delicate, and with distinguishing pierre à fusil taste | which is its recognized characteristic.

The aspect of the grand Burgundy vineyards is principally southeast, and the soil, which is calcareous, is impregnated with iron. Indeed, ironstone exists in a greater or less degree in all the more celebrated vineyards of France, including the Médoc, the Côte d'Or, the Champagne, the Hermitage, Roussillon, etc. Carbonate of lime is also prevalent in many of them, still its presence is by no means inseparably associated with the growth of all the higher-class wines, for scarcely any trace of it is to be found in the vineyards of the Mèdoc, the Hermitage, or the Côte Rôtie.

The higher-class wines of the Côtes du Rhone are Hermitage, Côte Rôtie, Condrieu, and St.-Peray. Hermitage has a recognized bouquet recalling the raspberry, a remarkably clean, fresh, full, vinous flavor combined with great firmness and softness, and is, moreover, of the indispensable rich deep-purple hue. The white Hermitage of a pale-yellow tint, and with an ambrosial perfume that may be pronounced unique, is exquisitely suave, rich and spirituous in flavor, and perfectly dry. The vinous, luscious, almost unctuous Hermitage paille, with its volume, its marrowy richness, its delicious smoothness, combined with an indescribable, refreshing sharpness free from the slightest acidity, is a rara avis in terris.

The wines of the South of France are numerous, coarse and cheap; this especially refers to the growths of Hérault, the Gard, the Aude, and the Pyrenees-Orientales. Muscats are numerous; Runel, Roussillon and Frontiguan, the leading vintages; and a spirituous Picardin wine is a specialty.

The old province of Languedoc was originally planted with vines from Spain, at a period when it was under the same crown with Aragon, and principally Spanish varieties are still cultivated there, as well as in the neighboring southern departments. Hence the marked similarity which exists between certain red wines of the south of France and those of Spain.

employed in their cultivation. Some three and a half centuries later we find worthy Bishop Pardulus of Laon imitating Paul's advice to Timothy, and urging Archbishop Hincmar to drink of the wines of Epernay and Rheims for his stomach's sake. The crusade-preaching Pope, Urban II., who was born among the vineyards of the Champagne, dearly loved the wine of Ay; and his energetic appeals to the princes of Europe to take up arms for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre may have owed some of their eloquence to his favorite beverage.

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The red wine of the Champagne sparkled on the boards of monarchs in the Middle Ages when they sat at meat amidst their mailclad chivalry, and quaffed mighty beakers to the confusion of the Paynim. Henry of Andely has sung, in his fabliau of the Bataille des Vine," how, when stout Philip Augustus and his chaplain constituted themselves the earliest known wine-jury, the crus of Espernai, Auviler, Chalons, and Rheims were amongst those which found most favor in their eyes, though nearly a couple of centuries elapsed before Eustace Deschamps recorded in verse the rival merits of those of Cumières and Ay. King Wenceslaus, of Bohemia a mighty toper. got so royally drunk day after day upon the vintages of the Champagne, that he forgot all about the treaty with Charles VI., that had formed the pretext of his visit to France, and would probably have lingered, goblet in hand, in the old cathedral city, till the day of his death, but for the presentation of a little account for wine consumed, which sobered him to repentance and led to his abrupt departure. Dunois, Lahire, Xaintrailles, and their fellows, when they rode with Joan of Arc to the coronation of Charles VII., drank the same generous fluid, through helmets barred, to the speedy expulsion of the detested English from the soil of France.

The vin d'Ay-vinum Dei, as Dominicus Baudoin punningly styled it-was, according to old Paulmier, the ordinary drink of the kings and princes of his day. It fostered bluff King Hal's fits of passion and the tenth Leo's artistic extravagance; consoled Francis I. for the field of Pavia, and solaced his great rival in his retire

The Island of Corsica boasts of one fine wine, the Santa ment at St. Just. All of them had their commissioners Lucia Rançois.

