ITS LONGEVITY AND FECUNDITY.

13

which the vine continues to bear well ranges ordinarily from sixty to seventy years, often more, and under favourable circumstances of site and soil it is long lived. In the Gironde, when properly attended to, it will last from 100 to 150 years. In the commune of Pauillac, in a gravelly soil, there are vines 200 years old; whilst at Pessac some are shown of a yet greater age, planted, as is there traditionally believed, in the fourteenth century, during the pontificate of Clement V. A vine in Burgundy is credibly recorded to have lived 400 years, and in Italy plants three centuries old continue to flourish productively. In 1585 North Allerton, in the west riding of Yorkshire, possessed a vine that covered 137 square yards, and was then a hundred years old. One at Valentines, in Essex, is known to have produced in one season 2,000 bunches of a pound each, filling a space of 147 square yards; and the celebrated vine now thriving at Hampton Court has grown in one year 2,200 clusters of grapes of the finest quality, averaging a pound weight each.

In selecting the plants most suitable for a vineyard, the choice is never confined to one species. This would be thought hazardous and unwise. Five or six kinds are not infrequent in the plantations most celebrated for their produce, and thus occasional deficiency in one sort is often counteracted by abundance in another. The modes pursued in planting, training, propping, and more especially of pruning the vine, which vary in different countries, further influence the character of the produce, and these are generally governed by custom and other local circumstances. The season for planting is best determined by the climate. In southern localities it takes place in the autumn, by which a year

is gained in bearing; for the north, the more favourable time is towards the end of February, when the harder frosts and heavy rains are over. In pruning, the vines. are thinned three times before they bear fruit, when the operation is again repeated. The importance of careful training is everywhere recognised, and ingenuity has been exhausted in judicious endeavours to meet the varying peculiarities of differing sites. In ancient times the Romans trained their stocks along palisades placed at convenient distances, or from tree to tree; and this, which is called the high method of training, is still partially followed in Italy and some communes of the south of France. When two or more roots are planted near a tree, the shoots soon run up the trunk; sustained by and interlacing with the several branches, they droop in graceful festoons, and impart around an air of cultivated opulence. Most persons imagine that this is the mode adopted in all vineyards; hence they are disappointed on first visiting the Continent, more particularly the cooler districts of the north. The low system of training came originally from Greece, and has been subject to various modifications. It was adopted at Marseilles when it was a Phocean colony, and is now the ordinary usage in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Hungary. The vines of Greece, Cyprus, and Candia are seldom above three feet high, but growing very thick in the stem, and trimmed like pollards, they are left to themselves. In some places the branches are trained so low as to remain without any support, or they rest on little rods in circles near the ground: in Baden they are raised on pyramids of poles in a complex manner, which is found to expose a larger portion of the fruit to the solar action. In the numerous com

MODES OF TRAINING.

15

munes of Médoc the main stem is not permitted to exceed a foot in height, when it is secured by stakes; to these are joined horizontal laths, on which the young shoots are laid when carefully trimmed. The grapes are thus prevented from touching the ground, whilst they benefit from both the direct and reflected heat of the sun's rays, as well as from the warm exhalations that ascend from the earth; and this is considered to be the most perfect mode of treatment known. At Weissenbourg, in Alsace, the vines are trained in long arcades and summer bowers, or on palisades near walls of different elevations. The former style of culture is pleasing and suitable enough for the garden, but is not equally appropriate for the vineyard, because the plant is deprived of the full influence of the sun, and being often trained to a considerable height, is continually exposed to the action of the cold winds. The fruit of high vines never ripens so fully and equally as such as are trained low; and in general it may be taken as a sound maxim that the nearer the stems are kept to the ground, provided there is no contact, the better will be the fruit produced. Where it is permitted to grow without check, it will ascend to the top of the highest trees, and distribute its shoots in all directions; but the grapes so ripened will be proportionably inferior, and the wine made from them prove hard and austere, for the greater the exuberance of fruit, the worse will be its quality, yielding a weak and defective juice that soon turns acid, as the must of wild grapes will always do.

During a long succession of ages, the art of winemaking was conducted on undefined and empirical rules, and the false notions of elementary philosophy so prevalent in primitive times rendered abortive all

attempts to fix the theory on a sound and satisfactory basis. To Lavoisier must be accorded the merit of having first pointed out the true principles on which it is to be explained. The labours of his successors have confirmed his speculations, and the doctrine of fermentation has attained all the precision requisite for practical use. On so subtle and difficult a subject, indeed, an approximation to the truth is the most that can be expected: the primary cause of fermentation, as with other chemical agencies, will probably always remain a mystery; and we must rest satisfied with a knowledge of the principal conditions on which it depends, and by which the qualities of its products are mainly influenced.

The temperature most favourable to vinous fermentation appears to be 65° of Fahrenheit: below that point it is languid; above, it becomes violent; and at a very high or very low temperature its action ceases altogether. The principal results of the fermentative process are the production of alcohol by the decomposition of the sugar, and the separation of the mucilage and extractive matter of the must in the form of lees. Whether any other important chemical changes take place has not been perfectly ascertained, but as the wine has often a flavour totally different from the grape of which it was made, it may be assumed that some of the other constituents enter into new combinations, governed by the peculiarity of the fruit and the particular mode of conducting the fermentation. Wines made in vessels so closed as merely to allow a slow and gradual escape of the carbonic acid gas, are commonly of a more generous quality and of a higher flavour than such as are fermented in open vats, and in general the process is more

CHEMICAL ANALYSIS.

17

prompt and lively in proportion to the bulk of the leavening mass. In a cask it proceeds more slowly than in a vat, but the alcohol and aroma of the wine are better preserved. Large vessels are to be preferred when the weather is cold, or the grapes either too green or too ripe.

The juice of the grape, as ascertained by chemical analysis, consists of the following principal ingredients; viz. a considerable portion of water and sugar, a quantity of mucilage, some tannin, acidulated tartrate of potash, tartrate of lime, phosphate of magnesia, muriate of soda, and sulphate of potash. Besides these, certain kinds contain gallic acid, and in all wines a portion of malic acid, and some traces of citric acid may be perceived; but in the best wines the quantity is inconsiderable, and is generally in an inverse ratio to that of the saccharine principle, or alcohol. Some growths are distinguished by a high perfume and grateful aromatic flavour; others by their rough and astringent taste. In dry wines the saccharine matter has been entirely decomposed; in sweet wines a portion of the sugar remains in its original state. Quality must necessarily vary according to the nature of the seasons. In a cold year the fruit will not attain its proper maturity, and be deficient in flavour and saccharine matter; hence the wine it yields will be comparatively weak and harsh, and liable to ropiness and acerbity. When the season is rainy the produce will be increased, but it will be poor and insipid, and will generally contain an excess of malic acid, which imparts a peculiar flavour, always most perceptible in wines that generate but little alcohol. High winds and fogs are always injurious to the vine. In 1816 the grapes in many of the vine