Wineglass

“ Built entirely of iron, stone and brick, its framework is a perfect marvel of lightness. The roof, consisting of rows of brick arches, is covered above with a layer of Portland cement, in order to keep it cool in summer and protect it against the winter cold, two most desirable objects in connection with the manipulation of champagne. Here an endless chain of a new pattern enables wine in bottle to be lowered and raised with great rapidity to or from the cellars beneath—lofty and capacious excavations of two stories, the lowest of which is reached by a flight of no less than 170 steps. ”

“ To put clear ice in the glasses is simply to weaken the quality and flavor of the wine, and, as a matter of fact, to serve wine and water.
The glasses for the various wines are usually grouped at the right of the plate, and as different styles and sizes are used for different wines, it is well for the novice to be accustomed to these in order to avoid the awkwardness of putting forward the wrong glass. High and narrow, also very broad and shallow glasses, are used for Champagne; large, goblet-shaped glasses for Burgundy and a ruby-red glass for Claret ”

“ The serving of wine at luncheon is rapidly going out of fashion. A hostess belonging to the older generation sometimes offers her guests Rhine wine—a light, white wine—or, if there are men present, sherry or claret. In this case a wine-glass is set beside the water-goblet at the right of each place, and a decanter is placed on the sideboard. Wine-cup, fruit-punch, and similar beverages are served from a glass pitcher, lemonade cups or small tumblers being substituted for wine-glasses. ”

“ The mouth of the bottle is then pressed by hand on the peg of the stopper, and the mouth and peg are ground together with a medium of very fine emery and water until an air-tight joint is secured.
The revival in recent years of the craft of glass-blowing in England must be attributed to William Morris and T.G. Jackson, R.A. (Pl. II. figs. 11 and 12) . They, at any rate, seem to have been the first to grasp the idea that a wine-glass is not merely a bowl, a stem and a foot, but that, whilst retaining simplicity of form, it may nevertheless possess decorative effect. ”

“ VI. OLD DRINKING GLASSES These are the favourite quarry of the hunter for old glass. I prefer the more uncommon and out-of-the-way pieces myself, but the old wine glasses, goblets, cordial glasses, rummers, ale glasses, cider glasses, and so forth are so interesting, often so beautiful, and sometimes so quaint, that I do not wonder at the eager collecting of them. ”

“ In these the stem is often faceted, the facets sometimes extending some considerable distance up the glass. The modern champagne glass, with a wide saucer-like bowl and a hollow stem, seems to be a sort of combination of the two. The wine being a rarity, the glasses are scarce, and the collector who unearths a genuine specimen of an early eighteenth-century champagne glass may esteem himself fortunate. ”

“ The first cellars we enter are closely stacked with wine in bottle, which is gradually clearing itself by the formation of a deposit; while in an adjoining cellar on the same level the operations of disgorging, liqueuring, and corking are going on. At the end of this gallery is a spacious compartment, where a large stock of pure Champagne cognac of grand vintages is stored for cask and liqueur use. In the cellars immediately beneath, bottles of wine repose in solid stacks ready for the dégorgeur; while others rest in racks, in order that they may undergo their daily shaking. ”

“ Along with these letters 315 were found the ‘office copies’ of the patterns which Greene sent out to Venice as a guide to the glass-blowers. Here we have mention of ‘clouded calsedonia glasses’ for beer, claret, and sack, ‘creuits with or without feet, brandj tumblers,’ and ‘glasse floure potts.’ Not the least interesting item is the ‘Rhenish wine glasse,’ which is illustrated by a typical roemer with prunts on the stem, almost our only evidence of the use of these goblets in England. ”

“ There is another and a lower depth of cellars to be explored, to which access is gained by trap-holes in the floor—through which the barrels and baskets of wine are raised and lowered—and by flights of steps. From the foot of the latter there extends an endless vista of lofty and spacious passages hewn out of the chalk, the walls of which, smooth as finished masonry, are lined with thousands of casks of raw wine, varied at intervals by gigantic vats. ”

“ As may be supposed, a powerful vinous odour permeates these vaults, in which the fumes of wine have been accumulating for the best part of a century. After passing beneath a massive stone arch which separates the old cellars from the new, a series of 149 broad and regularly-proportioned galleries are reached, having bottles stacked in their tens of thousands on either side. Overhead the roof is perforated at regular intervals with circular shafts, affording both light and ventilation, and enabling the temperature to be regulated to a nicety. ”

“ We also possess the finest sand, and the best adapted for the manufacture of all kinds of glass, in the world; and when it is known that the exports of our wines must, to yield their due value, be put in bottles for the spirit, necessarily, to prevent their fermentation in wood—for export destroys the peculiar flavour of the genuine grape wine of the colony—it cannot be doubted that it is the interest of the vine-growers to forward the establishment of glass manufactories, so essential to the just appreciation of their wine in Europe ”

“ Equally to be censured is the increasing custom of serving wine in colored glasses—a fashion inaugurated by the gentler sex in order to add a supposititious life to the table. Apart from the great mistake of thus masking the color of the wine itself, and thereby impairing its attractiveness to the eye, there is no color produced by the most cunning artificer in glass which approaches the colors extracted from the skin of the grapes themselves. ”

“ The soil, which is of the customary calcareous formation, has a marked ruddy tinge, indicative of the presence of iron, to which the wine is in some degree indebted for its distinguishing characteristics—its delicacy, spirituousness, and pleasant bouquet. Vintagers were passing slowly in between the vines, and carts laden with grapes came rolling over the dusty roads. The mountain which rises behind the vineyards is scored up its sides and fringed with foliage at its summit, and a small stone bridge crosses the deep ravine formed by the swift-descending winter torrents. ”

