THE MAKING AND MARRING OF WINE.
It used to be said of the old learned and liquor-loving Germans, that they did not care what Latin they spoke, so long as it was Latin; nor what sort of wine they drank, so long as it was wine. I have read somewhere of a feudal German Baron becoming intoxicated upon pious principles. He was seated, with his wife at his side, at the centre of his own table, presiding at a banquet. He had drunk till he had scarcely power left to carry the goblet up to his ever thirsty lips. The Frau Baroninn had repeatedly remonstrated, in whispers, with her lord; who replied, that he must needs drink when toasts were given, or his want of faith would be marked by his guests. He was about to raise a full goblet to his beard, when his lady, overturning, as if by accident, the cluster of lights which illuminated the board, begged of her consort to fling his wine away upon the floor; adding, “It is dark; nobody will see you.” “Nay,” said the orthodox Baron, solemnly, “God sees me!” and therewith he finished his draught, and was soon after conveyed to his couch, under such benison as the Chaplain could give, who congratulated his master upon the flavour of his wine, and the strength of his principles!
In no country in the world has more wine been drunk than in Germany; and no where has adulteration thereof been practised so systematically. “Vaticana bibis, bibis venenum,” says Martial, in the sixth book of his Epigrams. For “Vaticana,” read “Germanica;” and the line had, at one time, as fitting an application. The method pursued appears to have been of classical derivation; and the Germans, like the Romans, adulterated their wine with lead. It has been a matter of vexation to Teutonic scholars, that they have never been able to discover the name of the ingenious person who first realized the deadly idea of employing lead in the adulteration of wine. All that they can say of him is, that he was very wicked, but decidedly clever.
The Roman wine-merchants treated the matter in a business-like way. Lead arrested the acetous fermentation of wine, did not alter its colour, and did improve its taste. This was all that was desirable, as regarded them as merchants. If the beverage gave death, by slow or speedy means, to those who drank, that was an affair which concerned the imbibers, their medical men, and their families. They were ignorant and godless Heathens, of course, who committed this crime; and as nothing like it has ever been known as a characteristic of some of the professors of a better dispensation,—why, our righteous indignation may be intense. One excuse, indeed, may be offered for the old Romans. “At lover’s perjuries,” as they were told, “Jove himself condescended to laugh;” and, if so, they might feel canonically certain, that Mercury would not call them to account, but rather applaud their proficiency in cheating. But Galen was more just than the gods of either the Greek or Roman mythology, and sternly denounces the tricks at which the son of Maia would have smiled.
The same ancients were accustomed to boil new wine in metal vessels; and, when the quantity had been reduced by the process, to add sea-water and bad wine, and send the mixture to market as something that would make the very eyes of Bacchus twinkle with delight. A process not less distasteful, if less deadly, was that of boiling lime and plaster of Paris in inferior wine. The former was supposed to add an intoxicating quality to the mixture, which must have been as detestable as “Masdeu.” To this day, certain wines of the Mediterranean are subjected to a similar process; and, perhaps, if lime be judiciously used, the results may not be very injurious. It corrects acidity; but too much of it would enable the drinker to find out, as Falstaff did, that there was “lime in the sack.” We are wise in our generation, in employing carbonate of soda for this purpose, rather than lime, slaked or unslaked; and we also do well to reject gypsum,—a compound of sulphuric acid and lime, and which is seldom procurable in a sufficiently pure state to authorize its being employed. The rejection of plaster of Paris, for the purpose of improving wine, is, however, more general than universal. After all, it is not worse than calcined shells, and is innocuous when compared with the use of sugar of lead.
The Roman law was not levelled against the adulteration of wine; it no more controlled the sale or manufacture, than, in Thevenot’s days, the Tunisian Government interfered with the sale of wine at Tunis, which was left to slaves, who did with it as they liked, for their own profit, and the destruction of infidel stomachs. It was otherwise in Germany, where Diets were assembled to discuss what was, in truth, no unimportant matter; the members of which began to think, that if wine was worth having, it was worth providing for its purity. For centuries Governments made laws, but bad wine was drunk in spite of them.
Beckmann gives it as his opinion, that wines cannot be poisoned by gypsum; but that is more readily said than proved. The ancients clarified their wine with it; but they did so at the expense of a portion of the spirituous part. Old ordinances against the adulteration of wine, in Brussels, by vitriol, quicksilver, and lapis calaminaris,—and in France, by lead and litharge,—may still be read as curiosities, but they have no present application.
A German Monk, named Martin Bayr, is damned to everlasting fame, as the first who adulterated wines within the territory of the Kaiser. Pickheimer, the friend of Albert Durer, is particularly inveterate against Bayr and his followers in evil. The indignation of the lover of pure wine is carried to an incredible extent. He narrates, in a rapt fury, the consequences of drinking injurious wines; beginning with an assurance, that adulterated wine keeps the married childless, and adding, by a sort of bathos, that it causes certain inward pains, “than which none can be more excruciating.” He mentions many ingredients employed, and adverts to some, “the names of which I should be ashamed to mention;” and then he calls for vengeance on the offenders, both in this world and the next. “You hang the counterfeiters of the public coin,” says he; “do not these miscreants, whose misdeeds have caused indignant Nature to check the growth of our grapes, deserve something worse? Cast their accursed beverage, I say, into the sewers, and themselves into the flames: and so may Martin Bayr and his disciples perish in this world, and inherit everlasting damnation in the next!”
