally
unknown. The Pagus Arebrignus is supposed by M. d’Anville to be the
district of Beaune, celebrated now for a fine growth of Burgundy.
When the Romans had submitted that portion of Gaul to their arms which
is called Provence, the Roman colonists in Dauphiné, Provence, and a
part of Languedoc, extended vine-plantations. Soon they spread far and
wide, and, in the time of Cæsar, many provinces were in possession of
vines, as Strabo, Varro, and Cæsar himself, testify.
Among the excellent grapes peculiar to Gaul, Columella numbers those
of the _Bituriges_; but, as this name was common both to the people
of Berry and of the Bordelais, it is difficult to divine to which
of the provinces the praise of the Latin author properly applies.
The probability, however, is, that it refers to the Bordelais; for
Ausonius, who lived in the fourth century of the Christian era, loudly
boasts of the wine of Bordeaux.
The mode of training the vine in Gaul consisted in intertwining the
branches amongst each other, which differed essentially from the Roman
system. The ancient Gaulish practice subsists to this day in Provence,
in Languedoc, in Bearn, and in the eastern portion of Dauphiné. The
Gauls, who manured their fields with marl, used ashes as a compost for
the roots of their vines.
Marseilles, says Pliny, produces a rich, thick wine, which has two
flavours, and serves to mix with other wines. It is difficult, he
continues, to pronounce on the merits of the wines of Narbonne,
because the wine-makers, with a view to change their taste and
colour, adulterate them, mix them with herbs and noxious drugs, even
with aloes. These tricks were in Italy reduced to a trade, and the
wine-doctors were called _Conditura vinorum_. But notwithstanding
these faults, writes Athenæus, the wine of Marseilles was good, and
possessed, above all, the quality of ripening other wines when mixed
with them.
The Narbonnese were not the only adulterators. The Allobroges, a people
of Dauphiné, had a particular pitch which they mixed with their wine.
If we are to believe Dioscorides, the infusion of pitch was a necessary
ingredient in the Gaulish wines; otherwise, says he, they would have
soured, the climate not being warm enough to ripen the grape. The
reason assigned by Dioscorides would prove either that the climate of
Gaul was then really colder than it is now, or that the art of making
wine was still in its infancy. Excellent wine is now made in provinces
more northward than Dauphiné, and still better in the north of France,
and the countries bathed by the waters of the Moselle and the Rhine.
No doubt, innocent means may be employed in cold years, without any
risk, to give to the wine a quality which it wants. For a long while
the Champenois have been in the habit of smoking their casks with
sulphur before using them. The Abbé Rozier, in a Memoir upon the best
manner of making the wines of Provence, proposes, when the wine is
austere or acid, to dilute honey in the must before it ferments. M. de
Prefontaine, in the “Maison Rustique de Cayenne,” published in 1763,
speaking of the grapes produced in that island, says that if they
were to be used for the purpose of making wine, their natural tartness
might be corrected by adding a little sugar. But this practice had been
long previously secretly followed in that portion of the Bordelais
traversed by the Dordogne, whose principal towns are Bergerac and St.
Foi. At the commencement of the last century the wines of this province
suddenly acquired such a renown, that there were proprietors who,
in a few years, quadrupled the price. The neighbouring proprietors
suspected there was something wrong, some secret they could not fathom.
They watched for a long while, and at length discovered that immense
quantities of sugar arrived in the night. This discovery at first led
to nothing; but, in the end a cooper, who knew the secret, having
been dismissed from an establishment in which he had been employed,
revealed the secret in order to revenge himself. Only five or six
families profited by the man’s treason. They took good care to keep the
profit to themselves, till a M. Vaucocour published a letter, in which
he disclosed the receipt, which consisted in reducing the sugar to a
syrup, and then in aromatising it with peach-flowers or the like.
The Marseillais had, in the olden time, another method. This was to
boil and smoke their wines in order to thicken them, and to give them
the appearance and flavour of old wines:--
“Improba Massiliæ quidquid fumaria cogunt,
Accipit ætatem quisquis ab igne cadus.”
The Romans were also in the habit of smoking their wines. The proof is
recorded in Horace:--
“Amphoræ fumum bibere institutæ.”
Tibullus also alludes to it:--
“Nunc mihi fumosos veteris proferte Falernos Consulis.”
Baccius, in his work, “De Naturali Vinorum Historia,” speaking of
the wines in Alsace, says that they were kept exposed to the smoke
in hot chambers, where they became so thick that they were no longer
drinkable, unless they were beaten with twigs or diluted with hot
water. The following are his words:--“Super fumo diu et in æstuariis
retenta, eam acquirunt vetustate crassitiem, ut potari per se non
possint, nisi diu agitata immissis scopis aut origis dissolvantur,
vel eliquata per aquam calidam fiant potui idonea: quo usu legimus
crassa fuisse antiquis vina, quæ similiter per aquam calidam essent
dissolvenda.”
Since the discoveries made at Herculaneum and Pompeii, there have been
found among the ruins one of the vases which served for the operation
of which I speak, and in which the wine had entirely dried. A similar
vase or urn has been discovered in the territory of Vienne, in which
the inspissated juice of the wine had crystallized.
Whatever were the processes employed in Gaul for the preparation of
wine, many of its vineyards had acquired reputation, and had, moreover,
become a source of wealth. This rising spring of riches was soon
dried up by the tyrants who reigned over the country. The year of the
Christian era 92 having been unpropitious to corn and favourable to
the vine, a general scarcity followed. Domitian, who was then emperor,
concluded that the cause of this was, that the vines were too numerous,
and corn not sufficiently sown. Proceeding on this false assumption,
he published an edict, by which he ordered that in the greatest part
of the provinces of the empire half of the vines should be rooted out,
and that in the others they should be entirely destroyed. Towards
the year 282, Probus abrogated it. After having, by his victories,
restored peace to the empire, the wise and valiant emperor, says
Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Vopiscus, and Eusebius, restored to the
provinces the liberty of replanting the vine. The Gauls commenced
the task with alacrity. The Roman legions spread abroad in Gaul were
employed in these plantations, for it was the wise policy of Rome, when
her soldiers were not engaged in war, to occupy them in useful public
labours. Soon were the greater number of the hills of Gaul covered with
vines; and these were not, as in the times of the two first Cæsars,
bounded by the north of the Cevennes; for almost each province, on the
contrary, had its vineyards.
