Bordeaux wine

“ The sun of many summers is locked up in these bottles."
"I wall take Chambertin," said the Duke.
"And I, Pomard," said his son.
"And I," said Des Illes, "Romanée Conti. But all here are in the peerage of wines."
Then, when each of this curious company had made his choice, our host said to us:
"It will be best that I choose for you. There is already enough of Burgundy to trouble some toes to-morrow. Shall we say Bordeaux? Here are two of long descent, and one is a comet-wine—of a name long lost—and one is Laffitte, and both are in good order; neither is less than thirty years old. ”

“ The principal English wine merchants at Bordeaux, are Jernon, Barton, Johnston, Foster, Skinner, Copinger, and M’Cartey: the chief French wine merchants, are Feger, Nerac, Bruneaux Jauge, and Du Verget. Desgrands, a wine-broker, tells me they never mix the wines of first quality: but that they mix the inferior ones to improve them. The smallest wines make the best brandy. They yield about a fifth or sixth.
May 28, 29. From Bordeaux to Blaye, the country near the river is hilly, chiefly in vines, some corn, some pasture: further out, are plains, boggy and waste. ”

“ But this is not the Claret of our days, which is the wine produced in the countries watered by the rivers Dordogne and Garonne and the Gironde, at least it should be so; but, in truth, owing to the good railway communication, wine comes to Bordeaux from every [71] part of France, large quantities owing their birth to the banks of the Rhone, from the Hérault, Roussillon, etc.; and a judicious blending at Bordeaux, and its being shipped thence, is a very good title to its being grown in the Médoc ”

“ There were even little children under care of mothers who could not leave them at home, gathering grapes on their own account, scampering about and besmearing lips and cheeks with juice like precocious bacchantes.
On the path, about half-way up the hill, which divided the estate and facilitated its cultivation, the waggon, harnessed to two red oxen, with horns trained back in the form of a lyre, waited patiently for the moment of moving toward the wine-press. The men loaded it gravely. You did not hear laughter from them like the women, but only the exchanging of brief directions now and then. ”

“ The wine is the common wine of the country, and pleasant and healthy tipple it is when you get used to it. You can procure a baby bottle full for one real, and if you like to be extravagant you can pay twenty-four for a bottle of Bordeaux, or forty for a bottle of champagne. The Bordeaux is too dear. As for champagne, nobody drinks that habitually except kings of the Bonanza dynasty; but myriads of men, especially at race-meetings, drink a beverage which they take for the bubbling, roseate, kindling nectar with inspiration in every wavering pearlet. ”

“ The wine-merchants buy it up, when our vintage has not been good enough for the Dutch and Belgian markets, to mix it with wines grown in the neighborhood of Paris, and call it Bordeaux. But what you are drinking just now, my good Monsieur, is a wine for kings, the pure Head of Vouvray,—that’s it’s name. I have two puncheons, only two puncheons of it left. People who like fine wines, high-class wines, who furnish their table with qualities that can’t be bought in the regular trade,—and there are many persons in Paris who have that vanity,—well, such people send direct to us for this wine. ”

“ These wine lists, which are handed to you in every hotel and restaurant, are magnificently bound in morocco and lettered in gold, and it is set forth that the ‘cellars’ from which you are drinking belong to a house founded so many years after the Flood, and that it has ‘a speciality for the grand wines of Bordeaux, bottled at the châteaux, with the mark of their authentic origin on the corks, capsules, and labels.’
If ever one drinks genuine ‘Bordeaux,’ it ought to be at Bordeaux. At Yarmouth one does not suspect the freshness of the bloater; in Devonshire one blindly accepts the cream ”

“ Give us something to drink, Orangine!” called Trimalcyon to the mulattress, who poured out a glorious glass of Bordeaux wine. “What is that wine, Crow-provender?” asked he of the negro dwarf, holding his glass up to his eyes to judge its colour.
“My lord, it was taken, in the month of June, from a Bordeaux brigantine on its way to Genoa.”
“H’m, h’m,” said Trimalcyon, tasting it, “it is good, very good, but there is the inconvenience of supplying ourselves as we do, friend Pog: we never have the same quality, so if we get accustomed to one kind of wine, we meet with cruel disappointments. ”

