Falernian wine

“ But the Rhegian wine, being richer than the Surrentine, may be used as soon as it is fifteen years old. The wine of Privernum too is very good, being thinner than the Rhegian wine, and one which does not take much effect on the head. And the Formian wine is like it; and is a wine which soon comes to its prime; it is, however, a richer wine than the other. But the Trifoline wine is slower ripening, and has a more earthy taste than the Surrentine. The Setine is a wine of the first class, like the Falernian wine, but lighter, and not so apt to make a man drunk. ”

“ The ancients observed that wine gave out something inflammable. We read in Aristotle's Meteorologica, "Ordinary wine possesses a kind of exhalation, and that is why it gives out a flame." Theophrastus, an immediate disciple of Aristotle's, says, "Wine poured upon the fire, as for libations, throws out a light" —that is, produces a shining flame. Pliny says, still more decidedly, that the Falernian wine, the product of the Faustian field, is the only wine that can be ignited "on contact with a flame"; a thing that happens with some wines very rich in alcohol. ”

“ One of our guides, for a pecuniary reward, brought a little in a bucket, and boiled some eggs in it, which were afterwards served at our table in a shady spot on the adjoining classic ground; and we crowned this grateful repast with the health of a favorite fair, in a smiling bumper of real Falernian, from the very vineyards which have been celebrated by Horace. The wine was remarkably good, and the heavenly toast gave it a still higher flavour. I am convinced that it would have found its way to England, had not the Italians lost the art of preserving it. ”

“ The second rank belonged to the wine of the Falernian territory, of which the Faustianum was the most choice variety; the result of the care and skill employed upon its cultivation. This, however, has also degenerated very considerably, in consequence of the growers being more solicitous about quantity1258 than quality. The Falernian1259 vineyards begin at the bridge of Campania, on the left-hand as you journey towards the Urbana Colonia of Sylla, which was lately a township of the city of Capua. ”

“ The commentators have wretchedly blundered here, in their interpretation of the Latin.↑ In the original, Falernian vines and Canusian sheep: for Falernia produced the most delicious wine, and the sheep which came from Canusium, a town or village of Apulia, the finest wool. I know not whether either of the instances by which I have attempted to modernize this passage be at present in fashion, but if they are not, it is probable the only reason is, that we forget Italian vines, as they would require the assistance of artificial heat ”

“ Lord Bacon, Bacci, Barry, Redding, Shaw, and Denman on wines, 275, 276. Hippocrates on vinous mixtures, 276. Plato and Homer’s praises of wine, 277. Virgil, Pliny, and Columella on wines, 278. The Setine wine commended by Martial, Juvenal, and Silius Italiens, 278. Sand, powdered marble, and salt water added to ancient wines, 279. Cato’s receipt for artificial Chian and Falernian, 279. The Cæcuban, 280. The Falernian, 280. Galen and Martial on Falernian, 280. ”

“ They are, without any manner of doubt, the most perfect wines that France produces. They keep perfectly, are improved by sea carriage, and may be freely exported to any part of the world. The original fermentation being usually very complete, they are less disposed to acidity, and are more wholesome than the wines of Burgundy. A great proportion of the wine, however, which is drunk as Claret, is but vin ordinaire, or the secondary wine of the country, for the prime growths fall far short of the demand which prevails for these wines all over the world. ”

“ ALTHOUGH the date of the introduction of the vine into France is lost in the mists of antiquity, and though the wines of Marseilles, Narbonne, and Vienne were celebrated by Roman writers prior to the Christian era, many centuries elapsed before a vintage was gathered within the limits of the ancient province of Champagne. Whilst the vine and olive throve in the sunny soil of the Narbonnese Gaul, the frigid climate of the as yet uncultivated North forbade the production of either wine or oil. ”