In the Salique law, as well as in the law of the Visigoths, penalties
are decreed against those who shall destroy a cutting of the vine, or
who shall steal grapes. The protection which the government accorded to
this species of property caused it to be regarded as sacred. Chilperic
having decreed that each vine-proprietor should annually furnish him
with an _amphora_ of wine for his table, there was, says Aimoin, a
revolt in Limousin, and the officer whose duty it was to receive
this odious tribute was massacred. So great had the passion for the
vine become that the French kings turned a portion of their private
domains into vineyards. Each of their palaces had its vineries, with
wine-presses and all the utensils necessary for the vintage. From the
Capitularies of Charlemagne we learn that the monarch entered into this
species of administration in the minutest detail. When, after the death
of Louis the Débonnaire, the three sons of that prince, laying down
their arms, agreed on the division of his estates, Charles the Bald had
Western France; Lothaire, Eastern France and Italy; and Louis, that
portion which was situated in Germany beyond the Rhine. But as this
latter had no vineyards, the Saxon Chronicle and the Chronicle of the
monk Sigebert remark that there were joined to his division some towns
or villages beyond the river which produced wine. The Louvre itself,
like the other royal palaces of France, inclosed vineyards within its
precincts. That such vineyards were considerable appears from the fact
that in 1160 Louis le Jeune could annually assign out of their produce
six _muids_ of wine to the curate of St. Nicholas.
Among the “Fabliaux of the Thirteenth Century,” published by Le Grand,
there is one entitled “La Bataille des Vins,” in which the author
supposes that the King, Philip Augustus, causes to be brought to
his table all known wines, national as well as foreign, in order to
examine which are worthy of admission. The monarch is in this piece
represented as a confirmed _gourmet_, and lover of good wine. From an
account of the revenues of this king, left us by Brussel, we learn
that in the matter of wines Philip loved variety, and wished to have
a copious cellar, for he possessed vineyards at Bourges, at Soissons,
at Compiegne, at Lân, at Beauvais, at Auxerre, Corbeil, Betesi,
Orleans, Moret, Poissi, Gien, Anet, Chalevanc, Verberies, Fontainbleau,
Rurecourt, Milli, Bois Commun, Samoi, and Auvers. Breton, in his Latin
poem on Philip, counts the wines of Gascony and La Rochelle among
the articles of commerce which Flanders took of France. The wines of
Guyenne were not only sold in Flanders, but in much greater quantity in
England. The same political considerations which induced us to close
our ports twenty years ago to French wines unless on the payment of a
very considerable import duty, caused us then to open them to the wines
of a province subject to English authority. Matthew Paris, speaking
of the discontent and bitterness which prevailed in Gascony in 1251
against Henry III., states that public opinion was so exasperated,
that these provinces would have revolted had they not need of England
for the sale of their wine. A fact related by Froissart will give
us an idea of the extent of the trade at that time. “In 1372,” says
this historian, “there arrived from England, at Bordeaux, 209 sail
of merchantmen, which came for wine.” Champier, who wrote about a
century and a half after Froissart, remarks, that from his time England
scarcely consumed any other wine or corn than that of France, and
that, when this commerce was interrupted by war, England experienced a
species of famine. “So that,” said he, “France may boast of having in
her hands power of producing famine or abundance in England.”
Although the other French provinces had not such advantageous outlets
for their commerce as Guyenne, the vine was, nevertheless, cultivated
with an equal success. This may be seen by the “Fabliaux” cited, in
which the French wines dispute the preference with foreign. These
effects were solely brought about by the national industry; the
government did nothing to recompense or favour it, and when it did
concern itself about the French wine-trade its interference was
injurious. The kingdom having experienced a scarcity, in consequence
of the bad harvest of 1566, Charles IX. wrongly attributed the cause
to the too great abundance of vines, and, like Domitian, proscribed
them. An _ordonnance_ published by him directed that in each canton,
or district, the vines should only occupy a third of the ground; the
other two-thirds were to be converted into arable or pasture lands.
In 1577 Henry III. modified the _ordonnance_ of the king his brother,
recommending to all the officers charged with the government of his
provinces to see that the arable land was not left uncultivated to give
place to an excessive plantation of the vine.
The edict published under the reign of Louis XV. was not so foolish
as the preceding one. Many intendants of provinces having represented
that the vines occupied an undue space of lands fitted for corn or
pasturage; that it caused the dearness of wood; that it multiplied the
quantity of wine to such an excess that the value and reputation were
in a number of places destroyed; the king, in 1731, forbade any new
plantation of vines, and directed that vineyards which had ceased to be
cultivated for two years should no longer be continued.
It often happened that proprietors of wines, not being able to get rid
of their article, preferred to sell it in retail. In this contingency
they suspended to the threshold of their door a broom, a crown of ivy,
or something similar. Those who wished to purchase carried a pot with
them, and thence came the expression, _vendre à pot_. Some caused
their wine to be announced by the public crier.
It will appear from what I have written that the attention paid to
vine-dressing and the cultivation of the vine was the result of a
perfect knowledge of husbandry.
I have already said that the wines of the ancients were racked and
fined, but there seems to have been as much adulteration 1800 years ago
as at the present moment. Adulterations are repeatedly mentioned in the
classic writers. After the wine was made and underwent the secondary
fermentation, it was placed in pitched skins, or in earthen vessels,
denominated _amphoræ_, containing twenty-seven _old_ English gallons.
