CHAPTER XX.
ON WINES, ANCIENT AND MODERN.
Several treatises have been written on wine in most European countries. Lord Bacon, in the days of Elizabeth, did not disdain to give his attention to the subject; and his Italian contemporary, Andrea Bacci, the physician of the able Sextus the Fifth, has given us probably the best history of wine in that rare and curious book, “De Naturali Vinorum Historia.” About a century ago a Sir Edward Barry, then a physician at Bath, and afterwards state physician to the Viceroy of Ireland, published his “Observations, Historical, Critical, and Medical, on the Wines of the Ancients; and on the Analogy between them and Modern Wines.” In consequence of the interest excited by the topic, this work, now somewhat rare, acquired a certain repute, but it does not now stand in the estimation it did half a century ago. Much that Barry tells us of the ancient wines is borrowed from Bacci; and there is a great deal of useless disquisition mixed with some absurdity. The late Dr. Henderson, a good judge of wine, and who had some excellent wine in his cellar, published his “History of Ancient Wines” some seven or eight and thirty years ago, in which there is a great deal of interesting and useful information. This was followed by a “History and Description of Modern Wines,” commenced by Mr. Cyrus Redding in 1832, and published in 1833. The work was so useful and successful that a second edition was called for in 1835, and published in 1836.[30] From 1836 to the past year there has not been anything very remarkable published in England on the subject of wines. In the month of December last Mr. J. G. Shaw published a work entitled, “Wine, the Vine, and the Cellar,” and in January of the present year, Mr. Denman, also a wine merchant, published a work called the “Wine and its Fruit,” more especially in relation to the production of wine. Both of these works are well printed and illustrated, but they really add little to what was before known on the subject by any one who has made wine his study.
Barry tells us it was the reading of Hippocrates as a professional duty which first led him to the consideration of the subject of wines. Hippocrates described the various qualities of wines, and adapted vinous mixtures to different diseases and constitutions. By lessening the proportion of water usually mixed with wine, he made a powerful cordial; as, by increasing the water, he obtained a cooling diluent.
It is impossible to deny that wine, taken in moderation, tends to strengthen and excite the spirits, to cheer and comfort the languid, and to refresh the toil-worn and exhausted. The poets of Greece and Rome celebrate the praises of wine, and, as though the invention of the liquor were too transcendental to be human, attribute it to the gods—to Osiris, Saturn, and Bacchus. Anacreon calls the juice of the grape ambrosial; and Homer himself bestows on wine the epithet divine, πoτoν θείον.
Plato, while he would strictly restrain the use and severely censure excess in wine, maintains with more than his usually persuasive power, that nothing more excellent than the juice of the grape was ever granted by God to man. It appears from the ancient historians that the rules for the culture and preparation of wine and grapes descended from the Egyptians to the Greeks, who improved and perfected them, and that the Romans, in turn, became the scholars of the Greeks.
As the soil of Italy was favourable to the vine, vineyards soon spread through the country. Italy became distinguished by the name of Œnotria., and the inhabitants were called Œnotrii viri. An infinity of wines were produced from the various species of grapes. Virgil, who was as familiar with agriculture as he excelled in poetry, says it would be as easy to enumerate the sands of the sea-shore as the different species of wine.
Pliny carefully collected all that had been written before his time on the subject of the vine. He describes the various species of the vitis, and the mode and manner of making wines. He enumerates the principal wines of Asia, Greece, and Italy.
Cato, Marcus, Varro, and Columella have also written on the culture of the vine and wine-making; and it appears from the productions of these writers that they perfectly understood the racking off into fresh casks which had been previously impregnated with the vapour of sulphur. Out of these authors and Palladius, Mr. Redding admits that an excellent treatise might be formed on the grape and its products; though he states, and truly, that on the qualities and flavour of the ancient wines the moderns must be content to remain in ignorance.
We know, for instance, that the light and delicate Setine, was the favourite wine of Augustus; that it is commended by Martial, Juvenal, and Silius Italicus, who pronounces it to be worthily reserved for Bacchus himself, “ipsius mensis seposta Lyaci.” I am not, however, quite so sure as Dr. Barry that it was the wine so much recommended by St. Paul to Titus for strengthening the stomach. “It was grown,” says Henderson, “on the heights of Sezza,” and though nota strong wine, possessed sufficient firmness and permanence to undergo the operation of the fumarium; for Juvenal alludes to some which was so old that the smoke had obliterated the mark of the jar in which it was contained. The process which these wines underwent in the fumarium gave to them a greater transparency and more early maturity. This method had been long known to the Greeks, their αποθηκη being equivalent to the Roman fumarium. The ancients were perfect adepts in these methods of forcing wines, and they used for the purpose plain and burnt salt, bitter almonds, the whites of eggs, and particularly isinglass. But when wines were more than usually foul, they added sand, or marble finely powdered. Salt water, also, was frequently used to depurate and preserve wine. This discovery is said to have been owing to a slave’s having drunk part of a cask of wine committed to his care and concealed the fraud with sea water; the wine thus falsified was found to be superior to the wine of the same growth contained in the other casks. The Romans were but children in the art of adulteration, when compared with the Greeks. Palladius gives several receipts which were used by the Greeks for improving the flavour, colour, and strength of their wines, and likewise to give to new the qualities of old wine; in one, a mixture of hepatic aloes had a considerable share. Cato favours us also with a curious receipt for making an artificial Chian wine with the Falernian. He directs that the sea-water should be taken up at a great distance from the land, and that it should be kept in casks for some time before being used.
The Cæcuban wine is described as a generous, strong-bodied wine, which would keep, but which would affect the head if taken in quantity: in a word, it was a heady liquor, which the modern French would call, as they do the vin de Jurançon, “capiteux.” Like most heady wines, too, it required long keeping ere it was ripe. It was one of the favourite wines of Horace, and was generally reserved for important festivals:—
The far-famed Falernian was grown about the bases of hills. Galen observes that were two sorts of Falernian, the dry and the sweetish. The latter was only produced when the wind continued in the south during the vintage. Martial dignifies Falernian with the epithet immortal:—
But, although the name of the Falernian be familiar in our mouths as “household words,” nothing is known of its taste, flavour, or colour. It is, however, described as a strong wine, that would keep long, and so rough, that it required to be cellared a great number of years before it was sufficiently mellow.
The wines of the Mons Falernus, however, always preserved a superior character. Tibullus places them under the superintending care of Bacchus. Silius Italicus gives them a preference over the Asiatic and Greek wines; and Virgil, in bestowing smooth, flowing praises on the vinum Rhæticum, says, it must, nevertheless, yield the palm to the Falernian.
