Yakdin. — On Vine-growing in Hawke's Bay. 529 



1. Soil. — ^It is well known that the vine can grov^' in almost 

 every soil ; but to produce grapes fit for wine it requires an 

 open soil vdth good drainage. Swampy lands, or lands ex- 

 posed to periodical floods, or retaining surface-water, are unfit 

 for grcipes. The plant would not grow, or would soon decay 

 and perish. Very high lands with hard clay are too cold, 

 the grapes would not ripen. 



With those exceptions the vine will thrive in any soil. On 

 a rich deep kind it grows luxuriantly, and produces abundance 

 of large fruits ; but the wine will often acquire a particular 

 taste, sometimes disagreeable, and well known in France by 

 the name of gout de terroir. " Shallow dry soils will produce less 

 grapes, but the wine is of a finer flavour. A sandy soil, as 

 found in the Ahuriri j)lains and elsewhere, will form a good 

 vineyard ; but the slopes of hills are better suited for that 

 purpose, wherever we find a calcareous, cretaceous, siliceous, 

 or even volcanic subsoil. . In France, and elsewhere, the 

 vineyards most celebrated for the excellence of their wine 

 are on stony soils : calcareous in Burgundy, along the 

 Ehine and the Moselle ; purely cretaceous in Champagne ; 

 rather marlj'^ around Bordeaux. In the best vineyards the 

 laud is so much covered with small stones that the soil itself 

 has been completely hidden. It is, then, easy to understand 

 how the grapes, receiving the action of the sun directly and 

 through radiation, may attain their finest qualities. The vine 

 is generally planted on the slopes of the hills ; but when the 

 declivities are too steep they are terraced, and vines planted 

 on the patches of good land mingled with bare rocks. This 

 mode of cultivation is used along the gorge of the Ehone, near 

 Vienne, in France, and the wine produced there is well known 

 by its superior quality, as vin des cotes roties. The best claret, 

 or Bordeaux wine, the best wines of Spain, Cyprus, and Hun- 

 gary, are produced in the same manner. 



2. Climate. — A very moist climate is not suitable for wine- 

 making ; nor is a mild climate the mean temperature of which 

 is about the same all the year round, because the ripening 

 of the wood as well as the fruit requires a considerable sum- 

 mer-heat continued for several months. This is the reason 

 why vine-growing does not succeed well either in the south of 

 England, or in the north-west of France, or in Belgium. On 

 the contrary, we know of large vineyards producing excellent 

 wine in the north-east, as in Champagne, along the Ehine 

 and the Moselle, because the climate of those countries, 

 though colder than in the south of England, is very hot in the 

 summer months, even at night. 



3. Exposure. — This condition supposes (1) an aspect shel- 

 tered both from the spray of the sea and the dampness of the 

 valleys above which the vineyard may be planted, and from 



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