The Romans were also in the habit of smoking their wines. The proof is recorded in Horace:—
“Amphoræ fumum bibere institutæ.”
Tibullus also alludes to it:—
“Nunc mihi fumosos veteris proferte Falernos
Consulis.”
Baccius, in his work, “De Naturali Vinorum Historia,” speaking of the wines in Alsace, says that they were kept exposed to the smoke in hot chambers, where they became so thick that they were no longer drinkable, unless they were beaten with twigs or diluted with hot water. The following are his words:—“Super fumo diu et in æstuariis retenta, eam acquirunt vetustate crassitiem, ut potari per se non possint, nisi diu agitata immissis scopis aut origis dissolvantur, vel eliquata per aquam calidam fiant potui idonea: quo usu legimus crassa fuisse antiquis vina, quæ similiter per aquam calidam essent dissolvenda.”
Since the discoveries made at Herculaneum and Pompeii, there have been found among the ruins one of the vases which served for the operation of which I speak, and in which the wine had entirely dried. A similar vase or urn has been discovered in the territory of Vienne, in which the inspissated juice of the wine had crystallized.
Whatever were the processes employed in Gaul for the preparation of wine, many of its vineyards had acquired reputation, and had, moreover, become a source of wealth. This rising spring of riches was soon dried up by the tyrants who reigned over the country. The year of the Christian era 92 having been unpropitious to corn and favourable to the vine, a general scarcity followed. Domitian, who was then emperor, concluded that the cause of this was, that the vines were too numerous, and corn not sufficiently sown. Proceeding on this false assumption, he published an edict, by which he ordered that in the greatest part of the provinces of the empire half of the vines should be rooted out, and that in the others they should be entirely destroyed. Towards the year 282, Probus abrogated it. After having, by his victories, restored peace to the empire, the wise and valiant emperor, says Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Vopiscus, and Eusebius, restored to the provinces the liberty of replanting the vine. The Gauls commenced the task with alacrity. The Roman legions spread abroad in Gaul were employed in these plantations, for it was the wise policy of Rome, when her soldiers were not engaged in war, to occupy them in useful public labours. Soon were the greater number of the hills of Gaul covered with vines; and these were not, as in the times of the two first Cæsars, bounded by the north of the Cevennes; for almost each province, on the contrary, had its vineyards.
In the Salique law, as well as in the law of the Visigoths, penalties are decreed against those who shall destroy a cutting of the vine, or who shall steal grapes. The protection which the government accorded to this species of property caused it to be regarded as sacred. Chilperic having decreed that each vine-proprietor should annually furnish him with an amphora of wine for his table, there was, says Aimoin, a revolt in Limousin, and the officer whose duty it was to receive this odious tribute was massacred. So great had the passion for the vine become that the French kings turned a portion of their private domains into vineyards. Each of their palaces had its vineries, with wine-presses and all the utensils necessary for the vintage. From the Capitularies of Charlemagne we learn that the monarch entered into this species of administration in the minutest detail. When, after the death of Louis the Débonnaire, the three sons of that prince, laying down their arms, agreed on the division of his estates, Charles the Bald had Western France; Lothaire, Eastern France and Italy; and Louis, that portion which was situated in Germany beyond the Rhine. But as this latter had no vineyards, the Saxon Chronicle and the Chronicle of the monk Sigebert remark that there were joined to his division some towns or villages beyond the river which produced wine. The Louvre itself, like the other royal palaces of France, inclosed vineyards within its precincts. That such vineyards were considerable appears from the fact that in 1160 Louis le Jeune could annually assign out of their produce six muids of wine to the curate of St. Nicholas.
Among the “Fabliaux of the Thirteenth Century,” published by Le Grand, there is one entitled “La Bataille des Vins,” in which the author supposes that the King, Philip Augustus, causes to be brought to his table all known wines, national as well as foreign, in order to examine which are worthy of admission. The monarch is in this piece represented as a confirmed gourmet, and lover of good wine. From an account of the revenues of this king, left us by Brussel, we learn that in the matter of wines Philip loved variety, and wished to have a copious cellar, for he possessed vineyards at Bourges, at Soissons, at Compiegne, at Lân, at Beauvais, at Auxerre, Corbeil, Betesi, Orleans, Moret, Poissi, Gien, Anet, Chalevanc, Verberies, Fontainbleau, Rurecourt, Milli, Bois Commun, Samoi, and Auvers. Breton, in his Latin poem on Philip, counts the wines of Gascony and La Rochelle among the articles of commerce which Flanders took of France. The wines of Guyenne were not only sold in Flanders, but in much greater quantity in England. The same political considerations which induced us to close our ports twenty years ago to French wines unless on the payment of a very considerable import duty, caused us then to open them to the wines of a province subject to English authority. Matthew Paris, speaking of the discontent and bitterness which prevailed in Gascony in 1251 against Henry III., states that public opinion was so exasperated, that these provinces would have revolted had they not need of England for the sale of their wine. A fact related by Froissart will give us an idea of the extent of the trade at that time. “In 1372,” says this historian, “there arrived from England, at Bordeaux, 209 sail of merchantmen, which came for wine.” Champier, who wrote about a century and a half after Froissart, remarks, that from his time England scarcely consumed any other wine or corn than that of France, and that, when this commerce was interrupted by war, England experienced a species of famine. “So that,” said he, “France may boast of having in her hands power of producing famine or abundance in England.”