Among the lighter wines of the Roman territory, the Sabinum, Nomentanum, and Venafrum, were among the most popular. “The first,” says Henderson, “was a thin table wine, of a reddish colour, attaining its maturity in seven years. The Nomentanum, a delicate claret wine, is described as coming to perfection in five or six years.” Among the Sicilian wines, the Mamertinum, which came from the neighbourhood of Messina, and is said to have been first introduced at public entertainments by Julius Cæsar, was light and astringent.
The Greeks were fonder of wine than the Romans, and were supplied with a greater variety. Among the earliest of the Greek wines, of which we have any distinct account is the Maronean, “probably,” says Henderson, “the production of Ismaurus, near the mouth of the Hebrus, where Ulysses received the supply which he carried with him on his voyage to the land of the Cyclops. The Maronean was a black, sweet wine, and from the manner in which Homer sings its virtues, the quality must have been indeed superior. The Pramnian a red, but not a sweet wine, of equal antiquity. It was a potent and durable liquor, and must have somewhat resembled port. It was, however, in the luscious, sweet wines that the Greeks surpassed their neighbours. These wines were the products of the islands of the Ionian and the Ægean Seas, where the exquisite climate and a suitable soil gave to the fruit a peculiar flavour and excellence. Lesbos, Chios, and Thasos, seems, according to Henderson, to have contended for the superiority; but several of the other islands, such as Corcyra, Cyprus, Crete, Cnidos, and Rhodes, yielded wines which were much esteemed for their sweetness and delicacy. The Thasian and some of the Cretan wines were peculiarly fragrant. Athenæus calls the former οινος ανθοσμιος.”
The Greeks, gourmets as they were, did not confine themselves to the indigenous growths. They were familiar with the produce of the African and Asiatic wines, of which several enjoyed a high reputation. They drank of the white wines of Mareotis and Taenia, in Lower Egypt; of the wine of Antylla, the produce of the vicinity of Alexandria; of the sweet wine of Lydia, in Asia Minor; of the Scybellites, so called from the place of its growth in Galatia, also in Asia Minor. The Greeks, like the Romans, drank all their wines, especially those of the stronger kind, very largely diluted with water, for their common drink. Plutarch has mentioned three different kinds of mixtures. The πεντε, or five, consisted of three parts of water and two of pure wine; and the τρια, or three, of two parts of water and one of wine; the fourth consisted of three parts of water, and one of wine.
Athenæus mentions a mixture called πεντε και δυο, which consisted of five parts of pure wine and two of water.
The recent Greek wines, which were meant for more immediate use, were kept in goat-skins. But, even in Homer’s time the Greeks were well acquainted with the art of preserving their best and stronger wines in wooden casks, or hogsheads (which he calls πιθοι), until they had attained a proper maturity.
As to the Gauls, it is certain that, six centuries before Christianity was introduced, they knew the use of wine; for, when the Phocæans came to found Marseilles, Petta, the daughter of a king of the country, presented, according to Athenæus, to Euxenes their chief, a cup filled with wine and water. But who first planted the vine in Gaul, and who first cultivated it there? It would be difficult to answer these questions. According to Justin and Strabo, it appears that the Phocæans were not only the first to introduce the vine among the Gauls, but the first to learn them to cut and cultivate it. Pliny, on the other hand, says it was a person named Elicoa, who, having made some money at Rome, and wishing to return to his country, carrying with him wine and dried fruits, sold them to the inhabitants, exhorting them to the conquest of the flowing, fruitful land that produced such liquor. Cicero tells us, that one of the most lucrative of commercial transactions among the Gauls was the exportation of their wine to Italy. Columella counts these wines among the number rendered necessary for consumption in Rome,—“Nobis e transmarinis provinciis advehitur frumentum, ne fame laboremus; et vindemias condimus ex insulus Cycladibus, ac regionibus Beticis Gallicisque.” Diodorus Siculus, however, maintains that it was the Italian wines that were consumed in Gaul, and states the Ultramontane dealers who carried them gained immense sums in this commerce. Possidonius, an author contemporary with Diodorus and Cicero, and who had travelled in Gaul, is cited by Athenæus to prove that it was only the richest of the nation that drank wine, which they imported from Italy or the territory of Marseilles.
There is some reason to believe that the vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the Antonines. In the beginning of the fourth century, the orator Eumenius speaks of the vines in the territory of Autun, which were decayed through age, and the first plantation of which was totally unknown. The Pagus Arebrignus is supposed by M. d’Anville to be the district of Beaune, celebrated now for a fine growth of Burgundy.
When the Romans had submitted that portion of Gaul to their arms which is called Provence, the Roman colonists in Dauphiné, Provence, and a part of Languedoc, extended vine-plantations. Soon they spread far and wide, and, in the time of Cæsar, many provinces were in possession of vines, as Strabo, Varro, and Cæsar himself, testify.
Among the excellent grapes peculiar to Gaul, Columella numbers those of the Bituriges; but, as this name was common both to the people of Berry and of the Bordelais, it is difficult to divine to which of the provinces the praise of the Latin author properly applies. The probability, however, is, that it refers to the Bordelais; for Ausonius, who lived in the fourth century of the Christian era, loudly boasts of the wine of Bordeaux.
The mode of training the vine in Gaul consisted in intertwining the branches amongst each other, which differed essentially from the Roman system. The ancient Gaulish practice subsists to this day in Provence, in Languedoc, in Bearn, and in the eastern portion of Dauphiné. The Gauls, who manured their fields with marl, used ashes as a compost for the roots of their vines.
Marseilles, says Pliny, produces a rich, thick wine, which has two flavours, and serves to mix with other wines. It is difficult, he continues, to pronounce on the merits of the wines of Narbonne, because the wine-makers, with a view to change their taste and colour, adulterate them, mix them with herbs and noxious drugs, even with aloes. These tricks were in Italy reduced to a trade, and the wine-doctors were called Conditura vinorum. But notwithstanding these faults, writes Athenæus, the wine of Marseilles was good, and possessed, above all, the quality of ripening other wines when mixed with them.