That the ancients understood the process of maturing wines perfectly is
evident from all the writers on the subject. After the wine was made
and put into the vat, where it underwent the secondary fermentation,
it was placed in pitched skins, closed with a lid of baked earth, and
hermetically sealed.[31]
It were a curious task to trace how long domestic customs and
utensils survive forms of polity and government. In glancing at such
a subject, I merely remark that the _amphoræ_ have outlived the
Roman emperors, the republic, nay even the Roman nation and people,
and all their magnificent institutions. It is impossible now to
pass forty-eight hours in the neighbourhood of Asti Montepulciano,
Montefiascone, or any of the wine districts of Italy, without being
struck with the identity to the _amphoræ_ of those earthen vessels
with two handles, holding from about eighteen to twenty quarts of our
measure, which one sees in every cellar, and almost in every street.
Suetonius tells us of a man who aspired to the quæstorship, and drank
the contents of a whole _amphora_ at a repast given by the Emperor
Tiberius, “Ob epotam in convivo propinante se vini amphoram;” but,
though there may be men in Scotland, or Scotchmen in England, who could
carry away so much liquor and be none the worse for it, the capacity of
any Englishman to do as much may be doubted.
The use of casks or wine hogsheads were unknown to the Greeks and
Romans.[32] They could therefore only transport their wines in earthen
vessels or skins, which in the older English authors are queerly and
alliteratively called “borachio bottles.” The earthen vessels presented
the inconvenience of being fragile, whilst the skins were subject to
bursting, to become insecure, &c. My late excellent and learned friend
Dr. Henderson states, and truly, that the Romans occasionally employed
glass. They undoubtedly did so; but the accomplished historian of
wines is wrong when he affirms that they brought the manufacture of
glass to a great degree of perfection; for nothing, on the contrary,
can be more common than those specimens of glass found in Pompeii, and
those drinking-cups and lachrymatories, various specimens of which may
be seen in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. That glass, however, was
used at table in those days appears certain from a passage in which
he speaks of those glass magnums or jugs, as being large and closed
with a species of plaster or Roman cement. “Adlatæ sunt amphoræ vitreæ
diligenter gypsatæ.” He elsewhere says, “Amphoras copiosas gypsatas ne
effluat vinum.”
All the Latin authors agree that the ingenious invention of casks is
due to the Gauls, who established themselves along the banks of the Po;
but we are entirely ignorant if the Greeks knew the cooper’s art before
they left their native country, or if they invented casks and hogsheads
after their transmigration beyond the Alps. Notwithstanding the
incontestable superiority of casks over skins, these latter continued
to be still used. That they were much in vogue would appear from one of
the capitularies of Charlemagne, in which, glancing at the prevalence
of skins, he forbids his people to use any other vessels than good
barrels (_bonos barridos_) hooped with iron.
At the Roman entertainments there was a particular part of the
convivial room set apart for the reception of the wines. Here the
various vessels and drinking-cups were ranged on a table called αβαξ,
or _abacus_. This was generally of marble, in the form of a long
square, not unlike the modern sideboard. From the account which Philo
Judæus gives of the number of vessels placed on it, it must have been
very large. Pliny, speaking of the rich spoils exhibited by Pompey in
the triumph he obtained for his victories over the pirates, says that
the number of drinking vessels adorned with jewels was sufficient to
furnish nine _abaci_: “Triumpho quem de piratis Asia, Ponto, egit,
transtulit lectos tridiniares tres; vasa ex auro et gemmis abacorum
novem.”[33] Cicero charges Verres with having plundered the _abaci_,
“Ab hoc iste abaci vasa omnia ut exposita fuerant abstulit,” and
Dr. Barry, in giving this quotation, misquotes it, “In abacis erant
abstulit.” These articles of luxury, according to Livy, were imported
from Asia first as luxuries, but soon, like all other superfluous
wants, they became necessaries. The ancients had, like the moderns,
servants like our butlers, specially charged with the care of the wine.
The office necessarily required judgment and experience. The head
butler is called by Pollux οἰνοπτης. His business was to inspect the
wines before and after they had been prepared, and mixed in another
apartment. When they were placed on the _abacus_, he stood there as a
modern butler or _maître d’hôtel_ does at our side-boards, and gave
his orders to the underlings and slaves. The next in office under the
butler was the pinceran or οἰνοχοος, which we should render as the
pourer out of wine, or cup-bearer, the word being used in this sense
both by Homer and Xenophon. This man received all his directions from
the butler, and by him and his _acolytes_ the wines were regularly
prepared and distributed to the guests. Of these inferior ministering
agents there were many, and of different degrees. It was a part of the
luxury of the times to be waited on by beautiful boys, purchased at
high prices, who served the master and the superior guests; but the
inferior ones and those of meaner condition were served by African
slaves of coarse appearance, woolly-headed, and of most unsavoury
odour. Notwithstanding the number of servants and slaves, many mistakes
unavoidably happened in the mixture of wine. Nor is this wonderful when
it is considered that the host and his guests called for wine variously
diluted either with hot or cold water, and occasionally for whatever
strong wine was agreeable to them. Cicero, describing a supper, alludes
to the symposium of Xenophon, where the wines were prepared by hot
water and afterwards cooled in snow: “Et pocula sicut in symposio
Xenophontis minuta atque rorantia et refrigeratio in æstate, et
vicissim aut sol, aut ignis hibernus.” Of the quantity of wine drank
on these occasions we have no very certain account. Pliny says that
Democritus wrote a volume to prove that no one ought to exceed the
fourth or sixth glass; but instances have been given of persons who
have drunk a _congius_ or gallon in one draught.
There are many who think that the cooling of wine by snow is a modern
invention; but that this system was perfectly known to the Greeks and
Romans, as I before observed, is sufficiently evident. The vessels
which contained the wine mixed with boiled water were immersed in the
snow, and such wine is particularly distinguished by Martial. This
invention is ascribed by Pliny to Nero, who prided himself more on this
improvement in luxury than Augustus did in encouraging the fine arts.
