Six leading varieties of grape combine to
make the claret of the Médoc. The cabernet
gros, or carmenet, is the most vigorous kind
cultivated there; its fruit resists well autumnal
rains, instead of rotting; but it is rather
late in coming into bearing. It has five sub-varieties,
which increase the difficulty of its
culture, as two of them (the cabernet rouge,
and the cabernet St. Jean) are unproductive
and liable to abortion, and are only to be
distinguished by experienced eyes when they
come into leaf and flower. They have all the
external characters of the true cabernet,
except that of bearing. Of course they are
extirpated when discovered; but the fact deserves
to be borne in mind, especially by
colonists who propose to grow wine. The
cabernet Sauvignon is the most esteemed
"cépage," is favoured with marked preference,
and has spread widely. It is almost exclusively
cultivated in the communes of Pauillac
and Saint Julien, and enters, in a very considerable
proportion, into the wines of Lafitte,
Mouton, Latour, Léoville, and Pichon-Longueville.
The cabernelle, or carmenère,
is the third variety in respect to its abundance.
It produces plentifully when the
weather is favourable to its blossoming; but
its flowers are extremely delicate, and very
subject to "coulure," or abortion, from external
influences. It has the habit of bearing well
every other year, and likes a light, sandy,
well-drained soil. The merlau, or merlot,
has only been cultivated of late in the Médoc;
it is a robust variety, thriving in gravel
where not parched with drought. The
malbec, or pied rouge, an abundant bearer, is
mainly remarkable for the number of aliases,
or synonyms, by which it is known. It
thrives best on laud which is suitable for
wheat, and furnishes an excellent table grape.
The verdot is the variety of the palus, or lowlands,
doing well on clayey, alluvial, and
moist soils. It supplies the basis of many of
the most famous wines, and endows them
with qualities of great commercial value.

Besides these, there are several less
esteemed varieties, which deserve the notice
of the English green-house gardener for the
very reasons which render them undesirable
for the purposes of Médocian cultivators.
Thus, the Chalosse is a robust vine, bearing
enormous grapes, and producing so abundantly
that it would be in great request if
its wine were not weak, colourless, and
deficient in body; but it would supply most
saleable bunches for Covent Garden market.
As it is, small proprietors are the only persons
who dare plant it, because all they want
ia to increase their number of hogsheads; the
viticulturist of the first class, who, under the
present system of duties, can only grow expensive
wines for export, is compelled to
banish the chalosse from his vineyard. But
were our prohibitive tax on claret as a beverage
reduced, wine made of a mixture of
Verdot and Chalosse grapes would be acceptable
to thousands upon thousands in England,
and could be produced without any assignable
limit to the supply, notwithstanding whatever
Sir Emerson Tennant may assert to the
contrary.

Again; there is the Maussein, which is
almost expelled from the Médoc, because it
ripens too soon to enter into the composition
of claret. In short it is rotten before the other
grants are ripe. Its grapes are oval and
middle-sized, very sweet and well-flavoured,
and in great request for the table. All these
are desirable properties for us at home, to
whom it signifies little that the wine from
the Maussein does not correspond to the excellence
of its grapes; that it is light, weak,
colourless, and bodiless, proving that sugar
alone will not make good wine. The fruit of
the Maussein is so enticing, that it is obliged
to be carefully guarded from lickerish thieves.
Light sands suit it well, and it thrives therein
better than any other variety. But nine-tenths
of the whole army of Scotch and English
gardeners would make a bonfire of their
wheelbarrows and tools, and cast their pruning-knives
into the deepest well, rather than
relax their prejudices so far as to plant a vine
in light sand. "In light sand " I hear them
exclaim in wonder. But they know, or ought
to know, as well as I do, that there is such a
thing as light rich sand.

The wine, grown and made, has to take its
rank; and great is the jealousy and tenacity
of precedence. Each quality is known as a
cru, or growth. There are wines of the
first, second, third, fourth, and fifth crus.
These are the vinous aristocracy. Below
them, clarets range under the significant
titles of Bourgeois Supérieur, Bon Bourgeois,
Bourgeois Ordinaire, Artizan de Grandes
Communes, Artizan de Communes Secondaires,
and Paysan de Communes Secondaires.
It is between these Bourgeois and Artizans,
and our own citizens and artisans, that so
great a sympathy and longing exists. We are
athirst to have them here,— cheap; and
they, and their proprietors, are anxious they
should come to us. But there is an unscaleable
wall of taxation interposed. The alderman
may swallow his ten or fifteen-shilling
bottles of Château Margaux, but the fevered
workman, the sickly-constitutioned dress-maker,
cannot obtain their sixpenny pint
even of Paysan de Communes Secondaires.
Meanwhile, the Girondists of 'fifty-five, as
they cannot send us ordinary wine, are getting
up a subscription amongst themselves to
offer a present of tobacco to the English
soldiers in the Crimea. It is it pity they
cannot be allowed to gratify both parties
with equal facility. The time will come,
however, when they will be able to do so.

In the Médoc—famous for hospitality
during the vintage—everybody, even the
sex most addicted to water, thinks and talks
about wine and its specialities: "Won't you
taste a glass of our 'forty-nine?" kindly