Wine (Gr. ὀίνος; Foisos; Lat. Vinum; Ital. Vino; Fr. Vin), the fermented juice of the grape; the term has also been applied to liquors similarly prepared from the fruit of other plants. As the vine is a native of the temperate regions of the globe, which appear to have been the first abodes of mankind, the knowledge of wine and its properties is probably coeval with the earliest records of the human race. Wine is mentioned in the Mosaic narratives and in the prophetic books of the Old Testament. Its praises were sung by the earliest poets of the Greeks; and the cultivation of the vine and its products were the theme of the most renowned of the Roman writers on agriculture and its kindred pursuits. To it Pliny has devoted an entire book of his great work on Natural History; Columella has been equally communicative; Virgil has given it prominent place in the Georgics; the most interesting portions of Athenaeus are those relating to the use and qualities of wine; and everything connected with viticulture that could be gleaned from the writers between the first and fourth centuries of Christianity was condensed in the collection of Geoponics, compiled in the reign of Constantine VI. Porphyrogenitus.
Ancient Wine.—Tradition points to India as the birthplace of the vine, whence the mode of preparing wine was introduced into Egypt, and ultimately extended over Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Northern Africa, and Spain. The simplicity of the early process, which consisted of the mere expression and fermentation of the juice, was soon combined with more complex measures for increasing the saccharine element by partially drying the grapes, and for stimulating the alcoholic development by the application of heat in stoves and furnaces. As the theory of distillation was but partially known, the wines of the Greeks and Romans were free from admixture with ardent spirit, but adventitious flavours were imparted by the infusion of leaves and various aromatic substances, as well as by the introduction of salt, resinae, or turpentine; whence the origin of the pine cone as an accessory to the ἄγρυπνος of Bacchus. The grape-juice or must was sometimes boiled down to impressification, and the "defrutum" thus produced was made use of, as at the present day, to impart body and flavour to thin and poor wines. The efficacy of age in ripening and heightening the quality of wine was appreciated by the ancients. Homer speaks of wine "in its eleventh year" (Od. vii. 186); Athenaeus praises it when kept for sixteen; Horace commends wine of the age which was equal to the poet's own; and Pliny mentions some which he had tasted 200 years old, which was then thick as honey and rough in taste (lib. xiv. 6). The coarser descriptions of wine came from the dōma, in which they underwent fermentation; but the finer kinds were drawn off and preserved, generally in earthen vessels, sealed up in wood; only the choicest and most delicate being kept in flasks of glass. When removed to a distance, wine was carried in hides or in bags made of goat-skins, ἀσκοί, whence the scriptural expression of "wine bottles old and rent" (Josh. ix. 13), and the caution against putting "new wine into old bottles," because of the risk of bursting them (Mark ii. 22). Besides its introduction at private entertainments, wine was exposed for sale in the Thermopolia, where it was to be had either spiced and warm, or cooled with ice and snow when the latter were procurable.
Greek Wines.—Of the wines known to the ancient Greeks, the most celebrated were the two kinds mentioned by Homer—one which he designates Pramnian, and which was probably made from grapes grown in the vicinity of Smyrna; the other, the produce of the Thracian Ismarus, with which Ulysses was presented by Maron the priest of Apollo. This he extols as "luxurious, pure, and worthy of the palate of the gods" (Od. iii. 203). In later times the choicest Greek wines came from Leabos, Thasos, Chios, Cos, Cyprus, and others of the Cyclades; as well as from the coast of Asia Minor, and especially from the slopes of Mount Imolus, between the Hermus and Cayster.
Roman Wines.—Of the Roman wines, the earliest noticed was the Coculian, which grew near the modern Fundi; and this was superseded, in popular favour, by the Setian from the hills of Setia, overlooking the Poetine marshes. But that which excelled all others in the estimation of the poets who have sung its praises was the Falernian—the "immortale Falernum" of Martial—which was made from grapes ripened on the Falernus Ager, lying between the Wine and Massic Hills and the banks of the Volturnus. This, in colour, was white inclining to amber, and was esteemed fit for the table only after the age of ten years; when, according to Pliny, it was the only wine known to him which took fire on the application of flame (lib. xiv. 8). In proportion to its area, the district of Italy most prolific in wine was the volcanic region of the Campania, the northern and southern extremities of which Fundi, and Sorrento, were alike famous for Fondanum and Surrentium; the one commemorated by Martial, xiii. 113, and the other recommended by Pliny, "propertem tenuitatem salubritatemque" (xiv. 8). Italy, at this period, regarded her own wines as the finest in the world. Those of Gaul were the second; but their renown, had not yet developed their excellence. That of Hispania, in Languedoc (the modern Beziers), was scarcely known beyond its native district; whilst Gallia Narbonensis was notorious for the abuse of honey for the manufacture of spurious compounds, under the semblance of wine; a manufacture in which Cetius has to the present day sustained its ancient and unenviable repute. Pliny barely alludes to Sicily as a wine-producing country, and only particularises the Mamertins of Messina; whilst he extols Spain for the abundance rather than the excellence of its vintages. But those of the Balearic Isles were, in his judgment, equal to the choicest growths of Italy. In Egypt, the district of Mareotic, adjoining Alexandria, produced a white wine, highly lauded by Athenaeus; whilst Pliny, on the contrary, pronounces all the wines of Africa to be acid and thin.
Modern Wines.—It is a curious fact, which cannot fail to be remarked in connection with any list of ancient wines, that, with scarcely an exception, no one of the localities famous for the superiority of its produce in the time of Pliny now yields a vintage of merit. The causes of this are to be sought not alone in the neglect of cultivation, and the consequent deterioration of the vines, but also in local changes, geological and social—the alteration of the earth's surface and levels, the disappearance of forests, and the cutting of canals and other operations which have affected the drainage and the soil, and partially influenced even the temperature and climate. But in compensation for this, the production has, in the interim, extended over almost every region of the globe that is capable of sustaining the vine; the islands of the Atlantic, the United States, Mexico, South America, and Australia having been added to the wine-producing regions of the Old World.
France.—In no country has the culture of the vine, and the preparation of wine, been pursued with so much perseverance and ability as in France, and in none has success been at once so signal and so extended. There the precise combination of soil, climate, and treatment, essential to every variety of the vine, has been studied with the minutest care, profound science and skill being brought to the aid of observation and experiment. The result has been an extent of production unequalled in any region of the globe, and an excellence in the choicest descriptions so refined and supreme as to be unsurpassed even by the traditional renown of any wine of ancient times, and unapproachable by any modern rival.
In character and quality the wines of France are so varied that Cavoleau, in 1827, enumerated in his Énologie Française upwards of 1500 localities, each yielding a description of sufficient esteem to confer a special distinction on the place of its growth; and the number of these has since been increased by the improvement of cultivation and the formation of vineyards in other localities. With the exception of those elevated regions of Central France, which lie too high to admit the favourable growth of the vine, and of those low lands and valleys where the great proximity of acclivities obstructs the direct action of the sun, and of the extended plains of the west, which are exposed to chill winds blowing unimpeded from the north, vineyards are Wine and successfully worked in almost every department, from the Mediterranean to the Meuse, and from the banks of the Garonne to the bases of the Maritime Alps. The principal regions of the wine are—Champagne, Burgundy, the Lyonnais, Auvergne, Dauphiny, Provence, Languedoc, Roussillon, Gascony, Guienne, and Saintonge; but, above all others in France, the wine which enjoys the most extended reputation is that of the Garonne, and especially that grown in the department of the Gironde and the Bordelais. The wines of this region are still known in England by the term claret—a name no longer attached to any variety exported from France, and only applied at the present day to a white wine of inferior value, grown in Languedoc and Dauphiny. Amongst the French, individuals may give a preference to the red wines of Burgundy over those of the Gironde; but the ability of the latter to bear a sea-voyage gives them a signal advantage over all other rivals, and has secured for them an eager demand in every civilised country. The qualities which ensure for them this pre-eminence are thus described by Cavoleau and Jullien:—"Un vin de Bordeaux de 1ère qualité et parvenu à son degré de maturité doit être pourvu d'une belle couleur, de beaucoup de finesse, d'un bouquet très-savant, et d'une saveur qui embaume la bouche; il doit avoir de la force sans être fumeux, et du corps sans être âcre; il doit ranimer l'estomac en respectant la tête, en laissant l'alcool pur et la bouche fraîche" (Œnologie Franc., p. 122; Topyr. des Vignobles, 172).