Adulteration, however, still went on, until the penalty of death, and confiscation of property, was levelled against the employment of sulphur and bismuth,—used by the most noble of wine-makers to sweeten their spoiled and sour commodity. Offenders, however, again grew bold. The tribunals treated them leniently. First, fines were levied; then came confiscation of property, imprisonment, and hard labour; next, banishment: and none of these courses meeting the evil, the Judges at length cut off the head of an incorrigible criminal, Ehrni of Erlingen; and, for a while, terrified the whole brotherhood of wine-spoilers into a temporary observance of honesty.
The next struggle which occurred in Germany, was between those who applied tests to detect the presence of metals, and those who invented processes to defy them. It was a scientific struggle between two species of assassins,—those who swiftly killed by brewing poisonous wine, and the physicians who racked their brains to invent detective tests, and save their patients for a slower process of extinction. This was very rudely said by rude people, who looked upon themselves as the victims sought for by two contending parties,—the distillers on one side, and the doctors on the other.
The use of milk by the Greeks was, probably, not for adulterating, but for refining, their wines. Isinglass is at present generally employed for the last-mentioned purpose.
As it is the tendency of the world to improve, so the not inconsiderable world of adulterators in England has profited, like philosophers, by the discoveries of those who have preceded them. A mixture of strong port, rectified spirit, Cognac brandy, and rough cider, can be concocted into what is called “fine old crusted port.” It costs the maker about sixteen shillings a gallon, and is sold retail at five shillings a bottle. Sloe-juice is another ingredient, and poisonous tinctures give it a seductive hue. Powder of catechu does for it what hair-powder does for the individual,—gives a crust of antiquity to secure for it the veneration of the ignorant. A decoction of Brazil-wood, and a little alum, will impart to the corks the requisite air of corresponding age; and these the credulous gaze at and believe.
“Madeira, neat as imported,” is the definition of a beverage cleverly manufactured much nearer Fenchurch-street than Funchal. Home-made Madeira is a compound of bad port, Vidonia, that African nastiness called “Cape,” sugar-candy, and bitter almonds; and the Vidonia, which is an ingredient in itself, often adulterated with cider and rum; and a little carbonate of soda, “to contumace the appetite’s acidities.” The lowest and cruellest insult to human taste and stomachs is, perhaps, the adulteration of Cape. It is bad enough in itself; but Cape, with something worse in it, is only fit for the thirsty hounds of Pluto. Gooseberry, passed off as Champagne, is an impostor, and even with strawberries in it, to give it an aristocratic pinkness, it is still a deception; but, compared with Cape, even in its best condition, gooseberry may be imbibed without very much disgust.
A fracas between the waiters and their employers at the last Lord Mayor’s dinner, betrayed another pleasant process regarding wine. The attendants in question declared that, after many hours’ toil, they had not had a glass even out of a dovered bottle. They were as much surprised when the Magistrate asked the meaning of “dovering,” as the sailor was, when he stood before a Lord High Chancellor ignorant of the signification of “’baft the binnacle.” A complaisant Ganymede enlightened the darkened mind of the metropolitan Cadi: “Dovering,” said he, “is the collecting of three-quarter emptied decanters from the dinner-table, and re-decantering the same, serving it up as freshly uncorked.” Dover has the bad reputation of being the locality where this process was first invented.
One of the most ingenious—perhaps we should say, one of the most scientific—tricks that we have heard of, in connexion with wine-doctoring, proves that the modern chymical brewers of superior beverages, which seem what they are not, are vastly superior to the mere experimentalists of former days. In the royal cellars of Carlton House, there was enshrined, if we may so speak, a small quantity of wine which, like the gems worn by the Irish lady, was both “rich and rare.” It was only produced by George IV. when he had around him his most select and wittiest friends. The precious deposit gradually diminished; year by year, as in the case of the famous sha-green skin of the French novelist Balzac, it grew less; until, at last, a couple of dozen bottles only were left, gleaming at the bottom of their bins like gems in a mine, and full of liquid promise to those who needed the especial comfort which it was their duty to impart. These, however, were left so long unasked for, that the gentlemen of the King’s suite who had the control of the grape department, deemed them forgotten, and at their own mirthful table drank them all but two, with infinite delight to themselves, and to the better health of their master. They soon found, however, that there was “garlic in the flowers,” as the Turkish proverb has it; and their embarrassment was not small, when the King, giving his orders for a choice dinner on a certain night, intimated his desire that a good supply of his favourite wine should grace the board. In Courts, “to hear is to obey;” and the officials who had drunk the wine, at once resorted to an eminent firm, well-skilled to give advice in such delicate wine-cases. The physician asked but for a sample bottle, and to be told the exact hour at which the favourite draught would be asked for. This was complied with, and in due time a proper amount of the counterfeit wine was forwarded to Carlton House, and there broached and drunk with such encomiums, that the officers who were in the secret had some difficulty in maintaining an official gravity of countenance. The brewer of the new wine was certainly a first-rate artist; and if he ever achieved knighthood and a coat-of-arms, I would give him a “Bruin” for his crest, and, “The drink! the drink! dear Hamlet!” for his device. This anecdote, I may farther notice, has often been told, and nearly as often been discredited; but I am assured by an officer of the household, who speaks “avec connaissance de fait,” that it is substantially true.
