PRACTICAL PAPERS—VINE CULTURE, ETC. 
319 
and pointing to the composts heaps, remarked : “ There is the 
beginning of Johannisberger.” * 
Now Johannisberger is the most delicate of wine, as it is 
indeed superlative in every respect. By the kind invitation 
of the Princess Metternich the committee were allowed to taste 
specimens of the best the castle cellar contained, including some 
that was twenty-one years old in the cask, and some from a 
cask that was y)ar excellence^ called the “ bride of the cellar,” 
and the opinion formed was that the quality of the Johannis¬ 
berger is such that it cannot be described and can be commu¬ 
nicated only to the organs of taste, nor can it be understood or 
even imagined, except by those who are so highly favored as 
to have a taste of it. But this marvellous wine is but the 
crowning product of the famous district of the Khinegan, or 
that portion of the valley lying just north of Mayence, a strip 
of less than ten miles in length, whose fruit yields a juice 
Y/hich surpasses all others of the world, combining richness 
with flavor and delicacy with strength. The soil of the 
Ehinegau seems to be of a red sandstone mostly, if not wholly. 
Johannisberg hill reminds one strongly of the soil of some 
parts of New Jersey and Connecticut; and in the neighbor¬ 
hood of New Haven, in the latter state, the basalt is seen rest¬ 
ing upon the red stone, j ust as it does upon the hills that skirt 
the Ehine. Nearly all the Grerman and Swiss wines, and in¬ 
deed nearly all the grapes grown in Germany and Switzerland, 
are white, for which the soil and climate of the former country 
seem peculiarly adapted, while at the same time unsuited for 
ripening colored grapes to the tint needed in a true red wine. 
The peculiarity of the better sort of Ehenish wines is bouquet, 
and of the inferior sort, acidity. Compared with them their 
French rivals are quite negative, and so are those of Switzer¬ 
land. A French wine, white or red, must be very poor indeed 
* Ttie vineyard of P. T. Buhl, alluded to in a previous note, is fertilized by a compost 
made of wood ashes, stable manure and earth. This is applied in the spring in trenches 
dug to the depth of about ten inches and again covered with earth; the application is 
made in this naanner to every alternate row of the vineyard. The following year the 
same process is gone through with in the remaining rows, by the removal of the soil as 
previously stated and the treatment of manure as just detailed, The vineyard new pro¬ 
duces wine of a very superior quality, of a delicious bouquet, rich in saccharine matter 
and alcohol, and possessing all those excellencies that we prize in a first class wine, and 
is readily selling at twelve francs the litre. To which is this wine most indebted for the 
extraordinary change in its character, to the volcanic soil or the manure which is annu¬ 
ally buried in the vineyard ? 