Although England is one of the principal consumers of claret, such has heretofore been the passion in this country for strong and loaded wines, that Jullien finds it necessary to explain that the above description applies only to that portion of the Bordeaux vintage which is preserved in its natural purity, but that, down to a very recent period, the shipments destined for Great Britain were not exported until after undergoing the process known to the merchants as "le travail à l'Anglaise." This consists in submitting them to a renewed fermentation, mixing with them, at the same time, both alcohol and sulphurised muscat, together with portions of Hermitage, and other strong wines from the Rhone and Languedoc, as well as from Alicante or Bencarlo. The compound is then permitted to recover, and ripen in the maker's cellars for some years, when it is found to acquire a very strong and spirituous character. Claret thus treated, besides being rendered more costly by the expense of the process, is also more intoxicating and less wholesome than the natural wine. Of late years this practice has been less in favour, and larger quantities of pure wine are sent annually to England from Bordeaux.
Of the red wines of the Gironde, the finest are known by the names of the estates and vineyards which produce them, such as La Fitte, La Tour, Château Margaux, and Haut Brion, in the first class; Leoville, St Julien, St Emilion, and others, in the second and third. Of the white wines of this region, the finest and most valuable are those of Sauterne, Barsac, Preignac, and Bommes, grown in the Graves, or gravelly plains, which lie to the south and west of the Garonne.
Besides the produce of the Bordelais, only two other provinces of France, Burgundy and Dauphiny, yield red wines of the highest quality. Those of Burgundy are distinguished for the refinement of their flavour and the delicacy of their aromatic bouquet; but, owing to their susceptibility of injury during carriage, their export is necessarily very limited. Of these the most celebrated are Romanée Conti, Chambertin, Richebourg, Clos-Vougeot and La Tâche, all grown in the Cote d'Or, a department which owes its name to the richness of the vintages on the low chain of hills extending from Dijon to Mâcon, on the Saône. The wines of Dauphiny and the Lyonnais have not hitherto been largely imported into the United Kingdom, notwithstanding their possession of those elements of strength and flavour which ought to recommend them to English taste combined with their ascertained ability to endure a sea-voyage. The principal seat of the wine-trade of this district is at Lyons, whence the Rhone and the Saône afford unusual facilities both for carriage and export. Besides red and white Hermitage, which are grown on the hills above Tain, the best wines of the district are produced at Meal, Grépioux, Beaune, Murat, Guignières, les Bessas, les Burges, and les Louis.
French red wines of the second rank (besides much from the localities above named) come principally from Champagne, Beaujolais, Roussillon, the northern slopes of the Pyrenees, and other districts which yield the profuse variety already alluded to, a very small portion of which, however, takes high rank in public esteem.
Of white wines, the most appreciated in France are the effervescent vintages of Champagne, the finest of which are grown in the department of Marne, at Sillery, Ay, Rheims, and Epernay. Both white and black grapes are used for the manufacture of champagne; the red tinge sometimes imparted to pink or rosé champagne being obtained by extraction from the skin of the latter. These wines are either still, like that of Sillery, or sparkling; and the latter are again divided with reference to their briskness into mousserous, and demi-mousserous, or cremant. The effervescence which they exhibit is attributable to the escape of carbonic acid imperfectly developed during an incomplete fermentation in the cask, and further generated during their retention in bottle. The treatment of the wine, so as to secure this peculiarity in its highest perfection, is one of those triumphs of skill by which the wine-making of France is so pre-eminently distinguished. The vintage is gathered early in October. The fermentation is generally allowed to go on till Christmas, when the wine is drawn off and mixed with that of other vineyards, with a small quantity of "finings," and a little colouring matter. The bottles must be selected with extreme care, new, symmetrical, and of great and uniform strength. The bottling takes place between April and August, warm weather being essential to produce sparkling wine. Before corking, a small quantity of brandy and syrup is introduced (the proportion being increased to 15 or 16 per cent, for those destined for the English market), and a space of two or three inches is left unfilled in each bottle. In the course of eight or ten days a deposit is formed indicative that the moment has arrived for their removal to a colder cellar, and here they undergo a fermentative process, during which the breakage is a serious consideration to the proprietor. Its extent can neither be foreseen nor checked; it happens chiefly at the season when the vine begins to blossom. In the second winter, means are taken to remove the deposit formed in the summer; the bottles are inverted, so as to place the mouth downward, and shaken from time to time to cause the deposit to descend into the neck. By an extremely dexterous manoeuvre, each bottle is then uncorked and the sediment allowed to escape; the vacant space is refilled with brandied syrup, and the whole is then recorked, wired, and tied, and the wine is left to ripen preparatory to removal. In good seasons, Champagne does not yield less than 15,000,000 bottles of white wine; but the average is 7,000,000, of which 6,000,000 are exported to England, Russia, and Germany.
Of the other white wines of France, those next in value to champagne are the growths of Mont Rachet, in the Côte d'Or, of Dauphiny, and the Graves (already particularised), and of Chateau Grillet, in the department of the Loire. Vins de liqueur, such as Frontignac, Lunel, and Rivesaltes, come exclusively from the South, from Alsace, Dauphiny, Languedoc, and Provence.
Such is the adaptability of the soil and climate of France to the growth of the vine, that the gross vintage has been Wine and estimated at 1,500,000,000 of gallons. The vineyards, in 1859, covered 2,470,000 hectares, producing on an average 32 hectolitres of wine per hectare. As a hectare is about 2½ acres, and a hectolitre 22 imperial gallons, the gross produce would therefore be above 1,738,880,000 gallons. But, making a large deduction for failures and indifferent seasons, the annual produce of France may be taken at a 1,000,000,000 of gallons of wine; and this is every year increasing, not merely in consequence of the extension of cultivation, but also owing to the greatly improved treatment of the vines and the substitution of more prolific for less productive varieties of vines. A commission appointed by the National Assembly of France, in 1849, to inquire into the condition and prospects of this important branch of industry, made its report in 1851, and attributed the great increase in the production of wine, amongst other causes, to the repeated subdivision of the land, and the greater proportion of labour thus applied by the small proprietors to their own allotments, instead of being hired out as formerly to the proprietors of larger estates. In this transition the consideration of quality has to some extent been postponed to that of quantity; in some districts the increase has been a fifth, in others a half, and in some double or treble the former returns. The delegates of the Gironde gave in evidence that certain vineyards, formerly yielding 8 or 9 hectolitres per hectare, now yield 14 or 15; and the witnesses examined from Burgundy stated that whereas the old plantations had formerly produced 14 hectolitres, the new were giving 60. One of the commissioners states, that in certain parts of Provence and Languedoc, where old vineyards situated on hills yielded only 15 to 18 hectolitres, new ones on plains now produce as much as 100 to 150. Deterioration of character, as well as diminution of price, have followed as a consequence of these changes; and of late years, with the exception of the comparatively circumscribed localities which produce the very choicest descriptions, the general quality of French wines has degenerated. This is more especially perceptible in the medium class.