“ The total value of the exports and imports of Bordeaux averages between 25 and 26 millions sterling yearly. Of this amount exports make up 131/2 millions, of which the sales of wine bring in about one quarter. The city is the centre of the trade in “Bordeaux” wines, and the wine-cellars of the quays are one of its principal sights. Other principal exports are brandy, hides and skins, sugar, rice, woollen and cotton goods, salt-fish, chemicals, oil-cake, pitwood, fruit, potatoes and other vegetables. ”

“ Every year seemed to produce an improvement in the wine, the older varieties gaining greatly in delicacy and softening very perceptibly in flavour.
Finding that sparkling wines were being made in most of the wine-producing districts of France, where the growths were sufficiently light and of the requisite quality, Messrs. E. Normandin & Co. conceived the idea of laying the famous Bordeaux district under contribution for a similar purpose, and, aided by a staff of experienced workmen from Epernay, they have succeeded in producing a sparkling Sauternes. ”

“ The Bordeaux are arranged in their proper precedence, the wines from the great vineyards first, and the rest in their correct order down to mere bourgeois tipple. Against each brand is the price of the vintage of all the years within a drinkable [Pg 11] period, and the man who knew the wine-list of Voisin's thoroughly would be the greatest authority in the world on claret.
Mr. Rowland Strong, in his book on Paris, tells how, one Christmas Eve, he took an Englishman to dine at Voisin's, and how that Englishman demanded plum-pudding. The maître-d'hôtel was equal to the occasion. ”

“ In this respect the famous Bordeaux or Gironde district is, perhaps, more fortunate than any other part of the world. The thrifty and methodical habits of the French peasantry, and also the system of small holdings which prevails in France, have, there is little doubt, done much to raise the French wine industry to the pre-eminent position which it holds. There is perhaps no branch of agriculture which requires more minute attention or for which a system of small holdings is more suitable than wine culture. ”

“ Why place before them Lafitte, which they are sure to swallow in total ignorance of its qualities, very likely commending it as good “fresh claret,” and expressing their opinion that such wine is better from the wood than the bottle? Keep your real good liquor for such men as are capable of understanding it. There is no higher treat than to form one of a party of six, all people of first-rate intelligence, true, generous, clarety souls, when the best of the vintages of Bordeaux is circulating at the board. ”

“ With all these raw materials, and, of course, a chemical laboratory to boot, it would be hard if the clever folks of Cette could not turn out a very good imitation of any wine in demand. They will doctor you up bad Bordeaux with violet powders and rough cider—colour it with [Pg 214] cochineal and turnsole, and outswear creation that it is precious Chateau Margaux—vintage of '25. Champagne, of course, they make by hogsheads. ”

“ I held the caraffe, ready to offer a second draught. But he considered our gift an insult. Grandfather, when he heard of our ill-starred effort, completed our discomfiture:
“Offering water to that drunkard! He would rather never wash again than touch water.”
And in our presence he tendered to Oui-oui a glass of red wine, which was swallowed at a draught, followed by a second and a third till the entire bottle was gone. If grandfather was to receive back his offering a hundred fold, his thirst would be copiously quenched in the celestial kingdom. ”

“ The Bordeaux press for this purpose is rather ingeniously constructed. It consists of a sort of a skeleton of a cask, strips of daylight shining through from top to bottom between the staves. In the centre works a strong perpendicular iron screw. The rape, as the refuse of the treading is called, is piled beneath it; the screw is manned capstan fashion, and the unhappy seeds, skins, and stalks, undergo a most dismal squeezing. Nor do their trials end there. The wine-makers are terrible hands for getting at the very last get-at-able drop. ”