“ The contemporary dramatists were ever on the alert to shoot Folly as she flew. The stage was really the mirror of that time, and those who wrote for it seized on every passing whim, fashion, or fancy of the day. The introduction of a new wine was certainly not to be missed by them, and the recently discovered vin mousseux of Dom Perignon is plainly referred to in Farquhar’s [Pg 91] aptly-named comedy, Love and a Bottle, produced in 1698, just after the Peace of Ryswick had allowed the reopening of trade with France. ”

“ The Tonnerre vineyards are of high antiquity, and for sparkling wines the produce of the black and white pineau and the white morillon varieties of grape is had recourse to. The vintaging is accomplished with great care, and only the juice which flows from the first pressure is employed. This is run off immediately into casks, which are hermetically closed when the fermentation has subsided. The after-treatment of the wine is the same as in the Champagne. ”

“ The European inhabitants of respectability certainly live well; that is, they keep as good tables as the seasons may enable them to furnish; and they drink none but the best of wines: Claret, Madeira, and Port, are in general use.
Of the former, there are two kinds; one called ‘English Claret,’ which is the best wine that France produces, manufactured after its arrival in England, with an addition of Brandy, &c., to enable its standing the hot climate of India, and with other liquids, to give it a richer body. ”

“ And if what you buy for port or sherry be not absolutely a decoction, but only inferior wine made up, then the water equally acts as a detective. For the dilution has the effect of separating, so to speak, the respective tastes of the component parts—brings them out, sir; and you get each distinct. You get, on the one hand, the taste of the bad brandy, harsh, raw, and empyreumatic: and you get, on the other hand, the taste of the poor, paltry wine, wretched stuff, the true vinho ordinario flavour, that makes you think at once of some dirty roadside Portuguese posada, swarming with fleas. ”

“ Strong men, we know, lived before Agamemnon; and strong wine was made in the fair province of Champagne long before the days of the sagacious Dom Perignon, to whom we are indebted for the sparkling vintage known under the now familiar name. The chalky slopes that border the Marne were early recognised as offering special advantages for the culture of the vine. ”

“ It was not till the close of the eighteenth century that any attempt was openly made to improve sparkling Champagne by the addition of sugar. [206] Science then came forward to prove that such an [Pg 67] addition was not contrary to the nature of wine, and that fermentation converted the saccharine particles of the must into alcohol, and increased the vinosity. ”

“ In very bad years, when their wines become vinegar, they are sold for six florins the piece, and made into brandy. They yield one-tenth brandy.
White Champagne is deemed good in proportion as it is silky and still. Many circumstances derange the scale of wines. The proprietor of the best vineyard, in the best year, having bad weather come upon him while he is gathering his grapes, makes a bad wine, while his neighbor, holding a more indifferent vineyard, which happens to be ingathering while the weather is good, makes a better. The M. de Casotte at Pierrij formerly was the first house. ”

“ Every body knows that no product of the arts varies so much as wine; that different countries, and sometimes the different provinces of the same country, produce different wines. These differences, no doubt, must be attributed chiefly to the climate in which the vineyard is situated—to its culture—the quantity of sugar contained in the [Pg 90] grape juice—the manufacture of the wine; or the mode of suffering its fermentation to be accomplished. If the grapes be gathered unripe, the wine abounds with acid; but if the fruit be gathered ripe, the wine will be rich. ”

“ In the Case of Dry Wines, whose sugar has all been transformed, the same attentions are to be bestowed as in the case of new red wines, and the rules laid down are referred to. (See Red Wine.)
Mellow White Wines, that is, those which retain a portion of their sweetness after the tumultuous fermentation, particularly if they do not carry 15 per cent. of alcohol, require the greatest amount of care in order to preserve their mellowness in aging; for if left to themselves they will again enter into fermentation, and become dry. ”

“ We have explained that in the Champagne it is the custom for the manufacturers of sparkling wine to purchase considerable quantities of grapes from the surrounding growers, and to press these themselves, or have them pressed under their own superintendence. At Saumur only those firms possessing vineyards make their own vin brut, the bulk of the wine used for conversion into sparkling wine being purchased from the neighbouring growers. ”