"C'est un fait notoire," say the commissioners, "que généralement; à part les plants de premier choix, la vigne a dégénéré en France, qu'elle a perdu en délicatesse une partie de ce qu'on lui a fait gagner en fécondité; et que l'adoption des nouvelles méthode de culture, l'invasion des races communes, l'abus des fumures et des engrais n'ont multiplié ses fruits qu'en altérant leur primitive saveur." (Enquête Legislative sur l'Impot des Boissons, tom. xi. p. 13.)
The vintage of France was formerly estimated on an average at 40,000,000 hectolitres; it yielded, in 1847, 54,369,799. In 1854, during the height of the vine disease, it fell to less than one-fifth of this amount; but it has since rapidly recovered, and in 1858 the vintage yielded 45,105,700 hectolitres, or about 993,000,000 of gallons. Of this prodigious quantity, however, Lenoir, in his Traité de la Culture de la Vigne, p. 593, pronounces one-sixth only to be in any degree good, another sixth passable, a third capable of being drunk without absolute disgust, the rest consisting of every gradation from bad to detectable. It may be regarded as evidence of the little taste which prevails in other countries for even the medium classes of French wines, that of the vast quantity produced only a very small portion is taken for consumption out of France. The export in some years has exceeded 2,000,000 of hectolitres; but on an average of ten years, before the destruction of the vintages by the vine disease, the quantity of French wine, of every description, sent to every country in the world, was only 33,000,000 gallons. By a statement founded on official data which appeared in the Constitutionelle of the 7th April 1860, it appears that about 18,000,000 hectolitres are sold to dealers in France; 8,500,000 are converted into brandy; 16,000,000 are consumed in the districts where they are made; and it is estimated that from 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 are lost by deficient skill and want of care in the processes of manufacture.
Spain.—Next to the wines of France in quantity, and rivalling them in popularity in other countries, are the wines of the Peninsula. Portugal is remarkable for the excellence of its Port from the Alto Douro, and Spain for the white wine of Xeres, Port Saint Mary, and St Lucar. Great Britain, in 1859, consumed 2,876,554 gallons of wine from Spain, and 2,020,661 gallons from Portugal, whilst she took but 695,913 gallons of the finest wines of France. The portion which she drew from Spain was almost exclusively sherry, grown in the district of Cadiz. This was probably the dry vino secco known as "sack" in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. So much has taste in England been diverted from pure wines, that no sherry is now drunk in the United Kingdom in its simple and unadulterated state. It was given in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1852, that "no natural sherry comes to this country; no wine-house will send it. The article we get is a mixed article; if the Spaniards gave us the natural produce of Xeres, it would not suit, because our taste is artificial." (Evidence, 5717 to 5723.) Spain literally abounds in wine. Mr Porter, formerly of the Board of Trade, estimated its production at 120,000,000 gallons, good, passable, and bad; and probably this is below the truth. But such is the supremacy of habit, that a vast proportion of the wines of Spain are unknown even by name in Great Britain; and so intently is taste directed to particular descriptions, that, according to the evidence quoted above, these wines "do not come here,—first, because we would not drink them if they did; and secondly, because they cannot come, owing to the position of the wine-growing districts, which are distant 120 or 200 miles from the seaports, with no cross-roads, no coopers, and no casks."
A large proportion of those rejected are converted into brandy, and exported to America and Europe. The driest description of sherry is known as Amontillado, and was at one time said to have been made in imitation of the montilla grown near Cordova. But the peculiar flavour designated by the name is as often the result of accident as of design; and from some cause, as yet imperfectly known, certain portions of an ordinary vintage, and treated in no way differently from the rest, sometimes present all the qualities of "amontillado."
No province of Spain is without its vintage, but those of the north—Galicia, the Asturias, Biscay, Navarre, and Aragon—are little known beyond their immediate localities. The same remark applies to the central provinces of Castille, Leon, and Estremadura, although, in the latter, the tinto of Olivença has acquired a certain repute, as well as the red and white val de peñas of La Mancha. On the Mediterranean shore, Catalonia abounds in vineyards; but with the exception of those of Cordova, their produce is not of superior character; and like that of Alicante, Vinaroz, and Benecarlo, in Valencia, it is principally taken on account of its high colour and flavour, to blend with more delicate wine of other countries. Murcia and Granada are chiefly celebrated for their vins de liqueur; so that it is mainly through the rich and abounding vineyards of Andalusia, and above all, of Cadiz, that we are acquainted with the produce of Spain.
The destructive disease among the vines made its appearance in the district around Cadiz in the year 1853. Such were its disastrous effects, that the vintage which had previously reached 60,000 to 70,000 butts, of an average value of L.7, fell in the course of a few seasons to 18,000 or 20,000 butts, with an increase in price to L.16 or L.20. For some time the export from Cadiz, which had been 53,357 butts of 108 to 110 imperial gallons, did not very much decrease; but the averages being maintained, not by the produce of accruing vintages, but by the reduction of the stocks in the hands of the merchants. Spain yields some sweet wines of very high quality, such as the Pedro Ximénez, the Malmsey of Sitges in Catalonia, the Paxeàtre of Xeres, and the vin de liqueur of Malaga.
Portugal.—Of the gross production of wine in Portugal, as of that in Spain, it is difficult to obtain accurate information, the only returns accessible being those of the quantities exported. But it is a significant fact as to the prolific vintages of this portion of the Peninsula, that in recent years the value of the shipments of wine from the Douro and the Tagus has exceeded that of all the other exports of the kingdom. The two great centres of the wine-trade are Oporto and Lisbon, the former for the red wine, which bears its name; the latter chiefly for the white wines which grow in the surrounding provinces. The wine known in England as "Port," is the production of a district about nine leagues in length, along the banks of the Douro, to the east of Oporto; its limits were arbitrarily fixed by the Portuguese government, and, under restrictions no less capricious than unwise, the produce of the vintages was divided into classes, distinguishing that qualified for exportation from the inferior portion retained for home consumption. No denunciation of a system so artificial and unsound could be more emphatic than that pronounced in the preamble to a project submitted to the Cortes by the minister at Lisbon in 1860, by which it was proposed to abolish the Douro Company. "To write the history of the trade in these wines," says this document, "of the laws which have regulated it, and of the motives and reasons assigned by legislators during more than a century, would be to recapitulate all the errors which it has been the task of science in the first instance, and of practice subsequently, to annihilate." The decree of the 10th September 1756 confirmed the formation of the Company, with almost regal powers and privileges, at the sacrifice of other industrial interests; and the sacrifice was carried out in such a violent and barbarous manner, that it became necessary to disregard the rights of property, and to pull up and destroy the farmers' vineyards, for in their simplicity they could not comprehend the fundamental theory of the Douro legislation, viz., that an abundant production is the bane of agriculture. Finally, gallows were erected and armies manoeuvred to compel the people to become rich and prosperous by the means marked out by their governors. It is no longer contested that these restrictions are of no advantage to the Douro wine-growers, but, on the contrary, cause more injury to them than to the wine-growers of the vicinity, who do not enjoy their privileges, but are the victims of their monopoly. One object avowed was to restrict the supply of Douro wine abroad, with a view to keep up its prices, and appreciation consequent on scarcity; and another was, to furnish a guarantee to foreigners for the genuineness of the article. But the prohibition to export from Oporto any but first-class wines declared legally "exportable," in attacking the principles of liberty and property, and in depriving the country of the advantages of trade in the inferior kinds of wine, has not obviated nor restricted the base imitations of port wine in other places; whilst the choice of a restricted quantity for shipment has induced the vine-grower to adulterate his wines with pernicious mixtures, in order to give it artificially the appearance and qualities required. Such were the vices and consequences of this absurd system, coupled with the ascendant taste for strong wines in England, that it may safely be said that for nearly a century not a pipe of port wine has ever reached the United Kingdom in its original purity.
