Winepress

“ Every Sunday, on going out from vespers, the worthy man went to pay his court to it, and when he was seated in the grateful sun, his mule close beside him, his cardinals stretched at the foot of the vine stocks all about, then he would order a flagon of wine of his own bottling—that exquisite, ruby-colored wine, which has been called ever since Château-Neuf of the Popes—and he would drink it appreciatively in little sips, and regard his vineyard with a tender air. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The piled-up baskets, marked with the names of the vineyard-owners whose grapes they contain, are temporarily stored under a shed in a cool place, and are brought into the pressoir from time to time as required. In the district of the River the grapes are weighed, while in that of the Mountain they are measured, before being emptied on to the floor of the press. In some places the latter is of the old-fashioned type, resembling the ordinary cider-press; but usually powerful presses of modern invention, worked by a large fly-wheel requiring four sturdy men to turn it, are employed. ”

“ The process is universal in France, with the exception of the cases of the sparkling wines of the Rhone and Champagne, the grapes for which are squeezed by mechanical means, not by the human foot. Now, very venerable and decidedly picturesque as is the process of wine-treading, it is unquestionably rather a filthy one; and the spectacle of great, brown, horny feet, not a whit too clean, splashing and sprawling in the bubbling juice, conveys, at first sight, a qualmy species of feeling, which, however, seems only to be entertained by those to whom the sight is new. ”

“ Often and often did I see one of the heroes of the tub walk quietly over a dunghill, and then jump—barefooted, of course, as he was—into the juice; and even a vigilant proprietor, who was particularly careful that no bad grapes went into the tub, made no objection. When I asked why a press was not used, as more handy, cleaner, and more convenient, I was everywhere assured that all efforts had failed to construct a wine-press capable of performing the work with the perfection attained by the action of the human foot. ”

“ Now should one experimenting on a vineyard, in America, find vinegar come from his press, he would never have patience to let it ferment itself back into good liquor. Patience, I conceive, is the only obstacle to our becoming a great wine-growing and a great silk-growing country.
I have been led into these remarks by observing the vineyards here. The qualities of wines, of course, are affected by the positions of the vineyards, for all who can make wine do not make good wine, but the vines of Vévey, owing most probably to their exposure, are said to be the best of Switzerland. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In many vineyards the grapes are inspected in bulk instead of in detail before being sent to the wine-press. The hand-baskets, when filled, are brought to a particular spot, where their contents are minutely examined by some half-dozen men and women, who pluck off the bruised, rotten, and unripe berries, and fling them aside into a separate basket. In other vineyards we came upon parties of girls, congregated round a wicker sieve perched on the top of a large tub by the roadside, engaged in sorting the grapes, pruning away the diseased stalks, and picking off all the doubtful berries. ”

“ Then it was that she bade O’Brien “fill high the bowl with Samian wine.” The Irishman took her at her word, and she raised the bumper and waved it over her head before she put it to her lips. I am bound to declare that she did not spill a drop. “The true ‘Falernian grape,’” she said, as she deposited the empty beaker on the grass beneath her elbow. Viler champagne I do not think I ever swallowed; but it was the theory of the wine, not its palpable body present there, as it were in the flesh, which inspired her. ”

“ When the proprietor is of an economic turn he usually has the refuse grapes pressed for wine for home consumption. Spite of the [Pg 151] minute examination to which the grapes are subjected, a sharp eye will frequently discover in the heart of what looks like a regular and well-grown bunch a grape that is absolutely rotten, and capable of infecting its companions when the whole are heaped up together in the wine-press.
ARRIVAL OF THE GRAPES AT THE PRESS-HOUSE.
Carts laden with grapes are continually arriving at the pressoirs, discharging their loads and driving off for fresh ones. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ This liqueur is made of fine wine, brandy and candied sugar. The liqueuring is nowadays generally carried out by means of a machine which regulates the quantity to a nicety. Champagne is not, as is the case, for instance, with the classified growths of the Gironde, the product of a single vineyard. The bulk of the wine is made in vineyards belonging to small peasant proprietors, who sell their produce to the great mercantile houses. ”

“ Wherever civilisation penetrates, champagne sooner or later is sure to follow; and if Queen Victoria’s morning drum beats round the world, its beat is certain to be echoed before the day is over by the popping of champagne-corks. Now-a-days the exhilarating wine graces not merely princely but middle-class dinner-tables, and is the needful adjunct at every petit souper in all the gayer capitals of the world. ”