“ Portions of southern France are noted for the beautiful vineyards. Bordeaux and other brands of wine are famous the world around. Some of our boys are laughing yet about the French methods of making wine. The grapes are gathered and piled into a great vat. When this receptacle is filled, men, women and children take off their shoes and most all of their clothes and climb in. Here they walk and jump and tramp until the whole thing is a mass of pulp. In the meantime, the wine is continually draining out and being cared for by others. ”

“ When Champagne goes rightly, nothing can well go wrong.’ These precepts are sound enough; still all dinner-parties are not necessarily glacial, and the guests are not invariably mutes. Before Champagne can be properly introduced at a formal dinner, the conventional glass of sherry or madeira should supplement the soup, a white French or a Rhine wine accompany the fish, and a single glass of bordeaux prepare the way with the first entrée for the sparkling wine, which, for the first round or two, should be served briskly and liberally. ”

“ The French equivalent of ‘carrying coals to Newcastle’ is ‘carrying wine to Bordeaux.’ You haven’t been in Bordeaux five minutes before the presence of an enormous wine trade makes itself felt. Wine stares at you and confronts you everywhere. The wine lists in the hotels are huge volumes. ”

“ It is a loaded wine made for the market, which every genuine lover of Claret should abhor. It was the custom in the first society of Bordeaux, and always at the prefecture, in the days of Baron d’Haussey, afterwards Minister of Marine to Charles X., to serve Claret with a tepid napkin round the claret-jug or decanter into which the wine was poured, or round the green glass bottle itself, if, as indeed it more frequently happened, the wine was not decanted. This gentle heat brings out advantageously the flavour and aroma of the wine. ”

“ The red wines are sent to Bordeaux and Burgundy, to give strength and quality to the French clarets, as they are very useful for blending. The dry, white wine is rather stronger and fuller than that of France or Germany, and is much used to give additional value to the thinner qualities of Rhine wine. ”

“ A sweet Champagne may be made of any wine, but a dry Champagne must be a good wine, as, if it is not sound, its acidity is detected at once; but this defect would be hidden by the liqueur necessary to make it sweet.
At Epernay, the bulk of the wine is not so good as that coming from Reims, and sells at a lower price; but there are firms there of world-wide note, such as Moet & Chandon, Perrier, Joüet & Co., Meunier Frères, Wachter & Co., etc.
Bordeaux or Claret. ”

“ As to the dietetic qualities of the wine, I would remark that those wines which contain a sufficient quantity of alcohol, and which have undergone a complete fermentation, stimulate and accelerate digestion. Among these are Madeira, Sherry, Port, Rhone, and Rousillon wines. The most salutary wines are those which contain a moderate quantity of alcohol, as old Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne. The modern practice of taking a great variety of wines at table cannot be commended. ”

“ Jean’s eyes swept over the scene before him—the trees with their new leaves, the meadows with their waving grasses, the girl full of the wine of youth. He breathed in the scent of the earth and the morning woods. And in his native air he tasted the love of life.
It was only since he had learnt how transitory it is that he had enjoyed the beauty of nature in its fulness. Young people do not understand the value of existence as they run heedlessly after pleasure, frivolity, distraction and all that hastens, while it hides, the flight of time. ”

“ Of course we were all very anxious to taste the Bordeaux wines; but our palates, accustomed to the stronger vintages of Spain, I suspect were not in a condition to appreciate the more delicate and refined bouquets which ought to characterize claret, A vin ordinaire, which now at a restaurateur's would cost three francs, was then furnished at the hotels for fifteen sous: a Larose, Lafitte, Margaux, such as we are now paying eight or ten francs a bottle for, did not cost a third. I must not, however, forget that greater attention and care is now employed in the preparation of French wines. ”

“ Very little of it is made nowadays, and most that is comes from the adjacent vineyards of Verzenay and Mailly, and is principally reserved by the growers for their own consumption. One of these candidly admitted that the old reputation of the wine had exploded, and that better white Bordeaux and Burgundy wines were to be obtained for less money. In making dry Sillery, which locally is esteemed as a valuable tonic, it is essential that the grapes should be subjected to only slight pressure ”