RIVESALTES. 



79 



tion of the cuttings should never take root. At RivesalteSj 

 for the first time in France, I observed them manuring 

 their vines with strong stable dung, and I was informed 

 that this was the usual practice here, although Messrs. 

 Durand never used manure to their vines. The Muscat 

 is the grape commonly cultivated, and by visiting different 

 parties who were engaged in pruning, I obtained a few 

 cuttings of this, and three other sorts ; two of these four 

 were entirely new to me — of two of them I had procured 

 two or three cuttings each at Collioure. 



The Muscat wine of Rivesaltes is made in the following 

 manner : — The grapes are allowed to hang upon the vines 

 till they are so ripe that they begin to shrivel; they are 

 then cut and left on the ground under the vines where 

 they grew, for eight or ten days, unless the weather should 

 prove unfavourable, after which they are pressed, and the 

 juice is put into a cask, leaving the bung out; about a 

 month after this, it is drawn off to a fresh cask, which is 

 prepared by burning a match, not of sulphur, but of 

 strong brown paper, steeped in the strongest brandy. 

 They use this, they say, because the sulphur tastes the 

 wine. The Muscat wine of Rivesaltes sometimes brings 

 the proprietor 300 francs the charge of 118 litres (bot- 

 tles), when it is only from one to two years old. The 

 produce of the vineyards of Rivesaltes was stated by the 

 small proprietors, from whom I obtained the cuttings, to 

 be about two charges for every 500 stocks, exactly the 

 same as was stated by the person from whom I bought 

 the wine at Collioure. I consider them both, however, 

 as a very wide guess, for it was evident neither of them 

 had been accustomed to reckon the produce in this way, 

 and they neither knew the extent of the hectare, nor of 

 the arpent. Many of the vines here seemed to require 