“ Carts piled up with baskets, or crowded with peasants from a distance on their way to the vineyards, jostle the low railway-trucks laden with brand-new casks, and the somewhat rickety cabriolets of the agents of the big Champagne houses, who are reduced to clinch their final bargain for a hundred or more pièces of the peerless wine of Ay or Bouzy, Verzy or Verzenay, beside the reeking wine-press. ”

“ Many have adventured to make Vineyards in England, not only in these later days but in ancient times, as may well witness the sundry places in this land, entituled by the name of Vineyards, and I have read that many monasteries in this kingdom having Vineyards had as much wine made therefrom as sufficed their convents year by year, but long since they have been destroyed, and the knowledge how to order a Vineyard is also utterly perished with them. ”

“ I do not want any one to understand that every vineyard is a nest of drunkards, for this is not true. In the Napa and Sonoma valleys, in the foot-hills of the Sierra, at Anaheim and elsewhere in the southern country, you may find many men cultivating the grape and making wine in all soberness. ”

“ The arguments urged by some with great sincerity, are the often-quoted facts, that the inhabitants of wine-making countries are favorably distinguished for temperance; and that a palatable and wholesome beverage—pure wine—would supersede the use of violent liquors. If we thought that our people would become temperate upon such conditions, we should be glad to see a vineyard on every hillside, and a wine-vat to every farmhouse. ”

“ When selecting a sparkling wine one fact should be borne in mind—that just as, according to Sam Weller, it is the seasoning which makes the pie mutton, beef, or veal, so it is the liqueur which renders the wine dry or sweet, light or strong. A really 213 palatable dry champagne, emitting the fragrant bouquet which distinguishes all wines of fine quality, free from added spirit, is obliged to be made of the very best vin brut, to which necessarily an exceedingly small percentage of liqueur will be added. ”

“ For the like reason, a certain evidence that port wine has completed the process of fermentation is the collection of tartar in the interior of the bottle, forming a crust; hence the term Crusted Port. A very bad wine of whatever kind usually bears the name of Three Men Wine, owing to the idea that it requires one man to hold the drinker, and another to pour it down his throat, while the third is the unfortunate individual himself. The derivation of the term Wine is the Anglo-Saxon vin from the Latin vinum, allied to vinea, a vine. ”

“ Who does not know the misery, the helplessness of that abominable ailment influenza, whether a severe cold or the genuine epidemic? Let the faculty dispute about the best remedy if they please; but a sensible man with a bottle of Champagne will beat them all. Moreover, whenever there is pain, with exhaustion and lowness, then Dr. Champagne should be had up. There is something excitant in the wine—doubly so in the sparkling wine, which, the moment it touches the lips, sends an [Pg 260] electric telegram of comfort to every remote nerve. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Matthew other bottles are similarly arranged, and here wine in cask is likewise stored. We pass rows of huge tuns, each holding its twelve or thirteen hundred gallons of fine reserved wine designed for blending with more youthful growths; next, are threading our way between seemingly endless piles of hogsheads filled with later vintages, and anon are passing smaller casks containing the syrup with which the vin préparé is dosed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the grapes have to be transported in open baskets for some distance to the press-house, jolting along the road either in carts or on the backs of mules, and exposed to the torrid rays of a bright autumnal sun, the juice expressed from the fruit, however gently the latter may be squeezed, is occasionally of a positive purple tinge, and consequently useless for conversion into champagne. ”

“ Four powerful presses of recent invention, each worked by a large fly-wheel requiring four sturdy men to turn it, were in operation. The grapes were spread over the floor of the press in a compact mass, and on being subjected to pressure—again and again repeated, the first squeeze only giving a high-class wine—the must filtered through a wicker basket into the reservoir beneath, whence, after remaining a certain time to allow of its ridding itself of the grosser lees, it is pumped through a gutta-percha tube into the casks. ”

“ There is, however, an unpleasant astringency in some of the vinifera grapes and many varieties are without character of flavor. American table grapes, on the other hand, are more refreshing, the unfermented juice makes a pleasanter drink, all of the grape juice of the markets being made from native grapes, and, lacking sweetness and richness, they do hot cloy the appetite so quickly. The bunches and berries of the vinifera grapes are larger, more attractive, and are borne in greater quantities. ”