The Narbonnese were not the only adulterators. The Allobroges, a people of Dauphiné, had a particular pitch which they mixed with their wine. If we are to believe Dioscorides, the infusion of pitch was a necessary ingredient in the Gaulish wines; otherwise, says he, they would have soured, the climate not being warm enough to ripen the grape. The reason assigned by Dioscorides would prove either that the climate of Gaul was then really colder than it is now, or that the art of making wine was still in its infancy. Excellent wine is now made in provinces more northward than Dauphiné, and still better in the north of France, and the countries bathed by the waters of the Moselle and the Rhine. No doubt, innocent means may be employed in cold years, without any risk, to give to the wine a quality which it wants. For a long while the Champenois have been in the habit of smoking their casks with sulphur before using them. The Abbé Rozier, in a Memoir upon the best manner of making the wines of Provence, proposes, when the wine is austere or acid, to dilute honey in the must before it ferments. M. de Prefontaine, in the “Maison Rustique de Cayenne,” published in 1763, speaking of the grapes produced in that island, says that if they were to be used for the purpose of making wine, their natural tartness might be corrected by adding a little sugar. But this practice had been long previously secretly followed in that portion of the Bordelais traversed by the Dordogne, whose principal towns are Bergerac and St. Foi. At the commencement of the last century the wines of this province suddenly acquired such a renown, that there were proprietors who, in a few years, quadrupled the price. The neighbouring proprietors suspected there was something wrong, some secret they could not fathom. They watched for a long while, and at length discovered that immense quantities of sugar arrived in the night. This discovery at first led to nothing; but, in the end a cooper, who knew the secret, having been dismissed from an establishment in which he had been employed, revealed the secret in order to revenge himself. Only five or six families profited by the man’s treason. They took good care to keep the profit to themselves, till a M. Vaucocour published a letter, in which he disclosed the receipt, which consisted in reducing the sugar to a syrup, and then in aromatising it with peach-flowers or the like.
The Marseillais had, in the olden time, another method. This was to boil and smoke their wines in order to thicken them, and to give them the appearance and flavour of old wines:—
The Romans were also in the habit of smoking their wines. The proof is recorded in Horace:—
Tibullus also alludes to it:—
Baccius, in his work, “De Naturali Vinorum Historia,” speaking of the wines in Alsace, says that they were kept exposed to the smoke in hot chambers, where they became so thick that they were no longer drinkable, unless they were beaten with twigs or diluted with hot water. The following are his words:—“Super fumo diu et in æstuariis retenta, eam acquirunt vetustate crassitiem, ut potari per se non possint, nisi diu agitata immissis scopis aut origis dissolvantur, vel eliquata per aquam calidam fiant potui idonea: quo usu legimus crassa fuisse antiquis vina, quæ similiter per aquam calidam essent dissolvenda.”
Since the discoveries made at Herculaneum and Pompeii, there have been found among the ruins one of the vases which served for the operation of which I speak, and in which the wine had entirely dried. A similar vase or urn has been discovered in the territory of Vienne, in which the inspissated juice of the wine had crystallized.
Whatever were the processes employed in Gaul for the preparation of wine, many of its vineyards had acquired reputation, and had, moreover, become a source of wealth. This rising spring of riches was soon dried up by the tyrants who reigned over the country. The year of the Christian era 92 having been unpropitious to corn and favourable to the vine, a general scarcity followed. Domitian, who was then emperor, concluded that the cause of this was, that the vines were too numerous, and corn not sufficiently sown. Proceeding on this false assumption, he published an edict, by which he ordered that in the greatest part of the provinces of the empire half of the vines should be rooted out, and that in the others they should be entirely destroyed. Towards the year 282, Probus abrogated it. After having, by his victories, restored peace to the empire, the wise and valiant emperor, says Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Vopiscus, and Eusebius, restored to the provinces the liberty of replanting the vine. The Gauls commenced the task with alacrity. The Roman legions spread abroad in Gaul were employed in these plantations, for it was the wise policy of Rome, when her soldiers were not engaged in war, to occupy them in useful public labours. Soon were the greater number of the hills of Gaul covered with vines; and these were not, as in the times of the two first Cæsars, bounded by the north of the Cevennes; for almost each province, on the contrary, had its vineyards.
In the Salique law, as well as in the law of the Visigoths, penalties are decreed against those who shall destroy a cutting of the vine, or who shall steal grapes. The protection which the government accorded to this species of property caused it to be regarded as sacred. Chilperic having decreed that each vine-proprietor should annually furnish him with an amphora of wine for his table, there was, says Aimoin, a revolt in Limousin, and the officer whose duty it was to receive this odious tribute was massacred. So great had the passion for the vine become that the French kings turned a portion of their private domains into vineyards. Each of their palaces had its vineries, with wine-presses and all the utensils necessary for the vintage. From the Capitularies of Charlemagne we learn that the monarch entered into this species of administration in the minutest detail. When, after the death of Louis the Débonnaire, the three sons of that prince, laying down their arms, agreed on the division of his estates, Charles the Bald had Western France; Lothaire, Eastern France and Italy; and Louis, that portion which was situated in Germany beyond the Rhine. But as this latter had no vineyards, the Saxon Chronicle and the Chronicle of the monk Sigebert remark that there were joined to his division some towns or villages beyond the river which produced wine. The Louvre itself, like the other royal palaces of France, inclosed vineyards within its precincts. That such vineyards were considerable appears from the fact that in 1160 Louis le Jeune could annually assign out of their produce six muids of wine to the curate of St. Nicholas.
Among the “Fabliaux of the Thirteenth Century,” published by Le Grand, there is one entitled “La Bataille des Vins,” in which the author supposes that the King, Philip Augustus, causes to be brought to his table all known wines, national as well as foreign, in order to examine which are worthy of admission. The monarch is in this piece represented as a confirmed gourmet, and lover of good wine. From an account of the revenues of this king, left us by Brussel, we learn that in the matter of wines Philip loved variety, and wished to have a copious cellar, for he possessed vineyards at Bourges, at Soissons, at Compiegne, at Lân, at Beauvais, at Auxerre, Corbeil, Betesi, Orleans, Moret, Poissi, Gien, Anet, Chalevanc, Verberies, Fontainbleau, Rurecourt, Milli, Bois Commun, Samoi, and Auvers. Breton, in his Latin poem on Philip, counts the wines of Gascony and La Rochelle among the articles of commerce which Flanders took of France. The wines of Guyenne were not only sold in Flanders, but in much greater quantity in England. The same political considerations which induced us to close our ports twenty years ago to French wines unless on the payment of a very considerable import duty, caused us then to open them to the wines of a province subject to English authority. Matthew Paris, speaking of the discontent and bitterness which prevailed in Gascony in 1251 against Henry III., states that public opinion was so exasperated, that these provinces would have revolted had they not need of England for the sale of their wine. A fact related by Froissart will give us an idea of the extent of the trade at that time. “In 1372,” says this historian, “there arrived from England, at Bordeaux, 209 sail of merchantmen, which came for wine.” Champier, who wrote about a century and a half after Froissart, remarks, that from his time England scarcely consumed any other wine or corn than that of France, and that, when this commerce was interrupted by war, England experienced a species of famine. “So that,” said he, “France may boast of having in her hands power of producing famine or abundance in England.”
