Host and Guest

by A. V. Kirwan

Although the other French provinces had not such advantageous outlets for their commerce as Guyenne, the vine was, nevertheless, cultivated with an equal success. This may be seen by the “Fabliaux” cited, in which the French wines dispute the preference with foreign. These effects were solely brought about by the national industry; the government did nothing to recompense or favour it, and when it did concern itself about the French wine-trade its interference was injurious. The kingdom having experienced a scarcity, in consequence of the bad harvest of 1566, Charles IX. wrongly attributed the cause to the too great abundance of vines, and, like Domitian, proscribed them. An ordonnance published by him directed that in each canton, or district, the vines should only occupy a third of the ground; the other two-thirds were to be converted into arable or pasture lands. In 1577 Henry III. modified the ordonnance of the king his brother, recommending to all the officers charged with the government of his provinces to see that the arable land was not left uncultivated to give place to an excessive plantation of the vine.

The edict published under the reign of Louis XV. was not so foolish as the preceding one. Many intendants of provinces having represented that the vines occupied an undue space of lands fitted for corn or pasturage; that it caused the dearness of wood; that it multiplied the quantity of wine to such an excess that the value and reputation were in a number of places destroyed; the king, in 1731, forbade any new plantation of vines, and directed that vineyards which had ceased to be cultivated for two years should no longer be continued.

It often happened that proprietors of wines, not being able to get rid of their article, preferred to sell it in retail. In this contingency they suspended to the threshold of their door a broom, a crown of ivy, or something similar. Those who wished to purchase carried a pot with them, and thence came the expression, vendre à pot. Some caused their wine to be announced by the public crier.

It will appear from what I have written that the attention paid to vine-dressing and the cultivation of the vine was the result of a perfect knowledge of husbandry.

I have already said that the wines of the ancients were racked and fined, but there seems to have been as much adulteration 1800 years ago as at the present moment. Adulterations are repeatedly mentioned in the classic writers. After the wine was made and underwent the secondary fermentation, it was placed in pitched skins, or in earthen vessels, denominated amphoræ, containing twenty-seven old English gallons.

That the ancients understood the process of maturing wines perfectly is evident from all the writers on the subject. After the wine was made and put into the vat, where it underwent the secondary fermentation, it was placed in pitched skins, closed with a lid of baked earth, and hermetically sealed.[31]

It were a curious task to trace how long domestic customs and utensils survive forms of polity and government. In glancing at such a subject, I merely remark that the amphoræ have outlived the Roman emperors, the republic, nay even the Roman nation and people, and all their magnificent institutions. It is impossible now to pass forty-eight hours in the neighbourhood of Asti Montepulciano, Montefiascone, or any of the wine districts of Italy, without being struck with the identity to the amphoræ of those earthen vessels with two handles, holding from about eighteen to twenty quarts of our measure, which one sees in every cellar, and almost in every street. Suetonius tells us of a man who aspired to the quæstorship, and drank the contents of a whole amphora at a repast given by the Emperor Tiberius, “Ob epotam in convivo propinante se vini amphoram;” but, though there may be men in Scotland, or Scotchmen in England, who could carry away so much liquor and be none the worse for it, the capacity of any Englishman to do as much may be doubted.

The use of casks or wine hogsheads were unknown to the Greeks and Romans.[32] They could therefore only transport their wines in earthen vessels or skins, which in the older English authors are queerly and alliteratively called “borachio bottles.” The earthen vessels presented the inconvenience of being fragile, whilst the skins were subject to bursting, to become insecure, &c. My late excellent and learned friend Dr. Henderson states, and truly, that the Romans occasionally employed glass. They undoubtedly did so; but the accomplished historian of wines is wrong when he affirms that they brought the manufacture of glass to a great degree of perfection; for nothing, on the contrary, can be more common than those specimens of glass found in Pompeii, and those drinking-cups and lachrymatories, various specimens of which may be seen in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. That glass, however, was used at table in those days appears certain from a passage in which he speaks of those glass magnums or jugs, as being large and closed with a species of plaster or Roman cement. “Adlatæ sunt amphoræ vitreæ diligenter gypsatæ.” He elsewhere says, “Amphoras copiosas gypsatas ne effluat vinum.”

All the Latin authors agree that the ingenious invention of casks is due to the Gauls, who established themselves along the banks of the Po; but we are entirely ignorant if the Greeks knew the cooper’s art before they left their native country, or if they invented casks and hogsheads after their transmigration beyond the Alps. Notwithstanding the incontestable superiority of casks over skins, these latter continued to be still used. That they were much in vogue would appear from one of the capitularies of Charlemagne, in which, glancing at the prevalence of skins, he forbids his people to use any other vessels than good barrels (bonos barridos) hooped with iron.

At the Roman entertainments there was a particular part of the convivial room set apart for the reception of the wines. Here the various vessels and drinking-cups were ranged on a table called αβαξ, or abacus. This was generally of marble, in the form of a long square, not unlike the modern sideboard. From the account which Philo Judæus gives of the number of vessels placed on it, it must have been very large. Pliny, speaking of the rich spoils exhibited by Pompey in the triumph he obtained for his victories over the pirates, says that the number of drinking vessels adorned with jewels was sufficient to furnish nine abaci: “Triumpho quem de piratis Asia, Ponto, egit, transtulit lectos tridiniares tres; vasa ex auro et gemmis abacorum novem.”[33] Cicero charges Verres with having plundered the abaci, “Ab hoc iste abaci vasa omnia ut exposita fuerant abstulit,” and Dr. Barry, in giving this quotation, misquotes it, “In abacis erant abstulit.” These articles of luxury, according to Livy, were imported from Asia first as luxuries, but soon, like all other superfluous wants, they became necessaries. The ancients had, like the moderns, servants like our butlers, specially charged with the care of the wine. The office necessarily required judgment and experience. The head butler is called by Pollux οἰνοπτης. His business was to inspect the wines before and after they had been prepared, and mixed in another apartment. When they were placed on the abacus, he stood there as a modern butler or maître d’hôtel does at our side-boards, and gave his orders to the underlings and slaves. The next in office under the butler was the pinceran or οἰνοχοος, which we should render as the pourer out of wine, or cup-bearer, the word being used in this sense both by Homer and Xenophon. This man received all his directions from the butler, and by him and his acolytes the wines were regularly prepared and distributed to the guests. Of these inferior ministering agents there were many, and of different degrees. It was a part of the luxury of the times to be waited on by beautiful boys, purchased at high prices, who served the master and the superior guests; but the inferior ones and those of meaner condition were served by African slaves of coarse appearance, woolly-headed, and of most unsavoury odour. Notwithstanding the number of servants and slaves, many mistakes unavoidably happened in the mixture of wine. Nor is this wonderful when it is considered that the host and his guests called for wine variously diluted either with hot or cold water, and occasionally for whatever strong wine was agreeable to them. Cicero, describing a supper, alludes to the symposium of Xenophon, where the wines were prepared by hot water and afterwards cooled in snow: “Et pocula sicut in symposio Xenophontis minuta atque rorantia et refrigeratio in æstate, et vicissim aut sol, aut ignis hibernus.” Of the quantity of wine drank on these occasions we have no very certain account. Pliny says that Democritus wrote a volume to prove that no one ought to exceed the fourth or sixth glass; but instances have been given of persons who have drunk a congius or gallon in one draught.