It was a common practice at the convivial meetings of the Greeks and
Romans to drink, not only to the healths of distinguished individuals,
but to the absent friends and mistresses of the guests. The greater
or less number of cups afforded an indication of the respect in
which the person whose health was toasted was held. The numerous
coincidences which exist between the convivial customs of past ages
and the present are thus succinctly summed up by Dr. Henderson:--“If
we compare the ceremonies and usages of the Romans with the convivial
customs of the present day, we cannot but be struck with the numerous
coincidences which subsist between them. The arrangements of our
dinners, the succession and composition of the different courses,
the manner of filling our glasses, of pledging our friends, and of
drinking particular healths, are all evidently copied from the Greeks
and Romans.[34] With another modern nation, however, which has been
thought to resemble the ancient Greeks in character, the analogy is
still more complete. Thus, at all entertainments among the French, the
ordinary wine is used with a large admixture of water, generally in
the proportion of one to three, except immediately after soup, when
it is drunk pure. The finer kinds are circulated in the intervals
between the courses, or towards the end of the repast, and hence are
termed _vins d’entremets_; but with particular dishes certain wines
are served, as chablis with oysters, and sillery after roast meat. The
_coup-d’avant_ of vermuth has been already noticed as corresponding
with the draught of _mulsum_; and the _coup du milieu_, which consists
of some _liqueur_, ‘quod fluentem nauseam coerceat,’ may be regarded
as identical with the cup of sweet wine handed round in the middle of
a Grecian feast. With dessert the luscious sweet wines are always
introduced.”
The doctor makes a slight mistake in regarding the _coup du milieu_
as identical with the cup of Greek sweet wine. The _coup_, which was
drunk immediately after the roast, consisted, and still consists, of
a bitter or spirituous, or sometimes a bitter and spirituous cordial
(and not of a sweet wine), taken as a stomachic. It is swallowed,
according to the “Manuel des Amphitryons,” to give tone to the fibres
of the stomach, and “pour accélérer le mouvement péristaltique qui
produit la digestion.” The Swiss extract of wormwood, Jamaica rum,
or very old cognac, is used for the purpose. It is to the city of
Bordeaux, so dear to _gourmands_ and _gourmets_, that this invention
is due. It is a trait of genius, says the author of the “Almanach
des Gourmands,” which enables one to make a second dinner, and which
doubles the power and capacity of the weakest stomachs. Between the
roast and the _entremets_--_i.e._, towards the middle of the dinner,
you see at Bordeaux the doors of the dining-room open, when a girl
about eighteen, tall, fair, and well-proportioned, her features beaming
with an air of engaging alluringness, appears. Her sleeves are turned
up to the very shoulders, and she holds in one hand a mahogany frame,
in which are ranged as many small glasses as there are guests; and in
the other a crystal decanter filled with Jamaica rum, or wormwood, or
vermuth, though this latter beverage more properly belongs to the
_coup-d’avant_. Thus armed the Hebe makes the round of the table,
and pours out to each guest a glass of the bitter nectar it is her
business to distribute. The effect of the _coup du milieu_ is stated
to be almost magical in renewing the appetite, but on what principle
it produces this result physicians must determine. The _coup-d’avant_
is little practised in Paris, though greatly used in Russia, Sweden,
and the north of Germany. It consists of a large glass of vermuth,
or of simple brandy, which is presented to each of the guests by way
of appetiser. Physicians differ in opinion as to the virtues of the
_coup-d’avant_: it is said rather to dispose the stomach to digestion;
but, be this as it may, the Russian stomachs, where the _coup-d’avant_
is so much practised, are far more vigorous than the English or French.
It may be that from the effects of the climate some such stimulant is
required. The _coup-d’après_ consists, as Dr. Henderson states, of
half a glass of pure wine taken immediately after the soup. This is
considered so salutary a practice, that it is proverbially said to take
a crown out of the pocket of the physician. The wine offered for the
_coup-d’après_ in France is generally a good Beaune or Macon; whilst
in England it is commonly sherry or Madeira. In any event it should be
a good sound wine; for the palate, at that early stage of a dinner, is
most sensible to taste and flavour.
As to the wine-cellars of the ancients, we know little certain.
Vitruvius directs that they should have a northern aspect, that the
doors and windows should be placed in the same direction, that the
doors should be small and seldom opened, and then to renew, not to
alter, the temperature of the air. Care was also taken that the cellar
should not be near a dung-heap, nor roots of trees, nor vegetables, nor
anything fetid; and it was also as far removed as possible from the
vicinage of baths, ovens, sewers, cisterns, and reservoirs. Women were
also strictly forbidden to enter within the cellar walls. Barry would
have it that the Greeks and Romans had extended vaults under ground,
but against this theory Henderson cites Pancirollus, who is of opinion
that the ancients were not in the practice of having repositories of
wine under ground like our modern cellars. That their repositories
for wine must have been extensive there is no doubt, for it is stated
that Hortensius bequeathed to his heirs 10,000 _cadi_ of wine,
about 410 tons of our measure. From the rules of the ancients, and the
principles laid down, Barry properly points out certain defects in our
modern wine-cellars in the following passages:--
“The size of the cellar ought to be in proportion to the quantity of
wine for which it is designed; and it is more easy to defend a small
cellar from the admission of a greater quantity of the external air,
and to renew it occasionally, than one of a larger size. The situation
ought to be low and dry; therefore, not on any great declivity, where
the undercurrents from the superior ground must always keep it moist,
and infect the air with its putrid exhalations; this communication,
however, may be prevented by intermediate trenches.
“A small anti-cellar built before all large cellars would be a
considerable defence and improvement to them, in which a quantity of
wine sufficient for a few days may be kept, and the necessity prevented
of more frequently opening the large cellar, and admitting the external
air, which must always in some degree alter the temperature of it,
and in sudden or continued great heats or frosts, may be particularly
injurious to the wine.
