071 the Vine, 
341 
Article XL —On the Method of Cultivating the Vine^ as 
practised in France. Extracted and abridged from a 
Treatise by C. Chaptal, on the Cultivation of the Vine 
and Making Wines. Communicated by J. T-. 
The Effects of Climate, Soil, Exposure, Seasons, and Culture, on 
the quality of the Wines. 
Climate. —All climates are not suited to the cultivation of the Vine. 
Though it seems to vegetate with vigour in northern climates, yet the 
fruit does not acquire a sufficient degree of maturity; and it is an 
invariable fact, that beyond the 50th degree of latitude, the juice of 
the grape does not attain that fermentation which converts it into a 
sound wine. In the north, grapes abound with the principles of 
putrefaction, but contain scarcely any element of spirituous fermenta 
tion; and the expressed juice of the fruit, having experienced the 
phoenomena of fermentation, produces a sour liquor, in which there 
exists only that proportion of alcohol necessary for interrupting the 
movements of putrid fermentation. 
The Vine therefore, as well as other productions _of Nature, has 
climates peculiar to itself. It is between the 40th ad 50th degrees of 
latitude, that this vegetable production can be cultivated with any 
degree of advantage. It is between these points that the most cele¬ 
brated vineyards are found, and the countries richest in wines, such 
as Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Austria, Styria, Corinthia, Hun¬ 
gary, Transylvania, and a part of Greece. 
But of all counti'ies, none perhaps presents so happy a situation 
for the Vine, as France; none exhibits so large an extent of vine¬ 
yards, nor exposures more varied ; and no counfry has such an 
astonishing variety of temperature. From the banks of the Rhine to 
the bottom of the Pyrenees, the Vine is almost every where cultivated; 
and in this vast extent the most agreeable and most spirituous wines 
are to be found. But though climate stamps a general and indelible 
character on its productions, there are certain circumstances which 
modify and limit its action; and it is only by carefully attending to 
what each of them produces that we can be able to discover the effect 
of climate alone. It is thus that we often find the different qualities 
of wine united under the same climate, because the soil, exposure, and 
cultivation, modify and mask the immediate action of that grand agent. 
On the other hand, there are some Vine plants which do not leave 
us the choice of cultivating them indiscriminately in any latitude at 
pleasure. Soil, climate, exposure, and cultivation, ought all to be ap- 
}>ropriated to their inflexible nature, as the least violation of this 
