68 GRAPE CULTURE AND WINE-MAKING. 



a work sufficient for Byron, Shakspeare, or Schiller, and even 

 those geniuses would not do full justice to them until they had 

 imbibed a couple of glasses full. As you take a mouthful and 

 let it run drop by drop down your throat, it leaves in your mouth 

 the same aroma as a bouquet of the choicest flowers will offer to 

 your olfactories. 



The older a wine becomes, the less grows its bouquet, but it 

 grows more and more delicate. A young wine of four years old 

 has this bouquet in a very great degree ; but as it becomes older 

 it loses it, gaining instead a more delicate but more penetrating 

 taste ; it now communicates to the palate slowly but surely its 

 perfume. 



After having tasted many, we finally concluded by drinking a 

 couple of glasses of the finest wine mortal can imbibe. I may 

 here remark to those who are not initiated in the manner of iasi- 

 ing wine, that you do not drink it, but take a few drops on your 

 tongue, and if it is old, let a few drops trickle slowly down your 

 throat. If the wine is of little value, you keep it a few moments 

 in your mouth and then throw it out. The reason of this is that 

 a fine old wine will, by a few drops, give you the entire taste, 

 whereas it is necessary to take a large mouthful of the inferior 

 wine in order to be able to judge of its quality. The Duke ev- 

 ery year causes a public auction to be held ; then wines of three 

 and four years old are sold. Older wines are not sold at public 

 auction, but have a fixed price, which would astonish some of my 

 readers. Again, there are wines which can not be bought ifor 

 any price. 



The wines grown on different parts of the domain are kept in 

 this cellar. The grapes are picked by women and children, who 

 have wooden tubs with leathern straps, so that they may be car- 

 ried on the back. "When these tubs are full, they are taken to a 

 place where there are persons who classify the grapes ; that is, 

 they take all the finest bunches and lay them on one side, then 

 the next finest, and so on ; from these latter sorts the second and 

 third class wine is made. From the first class grapes (which are 

 allowed to become like raisins before they are picked), the finest 

 berries are cut out and placed in a large earthenware dish ; from 

 these selected grapes is made the first class wine called the Auslcsc 

 (" Select"). These grapes are trodden out with boots made for 

 that purpose. They are pressed in a press of their own, so that 

 no other juice may be mixed with theirs. The juice is then put 