One of the merits of the wine above mentioned consisted in its great age. There has, indeed, always been a sort of mania for wine that bears the load of years. But this rage is pronounced by Cyrus Redding to be one of the most ridiculous errors of modern epicurism. The “bee’s wing,” the “thick crust on the bottle,” the “loss of strength,” and so on,—all these are declared by the best judges to be nothing more than forbidding manifestations of decomposition, and the disappearance of the very best qualities of the wine. Many years ago, I made a “note” on this subject, but am now unable to recollect from what work, nor can I say whether the following remarks on the qualities of wine were made by the author of an original work, or by a reviewer commenting thereon. Such as they are, however, they are not without value.
“The age of maturity,” says the writer, “for exportation from Oporto, is said to be the second year after the vintage; probably sometimes not quite so long. Our wine-merchants keep it in wood from two to six years longer, according to its original strength, &c. Surely this must be long enough to do all that can be done by keeping it. What crude wine it must be to require even this time to ameliorate it! the necessity for which must arise either from some error in the original manufacture, or a false taste, which does not relish it till time has changed its original characteristics.
“Port, like all other wines, ripens in a shorter, or longer, time, according to its lightness, or its strength, the quality of the grapes, according to the fermentation they have undergone, and the portion of brandy that has been added to it. Also one cellar will forward wine much sooner than another. Sound good port is generally in perfection when it has been from three to five years in the wood, and from one to three in bottle.
“Ordinary port is a very uncleansed fretful wine; and we have been assured by wine-merchants of good taste, accurate observation, and extensive experience, that the best port is rather impoverished than improved by being kept in bottle longer than two years; that is, supposing it to have been previously from two to four years in the cask in this country; observing that all that the outrageous advocates for vin passé really know about it is that sherry is yellow, and port is black; and that if they drink (more than) enough of either of them, according to the colours, it will make them drunk.
“White wines, especially sherry and Madeira, being more perfectly fermented and thoroughly fined before they are bottled, if kept in a cellar of uniform temperature, are not so rapidly deteriorated by age.
“The temperature of a good cellar is nearly the same throughout the year. Double doors help to preserve this. It must be dry, and be kept as clean as possible.
“The art of preserving wines is to prevent them from fretting, which is done by keeping them in the same degree of heat and careful working, in a cellar where they will not be agitated by the motion of carriages passing. If persons wish to preserve the fine flavour of their wines, they ought on no account to permit any bacon, cheese, onions, potatoes, or cider, in the wine-cellars; for if there be any disagreeable stench in the cellar, the wine will indubitably imbibe it; consequently, instead of being fragrant, and charming to the nose and palate, it will be extremely disagreeable.
“It must be well known that almost all our home-made wines, for public sale, are made, and suffered to cool, in leaden vats. Nothing can be more injurious or detrimental to health. Every chymist is aware that any vegetable acid that comes in contact with lead, and is suffered to remain only a few hours, produces what we call ‘sugar of lead,’—a most deadly poison. How many there are that complain that cider will not agree with them! and several who cannot take even a wine-glass full without vomiting almost immediately. They know not the reason; and thus many are prevented from taking a most delightful beverage in warm weather; while others are labouring under its baneful influence. Often do we see servants run for vinegar in a pewter or publican’s pot; and the answer we receive when correcting them for the same is,—they have often done the same without any serious consequence. May be so; but if vinegar, or any other vegetable acid, as before said, be suffered to remain in such vessels only a short time, the health and constitution must suffer from the acid so taken; and we will venture to say that almost all paralytic affections are caused by persons, predisposed to such attacks, drinking water impregnated with lead. For if there be any carbonic acid in the water, which there most assuredly is in every kind, a carbonate is thus formed, just as injurious as the acetate (sugar of lead); and where shall we find a cistern in London that is not made of this pernicious, yet highly useful, material?”
The consideration of these subjects, when drinking home-made wines, (if, indeed, there be people bold enough to venture on such an experiment,) or the other beverages mentioned above, might serve the purpose of the custom observed among the ancient Egyptians. It was one less barbarous than singular. A skeleton of beautiful workmanship, in ivory, and enclosed in a small coffin, was carried round at a feast, by a slave, who, holding it up to each guest, remarked, “After death you will resemble this figure; drink, then, and be happy!” It must have encouraged the mirth “consumedly.” But there was a grave wisdom in the custom, notwithstanding.