“ Sweet wines were formed by incomplete fermentation, and wines prepared from raisins, or partly dried grapes, were also common. An inferior drink for laborers was formed by boiling the grape-husks after the process of expression: it probably resembled our worst kinds of cider.
The commoner wines were ridiculously cheap. We hear of ten gallons being sold for threepence, and a high order of wine in Athens only fetched two-pence a gallon. But then, as with us, high prices were given by connoisseurs for the choice vintages and varieties. ”

“ It is open to doubt if, even in those primitive times, the supply of a national want lagged far behind the demand.
The list of wines which the King of Hungary proposed to have at the wedding of his daughter, in "The Squire of Low Degree," is worth consulting. Harrison, in his "Description of England," 1586, speaks of thirty different kinds of superior vintages and fifty-six of commoner or weaker kinds. But the same wine was perhaps known under more than one name. ”

“ The cellar, too, should be neither over dark nor light, scrupulously clean, and sufficiently well ventilated for the air to be continuously pure. It is requisite that the bottles should rest on their sides to prevent the corks shrinking, and thus allowing both the carbonic acid and the wine itself to escape. For laying down champagne or any kind of sparkling wine an iron wine-bin is by far the best. ”

“ This practice was favoured by the tyrannical routine reigning among the peasants of not tasting the wine till December or January, when in 1800 a decisive experience confirmed the value of the new discoveries. Numerous demands for wine during the vintage led to anticipations of a brisk and speedy sale, and sugar was thereupon added at the time of the first fermentation, merely with the view, however, of bringing the wine more forward for the buyer to taste. ”

“ On the other hand, the white grapes used in the making of German sparkling wine, and which are almost exclusively of the far-famed riesling species, are treated precisely as when making still Rhine wine—that is, they are crushed in the vineyards by means of grape-mills, and afterwards pressed in the usual way. The must for sparkling wines, whether from black or white grapes, is run at once into casks to ferment. If possible it is conveyed in large casks known as stucks—immediately after the pressing, and before fermentation begins—to the manufacturer’s cellars in town ”

“ Barley wines possess the same spiritous principle, which is the preservative part of the most valuable foreign wines, with a power of being brewed superior or inferior to them in quality, and the other constituent parts of beer, beside this ardent spirit, will not, I believe, be esteemed less wholesome than those which make up the whole of grape wine. ”

“ He seems for his own part to have been, as far as nature permitted him, an accommodating toper, indulging, in addition to Champagne, in Tokay, Portugal, Florence, Burgundy, Hermitage, ‘Irish wine,’ i.e. Claret, ‘right French wine,’ Congreve’s ‘nasty white wine’ that gave him the heartburn, and Sir William Read’s ‘admirable punch.’ He acknowledges that the more fashionable beverages of the day were not to his taste. ‘I love,’ writes he, ‘white Portugal wine better than Claret, Champaign, or Burgundy. ”

“ It is evident that in spite of the teachings of science the bursting of champagne bottles has not yet been reduced to a minimum, for whereas in some cellars it averages 7 and 8 per cent., in others it rarely exceeds 21⁄2 or 3. In the month of October, the first and severest breakage being over, the newly-bottled wine is definitively stacked in the cellars in piles from two to half-a-dozen bottles deep, from six to seven feet high, and frequently a hundred feet or upwards in length. ”

“ Johnny, thou art a sadly wayward fellow! there is more hope of “the wild ass’s colt” than of thee, when thy longings after foreign luxuries seduce thy palate and blind thy understanding!
Nor are the costly French wines less exempt from the devices and sophistications of the imps of the “Father of Deceit.” The “super-excellent” or “genuine Claret of exceedingly fine description and of the choicest quality” of the advertising and placarding dealers, is a composition of inferior claret and a quantum sufficit of Spanish red wine and rough cider, with the colouring22 berry-dye. ”