“It is usual to cover the bottles in the bins with sawdust, to which I
should prefer dry sand, the density of which is much greater. I saw a
remarkable instance of the benefit arising from an intermediate defence
of this kind. A hogshead of claret, which had been lately bottled, was
heaped up in a corner of a merchant’s common large cellar, with a view
of removing it soon to the wine-cellar. In the meantime a load of salt,
from the want of a more convenient place, was thrown on the bottles,
and remained there several months before it was removed. This wine was
afterwards found to be much superior to the wine of the same growth,
which had been imported and bottled about the same time, and had been
immediately placed in the wine-cellar. The large quantity of salt
formed a compact vault over the bottles, which entirely defended the
wine from the influence of the air, though greatly exposed to it; and
probably the coldness of the salt contributed to this improvement.
“The ancients certainly more effectually preserved their wine in larger
earthen vessels, pitched externally, than we can in our bottles, as
they are more capable, from their superior density and capacity,
of resisting the frequent changes in the air; and it is a common
observation, that the wine received into bottles which contain two
quarts proves better than that which has been kept in single quarts.”
Of the truth of this latter remark there can be no doubt, as any who
have tasted a pint and a quart bottle of wine out of the same hogshead
will freely admit.
It is no doubt true that many of the usages adopted by the ancients for
preserving and mellowing their wines have fallen into disrepute; but
their rules for the site and construction of a wine-cellar--some of
which I have quoted--their observations on the proper time for tasting
and racking wines, are still sanctioned by modern practice.
Wine of a middle age was then, according to Pliny, as indeed it now is,
to be preferred, as being the most wholesome and grateful; but then in
ancient times it was the fashion, as it is in our own day, to place the
greatest value on what was rarest. Thus extravagant sums were given
for wines not drinkable, or in a state of decomposition. Who does not
know that within the past forty years twelve guineas a dozen was given
for Mr. Pattle’s sherry, and half as much for some sherry once the
property of the late Sir John Leach, Vice-Chancellor.
Though the ancients often drank very freely, yet no one was obliged to
drink on compulsion. The doors were never locked, as they were fifty
years ago in Ireland, five and fifty years ago in Scotland, or little
more than half a century ago in England. Large cups and more generous
wines were frequently brought in, but no one was obliged to drink or
to stay. If the guest did not drink on he departed, according to the
old convivial rule, “Aut bibe, aut abi.” Some of the wisest sages
of antiquity were as great sponges as some of the modern Scots. For
instance, Socrates, whether he lived abstemiously or drank copiously,
was equally unexcited, equally unaltered; and the very same remark
might be made on a remarkable man lately deceased. Cyrus, among other
reasons which he urges why he should gain the crown in preference
to his elder brother, insists on his being able to drink a larger
quantity of wine without being inebriated; for Artaxerxes was not only
occasionally subject to getting “right royal,” _vulgo vocato_,
drunk, but also to the infirmity of losing his temper to boot. Athenæus
mentions that Darius desired no greater encomium should be engraved
on his tomb than that he was able to drink a great quantity of wine
without being inebriated.
In his third book the Father of Medicine gives a description of the
general qualities and strength of the Greek wines, and of the peculiar
medical virtues which they possessed. He likewise points out in what
diseases, and in what quantities, they are to be used, so as to render
them salutary and innoxious. It is remarkable that Hippocrates rarely
directs water alone, but almost invariably orders its exhibition with
wine, or combined with honey and vinegar. Water was no doubt the basis
of all his cooling drinks; but there was always added to it a moderate
proportion of the weak white wines, to render it more effectually
diluting. To the infirm and valetudinarian, wine is a necessary comfort
beyond all price. When a patient has been long habituated to the use of
it, a change in diet cannot be suffered without danger.
There is a remarkable instance of this afforded in the case of the
celebrated physician Cornaro, who always revived just after the
vintage, when he left off the old and decaying wines of the last
vintage, and commenced drinking the new. The passage is in the account
which he gives of the rules by which he repaired his constitution,
injured as it was by excesses, till the period when he was forty years
old. By the _régime_ he prescribed to himself, it is well known
he preserved his health and spirits to the age of 100. The efficacy
of his system depended on his taking a certain quantity of solids
and fluids every day. The fluid consisted entirely of wine, but he
gradually diminished the quantity of each as he advanced in years.
During this period he enjoyed an equal state of health, except that
sometimes, before the vintage returned and the new wine was made, he
quickly became so weak and languid that his physicians declared he
could not possibly continue to survive many days in that declining
state. “But on the return of the vintage,” says he, “and on taking the
same quantity of new wine, I very quickly recovered my usual strength
and spirits.” The same effect is observed, to compare animals with men,
among the mules of Jamaica. When the new sugar-canes are being gathered
in, the most exhausted animal, fed on the fresh sugar-canes, gains a
revival of strength.
The Romans were in the habit of pitching their wine, nor can it be
doubted that the Gauls also followed their example in this respect,
with a view to render them more saleable in the Italian markets.
The Allobroges had a peculiar pitch, with which they smeared their
puncheons, after the manner of the wine-growers of Latium. Many
etymologists suggest that the French word _poinçon_, adopted in many of
the French provinces to signify a puncheon common to them, is derived
from the _vas piceum_, of which it is an abbreviation.[35] These,
however, are but conjectures, and why should we resort to conjectures
in the face of formal proof? Such were the two charters of Charles the
Bald in favour of the monasteries of St. Denis and St. Germain des
Près. By the first (A.D. 862), the emperor makes an annual grant to the
abbey of ten silver livres, for the purchase of the necessary pitch for
casks; by the second he grants to the other convent twenty pounds of
soap and of pitch, “ad vasa vinaria componenda.” The soap, of which a
grant is here made with the pitch, leads me to infer that there were
persons who, not content with laying a coat of pitch on their casks,
composed a peculiar mastic in mixing the soap and some other substance
with the pitch, after the manner of the Romans.
