July 17. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
283 
up their hag and baggage, and from scores of miles around 
pour in ragged regiments into Medoc. 
There have long existed pleasing, and in some sort 
poetical, associations connected with the task of securing for 
human use the fruits of the earth ; and to no species of 
crop do these picturesque associations apply with greater 
force-than to the ingathering of the ancient harvest of the 
vine. Prom time immemorial, the season has typified 
epochs of plenty and mirthful-heartedness—of good fare 
and of good will. The ancient types and figures descriptive 
of the vintage are still literally true. The march of agri¬ 
cultural improvement seems never to have set foot amid the 
vines. As it was with the patriarchs of the East, so it is 
with the modern children of men. The goaded ox still 
hears home the high-pressed grape-tub, and the feet of the 
treader are still red in the purple juice which maketh glad 
the heart of man. The scene is at once full of beauty, and 
of tender, and even sacred associations. The songs of the 
vintagers, frequently cliorussed from one part of the field to 
the other, ring blithely into the bright summer air, pealing 
out above the rough jokes and hearty peals of laughter 
shouted hither and thither. All the green jungle is alive 
with the moving figures of men and women, stooping among 
the vines, or bearing pails and basketfuls of grapes out to 
the grass-grown cross-roads, along which the labouring oxen 
drag the rough vintage carts, groaning and cracking as they 
stagger along beneath their weight of purple tubs heaped 
high with the tumbling masses of luscious fruit. The con¬ 
gregation of every age and both sexes, and the careless 
variety of costume, add additional features of picturesque¬ 
ness to the scene. The white-haired old man labours with 
shaking hands to fill the basket which his black-eyed imp of 
a grandchild carries rejoicingly away. Quaint broad-brim¬ 
med straw and felt hats—handkerchiefs twisted like turbans 
over straggling elf locks—swarthy skins tanned to an olive- 
brown—black flashing eyes—and hands and feet stained in 
the abounding juices of the precious fruit—all these 
southern peculiarities of costume and appearance supply the 
vintage with its pleasant characteristics. The clatter of 
tongues is incessant. A fire of jokes and jeers, of saucy 1 
questions, and more saucy retorts—of what, in fact, in the 
humble and unpoetic. but expressive vernacular, is called : 
“ chaff,”—is kept up with a vigour which seldom flags, 
except now and then, when the butt-end of a song, or the 
twanging close of a chorus, strikes the general fancy, and 
procures for the morceau a lusty encore. Meantime, the 
master wine-grower moves observingly from rank to rank. 
No neglected bunch of fruit escapes his watchful eye. No 
careless vintager shakes the precious berries rudely upon ; 
the soil, but he is promptly reminded of his slovenly work. 
Sometimes the tubs attract the careful superintendent. He 
turns up the clusters to ascertain that no leaves nor useless 
length of tendril are entombed in the juicy masses, and 
anon directs his steps to the pressing-trough, anxious to 
find that the lusty treaders are persevering manfully in their . 
long-continued dance. 
Thither we will follow. The wine-press, or cuvier de 
pressoir , consists, in the majority of cases, of a massive ; 
shallow tub, varying in size from four square feet to as j 
many square yards. It is placed either upon w r ooden 
i trestles or on a regularly-built platform of mason-work, 
under the huge rafters of a substantial outhouse. Close to 
it stands a range of great butts, their number more or less, 
according to the size of the vineyard. The grapes are 
flung by tub and caskfuls into the cuvier. The treaders 
stamp diligently amid the masses, and the expressed juice 
pours plentifully out of a hole level with the bottom of the j 
trough, into a sieve of iron or wicker-work, which stops the 
passage of the skins, and from thence drains into tubs 
below. Suppose, at the moment of our arrival, the cuvier 
for a brief spate empty. The treaders—big, perspiring 
men, in shirts and tucked-up trousers—spattered to the 
eyes with splatches of purple juice, lean upon their wooden 
spades, and wipe their foreheads. But their respite is 
short. The creak of another cart load of tubs is heard, 
and immediately the waggon is backed up to the broad open 
window, or rather hole in the wall, above the trough. A 
minute suffices to wrench out tub after tub, and to tilt their 
already half-mashed clusters splash into the reeking pressoir. 
