the department Hérault, in the best and latest
Gazetteer, and what will you find?

"Cette is defended by a citadel" – and so on.

Then come the damning words:

"Imports Benicarlos wine from Spain, for
mixing with French wines for the English and
other markets."

The gazetteer has no doubt about the fact –
states it bluntly, and in as matter of course
a way as if he were saying that Birmingham
makes buttons, or Coventry makes ribbons.

But it is not only Benicarlos wine that is
mixed with Médoc and its wealthier kinsmen,
and there are some just and some unjust reasons
why Claret should be adulterated for the
unrefined British throttle. The cheaper Gascon white
wines are mixed with the dearer high-coloured
red wines of Palus. It is universally
understood that the pure raspberry and violet-
stained juice, when picked and trodden before
fermentation, is sprinkled with brandy – four
gallons and a half to a vat of several thousand
gallons. This is to christen it for exportation.
At a later season, the long-suffering wine is
again dashed with Hermitage and alcohol, to
warm and heighten it. This is called, in the
Médoc districts, "working it." These admixtures,
it is well known, alter the delicate quality
and refinement of the clarets so tampered with,
and in time change their rich pure colour into
a faded brickdust, and cause them to secrete a
deposit. Then come in the diabolical wine
mixers again, the Obenreizers of the Bourdeaux
quays. The Benicarlos wine is openly used to
restore the body of nearly worn-out Médoc.
Russia, Prussia, and Holland, are all
spirit-drinking countries; but they do not purchase
these chemical manufactures with the fanciful
labels. I need scarcely say that the common
white wines of Blaye, Libourne, and Réole, and
the poor, thin, acid Bas Médoc, are all tumbled
into the vats of spurious Château Lafitte.

We all know the form of defence that wine
merchants take up. The quiet astonishment
at a novice's indignation. The air of
intense inherent knowledge, through glittering
and supercilious spectacles, at the reassertion of
old calumnies, "Exploded, sir, exploded!" But
let us hammer again at the old abuses and set
up the Obenreizers in the iron-clamped pillory
of logically proved facts. Mr. Beckwith, who
has reprinted the report on wines made by the
English exhibitors at the Paris Exhibition of
1867, and who is a fervid admirer of
Bourdeaux Claret, says positively that "it is
notorious that there is openly sold every year
at least one hundred times as much Château
Lafitte and Château Margaux as is produced;"
and he argues, with some justice, that it would
be better if the wine merchants of Bourdeaux,
like their brethren at Oporto and Cadiz, sank
the individuality of their vineyards and trusted
to their own good repute for honesty and
integrity. M. Lebeuf, in his Amélioration des
Vins, has proved that faded wine or wine injured
by oidium can be restored by adding some
black wine or putting a litre of Bordelaise dye
to each hectolitre. One litre of Bordelaise
gives as much colour as fifteen litres of
Narbonne. The black wine, however, often excites
fermentation, and turns the wine sharp or
bitter.

Here also is another proof. Mr. Shaw, in
writing upon French wines, says the quantities
of first growth of the Médoc in the year 1865
and 1867, were in 1865, one thousand eight
hundred and forty hogsheads, or about forty-two
thousand three hundred and twenty dozen,
and in 1867 one thousand and eighty hogsheads,
or twenty-four thousand eight hundred and
forty dozen. France alone requires quite those
twenty-four thousand eight hundred and forty
dozen of best claret for her own consumption.
Where does all the rest come from? Horrible
question.

The Médoc district, a plain on the side
of the Gironde, intersected by low, gravelly,
flinty hills, has always been and always will be
a district specially favourable to the vine.
The generous sun glows on its grey flints and
its warm reddish gravel, which reflect the
nourishing heat of day and retain it through the night.
The endless varieties of soil (the exposure does
not much matter) affect the vine, which is so
sensitive and spiritual a plant that the quality
of its fruit is often affected by causes never
discoverable by the grower. The poor wine of
Branne Mouton is only divided by a footpath
from the Lafitte district, and yet it always sells
for one-third less. The Vigneron François, a
technical book used by vine growers, mentions
that in the department of the Côte d'Or there
is a small vineyard on Mont Rachet. It is
divided into three sections by small footpaths.
The exposure is the same, the culture the
same, and the soil apparently the same, at least
in the top layer, and as far as the spade or
plough can go, yet the first, the Canton de
l'Ainé, produces a white wine of spirit and
fineness, a nutty flavour, and a powerful bouquet.
The Canton Chevalier wine, the second section,
is of inferior quality, and the third, the Canton
Bátard, has no quality at all. It is probable
that under the unlucky vines clay or
ironstone supervene, and prevent the roots growing
full, fibrous, and far reaching. After all, there
is no knowing exactly, as Gascons allow, why
Château Lafitte should be soft and silky to the
palate, and should have the scent of the violet
and raspberry – why Château Margaux should
perfume the mouth and yet be lighter and of
not so high a flavour as the favoured Lafitte –
why Latour should be fuller, yet want the
softness of Lafitte – nor why Haut Brion should
require so long to mature, and should superadd
to the fuming bouquet of raspberry and violet
the scent of burning sealing-wax.

Claret is allowed to keep well for the first
seventeen years. At five years, however, it
attains manhood. It contains little alcohol, but
it is well fermented, and is less disposed to
acidity than Burgundy. The red Claret is of more
value than the white, though the white is less
doctored, and requires no doses of orris root or