THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



499 



round the vines when the grapes begin to ripen, formed 

 by boughs of trees interwoven with furze, to keep out 

 tlogs, which are most destructive consumers of grapes. 

 Patrols with guns walk the vineyards day and night at 

 this season ; and curious signs arc hoisted on poles, to 

 indicate that the ground is strewn with poisoned meat, 

 and the grapes smeared with poisonous matter. The 

 vintage occurs in September, when the Medoc is all 

 bustle and activity and rejoicing. The vignerons come 

 in from all quarters, and the proprietors are all at homo 

 with their families. Busy crowds of men, women, 

 and children sweep the vineyards from end to end, 

 clearing all before them like bands of locusts, while the 

 air resounds with their songs and laughter. For the 

 better wines the fruit is picked with great care. For 

 red wines all the rotten and unripe berries are rejected, 

 but they are retained for the white. In the Medoc there 

 are generally two pickings for the red wines, and at some 

 places five or six. The grapes are freed from the stalks, 

 and trodden, or, as at Lafitte, not trodden ; in which 

 case, curiously enough, they are found to produce 

 a juice more highly coloured ! Who would have 

 thought it ? 



This not being the proper season, we refer for de- 

 scription of the subsequent process to an eye witness : 

 " Every road," says he, " is thronged with carts filled 

 with high-heaped tubs, which the labouring oxen are 

 dragging slowly to the pressing trough. This is placed 

 usually in a lofty outhouse resembling a barn, whence 

 issue sounds of still louder merriment, and a scene pre- 

 sents ilself sufficienfly singular to the stranger. Upon 

 a square wooden trough stand three or four men with 

 bare legs, all stained with purple juice, dancing and 

 treading down the grapes as fast as they are thrown in, 

 to the tunes of a violin. The labour of constantly 

 stamping down the fruit is desperately fatiguing, and 

 without music would get on very slowly ; a fiddler, 

 tlierefore, forms part of every wine-grower's establish- 

 ment ; and as long as the instrument pours forth its 

 merry strains, the treaders continue their dance in the 

 gore of the grape, and the work proceeds diligently." 



The wonder is that in such a hot climate the colour 

 and the flavour are not both rendered ires proyioncee by 

 such a process. 



The vintage costs usually about £2 2s. per acre, in- 

 cluding the fiddles. 



The must flows from the crimsoned feet of the bac 

 clianals, and is conveyed in buckets to the foudres, or 

 large casks, containing from 8 to 12 tuns, where fer- 

 mentation is carried on. When this point is arrived at, 

 the skins which have been added to give colour are re- 

 mo\ed, and the wine is allowed to be drawn ofi:' in clean 

 vessels, which are filled up, at first every two or three 

 days, then once a month, and afterwards every three 

 months at least. The white wines are racked in Decem- 

 ber, which, from containing more sediment than the 

 red, require more care to escape being ropy. The red 

 wines, racked in February or March, and being more 

 apt to turn sour, are obliged to be kept in cool cellars 

 during summer. 



The red wines are in greater demand than the 



white, the strong rough growth being brought up to 

 strengthen the weaker sorts. In favourable years the 

 produce of Lafitte has been known to sell for 3,300 

 francs per tun of 42 gallons ! which brings the best 

 wine up to 6 francs per bottle. The first varieties are 

 Lafitte, Latour, Chateau Margaux, and Haut Brion, the 

 first being remarkable for its charming violet perfume. 

 The colour grows darker as it advances in age, in con- 

 sequence of the deposit of part of its tartar ; but when 

 well made, it seldom deposits any crust. 



Of the lohitc wines, those of Graves have mostly 

 a dry flinty taste, with an aroma resembling cloves. The 

 choicest are known as St. Bris and Carbonnieux. 



The annual produce of the vineyards of Guienne and 

 Gascoigne may be estimated at 6,020,000 of hectolitres, 

 2,000,000 of which are consumed at home. There yet 

 remains a considerable tract of country, quite as well 

 adapted to the growth of the vine as those tracts already 

 so employed, and it is but reasonable to suppose that 

 French capitalists, in view of the demand which will 

 eventually be made upon them for claret wines, will 

 commence the work of enclosing and planting. The 

 progress in the cultivation of the vine, during the last 

 78 years, in extent as well as in produce, shows what 

 the produce would be if strongly stimulated. In 1830, 

 the extent of the vineyards in France was greater by 

 438,000 hectares than in 1788 ; and in 1849 the extent 

 was greater by 200,000 than in 1830. M. Jullien states 

 the average produce of a vineyard, per hectare, in 

 France, was, in 1788, 13:92 hectolitres ; in 1829, 16:70 

 hectolitres per hectare; and in 18C0, it is 26:16 

 hectolitres per acre. 



Putting out of the question the premier, nay, perhaps, 

 the deiixieme classe of Bordeaux wines, at what price 

 may we expect to place them upon our tables ? Wines, 

 vastly superior to the vitis ordinaires to be met with at 

 the hotels on the Continent, whose alcoholic strength 

 is from 11 to 13 per cent., and which would be likely to 

 obtain a large popular consumption, will, when the duty 

 is lowered to Is. per gallon, which it will be next year 

 upon wines of this strength, be obtainable at 6d. per 

 bottle (6 bottles to a gallon). 



At such a price many persons in the middle and 

 humbler classes of society, now debarred the use of 

 wine, will assuredly enjoy it as an article of daily con- 

 sumption ; and if by degrees the labourers and mechanics 

 will use wines as restorers of exhausted strength, rather 

 than gin and brandy, which excite and destroy both body 

 and miud, the beverage that will produce so desirable a 

 change deserves our most encouraging welcome. 



F. R. S. 



THE WAY TO MANAGE HORSES.— Never attempt 

 to clean or otherwise disturb your horse while eating liis 

 meal, unless jou want him to hito and kick, But when you 

 clean, lake him out of the slall, and make a busmess of it. 

 Tie your horse in the centre of the stall, unless jou want 

 your horse to do as most hoises do, diive more on one rein 

 than on tlie otlier. Horses th:it, are liable to cast themselves 

 in their stalls, sliould be tied witli a ueek lialter, giving them 

 much more fieeJoni ot'llie lieaJ llianthe nose lialter. Gen- 

 tleness, firmness, and moderation will subdue the most ob- 

 durate— A^eic Enyland Furimr. 