Before the appearance of the oidium, which seized on the vines of Portugal about the year 1854, the gross annual production of the Demarção or legalised district, had attained to ninety thousand pipes, of which less than one half was declared fit for foreign export. In 1856-7, the wine shipped from the Douro was but 38,264 pipes, and it fell in 1857-8 to 19,212, and to 17,597 in 1858-9. During the same period, the wines shipped from the Tagus, chiefly the production of Estramadura, including Lisbon, Bucellas, Carcavelos, and Setuval, amounted in 1856-7 to 14,250 pipes, in 1856-7 to 8655, in 1857-8 to 14,366. Of these latter wines a small and declining quantity comes to the United Kingdom; the bulk of those exported being taken by Brazil.
The entire production of Portugal has not been calculated with any accuracy, but judging by what is known of the Alto Douro and other districts, it must be very large. The province of Estramadura alone, in 1859, was computed at 200,000 pipes. Looking to the large internal consumption of the country, the gross vintages of an average year may be fairly estimated at from 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 gallons.
Germany.—With the exception of the countries bordering on the Rhine, Northern Germany can scarcely be said to produce any wine of value. But from the confines of Switzerland to the confluence of the Moselle, the river and its tributaries traverse regions which have been aptly described as the "gardens of the vine," and between Mayence and Coblenz it flows between hills scarped and terraced to their summits, and yielding those vintages which have conferred celebrity on the district known as the "Rhoingau." With the exception of Asmannshausen and a very few other red wines, the produce is almost entirely white, and ranges in excellence and estimation from the costly Johannisberg, Steinberg, and Hockheim, down to numerous growths of far inferior quality and price. The vineyards of Johannisberg, which surround the chateau, on a hill in the duchy of Nassau, a short distance from Mayence, were originally planted by the monks of Fulda at the end of the eleventh century. On the secularisation of the lands of the convent they were transferred to the Prince of Orange, and eventually became the property of the House of Metternich. The finest vines grow above the vaults surrounding the castle; and the story is told that during the early wars of the French Revolution, Hoche was only prevented by the entreaties of the peasants, aided by the remonstrances of Marechal Lefebvre, from blowing them and the castle into the air. They yield annually, according to Jullien, about 1300 bottles of wine, so esteemed that it has been valued, in special years, at 25 francs a bottle. Johannisberg is characterised at once by its superior bouquet and delicious flavour, and by its total freedom from the piquant acidity of other wines of the Rhine.
The proportion of choice German wine as compared with the gross production is so infinitesimally small, that Northern Germany imports for her own use a larger quantity of wine than the exports to all the rest of the world. Out of the annual vintage, estimated at 45,000,000 gallons, Great Britain consumes about 60,000.
Austria.—Southern Germany, on the contrary, not only yields a prodigious quantity of wine, but of late years exports a large and increasing proportion. Exclusive of her Italian possessions, Austria, in 1855, had a vintage which amounted to 456,048,318 gallons. Of this Hungary furnished more than a half, including the only descriptions with pretensions to a high degree of excellence. Hungary sustains sixty varieties of the vine, principally introduced from Italy, Asia, and Greece. Of its wines the most renowned is the Tokay grown at the confluence of the Theiss and Bodrog, near the village of Tarcal, and incontestibly regarded as the finest vin de liqueur in the world. The Emperor Probus is said to have planted the vines in the third century of Christianity. The vintage does not take place in any year Wine and till the grapes have not only been allowed to get over ripe, but partially to dry upon the vines. Next to Tokay the favourite wines of Hungary are those of Sirmien, Buda, Erlau, and Gyoengyoesch, at the foot of Mount Matra.
Croatia and Slavonia produce annually about 50,000,000 gallons; Transylvania 800,000; Styria and Dalmatia each nearly as much; the wines of Moravia, Bohemia, Carniola, Istria, and the Tyrol, are unimportant both in quantity and value. Of the portion exported from Austria, little or none reaches England. According to an official report laid before Parliament in 1860, about one-third goes to Switzerland, a third to Poland, Russia, and Turkey, and the remainder to Prussia, and via Trieste to other countries.
Italy.—The Austrian statistical returns show that the wines of Lombardy and Venice in 1855 were upwards of 70,000,000 gallons, chiefly from the Friuli, Brescia, Bergamo, the Milanese, and Valletta; but no one of these can be ranked in a superior class. Notwithstanding its soil and climate, and the other local advantages which rendered Italy the home of the vine, and vindicated for it the title of Enotria, the ancient renown of Sentian and Falernian has not descended as an inheritance to the vineyards of Latium and Campania. Piedmont produces the light wine of Asti, and Tuscany the palatable Montepulciano; Monte-Fiascone and Orvieto, are aromatic and agreeable; Naples has her Lacryma Christi, and the islands of Ischia and Capri are prolific in a refreshing and exhilarating wine; but none of the vineyards of modern Italy can bear comparison with those of France or the Peninsula. Besides, although the gross produce is considerable, scarcely any of it is susceptible of carriage by land or sea without the risk of deterioration.
Sicily possesses numerous advantages for the cultivation of the vine, but hitherto its wines have not attained to any degree of excellence. The vicinity of Etna produces some red wines, such as Mascoli, Schiarra, and San Giovanni; but of all, the most important are the vineyards of Marsala, near the western extremity of the island, which produce a white wine possessed of qualities so nearly allied to those of ordinary sherry as to be in considerable demand wherever the English have established themselves in the Mediterranean, and to be largely imported into the United Kingdom. Of late years, however, its consumption in these countries has not been increasing; it amounted to 323,681 gallons in 1854, but has gradually declined to 224,409 in 1859.
Switzerland.—Almost every Swiss canton produces wine more or less, but none above third-rate in merit or value. The best are probably the red wines of Faverge and Cortaillod, in the principality of Neuchatel; those of Thayngen in Fribourg; Rhintal, Bouchberg, and Berne in Saint Gall; Winterthur in Zurich; Erlach, in Berne; and Frangy and Monnetier, in the canton of Geneva, are the most known. Both the Canton de Vaud and the Valais produce palatable wine. The former furnishes a considerable quantity to the Federation, but none for foreign export.
Russia.—The southern possessions of Russia in Europe are favourable to the vine; and in some of the provinces, Bessarabia, Kherson, Taurida, and the Don, wine is made with no inconsiderable success. Of these the best is produced in the Crimea, where the vine has been cultivated from time immemorial; but the processes are of the rudest kind, and the manufacture is still in its infancy. On the southern coast of the Crimea, Sudak, to the west of Theodosia, produces a sparkling wine with some of the characteristics of champagne; and amongst the mountains towards Sebastopol the peasants make a red wine, which Julien says resembles that of Roquemaure, in the department du Gard. Wine is also grown at Kislar in Circassia; at Dimi in Imeritia; at Odeschi in Mingrelia; and at Derbend in Daghestan.
