GEVRAY AND CHAMBERTIN. 



117 



to see Chambertin, he procured a vigneron, who, he said, 

 was a very intelligent man, and would conduct me to it. 

 Chambertin lay in the direction of Vougeot, but by a 

 very bad road. The land under vines is in general very 

 much subdivided throughout France, but here the pro- 

 perties are of less extent than anywhere I have been. 

 Five or six proprietors often divide among them a piece 

 of ground not exceeding an acre in extent, and the usual 

 extent of most of the separate properties is not more than 

 half an acre. The vigneron said that the wine produced 

 to the left of the by-road we were travelling was inferior 

 to that on the right, which was higher and drier. We 

 turned off into the vineyard of Chambertin, which in 

 extent cannot exceed 15 or 20 acres ; but this, like most 

 other parts of the district, is subdivided among a number 

 of proprietors. The vignerons were at work on most of 

 the divisions, which are only made by a footpath, or an 

 'irregularity in the plantation. The soil of Chambertin 

 varies extremely, even in the distance of 100 yards; that 

 nearest the road is of a brown loam of sufficient con- 

 sistency, but full of gravel, and consequently very 

 friable. The gravel consists of small broken pieces 

 of the whitish limestone, of which the hill is partly 

 formed. At the highest limit to which the ground has 

 been broken up, it is a light-coloured clayish looking 

 soil, with a subsoil of marl and abundance of small shells. 

 Both of these soils effervesced strongly with an acid, 

 but the light-coloured evidently contains a far greater 

 proportion of hme. The soils of Beze, another first-rate 

 vineyard of the commune of Gevray, was exactly similar to 

 that of the lower part of Chambertin. A league further 

 on, the middle part of the Clos Vougeot was as nearly as 

 possible the same ; but the lowest part of that vineyard is 



