Wine merchant

“ Brandies and Wines vary in quality quite as much as they do in Price: not less than twenty pounds per Pipe in the country where they are made.
The only way to obtain genuine wholesome liquor, is to apply to a respectable Wine Merchant—and beg of him to send you the best wine at the regular market price. ”

“ If fine wines of unquestionable character and vintage are to be produced, there are only two ways of possessing them: one, by finding some wine-merchant of long standing and reputation who will do an applicant the favor to furnish them, and the price must be large for quality and age. ”

“ Mixing the wine produces results similar to those caused by mixing the fruit, and it may be done by the wine maker as well as by the merchant. As they come from the vat, wines manifest the qualities and defects communicated by the vintage, and which are varied by a multitude of circumstances, such as the nature of the soil, varieties of grapes, temperature of the season, and the like. ”

“ The Port-drinker would be "in clover," while the Chablis-drinker would probably begin getting his wine direct from the merchant instead of from the Common Room cellar, which would be a reductio ad absurdum of the tariff. Yet I have heard this course advocated, repeatedly, as an abstract principle. "You ought to consider the original value only," I have been told. "You ought to regard the Port-drinker as a private individual, who has laid the wine in for himself, and who ought to have all the advantages of its enhanced value. ”

“ Now these wine-merchants adulterate their wine to such a degree, that one who was lately prosecuted for having some thousand bottles of port and claret in his cellars which had not paid duty, proved that all this wine was manufactured by himself in London, and thus escaped the penalty. You may imagine, therefore, what sort of brewage you often get under the high-sounding names of Champagne, Lafitte, &c. The dealers scarcely ever buy the very best which is to be had in the native lands of the several wines, for the obvious reason that they could make little or no profit of it ”

“ They are an outgrowth from the late efforts of the French wine merchants to make genuine French wine out of anything that is sweet, and as they are immensely preferable to beets, potatoes and glucose, they will always be in demand. ”

“ The hotel-keeper, in order to keep on good terms with the representatives of the wine-merchants—all mixers—who stop at his house, distributes his custom among them. Those who set value on a pure vin du pays with a specific flavour belonging to the soil, should look for it in the little out-of-the-way auberge lying amongst the vineyards. There it is probable that some of the old stock is still left, and if the vigneron-innkeeper says it is the old wine, the traveller may confidently believe him. ”

“ The vintage had not indeed as yet begun, but I saw the process performed on a small quantity of grapes, which had been ripened in a garden. Every vineyard proprietor, besides his stock-fruit, has some peculiar species of grape from which he makes the wine for his own use and that of his immediate friends: these grapes are very carefully picked and culled, and none but the soundest and best are thrown into the tub. The wine thus made is infinitely superior to the stock-wine for sale: when old, it is not inferior to Hock, and I believe is frequently sold as such by the foreign purchasers. ”

“ It might be worth while to apply electricity in the form used to destroy fusel-oil. Lastly, the wine made for the market is a brand or a blend, not a 'vintage-wine.' At any of the armazems, or stores, you can taste the wines of '70, '75, '76, and so forth, of A 1 quality; and you can learn their place as well as their date of birth. But these are mixed when wine of a particular kind is required and the produce becomes artificial. What is now wanted is a thin light wine, red or white, with the Madeira flavour, and this will be the drink of the future. ”

“ It is to be observed, however, that the first-class wines belong almost entirely to the large proprietors. Amid a labyrinth of little patches, the property of the labouring peasants around, will be a spot appertaining to, and bearing the name of, some of the famous growths; while, conversely, inserted, as if by an accident, in the centre of a district of great name, [Pg 31] and producing wine of great price, will be a perverse patch, yielding the most commonplace tipple, and worth not so many sous per yard as the surrounding earth is worth crowns. ”

“ Ye gave neither meat nor drink,
For gentlemen should bede
To minstrels that abandon yede,
Of their meat, wine, and ale.’ [64]
In the reign of King John occurs
The Earliest Statute on the Foreign Wine Trade.
It was enacted (1200) that the wines of Anjou should not be sold for more than 24s. a tun, and that the wines of Poitou should not be higher than 20s. The other wines of France were limited to 25s. a tun, ‘unless they were so good as to induce any one to give for them two marks or more.’ Twelve honest men in every town were to superintend this assize. ”

“ The wine growers favor the bill on account of the advantage which the port inspection gives foreign wines over the uninspected American wines. Wines, however, are largely distributed through the wholesale liquor dealers. ”

“ I am, however, glad to think and know that such old-established houses as Smallwood and Sons can bear up against the levelling down processes that characterise the more pushing branches of the wine and spirit trade. There are still a fair number of people who like to buy their wine from dealers who seem to have inherited certain trade instincts and experiences, and who can be relied upon to supply what they know to be good wines and spirits, such as can be consumed with pleasure and taken without risk. ”

“ The dealers rarely waste genuine wine on such cattle. The wine-cellars of fine houses the world through are the laughing-stock of connoisseurs—like their picture-galleries and their other attempts to make money do the work of taste. ”