Turkey and Greece.—Although the whole area of Turkey, both European and Asiatic, may be said to be congenial to the vine, the unsettled condition of the country, coupled with the Mohammedan prohibition against its use, have contributed to discourage the production. Christians, however, are permitted, under certain restrictions, to make wine for themselves. Moldavia and Wallachia each produce a little, the latter some resembling Tokay. Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly have likewise their vineyards, but their produce is of no esteem. In Greece, on the contrary, the cultivation of the vine is one of the most extended and important branches of national industry; but the wine, both of the Morea and of Livadia, is so impregnated with resin as to be unpalatable to one unaccustomed to this peculiarity. The monks of Megaspelon, south of the Gulf of Lepanto, have the reputation of making the best wine in the Peloponnesus, and in the same peninsula the wines of Pyrgos, Tripolizza, and Moloc, have a certain celebrity. Napoli de Malvasia, on the shore of the ancient Sparta, gave its own name to the Malvasie which, in the middle ages, graced the desserts of the luxurious; but it has almost disappeared from the place of its birth. The islands of Greece and the Archipelago sustain their reputation for wine. Ithaca, Zante, and Cephalonia have each vintages of a quality somewhat higher than those of Cerigo and Corfu. At the foot of Ida the Cretans still cultivate, but on a greatly reduced scale, the vines that yield the rich muscadine, of which the Venetians were at one time the purveyors of Europe. In Samos and Tenedos the prosperity of the islanders is mainly dependent on their vineyards; and Scio maintains her ancient renown for that luscious "nectar" which Virgil extolled and Horace pronounced to be beyond all price.
Of all the wine-growing islands of the Archipelago, however, Cyprus is, in modern times, the most distinguished. Early in the seventeenth century the production exceeded 1,500,000 gallons, of which nearly one-half was exported; but at the present day the vintage is probably less than a sixth of this quantity. The finest description is that grown on the ancient commandery of the Knights of St John, between Paphos and Limasol. It is a vin de liqueur the most luscious and aromatic, which, according to the tradition of the growers, requires to be kept for a hundred years to insure the full development of its excellence. It is a universal favourite in the Levant, but is much too sweet and cloying for ordinary tastes. Large stocks are preserved for export in the cellars of Larnica and Nicosia. In Asiatic Turkey the vine grows universally, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the valleys of the Euphrates, but the finest wines produced are the muscats from the vicinity of Smyrna and the vino d'oro, from the slopes of the Lebanon. Palestine still yields a small quantity, and the monks of Jerusalem prepare some of tolerable quality from the vineyards of Bethlehem.
Persia, &c.—The odes of Hafiz have conferred on the wines of Shiraz, in Faristan, a reputation which has become European as well as Oriental. But owing to the introduction of odoriferous gums, to give them the peculiar flavour prized by the Persians, they fail to realise their poetic renown in the esteem of strangers. Wine is made but in trifling quantity, and of execrable quality, in Cabul and Cashmir, and in the countries watered by the Indus; and the historic traditions of China attest its former existence there, although it has long ceased to be made in that extraordinary country.
Africa.—Whatever adaptability for the vine the southern
The shores of the Mediterranean may have exhibited in the classic ages, the production of wine disappeared with the ascendency of the Mohammedan faith, and with the exception of a small quantity made by the Jews in Morocco, the remotest extremity of Africa may be said to be the only spot on that vast continent that now sustains a vintage. The Dutch were the first to encourage the grape at the Cape of Good Hope, and vines were introduced by them both from Asia and Europe, but the soil proved to be deficient in many essentials; and owing to the inexperience of the planters, imperfectly relieved by the aid of French immigrants, the cultivation was slovenly, the processes rude, and the quality of the vintage defective. The only exception was the farm of Constantia, a few miles distant from Cape Town, which has always yielded a liqueur wine of superior quality. Both red wine and white are produced in South Africa; and a compound was formerly made in imitation of Madeira, which had some sale in Europe and in India. For many years past an artificial demand has been stimulated in this country for the wines of the Cape, by means of a discriminating import duty favourable to them as British colonial produce. Thus, whilst the wines of France and the Peninsula were only admissible at excessive rates, those of the Cape were subjected to a tax of but one-fourth that imposed on all others; and when the duty on all wines was equalised in 1831, and fixed at 5s. 6d. a gallon, whatever the country of their growth, that of the Cape was admitted at 2s. 10d. But the stimulus was ineffectual; the inferior character of the wine repelled consumers; it was imported almost exclusively for fraudulent admixture with better descriptions, and even for this base use its consumption declined from year to year. It had been 670,000 gallons in 1825, it fell off in 1840 to 456,773 gallons, in 1850 to 246,132, and to 182,322 in 1853. At this crisis the appearance of the oidium, and the destruction of the vintages of Europe by its ravages, gave a fresh impetus to the importation of Cape. It suddenly rose to 277,494 gallons in 1864. In 1867 it was 456,214, and 781,581 in 1859.
In 1860, the Chancellor of the Exchequer adopted the wise course of abolishing the distinctive duty on colonial wine, and placing it on an equality with all others—a measure, the effect of which will be watched with some anxiety by the colonists at the Cape, who now find themselves embarked for the first time in an unprejudiced competition with the wine-growers of Europe.
Canary Islands and Madeira.—The groups of islands in the Atlantic, lying to the west of the great African continent, Homer's "Isles of the Blessed," have in modern times been proved to possess all the conditions of soil and climate essential for maturing the grape and ensuring the choicest quality of wine. Tenerife and Canary have acquired a high reputation for white wine and Malmsey; but the merits of both are eclipsed by the exquisite produce of Madeira, the finest of which takes incontestable rank with the choicest vintages of Europe. So congenial is this island to the vine, that plants from every quarter of the Old World have been successfully cultivated upon the slopes of its volcanic hills. Their produce embraces every variety and rank, from the ruby coloured tinto, and the delicious wine which bears emphatically the name of its birth-place, to the driest sercial and the luscious and aromatic Malmsey peculiar to the island. The cultivation of the vine was introduced into Madeira by the Portuguese in the early part of the fifteenth century; and in the height of its prosperity, the gross production was estimated at upwards of 20,000 to 25,000 pipes, of which about one-fourth, chiefly of the most exquisite quality, was annually exported to England, the East Indies, North America, and Brazil.
Of all the countries visited by that scourge of the vines, the oidium, none was so utterly devastated by it as Madeira. It broke out in the island in 1851, nearly a year before its appearance on the continent of Europe, and in an infinitely more virulent form. It infested every district,—it annihilated the grapes in 1852, and rapidly seized on the plants themselves. With scarcely an exception, the vines were destroyed, the few that survived were incapable of maturing fruit; for six successive years no vintage was gathered in Madeira, and the vineyards were planted with the sugar-cane. The stocks of wine in hand failed to supply the demands of other countries; the export which had been 7840 pipes in 1851, fell in 1854 to 1642, and to 993 in 1855. By a partial recovery in 1858, the proprietors were enabled to make about 600 pipes of very inferior quality; but the produce in 1859 was nil. The stocks in hand are exhausted, and at the present moment (June 1860), the wine trade of Madeira may be said to be virtually extinguished. That it will ultimately revive, there are no grounds for reasonable doubt, but a problem of some interest will then arise for solution. Hitherto no attempt made to transport the vine to other countries has ever been attended with such a measure of success as to obtain in the new locality precisely the same character and quality of wine as that which it yielded in the old. Whatever care may be bestowed to select an identity of soil, aspect, and climate, the grape, after removal, loses its special and peculiar attributes; vines taken from France, Germany, and the Peninsula, to the Cape and Australia, have furnished wines totally different from what they produced before, and no European vine has hitherto succeeded when transplanted to America. The wine of one and the same plant which gave Hook upon the Rhine, became Buccelas in Portugal, and Sercial in Madeira. The question then suggests itself, when the rage of the oidium shall have subsided, and vines are again introduced into Madeira, whether the characteristics of the new wine, however choice its quality, will be such as to identify it with that with which we have been so long familiar under the designation of Madeira?