Although the other French provinces had not such advantageous outlets for their commerce as Guyenne, the vine was, nevertheless, cultivated with an equal success. This may be seen by the “Fabliaux” cited, in which the French wines dispute the preference with foreign. These effects were solely brought about by the national industry; the government did nothing to recompense or favour it, and when it did concern itself about the French wine-trade its interference was injurious. The kingdom having experienced a scarcity, in consequence of the bad harvest of 1566, Charles IX. wrongly attributed the cause to the too great abundance of vines, and, like Domitian, proscribed them. An ordonnance published by him directed that in each canton, or district, the vines should only occupy a third of the ground; the other two-thirds were to be converted into arable or pasture lands. In 1577 Henry III. modified the ordonnance of the king his brother, recommending to all the officers charged with the government of his provinces to see that the arable land was not left uncultivated to give place to an excessive plantation of the vine.
The edict published under the reign of Louis XV. was not so foolish as the preceding one. Many intendants of provinces having represented that the vines occupied an undue space of lands fitted for corn or pasturage; that it caused the dearness of wood; that it multiplied the quantity of wine to such an excess that the value and reputation were in a number of places destroyed; the king, in 1731, forbade any new plantation of vines, and directed that vineyards which had ceased to be cultivated for two years should no longer be continued.
It often happened that proprietors of wines, not being able to get rid of their article, preferred to sell it in retail. In this contingency they suspended to the threshold of their door a broom, a crown of ivy, or something similar. Those who wished to purchase carried a pot with them, and thence came the expression, vendre à pot. Some caused their wine to be announced by the public crier.
It will appear from what I have written that the attention paid to vine-dressing and the cultivation of the vine was the result of a perfect knowledge of husbandry.
I have already said that the wines of the ancients were racked and fined, but there seems to have been as much adulteration 1800 years ago as at the present moment. Adulterations are repeatedly mentioned in the classic writers. After the wine was made and underwent the secondary fermentation, it was placed in pitched skins, or in earthen vessels, denominated amphoræ, containing twenty-seven old English gallons.
That the ancients understood the process of maturing wines perfectly is evident from all the writers on the subject. After the wine was made and put into the vat, where it underwent the secondary fermentation, it was placed in pitched skins, closed with a lid of baked earth, and hermetically sealed.[31]
It were a curious task to trace how long domestic customs and utensils survive forms of polity and government. In glancing at such a subject, I merely remark that the amphoræ have outlived the Roman emperors, the republic, nay even the Roman nation and people, and all their magnificent institutions. It is impossible now to pass forty-eight hours in the neighbourhood of Asti Montepulciano, Montefiascone, or any of the wine districts of Italy, without being struck with the identity to the amphoræ of those earthen vessels with two handles, holding from about eighteen to twenty quarts of our measure, which one sees in every cellar, and almost in every street. Suetonius tells us of a man who aspired to the quæstorship, and drank the contents of a whole amphora at a repast given by the Emperor Tiberius, “Ob epotam in convivo propinante se vini amphoram;” but, though there may be men in Scotland, or Scotchmen in England, who could carry away so much liquor and be none the worse for it, the capacity of any Englishman to do as much may be doubted.
The use of casks or wine hogsheads were unknown to the Greeks and Romans.[32] They could therefore only transport their wines in earthen vessels or skins, which in the older English authors are queerly and alliteratively called “borachio bottles.” The earthen vessels presented the inconvenience of being fragile, whilst the skins were subject to bursting, to become insecure, &c. My late excellent and learned friend Dr. Henderson states, and truly, that the Romans occasionally employed glass. They undoubtedly did so; but the accomplished historian of wines is wrong when he affirms that they brought the manufacture of glass to a great degree of perfection; for nothing, on the contrary, can be more common than those specimens of glass found in Pompeii, and those drinking-cups and lachrymatories, various specimens of which may be seen in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. That glass, however, was used at table in those days appears certain from a passage in which he speaks of those glass magnums or jugs, as being large and closed with a species of plaster or Roman cement. “Adlatæ sunt amphoræ vitreæ diligenter gypsatæ.” He elsewhere says, “Amphoras copiosas gypsatas ne effluat vinum.”
All the Latin authors agree that the ingenious invention of casks is due to the Gauls, who established themselves along the banks of the Po; but we are entirely ignorant if the Greeks knew the cooper’s art before they left their native country, or if they invented casks and hogsheads after their transmigration beyond the Alps. Notwithstanding the incontestable superiority of casks over skins, these latter continued to be still used. That they were much in vogue would appear from one of the capitularies of Charlemagne, in which, glancing at the prevalence of skins, he forbids his people to use any other vessels than good barrels (bonos barridos) hooped with iron.
At the Roman entertainments there was a particular part of the convivial room set apart for the reception of the wines. Here the various vessels and drinking-cups were ranged on a table called αβαξ, or abacus. This was generally of marble, in the form of a long square, not unlike the modern sideboard. From the account which Philo Judæus gives of the number of vessels placed on it, it must have been very large. Pliny, speaking of the rich spoils exhibited by Pompey in the triumph he obtained for his victories over the pirates, says that the number of drinking vessels adorned with jewels was sufficient to furnish nine abaci: “Triumpho quem de piratis Asia, Ponto, egit, transtulit lectos tridiniares tres; vasa ex auro et gemmis abacorum novem.”[33] Cicero charges Verres with having plundered the abaci, “Ab hoc iste abaci vasa omnia ut exposita fuerant abstulit,” and Dr. Barry, in giving this quotation, misquotes it, “In abacis erant abstulit.” These articles of luxury, according to Livy, were imported from Asia first as luxuries, but soon, like all other superfluous wants, they became necessaries. The ancients had, like the moderns, servants like our butlers, specially charged with the care of the wine. The office necessarily required judgment and experience. The head butler is called by Pollux οἰνοπτης. His business was to inspect the wines before and after they had been prepared, and mixed in another apartment. When they were placed on the abacus, he stood there as a modern butler or maître d’hôtel does at our side-boards, and gave his orders to the underlings and slaves. The next in office under the butler was the pinceran or οἰνοχοος, which we should render as the pourer out of wine, or cup-bearer, the word being used in this sense both by Homer and Xenophon. This man received all his directions from the butler, and by him and his acolytes the wines were regularly prepared and distributed to the guests. Of these inferior ministering agents there were many, and of different degrees. It was a part of the luxury of the times to be waited on by beautiful boys, purchased at high prices, who served the master and the superior guests; but the inferior ones and those of meaner condition were served by African slaves of coarse appearance, woolly-headed, and of most unsavoury odour. Notwithstanding the number of servants and slaves, many mistakes unavoidably happened in the mixture of wine. Nor is this wonderful when it is considered that the host and his guests called for wine variously diluted either with hot or cold water, and occasionally for whatever strong wine was agreeable to them. Cicero, describing a supper, alludes to the symposium of Xenophon, where the wines were prepared by hot water and afterwards cooled in snow: “Et pocula sicut in symposio Xenophontis minuta atque rorantia et refrigeratio in æstate, et vicissim aut sol, aut ignis hibernus.” Of the quantity of wine drank on these occasions we have no very certain account. Pliny says that Democritus wrote a volume to prove that no one ought to exceed the fourth or sixth glass; but instances have been given of persons who have drunk a congius or gallon in one draught.