Strabo, in giving a description of Latium (the modern Lombardy), and
an idea of the abundance of its vines, says that the puncheons were
taller than the houses. It is probable that the Gauls established in
these parts, or their descendants, seeing that the ordinary casks were
insufficient, or that there was not cellar-room for them, invented
those monster puncheons of which the geographer speaks, and which were
long ago, and are now, in common use in Germany. But the French, for
the most part, in lieu of these not very solid vessels, preferred to
construct their wine-tubs or vats, in brick or in stone. De Serres
states that, even so late as 1600, many persons thus constructed their
vats. It is true, he says, the wine took a longer time to ferment
in these receptacles than in wooden tubs; but they were most easily
cleaned, contracted no bad taste, lasted longer, and required little
or no outlay to keep them in repair. But though these cisterns might
be serviceable to the proprietor as a repository for his wine, he was
obliged, when he sold it, to have recourse to casks or skins. The
skins, notwithstanding the many inconveniences they presented, were
long used for that purpose. I have before stated that Charlemagne
forbade them in the cellars of his palace. Pierre de Blois, declaiming,
in the twelfth century, against the luxury of the chevaliers,
represents them as leading horses laden with skins of wine, and all
the “creature comforts” that announce gluttony and drunkenness:--“Non
ferro, sed vino; non lanceis, sed caseis; non ensibus, sed utribus; non
hastis, sed verubus onerantur.”
At the repast which Philippe de Valois gave to the kings of Scotland,
of Majorca, and of Bohemia, there was on the royal dresser (_le
dressour royal_) no plate of gold or silver, but only a leathern
bottle, in which was the wine of the princes and kings who sat at
the festal board. In order to understand this passage, which is
extracted from a very old work, it is necessary to mention that, in
the time of Philip, there were no bottles, nor were they known for
many years afterwards. Wine, at this epoch, in the royal establishment
as elsewhere, was drunk from the cask. If many sorts were given at an
entertainment, as often happened on occasions of great ceremony--in
that event many casks were tapped, and the remains of all belonged
to the grand _bouteiller_. Travellers on horseback, who were
apprehensive of not finding wine on the road, carried with them a
species of leathern bottle attached to the saddle. In the “Life of
St. Maur” we read that, travelling to visit one of the farms of his
monastery, he saw suddenly arrive Ansgaire, archdeacon of the church
of Angers. The holy abbé wished to refresh him. Unfortunately, there
was no other wine at the farmer’s than the little which remained
attached to the saddle-bow of St. Maur, “in uno parvissimo vasculo quod
ad sellam pendere consuerit.” But the holy man, says the historian,
supplied the deficiency by a miracle, and multiplied this remains of
the liquor so exceedingly, that it sufficed to quench the thirst of
seventy-eight persons who were there present.
In the thirteenth century the vessels of which I have been speaking
were called _bouchaus_, _boutiaux_, _bouties_, or _boutilles_. When
the gentry of that day wished to make a long journey, or were on their
way to the wars, they took bottles with them of considerable capacity.
It appears, by an early charter, that when the Bishop of Amiens marched
thus in the _arrière ban_, the tanners of the city were obliged to
furnish him with two good and sufficient leather bottles, one holding a
_muid_ and the other twenty-four _sétiers_ of wine. The butchers were,
on their part, bound to furnish the grease to cover these bottles.
If cover means to cork, as the sense would seem to indicate, it was
certainly a strange process to seal a canteen destined for the keeping
and transport of wine. These _boutiaux_, or _boutilles_, took the
name of _bouteilles_, or bottles. This name was afterwards applied to
the decanters which were subsequently used. On the first indication
of madness presented by Charles VI., on his journey to Brittany, the
officers of his household, who had preceded him, served him with drink;
and being suspected of having poisoned him, the Duke of Burgundy, who
accompanied them, caused them to undergo an interrogatory: but they
protested their innocence, says Froissart, and offered to prove it, as
there remained in the bottles a portion of the wine of which the king
had drunk. There can be no doubt that the bottles here spoken of were
made of leather.
It now remains for me to touch on those wines which have enjoyed the
greatest reputation, from the conquest of the Franks to the present
time. The earlier writers offer little on this subject. Gregory of
Tours speaks of the wines of Maçon, Orleans, Cahors, and Dijon. The
wines of Auvergne are spoken of in a “Life of St. Germain,” written in
verse by Heric, who lived under Charles the Bald; and there is mention
of those of Rheims and of the River Marne, in a letter of Pandulus,
Bishop of Lan, to Hircanar. Baldric, or Baudri, author of a Latin poem
which Mabillon has cited in the “Benedictine Annals,” says that Henry
I. greatly esteemed the wine of Rébréchien (_area Bacchi_), near
Orleans, and that when he went to the army he took a provision with him
to animate his courage. There is a letter of Louis le Jeune, written
from the Holy Land to Suger and to the Comte de Vermandois, regents
of the kingdom in his absence, by which he directs them to give to
his intimate friend, Arnould, Bishop of Lisieux, sixty _modii_
of his excellent wine of Orleans. “Dilecto et præcordiali amico,
Lexoviensi Episcopo, sexaginta Aurelianenses modios de meo optimo vino
Aurelianensi dare non reanatis.” It is probable that this wine of
Orleans was the wine called Rébréchien. It is said that the greater
number of the Orleanais are one-eyed, lame, and hump-backed, which is
attributed by some, most inconsequentially, to the wine of Orleans.
A _fabliau_ of the twelfth century has come down to us which gives
us a list of the best reputed wines of that day. Among the wines of
the provinces the poet vaunts those of the Gatinias, d’Auxois, d’Anjou,
and of Provence. Over the list of the particularly celebrated wines
we will not now travel. Suffice it to say, that Burgundy was then
renowned for its wine of Auxerre, Beaune, Beauvoisins, Flavigni, and
Vermanton; Champagne for its Chabli (not Chablis, the Burgundy wine of
the department of the Yonne), Epernai, Rheims, Hauvilliers, Sczanne,
Tonnerre.