Australia.—Turning from the Old World and its vicinities, a fresh interest is excited by the experiments now in progress to introduce the culture of the vine and the manufacture of wine into the New. In Australia, vineyards have been scientifically tended for upwards of thirty years, and plants have been introduced with varying success from the principal wine-growing countries of Europe. Every portion of this great continent hitherto colonised has been found favourable to their growth; but though the prospect is highly encouraging in Victoria, as well as in both South and Western Australia, the success hitherto attained has been most marked in New South Wales (see Australia), where upwards of 1100 acres of vineyards are now under cultivation, chiefly in the district of the Hunter River and its tributaries. The extent in 1859 was 547 acres in Victoria; 678 in South Australia; and 364 in Western Australia, of which 218 are in Perth and the vicinity of the Swan River, and the remainder in Wellington and York. The produce in wine is of course various; but near the Hunter River it has in some places been between 400 and 500 gallons per acre.
Of the wine hitherto made, the characteristics of the white bear a close affinity to that of Hochheim and the Rhingau, and the red has some resemblance to those of the Côte d'Or. In quality, they are so promising as to have obtained highly favourable notice at the Great Exhibition at Paris in 1854; and Liebig, in 1852, pronounced, as the result of his analysis, that the white wines of the Hunter River exhibited more of alcohol and less of free acid than the most esteemed wines of the Rhine; whilst the red had many properties in common with Burgundy. As yet this branch of industry is too recent to furnish any considerable supply, and nothing beyond a few experimental samples Wine and have been exported from the colony. The gross produce of South Australia in 1857 was 108,174 gallons; that of Victoria was 10,936 in 1856.
United States.—The cultivation of the vine was an object of early solicitude to the first colonists of North America. Plants were introduced from France and Spain in 1620, and vineyards formed in Virginia, where French vignerons were induced to settle in 1630, and to undertake the preparation of wine. Vines trained on mulberry and sassafras trees were a feature in the scenery of Delaware in 1648, and in 1683 William Penn established a vineyard in the vicinity of Philadelphia. Towards the end of the last century, a palatable red wine was made from a native vine in Indiana and Missouri; and in 1769 some French settlers in Illinois made upwards of 100 hogsheads from an American wild-grape. Thenceforward attention has been uniformly given to the native grapes as the only ones suitable to wine-making, experience having demonstrated the utter failure of every attempt to make good wine in America from vines imported from Europe. The Report of the Commissioner of Patents, published at Washington in 1857, says, "It has been found necessary (in the northern states particularly) to discard the European varieties, as they cannot stand the sudden variations of climate; and from some cause yet unknown, even in the most favourable situations they are invariably destroyed. Sixty years ago there was scarcely a yard in the city of New York that did not possess foreign vines, producing fruit of the finest quality; now there are none—they will not thrive there. If they produce fruit for two or three years, they are apt afterwards, at the time of flowering, to split open both stem and branches, and so perish" (p. 227). Every care has consequently been bestowed on the native species, of which it has been found indispensable to have two very distinct classes of plants; one suited to the hot regions of the south, and the other to the cold districts of the northern States. The scuppernong grape, which is the favourite in the southern States, will not ripen perfectly north of Virginia; and the fox-grape of the north, with its varieties of the Isabella and Catawba, will scarcely grow in the lower parts of Carolina and Georgia.
Upwards of thirty varieties of native grapes are now cultivated in the United States, nearly all white, and closely resembling each other. In one important particular they have all been found to differ from the vines of Europe; that pruning appears to produce no beneficial effect on the fruit; and when left to their natural growth, they are more productive than under artificial training, however scientific. Wine is made in almost every State of the Union, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from the St Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. Looking to quantity alone, the region most productive is California, where, more than a century ago, the preparation of wine was carefully attended to by the missionaries from Spain. In character it is less pure and wholesome than the wine made in Ohio. Next in importance, as wine-producing States, are North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.
The following return from the Census Report of the United States exhibits the quantity of wine produced in each State of the Union in the years 1840 and 1850 respectively:
| States and Territories | 1840 Gallons | 1850 Gallons | |------------------------|-------------|-------------| | Alabama | 177 | 220 | | Arkansas | | 35 | | California | | 58,055 | | Columbia, District of | 25 | 863 | | Connecticut | 2,668 | 4,269 | | Delaware | 322 | 145 | | Florida | | 10 | | Georgia | 8,547 | 798 | | Illinois | 474 | 2,997 | | Indiana | 10,265 | 14,055 | | Iowa | | 420 | | Kentucky | 2,209 | 8,093 | | Louisiana | 2,884 | 15 | | Maine | 2,236 | 724 | | Maryland | 7,585 | 1,481 | | Massachusetts | 193 | 4,688 | | Michigan | | 1,654 | | Mississippi | 12 | 407 | | Missouri | | 22 | | New Hampshire | | 10,553 | | New Jersey | 9,416 | 1,811 | | New York | 6,799 | 9,172 | | North Carolina | 25,522 | 11,058 | | Ohio | 11,524 | 48,207 | | Pennsylvania | 14,328 | 25,550 | | Rhode Island | 803 | 1,012 | | South Carolina | 643 | 5,880 | | Tennessee | 653 | 92 | | Texas | | 99 | | Vermont | 94 | 659 | | Virginia | 13,911 | 5,408 | | Wisconsin | | 113 | | New Mexico Territory | | 2,363 |
Totals, 124,734 221,249
Since 1852, the cultivation has been extended with energy and success; in 1854 the gross produce of the United States was estimated at 500,000 gallons, and by an official report furnished by the secretary of the British Legation at Washington in 1860, it is now upwards of 2,000,000, the average value of which may be taken at one dollar and a half per gallon.
In every region of the American continent, the native vines, as compared with those of Europe, have been found defective in saccharine, the richest in this quality is the scuppernong of the extreme south; but wine made even from it requires to be sweetened by the admixture of a portion of syrup or honey. This, together with the infusion of whisky or peach-brandy, to correct the supposed deficiency of alcohol, imparts a disagreeable flavour to the wines of North Carolina.
The Catawba grape, which was found growing in a garden near Washington about the year 1826, is now extensively cultivated in Ohio, Kentucky, and the States of the west and south-west; and "Catawba wine," notwithstanding a muscat flavour, disagreeable to those unaccustomed to it, bids fair to become an article of importance in American commerce. It has some resemblance to Rhenish in flavour, and is of the same pale straw colour. In 1854 the vineyards in which it was grown covered more than 3000 acres, chiefly in the vicinity of Cincinnati, but spreading along both banks of the Ohio to Pittsburgh and Cairo, and thence extending southward through Kentucky and Tennessee to Alabama and Missouri. Large quantities of effervescent wine are made both at St Louis and Cincinnati, and sold as "sparkling Catawba" at about a dollar a bottle. In the process of making it undergoes a treatment in all respects similar to champagne, and with a degree of success which, in the opinion of Americans, is likely to render it a formidable rival.
Elements of Wine.—Although the component substances which form the juice of the grape have been ascertained with considerable accuracy, and observation has recorded the phenomena of those changes whilst undergoing fermentation, which ultimately convert them into wine, we are still so imperfectly acquainted with the quantitative analysis of the innumerable descriptions of wine, and with the causes which engender their endless variety, that Mulder, the latest and most enlightened writer on vinous chemistry, has frankly avowed that all we have yet learned on the Wine and subject is so trivial in comparison with what remains to be known, that it can only be regarded as a single step in the progress of discovery.