There are many who think that the cooling of wine by snow is a modern invention; but that this system was perfectly known to the Greeks and Romans, as I before observed, is sufficiently evident. The vessels which contained the wine mixed with boiled water were immersed in the snow, and such wine is particularly distinguished by Martial. This invention is ascribed by Pliny to Nero, who prided himself more on this improvement in luxury than Augustus did in encouraging the fine arts.
It was a common practice at the convivial meetings of the Greeks and Romans to drink, not only to the healths of distinguished individuals, but to the absent friends and mistresses of the guests. The greater or less number of cups afforded an indication of the respect in which the person whose health was toasted was held. The numerous coincidences which exist between the convivial customs of past ages and the present are thus succinctly summed up by Dr. Henderson:—“If we compare the ceremonies and usages of the Romans with the convivial customs of the present day, we cannot but be struck with the numerous coincidences which subsist between them. The arrangements of our dinners, the succession and composition of the different courses, the manner of filling our glasses, of pledging our friends, and of drinking particular healths, are all evidently copied from the Greeks and Romans.[34] With another modern nation, however, which has been thought to resemble the ancient Greeks in character, the analogy is still more complete. Thus, at all entertainments among the French, the ordinary wine is used with a large admixture of water, generally in the proportion of one to three, except immediately after soup, when it is drunk pure. The finer kinds are circulated in the intervals between the courses, or towards the end of the repast, and hence are termed vins d’entremets; but with particular dishes certain wines are served, as chablis with oysters, and sillery after roast meat. The coup-d’avant of vermuth has been already noticed as corresponding with the draught of mulsum; and the coup du milieu, which consists of some liqueur, ‘quod fluentem nauseam coerceat,’ may be regarded as identical with the cup of sweet wine handed round in the middle of a Grecian feast. With dessert the luscious sweet wines are always introduced.”
The doctor makes a slight mistake in regarding the coup du milieu as identical with the cup of Greek sweet wine. The coup, which was drunk immediately after the roast, consisted, and still consists, of a bitter or spirituous, or sometimes a bitter and spirituous cordial (and not of a sweet wine), taken as a stomachic. It is swallowed, according to the “Manuel des Amphitryons,” to give tone to the fibres of the stomach, and “pour accélérer le mouvement péristaltique qui produit la digestion.” The Swiss extract of wormwood, Jamaica rum, or very old cognac, is used for the purpose. It is to the city of Bordeaux, so dear to gourmands and gourmets, that this invention is due. It is a trait of genius, says the author of the “Almanach des Gourmands,” which enables one to make a second dinner, and which doubles the power and capacity of the weakest stomachs. Between the roast and the entremets—i.e., towards the middle of the dinner, you see at Bordeaux the doors of the dining-room open, when a girl about eighteen, tall, fair, and well-proportioned, her features beaming with an air of engaging alluringness, appears. Her sleeves are turned up to the very shoulders, and she holds in one hand a mahogany frame, in which are ranged as many small glasses as there are guests; and in the other a crystal decanter filled with Jamaica rum, or wormwood, or vermuth, though this latter beverage more properly belongs to the coup-d’avant. Thus armed the Hebe makes the round of the table, and pours out to each guest a glass of the bitter nectar it is her business to distribute. The effect of the coup du milieu is stated to be almost magical in renewing the appetite, but on what principle it produces this result physicians must determine. The coup-d’avant is little practised in Paris, though greatly used in Russia, Sweden, and the north of Germany. It consists of a large glass of vermuth, or of simple brandy, which is presented to each of the guests by way of appetiser. Physicians differ in opinion as to the virtues of the coup-d’avant: it is said rather to dispose the stomach to digestion; but, be this as it may, the Russian stomachs, where the coup-d’avant is so much practised, are far more vigorous than the English or French. It may be that from the effects of the climate some such stimulant is required. The coup-d’après consists, as Dr. Henderson states, of half a glass of pure wine taken immediately after the soup. This is considered so salutary a practice, that it is proverbially said to take a crown out of the pocket of the physician. The wine offered for the coup-d’après in France is generally a good Beaune or Macon; whilst in England it is commonly sherry or Madeira. In any event it should be a good sound wine; for the palate, at that early stage of a dinner, is most sensible to taste and flavour.
As to the wine-cellars of the ancients, we know little certain. Vitruvius directs that they should have a northern aspect, that the doors and windows should be placed in the same direction, that the doors should be small and seldom opened, and then to renew, not to alter, the temperature of the air. Care was also taken that the cellar should not be near a dung-heap, nor roots of trees, nor vegetables, nor anything fetid; and it was also as far removed as possible from the vicinage of baths, ovens, sewers, cisterns, and reservoirs. Women were also strictly forbidden to enter within the cellar walls. Barry would have it that the Greeks and Romans had extended vaults under ground, but against this theory Henderson cites Pancirollus, who is of opinion that the ancients were not in the practice of having repositories of wine under ground like our modern cellars. That their repositories for wine must have been extensive there is no doubt, for it is stated that Hortensius bequeathed to his heirs 10,000 cadi of wine, about 410 tons of our measure. From the rules of the ancients, and the principles laid down, Barry properly points out certain defects in our modern wine-cellars in the following passages:—
“The size of the cellar ought to be in proportion to the quantity of wine for which it is designed; and it is more easy to defend a small cellar from the admission of a greater quantity of the external air, and to renew it occasionally, than one of a larger size. The situation ought to be low and dry; therefore, not on any great declivity, where the undercurrents from the superior ground must always keep it moist, and infect the air with its putrid exhalations; this communication, however, may be prevented by intermediate trenches.
