1847. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
337 
RURAL NOTICES ABROAD—No. IX.— By Ik. Marvel. 
Wines and Vineyards of France. — I have al¬ 
ready taken occasion to speak incidentally of the gen¬ 
eral appearance of the French vineyards. They be¬ 
long, by association, to all our ideas of French land¬ 
scape, and make up as important a feature in the rural 
aspect of the country, as the corn fields in the northern 
states of our Union. 
Still, it must not be supposed that the wine culture 
belongs to every district of France. Through the 
whole northern third of its territory, vineyards are 
rarely met with, and only upon sorae^warm slope ex¬ 
posed to the sun, or in some closely sheltered valley. 
Indeed the sunny slopes are the favorite situations for 
vineyards throughout France; in more southern coun¬ 
tries, a flat surface, and even a northern exposure, have 
been preferred. The soil most generally favorable is 
calcareous—-such is the famous grape land of the C'te 
d’Or, from which come the finest of the Burgundies—- 
such, also, is the better portion of the Cote Rotie by the 
Rhone, being a calcareous belt lying between gneiss 
rock. The vineyards of Champagne are also of the 
the same general character. 
A stranger, passing only by the great diligence 
routes through France, would be rather surprised at 
the absence of vineyards, than at their frequency—-the 
great roads passing, for the most part, over broad 
plains which are unsuited to the grape culture. Be¬ 
tween Dijon and Chalon sur Saone, however, the tra¬ 
veller will pass through the richest of the Burgundian 
vineyards; and if he be not shut up to a tedious night- 
ride, he may see every slope upon his right, looking 
eastward, covered with vines. They ascend in terra¬ 
ces, and upon shelves of the crumbling rock, till they 
reach a height of a thousand feet. The soil is a yeh 
lowish red, and full of the broken limestone. The vines 
are low, not thrifty in appearance, and clusters and 
grapes are small, yet from them come the much prized 
Chamberlin, Mints, and Branne . From this golden 
hill-side, as it is expressively called, rich meadows 
stretch twenty leagues away to the heights of the Jli¬ 
ras ; and looking back from those heights, near the lit¬ 
tle town of Poligny, a scene of agricultural magnifi¬ 
cence is presented, unsurpassed perhaps in the world. 
Fir forests stretch down the sides of the mountains 
around you—-between them, perhaps, a' grassy valley, 
on whose warmest edge a few vines are cherished, and 
in its bottom a brook, that tumbles away through 
green pasture-lands and cornfields, and orchards, till it 
empties into the river Doubs, lying like a silver thread 
in the plain. Then grass, and wheat, and vines alter¬ 
nate, till the first lift of the Cote d’Or is seen, in yellow 
soil, and yellow vine leaves scarce turned blue in the 
distance. 
The vine is propagated universally by cuttings; and 
as quality of wine is found to depend riiore upon situa¬ 
tion of vineyard, than any natural characteristic of the 
fruit, not so much attention is paid to' growth of ne“w 
sorts, as might at first be supposed. It is found, in¬ 
deed, that the same grape, upon lands not a league 
apart, will produce totally different sorts of wine. 
The grape which produces the delicious Constantia 
at the Cape of Good Hope, is said to be the same in 
appearance, with that of many indifferent vineyards 
along the Rhine. Nor are the best wine grapes by any 
means the most palatable to the taste. Fruit from 
many of the favorite vineyards, is, from its acid taste, 
totally unfit for the table. And though the vineyards 
in France are so world-wide in reputation, almost any 
country can furnish equally good, if not better grapes 
for the table. It was rarely that I saw, in the Paris 
market, fruit superior in appearance to that grown in 
the graperies of this country. 
I have, in a previous letter, spoKen of the method of 
pressing out the wine in the choice vineyards of Bur¬ 
gundy. The older vines furnish the best wine, though 
a far less quantity than the new vineyards. Seasons 
vary much in their products, and not unfrequently a 
very large vintage is comparatively worthless; and 
Chambertin becomes vin ordinaire , or the ordinary 
drink of the peasantry. That a large portion, how¬ 
ever, of this inferior product reaches this country under 
its reputable name, is very probable—-it is, in nineteen 
cases in twenty perhaps, the refuse stuff, by which our 
pretending dinner-talkers form their notions of les boas 
vins of Burgundy. 
I may be pardoned for dispelling another pleasant il¬ 
lusion: The vineyards of Chambertin—the favorite 
wine of Napoleon, and of emperors of our time—cov* 
ers only from fifteen to twenty acres of ground. You 
cannot buy a bottle of the wine at an inn, vyithin a 
stones throw of the vineyard, for less than 8 to 10 
francs, ($2.) Yet I have found the same, at a less 
price, in half the hotels between Niagara and Saratoga! 
Who would be so foolish, in view of this, as to go to 
France to drink wine ? 
Along the Rhone, are to be seen the favorite vine¬ 
yards of the Cote Rotie , the Hermitage, and St. Per ay. 
The latter differing from most others in lying upon a 
gravelly, granite soil, which is manured with decayed 
leaves. The dressings of the other two are for the 
most part sheep and horse-dung. 
The Hermitage is better known by name than taste; 
and is more frequently seen on the bills of our enter¬ 
prising inn-keepers, than in their cellars. The whole 
extent of the vineyard is about 300 acres, lying along 
the bank of the Rhone, in such way as to be exposed 
to the full play of the sun. Its name is derived from 
a little ruin on a height, where it is said a hermit lived 
many years ago, and cultivated a small spot with vines 
which were found to yield the richest wine of the coun¬ 
try. It is needless-to say that the old hermit is long 
since dead; that the vineyard has quadrupled its size; 
and that the wane has lost none of its flavor. 
The red Hermitage, of best quality, is purchased by 
the wane merchants of Bordeaux to mix with the bet¬ 
ter clarets-; and the white, though you might be trou¬ 
bled to find it pure at Lyons or Marseilles, I dare say 
you can find, at $2 the bottle, at any inn in Schenectady 
or Chicago. And though gentlemen of the neighbor¬ 
hood would speak diffidently of its qualities, there are 
plenty of coxcombs in New-York and Buffalo, who will 
dilate upon its aroma and body. 
The St. Peray is a sparkling wane, not unlike Cham¬ 
pagne, and more wholesome from the fact that it re¬ 
ceives its sweetness from the saccharine qualities of the 
grape, and not from the syrup which is mixed with 
Champagnes. The fruit is of a bright yellow color, 
with the exception of some portion of the vineyard, on 
which is grown a red-skinned grape, from which is 
made a rose-colored wine. 
The fruit ripens by the middle of September, and 
the wine is treated very much in the same way with 
the Champagne wines—of which I may have something 
to say in another paper. 