Every species of vine (and they are so numerous that Chaptal, in 1799, caused 1400, then growing in France alone, to be collected in the garden of the Luxembourg at Paris) exhibits a different proportion in the elementary constituents of the grape; and each, during the growth of the plant and the process of manufacture, is subject to so many influences from the varieties of soil and aspect, and exposed to so many casualties, such as the mixture of ripe with unripe and decaying fruit, and even those fluctuations of temperature by which fermentation is affected, that the multiplicity of results may almost be said to be infinite.
Both black and white grapes yield colourless juice, but so sensitive is each to external influences, that the white are generally sweeter; because, although the heat of the sun more easily penetrates the purple, the colourless skin of the other being more permeable by light, a more powerful chemical action is thus engendered, and a larger formation of sugar.
Besides water, the principal components of grape-juice, according to Mulder, are sugar, gelatine or pectin, gum, fatty matter, wax, albumen, gluten, tartaric acid free and combined with potash, soda, and lime; in some cases racemic, malic, and perhaps citric acid; alumina, oxide of manganese, and oxide of iron, sulphate of potash, sulphate of soda, phosphate of lime and magnesia—silicic acid may also exist. The skin contains tannic acid and colouring matter; and the stones a fatty oil, capable of distinct extraction. As much as 40 per cent. of solid particles, the greater portion being sugar, may be contained in the juice of very ripe grapes, but of this the majority contain much less. Mulder calculates that the saccharine matter ranges from 13 to 80 per cent.; and as the proportion of alcohol in wine is mainly dependent upon the amount of sugar in the grape, his estimate is, that 198 parts of grape-sugar (supposing there to be no loss during fermentation) would give 92 parts of alcohol, or, as nearly as possible, two to one. But as some of the sugar remains undissolved, and during fermentation more alcohol is evaporated than water, this proportion is liable to great variation.
Shortly after the juice has been expressed from the grapes, the commencement of fermentation is indicated by the rise of small air-bubbles to the surface, caused by the liberation of carbonic acid gas; the liquid, never altogether clear, becomes turbid, froth collects, saccharine diminishes, alcohol is engendered, the consistency of the fluid decreases, and it rejects, by discharge or subsidence, matters which it is no longer capable of holding in solution. The process is continued for some months, the wine being drawn off from time to time into different vessels, to facilitate the removal of sediment, and when thoroughly cleared, it is finally transferred to casks for preservation or export.
Even when cellared, the chemical action, although apparently at an end, is still silently and invisibly sustained; and properties become altered or imparted, which either add to the flavour and excellence of the wine, or eventually lead to its decomposition and decay. In fine wines, colour is gradually deposited, and the bouquet is heightened by the evolution of odoriferous substances; but, on the other hand, wine with much sugar and but little tannic acid is insusceptible of improvement from age; and those with a considerable portion of albumen have a tendency to turn acid. So long as wine is in cask, the proportion of alcohol goes on increasing; but as this operation is more or less dependent on access to air, no change in this respect is discernible in bottle. The disagreeable flavour sometimes perceptible in bottled wines, which are said, when so affected, to be "corked," is ascribable to mould-plants, or extremely minute fungi, which, growing from the outside, penetrate to the moist end of the cork; hence the propriety of re-corking wines which have been a long time in bottle. Another disease, technically called "ropiness," is caused by the formation of vegetable mucus from the saccharine matter; and as this is principally occasioned by the deficiency of tannic acid, it may be checked by its addition.
The elements which go to the composition of wine may be deduced from the statement made above as to the constituents of grape-juice, and the changes which they undergo during fermentation. Of these, some entirely disappear in the process; new combinations take place in others; and alcohol, acetic acid, tartarates of potash, lime, and magnesia, are formed; and, according to Fauré, the best wines contain a viscid, ropy, and elastic substance which he designates Oenanthe, and to which he ascribes that "body" which is so highly prized in the wines of Medoc.
The quantity of alcohol in different wines, as well as in wines of the same kind but of different vintages, and the means of ascertaining its amount with precision, have occupied the attention of analytical chemists; but with no more satisfactory result than the conclusion that the proportion can only be estimated satisfactorily by distilling the spirit from the wine; determining its specific gravity and quality; and comparing it with the gross quantity of wine employed in the experiment. Apparatus has been simplified, with a view to adapting it to this process of distillation, but the operation is affected by so many adventitious circumstances, that minute accuracy is hardly to be attained even with careful and scientific manipulation. Fontenelle, Payen, Guy Lussac, Malland, Fauré, and others, have recorded the results of their several calculations, which are almost as varied as they are numerous. The following table, furnished by Brande in 1811 and 1813, although it has since been repeatedly tested without eliciting the same precise results, has generally been accepted as exhibiting the proportion of native alcohol in the several descriptions of wine which are best known in England. It must, however, be remembered, that this analysis presents no criterion of the quantity of adventitious alcohol introduced into wine by the maker or importer.
| Table of the Alcoholic Contents of Wine at 15° 5 c 509 r. | |-----------------|-----------------| | Port wine, maximum | 23·92 | | " minimum | 19·82 | | Madeira, maximum | 22·61 | | " minimum | 17·91 | | Constantia | 18·29 | | Lacryma Christi | 18·24 | | Sherry, maximum | 18·37 | | " minimum | 17·60 | | Lisbon | 17·45 | | Madeira (Tinto) | 17·04 | | Cape Madeira | 16·77 | | Cape Muscat | 17·00 | | Calcevella | 16·70 | | Hermitage, white | 16·44 | | Malaga | 15·93 | | Roussillon | 15·96 | | Syracuse | 14·15 | | Bordeaux (claret), maximum | 15·11 | | " minimum | 11·95 | | Tinto (red French) | 12·32 | | Burgundy, maximum | 12·32 | | " minimum | 11·00 | | Graves (Bordeaux) | 11·84 | | Champagne, white | 11·84 | | " red | 10·64 | | Rhone wine, maximum | 13·31 | | " minimum | 8·00 |
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1 Mulder's Chemistry of Wine, translated by H. Bence Jones, pp. 32, 50. 2 Mulder, chap. viii, p. 145. Another analysis has been published by Christison, as follows:
| Wine | Alcohol | |-----------------------------|---------| | Tokay | 10-46 | | Nier | 13-5 | | Schiraz | 14-4 | | Coto Rotie (Burgundy) | 11-4 | | Frontignac | 11-8 | | Marsala, maximum | 15-9 | | Malaga, minimum | 14-7 | | Bacellas | 15-2 |
According to Hollingshead, Grecian Malmsey, Italian Vermouth, Rhenish tent, and Spanish Malaga, "were accomplished of; because of their strength and value." Champagne was drunk in the reign of Henry VIII., and under Charles II. the favourites were Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Hermitage.
Sherry and port were little in use before the close of the seventeenth century; and the origin of their later ascendency in these countries dates from the political estrangements between France and England, consequent on the Revolution of 1688, and the active part taken by Louis XIV. in behalf of the exiled family. During the wars which ensued, the financial system of Great Britain was perverted from the legitimate purposes of revenue, and framed with an avowed intention to cripple the commerce and industry of the French; and under the plea of securing a better market for British commodities in the Peninsula, to foster a preference for the wines of Portugal and Spain. The attempt was eventually successful. By the Methuen treaty in 1703, England bound herself to impose a duty on French wines not less than one-third higher than on Portuguese; but even this proportion was in practice far exceeded, till under the conjoint influences of inclination and necessity, the taste for the strong wines of the Peninsula became so confirmed that when the duty on French wines was lowered in 1786, the reduction was productive of no advantage, and their consumption continued to decline.
