INTRODUCTION, 21 



Yet there, as is well known, the barrens 

 around the city produce their wines, which though 

 exceeded by many other wine grounds in quan- 

 tity, are rarely equalled, it will be admitted, in 

 quality, by the lover of Burgundy. 



It is the misfortune of the cultivator of Bur- 

 gundy that his wines deteriorate by transporta- 

 tion, and lose the exquisite flavour for which at 

 at Dijon they are so deservedly famed. To be 

 enjoyed in perfection, they should be drunk at 

 the birth place. They are held as inferior, even 

 at Paris, to the wines of the department. 



A deep interest in the cultivation and wine 

 making took me to Dijon during the vintage of 

 1826, and a similar feeling induced me to visit 

 that capital in the spring of 1827, and autumn of 

 1829, and of that of 1832, and I should violate the 

 grateful sense I feel, of the reception accorded to 

 an entire straaeer, if I did not here acknowledge 

 the patient politeness with which they replied to 

 my inquiries at the vineyard, and the character- 

 istic urbanity which admitted me without re- 

 serve to the operations of the wine press. , I 

 passed an entire vintage at the press of an affluent 

 proprietor at Dijon. He was an intelligent man, 

 and had devoted years of observation to the im- 

 provement of his vine grounds. Cultivation was 

 his idol, and to preserve the high fame abroad, 

 which an unwearied industry had secured to his 

 wines at home; the acme of an ambition to which 

 his ceaseless efforts were directed. 



He had, a few years before, pressed from se- 

 lected grapes, a quarter cask for a friend at New 

 Orleans, on which it appeared he had bestowed 