A full vintage in France yields its 70,000,000 of hectolitres of wine, or one-third more than the vintage of last year, the increased value of which would be an extra twenty millions of dollars besides nearly twelve millions of dollars additional for the eau-de-vie distilled from the husks and stalks of the pressed grapes. The after-value of these as food for cattle and as manure, combined with the value of the pruned branches of the vine, both as fodder and fuel, will, according to the estimate by the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, bring up the total value of a full vintage to $380,891,550. Although the vineyard area comprises less than a twentieth part of the soil of France, the yield amounts in value to almost a quarter of the total agricultural revenue, and furnishes the means of existence to one-fifth of the entire population.

I shall now turn to that wine of which we Americans are so excessively fond, and the opening of which forms so important a function in not only our social ceremonies, but likewise in those connected with business, viz, Champagne.

The chalky slopes that border the Marne were early recognized as offering special advantages for the culture of the vine. St. Remi, baptizer of Clovis, the first Christian king in France, at the end of the fifth century, left by will, to various churches, the vineyards which he owned at Rheims and Laon, together with the "vilains"

at Ay to secure the best wine for their own consumption. Henri Quatre, whose vendangeoir is still shown in the village, held the wine in such honor that he was wont to style himself the Seigneur d'Ay, just as James of Scotland was known as the Gudeman of Ballangeich. When his son, Louis XIII., was crowned, the wines of the Champagne were the only growths allowed to grace the board at the royal banquet. Freely, too, did they flow at the coronation feast of the Grand Monarque, when the crowd of assembled courtiers, who quaffed them in his honor, hailed them as the finest wines of the day.

Meanwhile an entirely new kind of wine, which was to carry the name of the province producing it to the uttermost corners of the earth, had been introduced. On the picturesque slopes of the Marne, about fifteen miles from Rheims, and some four or five miles from Epernay, stands the little hamlet of Hautvillers, which, in preRevolutionary days, was a mere dependency upon a spacious abbey dedicated to St. Peter. Here the worthy monks of the Order of St. Benedict had lived in peace and prosperity for several hundred years, carefully cultivating the acres of vineland extending around the abbey, and religiously exacting a tithe of all the other wine pressed in their district. The revenue of the community thus depending in no small degree upon the vintage, it was natural that the post of cellarer should be one of importance. It happened that about the year 1688 this office was conferred upon a worthy monk named Pe

rignon. Poets and toasters, we know, are born, and not made; and the monk in question seems to have been a heaven-born cellarman, with a strong head and a discriminating palate.

The wine exacted from the neighboring cultivators was of all qualities-good, bad and indifferent; and with the spirit of a true Benedictine, Dom Perignon hit upon the idea of " marrying" the produce of one vineyard with that of another. He had noted that one kind of soil im- | parted fragrance, and another generosity, and discovered that a white wine could be made from the blackest grapes, which would keep good, instead of turning yellow and degenerating like the wine obtained from white ones. Moreover, the happy thought occurred to him that a piece of cork was a much more suitable stopper for a bottle than the flax dipped in oil which had heretofore served that purpose.

The white, or, as it was sometimes styled, the gray, wine of the Champagne grew famous, and the manufacture spread throughout the province, but that of Hautvillers held the predominance.

Ever busy among his vats and presses, barrels and bottles, Perignon alighted upon a discovery destined to be most important in its results. He found out the way of making an effervescent wine-a wine that burst out of the bottle and overflowed the glass, that was twice as dainty to the taste, and twice as exhilarating in its effects. It was at the close of the seventeenth century that this discovery was made-when the glory of the Roi Soleil was on the wane, and with it the splendor of the Court of Versailles. Louis XIV., for whose especial benefit liqueurs had been invented, recovered a gleam of his youthful energy as he sipped the creamy foaming vintage that enlivened his dreary têtes-à-têtes with the widow of Scarron. It found its chief patrons, however, amongst the band of gay young roysterers, the future roués of the Regency, whom the Duc d'Orléans and the Duc de Vendôme had gathered round them at the Palais Royal and at Anet.

To-day, Champagne is known by its "brand," and each brand has its "term of office," as the nod of fashion makes or mars it. Dry Monopole, Clicquot, Pommery, Mumm, and a host of others, are now seated on the throne. How soon they will be deposed is but a question of time. They will pop, sparkle, fizzle, and pass

away.