This production represents the Beaune wine of a yellow colour,
inclining to the shade of an ox’s horn. It is very difficult to have a
precise idea of such a colour. When the popes in the thirteenth century
transported their pontificial chair to Avignon, the table of their
holinesses, and of all their principal officers, were furnished with
wine from the monastery of Cluni. This was probably a wine of Beaune;
for Petrarch, writing in 1366 to Urban V. to engage him to come to
Rome, and combatting the different reasons which retained the cardinals
beyond the mountains, says, “I have heard it sometimes alleged that
there was no Beaune wine in Italy. When, in 1510, the ambassadors sent
by the Emperor Maximilian to Louis XII., travelled across France to
find the prince at Tours, where he was, the queen, on their passage
through Blois, sent them fresh sea-fish, with three barrels of old wine
of Beaune and Orleans.”
There is a great deal of fashion and caprice in the rise and fall
of wines. The reputation of different vintages may be compared to
the characters of certain men. To rise above the crowd, it does not
alone suffice to be possessed of real merit. Sometimes favourable
circumstances or a happy chance is needed, which is more often sought
than found. It has happened to us all to have drunk in a remote spot
delicious wines, which only needed the recommendation of a consummate
_gourmet_ to obtain instantaneous vogue. It may also occasionally
chance that a vineyard which, for a long time had but an indifferent
reputation, may, by the industry of a new proprietor, by peculiar
processes of making the wine, or by a better cultivation of the grape,
become more perfect than it had been before. There are hundreds of
examples of this, of which one may be cited. Who does not know that the
wine of Romanée, so famed for more than a century (the estate on which
it grows has since been purchased by the Prince of Conti), owes its
celebrity to a Sieur de Cromanbourg, a German officer in the service
of France, who, having married the heiress of this vineyard, rendered
it at length one of the first in Burgundy. In each century some of the
wines of the preceding fall in repute, and new vintages arise to take
their place. Eustace des Champs (who died about 1420), in the numerous
poetical MSS. which he has left, cites the vines of Burgundy, Gascony,
La Rochelle, Chabli, St. Pourcain, Beaune, and Orleans, which had been
already cited by authors anterior to him; but he also mentions the
names of many new wines,--“Aï, Aussone, Cumières, Dameri, Germoles,
Givri, Gonesse, Iranci, Mantes, Pinos, Tournus, Troy, and Verlus.” It
was said more than seventy years ago that the wine of France which best
bears transport is the wine of Mantes; and, in continuation of this
fact, a French traveller of the sixteenth century is cited, who carried
some of this wine to Persia without its being in the least injured. If
this fact be true, it is not unexampled nor peculiar to the wine of
Mantes.
It appears that, in the fifteenth century, Burgundy and Champagne
disputed the palm among the wines of France. If Burgundy had its
Beaune, Champagne had its Aï. These two wines were counted among the
best in France. “This last,” says Patin, “is the wine that Baudius
called _Vinum Dei_ at the house of De Thou.” Paumier, in his “Treatise
on Wine,” written in 1588, says it was the ordinary beverage of kings
and princes. It is certainly true that Leo X., Charles V., Francis I.,
and Henry VIII. had each a vineyard in Champagne; and St. Evremond
alludes to the circumstance in a letter to the Duke d’Olonne. Burgundy
was, at this period, considered the wholesomest, the most cordial, and
the most generous of wines. Erasmus, being tormented with nephritic
pains, which he attributed to the harsh and bitter wines of the Rhine,
took to drinking burgundy exclusively, and soon became perfectly
restored. “Sic enim subito recreatus est stomachus,” says he, “ut
mihi viderer renatus in alium hominem.” He has left us, in one of his
letters, the praise of a liquor to which he was indebted for health.
“Happy province!” he exclaims: “well may Burgundy be called the mother
of man, suckling him with such milk!” He who first taught the art of
making this wine ought to be considered, not merely as having gratified
us with a new liquor, but as having given to us new life.
Champier makes a remark, which is truer now than it was in the
sixteenth century, namely, that there was no country on earth which
had such excellent, or a variety of such admirable wines, as France.
He counts among this number the wine of Arbois and the muscat of
Languedoc; and tells us that, in Arbois and Hainault, there was a
demand for Beaune wine, but that the remaining portion of Flanders
preferred the wines of Orleans. Beaujeau vaunts the wines of La Crau;
and Rabelais those of Auxerre, Mirevaux, Migraine, Canteperdrix, and
Frontignan. At the repast which the King of France gave, in 1602, to
the Swiss ambassadors, Canteperdrix wine was served. Madame de Noyer
(in her “Lettres Historiques et Galantes”) says that this may well be
called the wine of the gods, since it was sent to Rome for the private
drinking of the holy father. There is no such wine as Canteperdrix
known, in the present day, by that special designation. It is now
called the _vin de Beaucaire_, and is a red wine of Languedoc. As to
the wine of Arbois, it was the favourite beverage of Henry IV., as we
learn from an anecdote related in Sully. When the Duke of Mayenne had
laid down his arms, and treated with Henry IV., the king, in order to
fix the fidelity of his vassal, gave him two bottles of Arbois wine.
“Car,” said the lively, good-hearted monarch, “je pense, mon cousin,
que vous ne le haïssez pas.” When Sully, being created duke and peer,
gave a grand repast on the day of his reception, the king surprised him
by appearing among the number of the guests. “But,” says the duke, “as
he was hungry, and they were dilatory in serving the dinner, he ate, in
the interval, some oysters, which he washed down with wine of Arbois.”
And a good preparation for a dinner it was.
