VINES AND VINEYARDS. 245 



wine district at the equivocal hour of twilight, and the first object 

 that strikes Mr. Busby is a man with a gun, a most opportune hint 

 at the commencement of his career, and one that was doubtless not 

 lost upon our author in the course of his scientific rambling. 



" Friday, 30th September. A violent storm of wind and rain made it im- 

 possible to quit the house yesterday, and though the rain continued to fall 

 at intervals to-day, J managed to visit, in company with Dr. Wilson, the 

 cellars of the house of James Gordon and Company. The extent of these 

 cellars is quite immense the extreme length of the largest being 110 Spa- 

 nish varas, about 306 English feet, and the breadth 222 feet ; the roof is 

 supported by rows of massive square columns of mason work, and although 

 the whole cellar is not of the above length or breadth, the principal divi- 

 sion of the building being only 200 by 150 feet, yet, with its various ad- 

 juncts, the whole extent of the cellar is equal to the dimensions first stated. 

 Messrs. Gordon and Company have also another very extensive cellar, 

 though not equal to this in dimensions. Their ordinary stock of wine is 

 said to be 4000 butts : this is kept in casks of various sizes, containing 

 from one to four butts. These casks are ranged in regular rows ; in some 

 parts of the cellar, to the height of four tiers. They are called soleras, and 

 are always retained in the cellars. They contain wines of various qualities 

 and ages from one to fifty years. The wine merchants of Xeres never 

 exhaust their stock of finest and oldest wine. According to the price at 

 which the wine expedited to the market is intended to be sold, it contains 

 a larger or smaller proportion of old wine. But it is only in wines of a 

 very high price, that even a small portion of their finest wines is mixed. 

 What is withdrawn from the oldest and finest casks, is made up from the 

 casks which approach them nearest in age and quality, and these are 

 again replenished from the next in age and quality to them. Thus a cask 

 of wine, said to be fifty years old, may contain a portion of the vintages of 

 thirty or forty seasons." 



So, this is the way you do it, Messrs. Gordon ! The Germans boast 

 of some immense tub of Hock being 100 years old much upon the 

 same principle ; the vat having been made about that time, and the 

 successive vintages being regularly emptied into it, and we suspect 

 with equal regularity drawn off. The poor Germans are not the only 

 liars in the trade when the age of their wine is talked of. 



" The higher qualities of sherry are made up of wine the bulk of which 

 is from three to five years old, and this is also mixed in various propor- 

 tions with older wines. Thus, from the gradual mixture of wines of va- 

 rious ages, no wine can be farther from what may be called a natural wine 

 than sherry. But, besides giving the wines, as they are prepared for the 

 market, mellowness and richness, by the addition of older wines, there is a 

 very dry kind of sherry called Amontillado or Montillado, which abounds 

 in the peculiar nutty flavour that distinguishes sherries, and which is fre- 

 quently added when that is deficient. Being very light in colour, it is also 

 used to reduce the colour of sherries which are too high ; and when, on 

 the other hand, colour is required, the deficiency is made good by the 

 mixture of boiled wine, or rather of boiled must." 



Thus we have a mess of the different vintages made up into a sort 

 of stock-pot, as the cooks call it ; then prepared for the market by 

 adding mellowness and richness ; and, as a crowning care, that nutty 

 flavour is added, in the discovery of which we have so often heard 

 connoisseurs smack their lips so triumphantly. Little does the simple 



M.M. No. 105. 2 K 



