CHAPTER IX.
On the Moselle the vintage is still conducted in the old-fashioned way, much of the wine being still pressed from the bunches by the feet. The clusters, which have been carefully cut from the trees, are placed in the baskets (which the people seem always to wear on their backs), and borne down the hill-side to the village, where they are tumbled into great tubs, in which they are crushed, if not by the feet, by wooden mallets.
The long toil of carrying up great basketsful of dressing for the roots, of hacking round the vines, of carefully tying up the boughs and tending them in every possible way, repairing the walls and steps, and placing beneath the fruit-bunches flat stones to refract the heat on to their lower sides, is ended; all having prospered, joy is at its height, for plenty will fill the homes of the cultivators during the coming winter.
The peasantry suffer great hardships in bad years; and, unfortunately, these more frequently recur than good.
Having, week after week, toiled up and down the nearly perpendicular cliffs, and worked amid their vineyards unmindful alike of sun and rain, it is very sad to think that generally the gain is small for so much labour; and even in good years, although the peasantry benefit considerably, yet it is not they, but the wine-buyers, who make the principal profit.
In every village may be seen one or two houses, evidently occupied by a class far above the peasantry. To these houses are attached large cellars, through whose open doors we sometimes see great casks piled up; the owners of these dwellings are small merchants, who buy up the grapes from the poorer people, paying by the weight. They are the real gainers by a good year, for they rule the prices of the market; and by advancing sums when necessary to the peasants, the latter are in a measure bound to accommodate them. That all do benefit is, however, an undoubted fact; and the happy vintage-time is the most joyful season of the year upon our river’s banks.