“A small anti-cellar built before all large cellars would be a considerable defence and improvement to them, in which a quantity of wine sufficient for a few days may be kept, and the necessity prevented of more frequently opening the large cellar, and admitting the external air, which must always in some degree alter the temperature of it, and in sudden or continued great heats or frosts, may be particularly injurious to the wine.
“It is usual to cover the bottles in the bins with sawdust, to which I should prefer dry sand, the density of which is much greater. I saw a remarkable instance of the benefit arising from an intermediate defence of this kind. A hogshead of claret, which had been lately bottled, was heaped up in a corner of a merchant’s common large cellar, with a view of removing it soon to the wine-cellar. In the meantime a load of salt, from the want of a more convenient place, was thrown on the bottles, and remained there several months before it was removed. This wine was afterwards found to be much superior to the wine of the same growth, which had been imported and bottled about the same time, and had been immediately placed in the wine-cellar. The large quantity of salt formed a compact vault over the bottles, which entirely defended the wine from the influence of the air, though greatly exposed to it; and probably the coldness of the salt contributed to this improvement.
“The ancients certainly more effectually preserved their wine in larger earthen vessels, pitched externally, than we can in our bottles, as they are more capable, from their superior density and capacity, of resisting the frequent changes in the air; and it is a common observation, that the wine received into bottles which contain two quarts proves better than that which has been kept in single quarts.”
Of the truth of this latter remark there can be no doubt, as any who have tasted a pint and a quart bottle of wine out of the same hogshead will freely admit.
It is no doubt true that many of the usages adopted by the ancients for preserving and mellowing their wines have fallen into disrepute; but their rules for the site and construction of a wine-cellar—some of which I have quoted—their observations on the proper time for tasting and racking wines, are still sanctioned by modern practice.
Wine of a middle age was then, according to Pliny, as indeed it now is, to be preferred, as being the most wholesome and grateful; but then in ancient times it was the fashion, as it is in our own day, to place the greatest value on what was rarest. Thus extravagant sums were given for wines not drinkable, or in a state of decomposition. Who does not know that within the past forty years twelve guineas a dozen was given for Mr. Pattle’s sherry, and half as much for some sherry once the property of the late Sir John Leach, Vice-Chancellor.
Though the ancients often drank very freely, yet no one was obliged to drink on compulsion. The doors were never locked, as they were fifty years ago in Ireland, five and fifty years ago in Scotland, or little more than half a century ago in England. Large cups and more generous wines were frequently brought in, but no one was obliged to drink or to stay. If the guest did not drink on he departed, according to the old convivial rule, “Aut bibe, aut abi.” Some of the wisest sages of antiquity were as great sponges as some of the modern Scots. For instance, Socrates, whether he lived abstemiously or drank copiously, was equally unexcited, equally unaltered; and the very same remark might be made on a remarkable man lately deceased. Cyrus, among other reasons which he urges why he should gain the crown in preference to his elder brother, insists on his being able to drink a larger quantity of wine without being inebriated; for Artaxerxes was not only occasionally subject to getting “right royal,” vulgo vocato, drunk, but also to the infirmity of losing his temper to boot. Athenæus mentions that Darius desired no greater encomium should be engraved on his tomb than that he was able to drink a great quantity of wine without being inebriated.
In his third book the Father of Medicine gives a description of the general qualities and strength of the Greek wines, and of the peculiar medical virtues which they possessed. He likewise points out in what diseases, and in what quantities, they are to be used, so as to render them salutary and innoxious. It is remarkable that Hippocrates rarely directs water alone, but almost invariably orders its exhibition with wine, or combined with honey and vinegar. Water was no doubt the basis of all his cooling drinks; but there was always added to it a moderate proportion of the weak white wines, to render it more effectually diluting. To the infirm and valetudinarian, wine is a necessary comfort beyond all price. When a patient has been long habituated to the use of it, a change in diet cannot be suffered without danger.
There is a remarkable instance of this afforded in the case of the celebrated physician Cornaro, who always revived just after the vintage, when he left off the old and decaying wines of the last vintage, and commenced drinking the new. The passage is in the account which he gives of the rules by which he repaired his constitution, injured as it was by excesses, till the period when he was forty years old. By the régime he prescribed to himself, it is well known he preserved his health and spirits to the age of 100. The efficacy of his system depended on his taking a certain quantity of solids and fluids every day. The fluid consisted entirely of wine, but he gradually diminished the quantity of each as he advanced in years. During this period he enjoyed an equal state of health, except that sometimes, before the vintage returned and the new wine was made, he quickly became so weak and languid that his physicians declared he could not possibly continue to survive many days in that declining state. “But on the return of the vintage,” says he, “and on taking the same quantity of new wine, I very quickly recovered my usual strength and spirits.” The same effect is observed, to compare animals with men, among the mules of Jamaica. When the new sugar-canes are being gathered in, the most exhausted animal, fed on the fresh sugar-canes, gains a revival of strength.
The Romans were in the habit of pitching their wine, nor can it be doubted that the Gauls also followed their example in this respect, with a view to render them more saleable in the Italian markets. The Allobroges had a peculiar pitch, with which they smeared their puncheons, after the manner of the wine-growers of Latium. Many etymologists suggest that the French word poinçon, adopted in many of the French provinces to signify a puncheon common to them, is derived from the vas piceum, of which it is an abbreviation.[35] These, however, are but conjectures, and why should we resort to conjectures in the face of formal proof? Such were the two charters of Charles the Bald in favour of the monasteries of St. Denis and St. Germain des Près. By the first (A.D. 862), the emperor makes an annual grant to the abbey of ten silver livres, for the purchase of the necessary pitch for casks; by the second he grants to the other convent twenty pounds of soap and of pitch, “ad vasa vinaria componenda.” The soap, of which a grant is here made with the pitch, leads me to infer that there were persons who, not content with laying a coat of pitch on their casks, composed a peculiar mastic in mixing the soap and some other substance with the pitch, after the manner of the Romans.