Paumier, a Norman physician, has written a treatise on wines, in which
he counts four different colours,--white, red, blackish, and _œil de
perdrix_, _i.e._, reddish. He says that France then produced no red
wine which was sweet, excepting in the Bordelais, in which district
there were red and black wines of great sweetness. His description of
the wines of Gascony is, that they were hot, vinous, easy of digestion,
and of a red or partridge-eyed colour. This description, in two
particulars holds good to the letter to the present day. These wines
are still vinous and easy of digestion, but they are not hot, nor are
they generally of a partridge-colour until they are old, and in a
state bordering on decomposition. The doctor further states that the
wines of Château Thierry were agreeable, but so dangerous, that the
greater part of the inhabitants were afflicted with the gout from their
tender infancy, and died before they attained the ordinary age.
Château Thierry is on the borders of Champagne, and, whatever may have
been the case in the time of Paumier, in the sixteenth century, it is
certainly not true in the nineteenth that the inhabitants have the
gout from their earliest years, or that they die so prematurely. But
their wine is still good. “The red wine of the Clos de St. Thierry, a
league from Rheims, is of a quality between burgundy and champagne,
and is very highly esteemed by the _connoissieur_.” The idea of
having the gout prematurely is preposterous. The gout is a disease
scarcely known in Champagne; and, if it be very common in England,
as must be admitted, after occasional excesses, it does not arise
from the drinking of champagne solely, to which it is most frequently
attributed, but from the mixture of a variety of wines, champagne among
the number.
Baccius, in his treatise “De Viniis,” printed at Rome in 1596, has a
chapter on the wines of France. He praises the wines of Arles, Beziers,
Bordeaux, Frontignan, Gaillac, and St. Laurent. Nor does he omit the
wines of Avignon, which arrived in small barrels, hooped with iron;
the white wines which sparkle out of the glass, and which please the
smell as much as the taste (probably he means champagne); and the wines
of Paris, which yield the palm to none in the kingdom. What Paumier
says of the wines of Paris will appear, at present, very strange. The
contempt with which the wines of the neighbourhood of the metropolis of
France are at present treated will appear the more extraordinary when
it is known that they enjoyed, for fourteen centuries previously, the
highest reputation.
Liebaut praises, in a bad poem, written in 1605, the wines of Ruel and
Surenne; and the Abbé de Marolles those of Surenne, Argenteuil, and
St. Cloud; “which,” says he, “are pure, and not unwholesome.” Paumier
is endless in his praises of the wines of Paris, which have not the
inconvenience of drying up the blood, like those of Gascony; do not
fly to the head, like those of Château Thierry and Orleans; and do not
occasion obstructions and humours, like those of Bordeaux. According
to him, burgundy, when it has lost its roughness, and is in its best
state, may be alone compared to the wine of the environs of Paris.
Patin, writing in 1669, says, “Long live the bread of Gonesse, with the
good wine of Paris, Burgundy, and Champagne!” Chaulieu, in a piece of
poetry written in 1702, represents his friend, the Marquis de la Fare,
as going often to Surenne to drink the wine:--
“Et l’on m’ecrit qu’ à Surênne,
Au cabaret on a vu
La Fare et la bon Silène,
Qui pour en avoir trop bu,
Retrouvoient la porte à peine,
D’un lieu qu’ils ont tant connu.”
These wines are now all forgotten, and, with the exception of the
_vin de Condrieux_, exist no longer. Who could have imagined this
a century ago? and how “has it come to pass?” May it not have been, as
Le Grand d’Aussy suggests, that the proprietors, blinded by the bait of
a sure and speedy sale, which the proximity of the capital afforded,
were guilty of the imprudence of neglecting the proper cultivation of
the vines, or chose plants of an inferior quality. It was remarked,
more than two centuries ago, that the reputation of the Orleans wines
was owing to the manner of making them. It appears that the inhabitants
of Orleans, like wise and sensible men, confined themselves to that
object alone, making it their only occupation. Over the minutest
details they exercised supervision and control; whereas the Lyonnais
and the Parisians purchased a wine estate, rather as a showy bauble
than as a matter of commerce, and completely surrendered the management
to paid agents. “Whence comes it,” says Liebaut, “that you rarely hear
a native of Orleans or a Bourguignon complain of his vines, whilst the
complaints of a Parisian are iteratively urged?” The reason is that
one occupies himself personally in the matter, whilst the other trusts
to an ignorant or knavish vine-dresser.
To Francis I., and the grandees of his court, Champier attributes
the discredit into which the wines of the neighbourhood of Paris had
commenced to fall. “These personages,” says he, “having had their
taste blunted by good cheer, found the Parisian wines poor and weak.
They, therefore, fell on the strong and vigorous wines of the south of
France, which they obtained at considerable cost.”
The Auvernat wine of Orleans, so praised by the Abbé de Marolles, is
thus severely treated by Boileau,--
“Un laquais effronté m’apporte un rouge bord
D’un Auvernat fumeux, qui mêlé de lignage;
Se vendoit chez creuet pour vin de l’hermitage;
Et qui rouge et vermeil, mais fade et doucereux,
N’avoit rien qu’on goût plat, et qu’un déboire affreux.”
The first time I find mention of a _vin de Grave_ is towards the year
1550. If we are to judge from the testimony of Madame de Sévigné, it
was indifferently esteemed in her day. In speaking of M. de Lavardin,
who is stated by St. Evremont to have been Bishop of Metz, she says,
“C’est un gros mérite qui ressemble au vin de Grave.” The district
of Graves yields from 1000 to 1500 tuns, generally of a lively and
brilliant colour, with more body than the vines of Medoc, but less
_bouquet_, raciness, and fineness. The _Graves_ are so termed from
the nature of the soil which produces them. Formerly the appellation
was confined to the white sorts; but it now comprehends the red as
well as white wines which grow on the gravelly lands to the south-east
and south-west of Bordeaux. The Haut-Brion ranks highest amongst the
red wines, and approaches in quality to some of the better sorts of
Burgundy; but it wants the fine perfume by which the Medoc wines are
distinguished.