108 GRxVPE CULTURE AND WINE-MAKING. 



8. Tins dcs Cotes. — 'Wines growing on the range of liills at the- 

 right side of the Garonne, from Ambares to Saint Croix du Mont. 

 Also on the right side of the Dordogne, between Bourg and Fron- 

 sac. Of these wines, the most celebrated are those of St. Emilion. 

 Less choice are those of St. Laurent, St. Hippolyte, St. Christophe 

 de St. Georges, and of Pommerol. The soil in these vineyards is 

 generally a combination of lime and clay, with a subsoil of hard 

 rock. They generally decline toward south and-west. 



4. Yins de Palus. — Wines growing on the bottom-lands of the 

 Garonne, near Bordeaux. These are less distinguished than the 

 above, although they are wines of a fine color and a good deal of 

 spirit. The best of them are grown in the communes of Queyries 

 and Montferrand. 



Wines of the Medoc District 



The small peninstila formed by the Eiver Gironde on its east- 

 ern side and the Atlantic on the western, is generally allowed to 

 contain some of the finest vineyards in the world. This is the re- 

 nowned Medoc district. It offers itself to the eye as a softly -un- 

 dulating plain, with gentle declivities all along the river, and sandy 

 downs, frequently interrupted by marshes and lagoons, along the 

 sea-side. It is principally on those slopes above the Gironde 

 where the famous Bordeaux wines are raised in their greatest per- 

 fection. The general formation of the soil consists here of a com- 

 pound of quartzose fragments with clay, strongly impregnated 

 with oxide of iron. This uppermost stratum rests either on a bed 

 of pure sand, or on a conglomerate of gravel with clay, and a 

 strong admixture of iron oxide, which composition — very hard in 

 some cases, and soft and crumbling m others — goes by the local 

 name of " alios." 



This diversity of the soil, or, rather, the great variation in the 

 mixture of its component elements, is the principal cause for the 

 great diversity of its productions. As a proof of this, we find, in 

 many instances, wines of inferior quality in the close neighbor- 

 hood of the very best vineyards, and, vice versa, streaks of good 

 soil amid poor vineyards, giving a much better wine than the sur- 

 rounding grounds. The culture of the vine in the Medoc dis- 

 trict varies more or less from the methods used in other parts of 

 France ; but the training of the vines on laths or on trellises near 

 the ground is a characteristic not to be found any where else but 

 here. 



The most extensively cultivated grapes in the Medoc are the 

 Cabemet-Sauvignon, the Franc-Cabernet, the Meilot, the Malbec, 

 and the Verdot ; but it is especially the Cabemet-Sauvignon which 

 forms the basis of the Medoc vineyards, and, in fact, is to the great 

 Medoc wines what the Pincau is to the wines of the Cote d'Or in 

 Burgundy. This unsurpassed grape is the chief ingredient of the 

 celebrated wines of Panillac, St. Julicn, and Margaux; and about 