Strabo, in giving a description of Latium (the modern Lombardy), and an idea of the abundance of its vines, says that the puncheons were taller than the houses. It is probable that the Gauls established in these parts, or their descendants, seeing that the ordinary casks were insufficient, or that there was not cellar-room for them, invented those monster puncheons of which the geographer speaks, and which were long ago, and are now, in common use in Germany. But the French, for the most part, in lieu of these not very solid vessels, preferred to construct their wine-tubs or vats, in brick or in stone. De Serres states that, even so late as 1600, many persons thus constructed their vats. It is true, he says, the wine took a longer time to ferment in these receptacles than in wooden tubs; but they were most easily cleaned, contracted no bad taste, lasted longer, and required little or no outlay to keep them in repair. But though these cisterns might be serviceable to the proprietor as a repository for his wine, he was obliged, when he sold it, to have recourse to casks or skins. The skins, notwithstanding the many inconveniences they presented, were long used for that purpose. I have before stated that Charlemagne forbade them in the cellars of his palace. Pierre de Blois, declaiming, in the twelfth century, against the luxury of the chevaliers, represents them as leading horses laden with skins of wine, and all the “creature comforts” that announce gluttony and drunkenness:—“Non ferro, sed vino; non lanceis, sed caseis; non ensibus, sed utribus; non hastis, sed verubus onerantur.”
At the repast which Philippe de Valois gave to the kings of Scotland, of Majorca, and of Bohemia, there was on the royal dresser (le dressour royal) no plate of gold or silver, but only a leathern bottle, in which was the wine of the princes and kings who sat at the festal board. In order to understand this passage, which is extracted from a very old work, it is necessary to mention that, in the time of Philip, there were no bottles, nor were they known for many years afterwards. Wine, at this epoch, in the royal establishment as elsewhere, was drunk from the cask. If many sorts were given at an entertainment, as often happened on occasions of great ceremony—in that event many casks were tapped, and the remains of all belonged to the grand bouteiller. Travellers on horseback, who were apprehensive of not finding wine on the road, carried with them a species of leathern bottle attached to the saddle. In the “Life of St. Maur” we read that, travelling to visit one of the farms of his monastery, he saw suddenly arrive Ansgaire, archdeacon of the church of Angers. The holy abbé wished to refresh him. Unfortunately, there was no other wine at the farmer’s than the little which remained attached to the saddle-bow of St. Maur, “in uno parvissimo vasculo quod ad sellam pendere consuerit.” But the holy man, says the historian, supplied the deficiency by a miracle, and multiplied this remains of the liquor so exceedingly, that it sufficed to quench the thirst of seventy-eight persons who were there present.
In the thirteenth century the vessels of which I have been speaking were called bouchaus, boutiaux, bouties, or boutilles. When the gentry of that day wished to make a long journey, or were on their way to the wars, they took bottles with them of considerable capacity. It appears, by an early charter, that when the Bishop of Amiens marched thus in the arrière ban, the tanners of the city were obliged to furnish him with two good and sufficient leather bottles, one holding a muid and the other twenty-four sétiers of wine. The butchers were, on their part, bound to furnish the grease to cover these bottles. If cover means to cork, as the sense would seem to indicate, it was certainly a strange process to seal a canteen destined for the keeping and transport of wine. These boutiaux, or boutilles, took the name of bouteilles, or bottles. This name was afterwards applied to the decanters which were subsequently used. On the first indication of madness presented by Charles VI., on his journey to Brittany, the officers of his household, who had preceded him, served him with drink; and being suspected of having poisoned him, the Duke of Burgundy, who accompanied them, caused them to undergo an interrogatory: but they protested their innocence, says Froissart, and offered to prove it, as there remained in the bottles a portion of the wine of which the king had drunk. There can be no doubt that the bottles here spoken of were made of leather.
It now remains for me to touch on those wines which have enjoyed the greatest reputation, from the conquest of the Franks to the present time. The earlier writers offer little on this subject. Gregory of Tours speaks of the wines of Maçon, Orleans, Cahors, and Dijon. The wines of Auvergne are spoken of in a “Life of St. Germain,” written in verse by Heric, who lived under Charles the Bald; and there is mention of those of Rheims and of the River Marne, in a letter of Pandulus, Bishop of Lan, to Hircanar. Baldric, or Baudri, author of a Latin poem which Mabillon has cited in the “Benedictine Annals,” says that Henry I. greatly esteemed the wine of Rébréchien (area Bacchi), near Orleans, and that when he went to the army he took a provision with him to animate his courage. There is a letter of Louis le Jeune, written from the Holy Land to Suger and to the Comte de Vermandois, regents of the kingdom in his absence, by which he directs them to give to his intimate friend, Arnould, Bishop of Lisieux, sixty modii of his excellent wine of Orleans. “Dilecto et præcordiali amico, Lexoviensi Episcopo, sexaginta Aurelianenses modios de meo optimo vino Aurelianensi dare non reanatis.” It is probable that this wine of Orleans was the wine called Rébréchien. It is said that the greater number of the Orleanais are one-eyed, lame, and hump-backed, which is attributed by some, most inconsequentially, to the wine of Orleans.
A fabliau of the twelfth century has come down to us which gives us a list of the best reputed wines of that day. Among the wines of the provinces the poet vaunts those of the Gatinias, d’Auxois, d’Anjou, and of Provence. Over the list of the particularly celebrated wines we will not now travel. Suffice it to say, that Burgundy was then renowned for its wine of Auxerre, Beaune, Beauvoisins, Flavigni, and Vermanton; Champagne for its Chabli (not Chablis, the Burgundy wine of the department of the Yonne), Epernai, Rheims, Hauvilliers, Sczanne, Tonnerre.
This production represents the Beaune wine of a yellow colour, inclining to the shade of an ox’s horn. It is very difficult to have a precise idea of such a colour. When the popes in the thirteenth century transported their pontificial chair to Avignon, the table of their holinesses, and of all their principal officers, were furnished with wine from the monastery of Cluni. This was probably a wine of Beaune; for Petrarch, writing in 1366 to Urban V. to engage him to come to Rome, and combatting the different reasons which retained the cardinals beyond the mountains, says, “I have heard it sometimes alleged that there was no Beaune wine in Italy. When, in 1510, the ambassadors sent by the Emperor Maximilian to Louis XII., travelled across France to find the prince at Tours, where he was, the queen, on their passage through Blois, sent them fresh sea-fish, with three barrels of old wine of Beaune and Orleans.”