The subsequent history of the wine duties in Great Britain, and the rise and fall of consumption at different periods, as the relative rates underwent readjustment, present so many anomalies, and exhibit results so discrepant and so much at variance with the phenomena of commerce, under the ordinary influences of taxation, that they can only be regarded as the caprices of a taste artificially stimulated, and operating not on one of the necessaries of life, the increased or diminished use of which would register with sufficient precision the influence of high and low prices; but on one of its luxuries, affected, not by the uniform impulse of an habitual want, but by the changing customs of society, and the uncertain fluctuations of fashion.
The use of wine by the people of England during the eighteenth century was intermittent, exhibiting at one time the largest amount of consumption and revenue under the highest range of taxation, and at others manifesting a sudden decline in both, notwithstanding large reductions of duty in periods of great national prosperity.
At the close of the war in 1815, the duties had risen to 13s. 8d. per gallon on French wines, and 9s. 8½ on those of the Peninsula; at these rates the consumption began perceptibly to decline during peace; and in 1825 they were, however, lowered to 7s. 3d. on French, and to 4s. 10d. on Spanish and Portuguese. The result was a gradual increase from an average of 4,751,106 gallons per annum to between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000, which was attained in 1830, and at, or about that average, it has been maintained to the present time.
In 1831, another important improvement was effected, by the repeal of the Methuen treaty, and the abolition of the unwise and invidious distinction formerly drawn between the wines of France and those of the rest of the world. The duty was equalised at 5s. 6d. for wines of every country except that of the British colonies, which was fixed as 2s. 10d. Under this scale, which continued down to 1860, the consumption of wine in Great Britain, and the revenue arising from it, are shown to have been as follows, by a table prepared by Mr. T. G. Shaw, author of some valuable pamphlets on the wine duties:
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1 Mulder, chap. viii. p. 187. 2 Henderson's Hist. of Ancient and Modern Wines, chap. xi. 3 Sir J. Emerson Tennent's Wine, its Use, and Taxation, chap. iii.
Relative Quantities of the different descriptions of Wine entered for Consumption in the years 1831, 1841, 1851, and 1859.
| Years | Port | Sherry | French, Including Chianti, Champagne, Madeira, etc. | Marsala, Including a few from Canary. | Madeira. | Rhumish, Including others via Holland. | Unspecified, including Bond Mixtures from Hamburg. | Cape (South African), Including a few pipes from Antigua. | Total Gallons | Revenue from Wine | Population | Rates of Duty per Gallon | |-------|------|--------|---------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|---------|----------------------------------------|-----------------|------------------------|-------------|------------------|----------|------------------| | 1831 | 2,767,734 | 2,089,592 | 254,969 | 354,719 | 209,127 | 57,888 | Not specified | 639,584 | 6,212,264 | 1,635,484 | 24,419,421 | 2 9 5 6 | | 1841 | 2,887,017 | 2,412,821 | 353,740 | 427,201 | 107,761 | 55,242 | do | 441,238 | 6,184,961 | 1,720,479 | 27,019,558 | 2 11 5 9 | | 1851 | 2,524,775 | 2,533,389 | 447,566 | 294,225 | 71,625 | 88,957 | do | 233,972 | 6,280,053 | 1,776,249 | 25,287,781 | 2 11 5 9 | | 1859 | 2,020,501 | 2,876,554 | 685,913 | 227,657 | 29,566 | 125,408 | 501,461 | 785,925 | 7,263,046 | 1,982,297 | Estimated 30,000,000 | 2 11 5 9 |
Impressed by the circumstances already adverted to, of the stationary demand for wine in the United Kingdom during the last thirty years, notwithstanding the increase of wealth and population, and disquieted by the fact, that the individual consumption, which had been nearly three bottles per head at the beginning of the present century, has gradually fallen to less than one and a half; those interested in the trade, unsatisfied with the solution that the decline may be ascribable, in this country as elsewhere, to the progress of social refinement, and the subsidence of excess, eagerly attributed it to the pressure of the import-duty, and petitioned parliament for its reduction from 5s. 9d. to 1s. a gallon. It required no demonstration to show that such an alteration would not only be consistent with enlightened theories of trade, but would greatly conduce to domestic convenience and economy. The only difficulty which presented itself was one of finance, and a committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1852, chiefly with a view to test the assurance advanced by the advocates of the measure, that its practical effect would be exhibited in such a prodigious increase in the consumption of wine in these countries, as not only to replace the revenue surrendered, but even largely to increase it. The result of the inquiry, however, did not justify this expectation; the preponderance of the evidence was opposed to it. Those of the witnesses possessed of the longest and largest experience were of opinion that no mere reduction in the cost of wine in England would induce the class who at present drink it to increase the quantity now taken; and amongst a lower class, as yet unaccustomed to wine, it was thought that a prevalent preference for ardent spirits and beer would be slow to make way for the light wines of France or other countries. Striking facts were adduced in proof of the extraordinary difficulties which have hitherto defeated every attempt to substitute a new wine for those to which public taste has so long conformed. It was the opinion of some of the best informed witnesses, that a limit having been placed by nature on the growth of wines of the first class, any greatly increased demand occasioned by a reduction in the duty, would probably be accompanied by a simultaneous increase in their cost; and that as our habits had been hitherto opposed to the substitution of inferior descriptions, it was to be apprehended that in such an event the public as well as the revenue must suffer, insomuch as we should not be able to obtain a sufficiently augmented supply of the wines we would drink, or to drink very largely of the wines we could get. Other equally serious obstacles were made apparent during the course of the inquiry; and the committee, embarrassed by testimony so conflicting and inconclusive, declined the responsibility of making any recommendation. But the evidence which they collected led to the conviction, that whilst, apart from the question of finance, the reduction of the wine-duties would be manifestly in the interest of commerce and international trade, the alteration, when the period should arrive for attempting it, would have to be made with the conviction that the immediate effect, so far from a gain, must be at least a temporary surrender of public income.
This change has since been inaugurated, parliament, in 1860, having decided on the equalisation of the tax on colonial and foreign wines, and fixed the import-duty at 3s. per gallon to the 1st January 1861, and afterwards as follows:
Wine containing less than the following rates of Proof Spirits, verified by Sykes's Hydrometer, viz.—
| Degrees | 18 Degrees | 26 Degrees | 40 Degrees | Imported in Bottles | |---------|------------|------------|------------|--------------------| | L. t. d. | L. t. d. | L. t. d. | L. t. d. | | Of or from foreign countries— | | Red, the gallon | 0 1 0 | 0 1 6 | 0 2 0 | 0 2 0 | | White, the gallon | 0 1 0 | 0 1 6 | 0 2 0 | 0 2 0 | | Less of such wine, the gallon | 0 1 0 | 0 1 6 | 0 2 0 | 0 2 0 | | The growth and produce of any British possession— | | Red, the gallon | 0 1 0 | 0 1 6 | 0 2 0 | 0 2 0 | | White, the gallon | 0 1 0 | 0 1 6 | 0 2 0 | 0 2 0 | | Less of such wine, the gallon | 0 1 0 | 0 1 6 | 0 2 0 | 0 2 0 |
The import duty on the more highly alcoholised wines is to be liable to a slight increase in the event of any increase in the excise duty on spirits, viz., one halfpenny per gallon on those which pay one shilling and sixpence, and not more than twopence on those which pay two shillings for every increase of a shilling upon distilled spirit.
Of the consequences of this measure, both commercially and financially, it is premature to speak. Great difficulty is apprehended by the wine trade in the practical application of the alcoholic test; and the experiment will necessarily require time, which is to decide on the adaptability of public taste in England to the medium class of wines of the continent which it is sought to introduce. But whatever be the financial results, the measure is one which commends itself by cheapening one of the chiefest luxuries of the rich, at the same time rendering wine more readily accessible to the middle classes, and adding a new and wholesome enjoyment to the limited comforts of the poor.
(J. E. T.)