Webster derives "Sack" and "Seck" from the Latin Siccus, and makes it correspond with the French Sec" and Spanish "Seco." It was applied to Sherry in contradistinction to the sweet Malvoisies which are known to have been imported into England as far back as the reign of Edward IV.

That Sherry was drunk by Englishmen at an early date is certain, for, in the year 1419, a certain William Horrold was placed in the pillory for counterfeiting and vending "Old feble Spanysshe wine for good and true Romaney."

The cultivation of the vine for wine-making in Andalusia is supposed to have preceded the Roman occupation, and Pliny, Martial, and other ancient writers, allude to the fertility of the then, as now, famous "Sherry district"; but whether the Romans got unadulterated sherry may be doubted, for the vintner of all ages has been apt to ameliorate his wines; even in sunny Seville he had his tricks, and the Licentiate, Sebastian Horosoco, wrote this, circa 1500:

In Pedro de Medina's "Libro de Grandezas y Cosas Memorables de España" (Alcala, 1566), reference is thus made to the fertility of the Jerez vineyards : "The vintage there ordinarily yields about 60,000 butts of wine, and there are shipped to England, Flanders and other parts, each year, more than 40,000 butts."

The vintage, and divers natural styles assumed by the grape juice after fermentation, are known as Finos, Amontillados, Olorosos and Bastos.

When the grapes are trodden or pressed out, the juice, after it has run into large casks, is called Mosto, andis stored in Bodegas (wine-stores), the produce of each vineyard in its separate lot. The mosto is then left to ferment for three or four months, when it is poured off from the cask in which it has stood, leaving the lees or sediment at the bottom. This operation is called "racking from the lees," and what was mosto is then called wine.

During the first year or two very extraordinary changes take place, which are quite unaccountable. Wines fron the same vineyard, although subjected to exactly the same treatment, develop in different casks totally dif ferent characters. If the research of science could be successfully directed to discover the cause, and thus give the means to produce each style of wine artificially, the philosopher's stone would indeed be found, and El Dorado realized, but the wines of themselves, as they grow two or three years old, assume different characters, and are classed Finos, Amontillados, Olorosos and Bastos.

The most valuable character is called Fino, being of a delicate, soft, mellow flavor, and very pale in color; but not more than an average of about ten per cent. of the whole produce of a vineyard takes this satisfactory turn.

A higher class of development again takes place in the Fino, producing Amontillado; this is the most valued of all; it has the character of Fino, and, in addition, & charming flavor of its own. It is invaluable in blending, to give a finer character and life to heavier wine. Oloroso is a full, nutty-flavored development, rather deep in color, and of stouter character. When old, it is of great body, and dry. There is yet an inferior development which is called Basto (coarse). In good years, however, this unsatisfactory character is only shown in small quantities, nor does it ever take place to a great extent in wines from the best vineyards. Manzanilla is a light wine, grown principally at San Lucar, and highly recommended by physicians on account of the absence in it of all sweet. Montilla is a very dry but powerful wine, grown near to Cordova, which, when old, is of great value. Vino Dulce (sweet wine) is made from the sweeter kind of grape called Pedro Jimenez.

When an order arrives from a shipper's agent or correspondent to ship a certain quantity of wine similar to that previously sent, a reference is made to the blendingbook, which shows the proportions of each Solera which the former shipment contained; besides this, a sample is always kept of every mark which leaves the Bodega, and this is also used for reference in the making up of any new shipment.

The blending-glass, which is a long, narrow glass tube. divided into forty parts, representing the number of "jarras," or jars, contained in a butt, is then brought into use. The same that has to be matched having been carefully tasted, the proportionate quantities are blended from the various Soleras required, and when the result is satisfactory, the casks are filled in accordance with the

"Rogue, thus with well and river, the pricked wine thou dost fine, component parts of the graduated glass measure.

And this same nauseous stew dost call the fruit of Vine.
Wine! Counterfeit and Rogue! 'tis weak and poor and dark;
It hath the look of turbid broth, and smells like tanners' bark.”

The wine, when thus blended, is fined with whites of eggs. A long iron rod, with a loop at one end and brush at the other, is inserted through the bung-hole, and the