1136 WINE 



than the delicious wine grown on the middle height, called true Montrachet, Beneath 

 this district and in the surrounding plains the vines afford a far inferior article, called 

 bastard Montrachet, The opposite side of the hills produces very indifferent wine. 

 Similar differences, in a greater or less degree, are observable relatively to the dis- 

 tricts which grow the Pomard, Volnay, Beaune, Nuits, Clos-de-Vougeot, Chambertin, 

 Bomanec, &c. Everywhere it is found that the reverse side of the hill, the summit 

 and the plain, although generally consisting of like soils, afford inferior wine to the 

 middle southern slopes. 



In the district of Medoc the soil is mainly a quartzose gravel, with a subsoil of 

 argillaceous sand, sometimes compacted by brown iron ore, known as alias, which in 

 the neighbouring or southern district of Graves becomes more sandy, and marly, over- 

 lying the limestones which form considerable cliffs in the neighbouring department of 

 Dordogne. These latter are known as the Cotes, the thin soils above them producing 

 the generous wine of St.-Emilion. Other examples of limestone soils are furnished by 

 the Cote-d'Or, the great wine-producing district of Burgundy, a chain of limestone 

 hills which extends for about 36 miles, from Dijon to Chalons-sur-Saone, and include 

 the famous vineyards of Clos-de-Vougeot, Chambertin, Nuit-sur-Ravier, &c., which 

 are situated on their eastern slope. In Champagne the soils are mainly a clayey and 

 sandy alluvium above chalky limestones, very usually barren when too exclusively 

 sandy or calcareous, so that it is necessary to dress the soils with clay, in order to 

 produce the fertility required for vine-growing. On the Ehine and the tributary 

 vine-growing valleys of the Maine, Moselle, Lahn, and Ahr, the soils are generally 

 decomposed clay-slate, more or less quartzose, of Devonian age. The vineyards are 

 situated on the steep hill-sides, the soil being retained by terrace-walls, the wash of 

 the winter rains being received by earth carried up in baskets every spring. In the 

 Sherry-producing districts, of the neighbourhood of Cadiz, the finest wines are pro- 

 duced from an argillaceous calcareous soil known as albariza, while a lighter and less 

 valuable wine is given in the lower sandy soils or arenas. On the southern slopes of 

 the Sierra Nevada, in Spain, the vines grow iu a deep natural soil produced from the 

 decomposition of clay-slate, without terracing up to a height of about 3,000 feet above 

 the sea-level. The produce is a sweet wine used in the production of Sherry and 

 Malaga at various places in the south of Spain. 



For the vine, a manure supplying azotised or animal nutriment may be used with 

 great advantage, provided care be taken that it may not, by absorption in too crude 

 a state, impart any disagreeable odour to the grape, as sometimes happens to the 

 vines grown in the vicinity of great torwns, like Paris, and near Argenteuil. There 

 is a compost used in France called animalised black, of which from | to of a litre 

 (old English quart) serves sufficiently to fertilise the root of one vine when applied 

 every year or two years. An excess of manure, in rainy seasons especially, has the 

 effect of rendering the grapes large and insipid. 



The famous vineyards of Steinberg and Johannisberg, on the Ehine, and Chateau- 

 Margaux, in Medoc, are heavily manured, each consuming the whole of the manure pro- 

 duced on a large grazing farm of about 600 acres, or from 6 to 8 times its own area. 



The ground is tilled at the same time as the manure is applied, towards the month 

 of March ; the plants are then dressed, and the props are inserted. The weakness of 

 the plants renders this practice useful ; but in some southern districts the stem of the 

 vine, when supported at a proper height acquires, after a while, sufficient size and 

 strength to stand alone. The ends of the props or poles are either dipped in tar, or 

 charred, to prevent their rotting. The bottom of the stem must be covered over 

 with soil after the spring rains have washed it down. The principal husbandry of the 

 vineyard consists in digging or ploughing, to destroy the weeds, and to expose the soil 

 to the influence of the air during the months of May, June, and occasionally in August. 



The fruit of the same plant when transferred to a different soil loses its peculiar 

 characteristics ; thus one and the same vine produces Hock upon the Ehine, Bucellas 

 in Portugal, and Sercial at Madeira. It has been found that vines from Germany, 

 France, Portugal, and Spain transplanted to the Capo of Good Hope and Australia, 

 have in no one instance produced wine assimilating to the peculiarities of the original 

 plant ; and no European vine has hitherto succeeded when transplanted to the United 

 States, although wine is made at Cincinnati from American grapes. 



The finest known wines are the produce of soils the combination and proportions 

 of whoso ingredients are extremely rare and exceptional ; and co-operating with 

 these they require the agency of peculiar degrees of light, moisture, and heat. The 

 district of Xeres, which has so long supplied us with Sherry, is mapped out so accu- 

 rately by the line of its peculiar soil that its dimensions are known by the acre. The 

 vino which produces Port on the hills above the Douro yields a totally different wine 

 ln * n vicinity of the Tagus. The wine district of the Ehinegau, between Mayence 

 and Kudesheim, is but 9 miles in length by half as much broad. The south side of. a 



