480 On the Cultivation of the Vine? 
have such an agreeable flavour as those which grow to- 
wards the middle region : the air there being constantly 
charged with moisture, and the soil always impregnated 
with water, enlarge the grapes, and force the vegetation, 
to the detriment of the quality. 
The most favourable exposuse for the vine is between 
the east and the south. 
Opportunus ager tepidos qui vergit ad aestus. 
Small hills rising above a plain intersected by a stream of 
pure water, give the best wine ; but these hills ought not 
to lie too close to each other : 
• — — -apertos 
Bacchus amat colies- — — 
A northern exposure has at all times been considered 
as the most fatal : the cold damp winds do not favour the 
ripening of the grapes ; they always remain harsh, sour, 
and destitute of saccharine principle ; and the wine must 
participate in these bad qualities. 
A south exposure is also not very favourable : the earth, 
dried by the heat in the day-time, presents, towards even- 
ing, to the oblique rays of the sun (become almost paral- 
lel to the horizon) but an arid soil destitute of all mois- 
ture ; the sun, which by its position penetrates then un- 
der the vine, and darts its rays upon the grapes, wdiich 
have no longer any shelter, dries and heats them, ripens 
them prematurely, and checks the vegetation before the 
period of fulness and maturity has arrived. 
Nothing is more proper to enable us to judge of the ef- 
fects of exposure than to observe what takes place in a 
vineyard, the ground of which is unequal, and inter- 
spersed here and there with a few trees : there all expo- 
sures seem to be united in one spot $ all the effects thence 
