risk for themselves as well as for their
customers. What they now employ instead, I
know not. Even in France, wine is said to be
occasionally made without a single drop of
grapejuice in it. Verily, one ought to rejoice
greatly after swallowing a bumper of genuine
wine.

Amongst the French there is a wide-spread
and firmly-rooted opinion that their white
wines, as an habitual beverage, are less
wholesome than the red. They are believed to
shake the nervous system, and to be capiteux,
or to fly to the head. Myself would not
confirm this judgment, as a rule, knowing that
the effect complained of is nothing more than
the natural effect of the quantity and strength
of the liquid imbibed. Most white wines
either slip down so easily, that you have not
the slightest suspicion how much you have
taken, or are so strong that they surprise you
before you are aware of it, when you thoughtlessly
consume your usual allowance. But
wine, besides its stimulating properties, also
contains medicinal elements; and white wines
are partially deficient in these, from the
absence of the red particles and the other tonic
and strengthening contents of the skin which
are associated with them. Amongst Frenchmen,
too, white wine (champagne excepted,
because it costs so dear), reckons for nothing.
A bottle of Chablis, or Sauterne, at déjeûner
(a repast which does not correspond to the
English breakfast), is looked upon merely as
a bottle of water, just serving to wash down
a few shell-fish, or other little preliminary
whet, before the serious business of the meal
begins. As a somewhat exaggerated sample
of the prevalent idea, we may take the
celebrated feat of the Parisian oyster-woman,
who betted that she would eat twelve dozen
oysters, and drink twelve glasses of chablis.
while the clock of Saint-Eustache was striking
twelve; which she executed, thus: on
the pewter counter of the Commerce de Vins
where the performance came off, there were
ranged, in regimental row, a dozen tumblers,
in each of which a dozen small oysters were
floating in a limpid bath of chablis wine. At
the first stroke of the clock, down went the
contents of tumbler number one; the rest
glided down in steady succession; and she
won her bet.

The luscious sweet wines, surcharged with
sugar and the principles contained in the flesh
of the grape—such as Muscat-Frontignan—
though medicinal and restorative in small
doses, and reputedly injurious in larger
draughts, are too cloying to fear much danger
of their being taken in excess. Yet I
have seen a bottle quaffed at a sitting with
evident satisfaction and benefit, by an individual
whose bodily constitution was pining
after saccharine and viscous material.
Some people are mad at times after a draught
of sweet wine; just as deer are irresistibly
attracted by the American salt-licks. The
great fault of champagne is that you can never
have enough of it. In my time, I have had
enough port; occasionally (if only a glass) too
much of cape and sherry; enough burgundy.
But champagne, after it is down your throat,
cries '' More! more! " as fiercely and
undeniably as a famished ogress panting for blood.
When I feel that the demon has taken
possession, the only way to dislodge her is to
slake my thirst with a pint of bordeaux.

For the manufacture of champagne, the
grapes, instead of being taken to the pressing-
place in balonges, are carefully carried thither
in baskets, after being gathered in the cool of
the morning. Great pains is taken not to
shake them more than can possibly be helped.
Because in good years, the juice that would
be squeezed out by the mere weight of the
bunches piled on each other, which is the
finest portion of the liquor, would all be
lost; and hot sunshine, by hastening the
dissolution of the skin in the juice so let
out, would tinge the must with colouring
matters. It is really a no more wonderful
phenomenon that white wine should be made
from black grapes, than that a black hen should
lay a white egg; the juice of black grapes
being naturally white, except in a few less
common species, as the Teinturier. The main
point in order to keep the wine colourless is,
that the grapes should be unbroken and not
allowed to ferment in the least, either in a
cuve, or in the baskets on their way to one.
They do not go into a mashtub at all, but
are immediately put into the press, and are
squeezed a first, second, third, and even a
fourth time. The liquor from the last pressing
is apt to be coloured, and is inferior in
quality to that from the two first.

New tubs are then filled three-quarters full
with, the juice produced by these different
squeezings. They are left open to ferment
for a fortnight, at the end of which period,
they are filled completely and tightly stopped
with a close-fitting bung. It is a great point
with white wines to preserve them colourless.
One mode is to be careful in keeping the tub
always full. This precaution prevents the
absorption of oxygen, which, incorporating
with the wine, would turn it yellow, and cause
it to lose a portion of its perfume and light-
ness. Some time in the month of January,
the wine is racked off, or drawn from the
lees, and immediately clarified by means of
isinglass or gluten. Six weeks afterwards,
it is clarified again; and if, in April, it is
found that the wine has not the requisite
transparency, it is drawn off a third time and
dosed with animal jelly. In the course of
April or May it is bottled, and into each
bottle is put a dose of liquor composed of
equal parts of the wine itself and sugar candy.
For pink champagne, the liquor is made with
red wine. About three per cent is the ordinary
dose of sirop. The cork is tied down, fastened
with wire, or, as at M. Moët's, with an iron
clasp called an agrafe, and deposited in
a cellar, where it can enjoy the nearest