“ Here, too, the corking, wiring, and stringing of the newly-disgorged wine are going on. Another flight of steps leads to the second tier of cellars, where the moisture trickles down the dank dingy walls, and save the dim light thrown out by the candles we carried, and by some other far-off flickering taper stuck in a cleft stick to direct the workmen, who with dexterous turns of their wrists give a twist to the bottles, all is darkness. ”

“ The principal block of building is flanked by two advanced wings inclosing a garden-court, set off with flowers and shrubs, and from the centre of which rises a circular shaft, covered in with glass, admitting light and air to the cellars below. In the building to the left the wine is received on its arrival from the vineyard, and here are ranged hundreds of casks replete with the choice crûs of Verzenay, Ay, Cramant, and Bouzy, while 99 some thousands of bottles ready for labelling are stocked in massive piles at the end of the packing-hall in the corresponding wing of the establishment. ”

“ Many fantastic pieces of old glass were made as curiosities or ornaments, but most old glass was made for use. Glass is easily scratched; as the wine glasses and decanters were set down upon the hard, polished mahogany of dinner-tables, after the cloth was drawn, and were moved, the feet of the wine glasses and the bases of the decanters become scratched thereby. Lustre-ornaments, glass candlesticks, or glass vases which stood upon marble or hard wood mantelpieces, being moved when maidservants were dusting, became scratched at the base. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Glass is useful also for making glasses—the receptacles from which wine is drunk. Without glasses we should be hard put to it to consume our liquor and should have to resort to half-cocoanuts, cups, the hollow of the hand, or even sponges.
Just at the moment bottles—I mean the more genial variety—are under a cloud. It is a penal offence to sell a bottle before noon, between half-past two and half-past six, and after half-past nine at night. But they are expected to come to their own again when Peace is celebrated. ”

“ These glasses, though shaped as wine-glasses, resemble much more goblets in their size, containing each as much as several ordinary wine-glasses. What you do not drink is thrown upon the ground; and it is calculated that at least a hogshead a day is thus consumed. Many parties who wish for a cheap carouse, procure a tasting order, take biscuits with them, and drink of the best of all sorts of wine in the cellars, and in quantities enough to terrify any disciple of Father Mathew. ”

“ At the end of the last century, glasses were manufactured of a taper form, like a tall champagne-glass, but not less than between two and three feet in height, from which it was considered a great feat to drain the contents, generally consisting of strong ale, without removing the glass from the lips, and without spilling any of the liquor,—a somewhat difficult task towards the conclusion, on account of the distance the liquid had to pass along the glass before reaching its receptacle. ”

“ In pawnshops and ordinary glass-shop windows a collector sees spiral-stem wine glasses made for modern use and not intended to deceive; they are a kind of tawdrily ornamental hock glass, embodying some modern designer’s idea of what [99] is beautiful; they correspond with no antique shape of bowl, the stems are very thin and fragile, the feet are as small as or smaller than the rim of the bowl, and the spirals are parti-coloured and “tight.” No collector need be taken in by such as these—they were not made to take him in, they are ordinary articles of modern manufacture and daily commerce. ”

“ The casks of wine having been hoisted from the cellars to the first floor by a crane, and run on to a trough, their bungs are removed, and the wine flows through an aperture in the floor into the huge tun beneath, its amalgamation being accomplished by the customary fan-shaped appliances, set in motion by the turning of a wheel. In an adjacent room is the machine used for mixing the liqueur which Messrs. Giesler add so sparingly to their light and fragrant wines. ”

“ We advance slowly in the uncertain light along a succession of gloomy galleries with moisture oozing from their blackened walls and roofs, picking our way between bottles of wine stacked in huge square piles and rows of casks ranged in tiers. ”

“ We descend into the lower cellars down a flight of ninety-three broad steps—a depth equal to the height of an ordinary six-storied house—and find no less than four-and-twenty galleries excavated in the chalk, without any masonry supports, and containing upwards of a million bottles of champagne. The length of these galleries varies, but they are of a uniform breadth, allowing either a couple of racks with wine sur pointe, or stacks of bottles, in four rows on either side, with an ample passage down the centre. ”

“ At the vintage, as we witnessed it, men and women—young, middle-aged, and old—accompanied by troops of children, were roaming all over the slopes dexterously nipping off the bunches of grapes with their thumb and finger nails and flinging them into the little wooden tubs with which they were provided. The pressing of the grapes and the after-treatment of the wine destined to become sparkling are the same in the Beaujolais as in Upper and Lower Burgundy. ”

“ The grapes of which the French wine is made grow on a soil which is peculiar in its mixture of chalk, silica, light clay, and oxide of iron. The surface of the champagne district is composed of light clay and pebbles, and the vine flourishes best where the soil appears most sterile. Hence, while the grapes for champagne contain but little sugar, they draw from the earth those chemical elements that give certain peculiar qualities to the wine. ”

“ The majority of the inhabitants are afoot: the feeble feminine half, baskets on arm, thread their way with the juveniles through the rows of vines planted half-way up the mountain, and all aglow with their autumnal glories of green and purple, crimson and yellow; while the sturdy masculine portion are mostly passing to and fro between the press-houses and the wine-shops. ”

“ The building contains four presses, three of which are worked with large fly-wheels requiring several men to turn them, while the fourth acts with a screw applied by means of a long pole. At the vintage 3,600 kilogrammes, or nearly 8,000lbs., of grapes are put under each press, a quantity sufficient to yield eight to ten hogsheads of wine of forty-four 77 gallons each, suitable for sparkling wine, besides three or four hogsheads of inferior wine given to the workmen to drink. ”