“ Forty gallons of wine were made in the second year after planting, and after two or three bad seasons so good a vintage was secured in 1881 that the wine, pronounced by connoisseurs to resemble good still champagne, was all sold at excellent prices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus, vast quantities of brilliantly-colored liquid, flavored with orris-root, which would not be allowed to pass the barriers of Paris, but must go somewhere, is drunk in England at a cost of four times as much as the Frenchman pays for genuine grape-wine. The colored concoction being brighter, and skillfully cooked, and duly labeled to imitate the products of real or imaginary celebrated vineyards, is preferred by the English gourmet to anything that can be made from simple grape-juice. ”

“ Under this Pretext, many Fessee Merchants, to make Rob, or Vinegar, press all the Grapes in their Vineyards, put it up in great Jars, under Ground, and keep it long, so that it proves excellent Wine. When four or five merry Companions, with every one his Mistress, appoint to be merry, they go out to their Vineyard or Garden, have Musick, and all or most of these Dishes, and there sit and carouse over a great earthen Bowl full of Wine, of about four or five Gallons, and so drink round in a Cup that will hold almost a Pint, like a large Tea Dish, till there is none left ”

“ If her wine trade be not as yet as prosperous as she could wish, no one need be surprised at this who has remarked the specialties of character in the different European wines, and considered the centuries of labor and application that have been required to evolve these varied types as the most appropriate to their several localities, as also the great capital employed at low rates of interest in maturing these wines and in educating the tastes of consumers thereto. ”

“ I shall therefore try to give such simple instructions about wine-making and its management as will enable every one to make a good saleable and drinkable wine, better than nine-tenths of the foreign wines, which are now sold at two to three dollars per bottle. I firmly believe that this continent is destined to be the greatest wine-producing country in the world ”

“ The difference in price between the first and inferior wines is very great. Those of the best vineyards sell generally the first year at from 2000 to 3000 francs the tonneau, and rise to 5000 or 6000, and even higher, in a very favourable vintage. On the contrary, the vins communs fetch only from 100 to 120 francs, and seldom rise to more than 200 or 300.
“The wine of first quality, at its point of maturity, ought to have a beautiful colour, much firmness, a very agreeable bouquet, and a flavour which embalms the mouth, strength without intoxicating, and body without harshness. ”

“ Wine is imported from foreign countries, and is dear. The port wine which is usually drunk, and is the cheapest, is two shillings a quart, retailed in taverns, and not much less than eighteen or twenty pounds the hogshead, when purchased at the best hand ”

“ Of course, this is less when a man lays down his own wine in his own cellar, in obedience to the maxim, ‘Lay down good port in the days of your youth, and when you are old your friends will not forsake you.’ He may be satisfied with a much smaller rate of interest than the man engaged in business fairly demands. Still, when wine thus aged was thrown into the market, it competed with commercially cellared wine, and obtained remarkable prices, especially as it has a special value for ‘blending’ purposes, i.e. ”

“ Country folk put quantity before quality, and seldom offer their wines in anything but tumblers—and if you manage to- 184 - empty one tumbler, you will need will-power, if not willingness, to avoid taking another glassful. To leave a drop of home-brewed wine, when once you have tasted it, is an insult to the maker. We remember how the wife of a keeper was unjustly blamed for the power of her rhubarb wine, of which a caller had partaken freely. ”

“ Ranged against the black uneven walls of the more tortuous ancient vaults which give access to these labyrinthine corridors are thousands of casks of wine—some in single rows, others in triple tiers—forming the reserve stock of the establishment. ”

“ Sometimes favourable circumstances or a happy chance is needed, which is more often sought than found. It has happened to us all to have drunk in a remote spot delicious wines, which only needed the recommendation of a consummate gourmet to obtain instantaneous vogue. It may also occasionally chance that a vineyard which, for a long time had but an indifferent reputation, may, by the industry of a new proprietor, by peculiar processes of making the wine, or by a better cultivation of the grape, become more perfect than it had been before. ”

“ As to wine, there are many eminent merchants who have noble cellars, and very cool, where variety of wines may be had exceedingly cheap: for three shillings and three-pence a barrel of excellent wine, containing nine gallons, may be bought. ”

“ On descending into the basement beneath, the popping of corks and the continual clatter of machinery intimate that the disgorging and re-corking of the wine are being accomplished, and in the dim light we discern groups of workmen engaged in the final manipulation which champagne has to undergo, while fresh relays of wine are arriving from the cellars by the aid of endless chains. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The result of affording wine in abundance to such people as ours, will be to prepare them for a stronger drink just as soon as wine, by frequent use, is no longer stimulating enough. Wine will play jackal to brandy for the rich, and to whisky for the poor. We have some facts on hand touching this popular wine-drinking, which, if necessary, we shall employ at another time. Meanwhile, we are glad to see grape-culture spreading for the production of table-grapes ”

“ And even though the huge presses seem to squeeze the fruit as dry as a small dealer who has fallen into the hands of a trust, I am told that in some places the pulp is carefully preserved and shipped to wine manufacturers, who subject it to a further treatment, which enables them to make a champagne that, when properly labelled, will rank with the finest and most costly. Speaking of wines, if ancient tales tell true, this is the year for connoisseurs to lay in a supply. It is one of the superstitions of wine countries that wine made in a "comet year" surpasses all others in body and bouquet. ”

“ And this, while effervescent wines are made in innumerable parts of the world and many are so good that one wonders if it were not possible for them, manufactured with care, placed in sightly bottles, and sold at as high a price as the most famous French Champagne, to dispute a part of the admiration that the devotees of Bacchus render to the French wine. ”