There is a great deal of fashion and caprice in the rise and fall of wines. The reputation of different vintages may be compared to the characters of certain men. To rise above the crowd, it does not alone suffice to be possessed of real merit. 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. There are hundreds of examples of this, of which one may be cited. Who does not know that the wine of Romanée, so famed for more than a century (the estate on which it grows has since been purchased by the Prince of Conti), owes its celebrity to a Sieur de Cromanbourg, a German officer in the service of France, who, having married the heiress of this vineyard, rendered it at length one of the first in Burgundy. In each century some of the wines of the preceding fall in repute, and new vintages arise to take their place. Eustace des Champs (who died about 1420), in the numerous poetical MSS. which he has left, cites the vines of Burgundy, Gascony, La Rochelle, Chabli, St. Pourcain, Beaune, and Orleans, which had been already cited by authors anterior to him; but he also mentions the names of many new wines,—“Aï, Aussone, Cumières, Dameri, Germoles, Givri, Gonesse, Iranci, Mantes, Pinos, Tournus, Troy, and Verlus.” It was said more than seventy years ago that the wine of France which best bears transport is the wine of Mantes; and, in continuation of this fact, a French traveller of the sixteenth century is cited, who carried some of this wine to Persia without its being in the least injured. If this fact be true, it is not unexampled nor peculiar to the wine of Mantes.
It appears that, in the fifteenth century, Burgundy and Champagne disputed the palm among the wines of France. If Burgundy had its Beaune, Champagne had its Aï. These two wines were counted among the best in France. “This last,” says Patin, “is the wine that Baudius called Vinum Dei at the house of De Thou.” Paumier, in his “Treatise on Wine,” written in 1588, says it was the ordinary beverage of kings and princes. It is certainly true that Leo X., Charles V., Francis I., and Henry VIII. had each a vineyard in Champagne; and St. Evremond alludes to the circumstance in a letter to the Duke d’Olonne. Burgundy was, at this period, considered the wholesomest, the most cordial, and the most generous of wines. Erasmus, being tormented with nephritic pains, which he attributed to the harsh and bitter wines of the Rhine, took to drinking burgundy exclusively, and soon became perfectly restored. “Sic enim subito recreatus est stomachus,” says he, “ut mihi viderer renatus in alium hominem.” He has left us, in one of his letters, the praise of a liquor to which he was indebted for health. “Happy province!” he exclaims: “well may Burgundy be called the mother of man, suckling him with such milk!” He who first taught the art of making this wine ought to be considered, not merely as having gratified us with a new liquor, but as having given to us new life.
Champier makes a remark, which is truer now than it was in the sixteenth century, namely, that there was no country on earth which had such excellent, or a variety of such admirable wines, as France. He counts among this number the wine of Arbois and the muscat of Languedoc; and tells us that, in Arbois and Hainault, there was a demand for Beaune wine, but that the remaining portion of Flanders preferred the wines of Orleans. Beaujeau vaunts the wines of La Crau; and Rabelais those of Auxerre, Mirevaux, Migraine, Canteperdrix, and Frontignan. At the repast which the King of France gave, in 1602, to the Swiss ambassadors, Canteperdrix wine was served. Madame de Noyer (in her “Lettres Historiques et Galantes”) says that this may well be called the wine of the gods, since it was sent to Rome for the private drinking of the holy father. There is no such wine as Canteperdrix known, in the present day, by that special designation. It is now called the vin de Beaucaire, and is a red wine of Languedoc. As to the wine of Arbois, it was the favourite beverage of Henry IV., as we learn from an anecdote related in Sully. When the Duke of Mayenne had laid down his arms, and treated with Henry IV., the king, in order to fix the fidelity of his vassal, gave him two bottles of Arbois wine. “Car,” said the lively, good-hearted monarch, “je pense, mon cousin, que vous ne le haïssez pas.” When Sully, being created duke and peer, gave a grand repast on the day of his reception, the king surprised him by appearing among the number of the guests. “But,” says the duke, “as he was hungry, and they were dilatory in serving the dinner, he ate, in the interval, some oysters, which he washed down with wine of Arbois.” And a good preparation for a dinner it was.
Paumier, a Norman physician, has written a treatise on wines, in which he counts four different colours,—white, red, blackish, and œil de perdrix, i.e., reddish. He says that France then produced no red wine which was sweet, excepting in the Bordelais, in which district there were red and black wines of great sweetness. His description of the wines of Gascony is, that they were hot, vinous, easy of digestion, and of a red or partridge-eyed colour. This description, in two particulars holds good to the letter to the present day. These wines are still vinous and easy of digestion, but they are not hot, nor are they generally of a partridge-colour until they are old, and in a state bordering on decomposition. The doctor further states that the wines of Château Thierry were agreeable, but so dangerous, that the greater part of the inhabitants were afflicted with the gout from their tender infancy, and died before they attained the ordinary age.
Château Thierry is on the borders of Champagne, and, whatever may have been the case in the time of Paumier, in the sixteenth century, it is certainly not true in the nineteenth that the inhabitants have the gout from their earliest years, or that they die so prematurely. But their wine is still good. “The red wine of the Clos de St. Thierry, a league from Rheims, is of a quality between burgundy and champagne, and is very highly esteemed by the connoissieur.” The idea of having the gout prematurely is preposterous. The gout is a disease scarcely known in Champagne; and, if it be very common in England, as must be admitted, after occasional excesses, it does not arise from the drinking of champagne solely, to which it is most frequently attributed, but from the mixture of a variety of wines, champagne among the number.
Baccius, in his treatise “De Viniis,” printed at Rome in 1596, has a chapter on the wines of France. He praises the wines of Arles, Beziers, Bordeaux, Frontignan, Gaillac, and St. Laurent. Nor does he omit the wines of Avignon, which arrived in small barrels, hooped with iron; the white wines which sparkle out of the glass, and which please the smell as much as the taste (probably he means champagne); and the wines of Paris, which yield the palm to none in the kingdom. What Paumier says of the wines of Paris will appear, at present, very strange. The contempt with which the wines of the neighbourhood of the metropolis of France are at present treated will appear the more extraordinary when it is known that they enjoyed, for fourteen centuries previously, the highest reputation.
Liebaut praises, in a bad poem, written in 1605, the wines of Ruel and Surenne; and the Abbé de Marolles those of Surenne, Argenteuil, and St. Cloud; “which,” says he, “are pure, and not unwholesome.” Paumier is endless in his praises of the wines of Paris, which have not the inconvenience of drying up the blood, like those of Gascony; do not fly to the head, like those of Château Thierry and Orleans; and do not occasion obstructions and humours, like those of Bordeaux. According to him, burgundy, when it has lost its roughness, and is in its best state, may be alone compared to the wine of the environs of Paris. Patin, writing in 1669, says, “Long live the bread of Gonesse, with the good wine of Paris, Burgundy, and Champagne!” Chaulieu, in a piece of poetry written in 1702, represents his friend, the Marquis de la Fare, as going often to Surenne to drink the wine:—