Then to work again. Jumping with a sort of spiteful eager¬ 
ness into the mountain of yielding quivering fruit, the 
treaders sink almost to the knees, stamping, and jumping, 
and rioting in the masses of grapes, as fountains of juice 
spurt about their feet, and rush bubbling and gurgling away. 
Presently, having, as it were, drawn the first sweet blood of 
the new cargo, the eager trampling subsides into a sort of 
quiet, measured dance, which the treaders continue, while, 
with their wooden spades, they turn the pulpy remnants of' 
the fruit hither and thither, so as to expose the half- 
squeezed berries in every possible way to the muscular 
action of the incessantly moving feet. All this time the 
juice is flowing in a continuous stream into the tubs be¬ 
neath. When the jet begins to slacken, the heap is well 
tumbled with the wooden spades, and, as though a new 
force had been applied, the juice-jet immediately breaks out 
afresh. It takes, perhaps, half or three quarters of an 
hour thoroughly to squeeze the contents of a good-sized 
cuvier, sufficiently manned. When at length, however, no 
further exertion appears to be attended with corresponding 
results, the tubfuls of expressed juice are carried by means 
of ladders to the edges of the vats, and their contents tilted 
in; while the men in the trough, setting-to with their 
spades, fling the masses of dripping grape-skins in along 
with the juice. The vats sufficiently full, the fermentation 
is allowed to commence. In the great cellars in which the 
juice is stored, the listener at the door—he cannot brave 
the carbonic acid gas to enter further—may hear, solemnly 
echoing in the cool shade of the great darkened hall, the 
bubblings and seethings of the working liquid—the inarticu¬ 
late accents and indistinct rumblings which proclaim that a 
great metempsychosis is taking place—that a natural sub¬ 
stance is rising higher in the eternal scale of things, and 
that the contents of these great giants of vats are becoming 
changed from floods of mere mawkish, sweetish fluid, to 
noble wine—to a liquid honoured and esteemed in all ages— 
to a medicine exercising a strange and potent effect upon 
body and soul—great for good and evil. Is there not some¬ 
thing fanciful and poetic in the notion of this change taking 
place mysteriously in the darkness, when all the doors are 
locked and barred—for the atmosphere about the vats is 
death—as if Nature would suffer no idle prying into her 
mystic operations, and as if the grand transmutation and 
projection from juice to wine had in it something of a secret 
and solemn and awful nature—fenced round, as it were, and 
protected from vulgar curiosity by the invisible halo of 
stifling gas ? I saw the vats in the Chateau Margaux 
cellars the day after the grape-juice had been flung in. 
Fermentation had not as yet properly commenced, so access 
to the place was possible; still, however, there was a strong 
vinous smell loading the atmosphere, sharp and subtle in 
its influence on the nostrils ; while, putting my ear, on the 
recommendation of my conductor, to the vats, I heard, 
deep down, perhaps eight feet down in the juice, a seething, 
gushing sound, as if currents and eddies were beginning to 
flow, in obedience to the influence of the working Spirit, — , 
and now and then a hiss and a low bubbling throb, as 
though of a pot about to boil. Within twenty-four hours 
the cellar would be unapproachable.—( Clurct and Olives.) 
(To be continued,) 
LONDON MARKETS.— July IGth. 
As last week the market was gay with the fruit from the 
Royal Botanic Show, so this week that from Chiswick has 
found its way there also, where it will be better seen, and 
attract greater crowds than it did at Chiswick last Wed¬ 
nesday, when, according to the Times, the weather was so 
bad, and “the company” so small, that not even a waiter 
dared show his nose in the refreshment - booth. Pines 
are very plentiful, as also Grapes, Peaches, and Nectarines. 
The supply of Strawberries is also very great, and the fruit, 
generally speaking, very good indeed. iYest India Pines 
are come in, of good quality, and make from 2s. to 3s. Gd. 
each. The finest Black Circassian Cherries fetch Gs. per 
lb. Jpricots, from France, are plentiful, at Is. (id. to 2s. (id. 
per doz. Flowers of all kinds, and Vegetables also, are in 
abundance. 
