There are many who think that the cooling of wine by snow is a modern invention; but that this system was perfectly known to the Greeks and Romans, as I before observed, is sufficiently evident. The vessels which contained the wine mixed with boiled water were immersed in the snow, and such wine is particularly distinguished by Martial. This invention is ascribed by Pliny to Nero, who prided himself more on this improvement in luxury than Augustus did in encouraging the fine arts.
It was a common practice at the convivial meetings of the Greeks and Romans to drink, not only to the healths of distinguished individuals, but to the absent friends and mistresses of the guests. The greater or less number of cups afforded an indication of the respect in which the person whose health was toasted was held. The numerous coincidences which exist between the convivial customs of past ages and the present are thus succinctly summed up by Dr. Henderson:—“If we compare the ceremonies and usages of the Romans with the convivial customs of the present day, we cannot but be struck with the numerous coincidences which subsist between them. The arrangements of our dinners, the succession and composition of the different courses, the manner of filling our glasses, of pledging our friends, and of drinking particular healths, are all evidently copied from the Greeks and Romans.[34] With another modern nation, however, which has been thought to resemble the ancient Greeks in character, the analogy is still more complete. Thus, at all entertainments among the French, the ordinary wine is used with a large admixture of water, generally in the proportion of one to three, except immediately after soup, when it is drunk pure. The finer kinds are circulated in the intervals between the courses, or towards the end of the repast, and hence are termed vins d’entremets; but with particular dishes certain wines are served, as chablis with oysters, and sillery after roast meat. The coup-d’avant of vermuth has been already noticed as corresponding with the draught of mulsum; and the coup du milieu, which consists of some liqueur, ‘quod fluentem nauseam coerceat,’ may be regarded as identical with the cup of sweet wine handed round in the middle of a Grecian feast. With dessert the luscious sweet wines are always introduced.”
The doctor makes a slight mistake in regarding the coup du milieu as identical with the cup of Greek sweet wine. The coup, which was drunk immediately after the roast, consisted, and still consists, of a bitter or spirituous, or sometimes a bitter and spirituous cordial (and not of a sweet wine), taken as a stomachic. It is swallowed, according to the “Manuel des Amphitryons,” to give tone to the fibres of the stomach, and “pour accélérer le mouvement péristaltique qui produit la digestion.” The Swiss extract of wormwood, Jamaica rum, or very old cognac, is used for the purpose. It is to the city of Bordeaux, so dear to gourmands and gourmets, that this invention is due. It is a trait of genius, says the author of the “Almanach des Gourmands,” which enables one to make a second dinner, and which doubles the power and capacity of the weakest stomachs. Between the roast and the entremets—i.e., towards the middle of the dinner, you see at Bordeaux the doors of the dining-room open, when a girl about eighteen, tall, fair, and well-proportioned, her features beaming with an air of engaging alluringness, appears. Her sleeves are turned up to the very shoulders, and she holds in one hand a mahogany frame, in which are ranged as many small glasses as there are guests; and in the other a crystal decanter filled with Jamaica rum, or wormwood, or vermuth, though this latter beverage more properly belongs to the coup-d’avant. Thus armed the Hebe makes the round of the table, and pours out to each guest a glass of the bitter nectar it is her business to distribute. The effect of the coup du milieu is stated to be almost magical in renewing the appetite, but on what principle it produces this result physicians must determine. The coup-d’avant is little practised in Paris, though greatly used in Russia, Sweden, and the north of Germany. It consists of a large glass of vermuth, or of simple brandy, which is presented to each of the guests by way of appetiser. Physicians differ in opinion as to the virtues of the coup-d’avant: it is said rather to dispose the stomach to digestion; but, be this as it may, the Russian stomachs, where the coup-d’avant is so much practised, are far more vigorous than the English or French. It may be that from the effects of the climate some such stimulant is required. The coup-d’après consists, as Dr. Henderson states, of half a glass of pure wine taken immediately after the soup. This is considered so salutary a practice, that it is proverbially said to take a crown out of the pocket of the physician. The wine offered for the coup-d’après in France is generally a good Beaune or Macon; whilst in England it is commonly sherry or Madeira. In any event it should be a good sound wine; for the palate, at that early stage of a dinner, is most sensible to taste and flavour.
As to the wine-cellars of the ancients, we know little certain. Vitruvius directs that they should have a northern aspect, that the doors and windows should be placed in the same direction, that the doors should be small and seldom opened, and then to renew, not to alter, the temperature of the air. Care was also taken that the cellar should not be near a dung-heap, nor roots of trees, nor vegetables, nor anything fetid; and it was also as far removed as possible from the vicinage of baths, ovens, sewers, cisterns, and reservoirs. Women were also strictly forbidden to enter within the cellar walls. Barry would have it that the Greeks and Romans had extended vaults under ground, but against this theory Henderson cites Pancirollus, who is of opinion that the ancients were not in the practice of having repositories of wine under ground like our modern cellars. That their repositories for wine must have been extensive there is no doubt, for it is stated that Hortensius bequeathed to his heirs 10,000 cadi of wine, about 410 tons of our measure. From the rules of the ancients, and the principles laid down, Barry properly points out certain defects in our modern wine-cellars in the following passages:—
“The size of the cellar ought to be in proportion to the quantity of wine for which it is designed; and it is more easy to defend a small cellar from the admission of a greater quantity of the external air, and to renew it occasionally, than one of a larger size. The situation ought to be low and dry; therefore, not on any great declivity, where the undercurrents from the superior ground must always keep it moist, and infect the air with its putrid exhalations; this communication, however, may be prevented by intermediate trenches.
“A small anti-cellar built before all large cellars would be a considerable defence and improvement to them, in which a quantity of wine sufficient for a few days may be kept, and the necessity prevented of more frequently opening the large cellar, and admitting the external air, which must always in some degree alter the temperature of it, and in sudden or continued great heats or frosts, may be particularly injurious to the wine.
“It is usual to cover the bottles in the bins with sawdust, to which I should prefer dry sand, the density of which is much greater. I saw a remarkable instance of the benefit arising from an intermediate defence of this kind. A hogshead of claret, which had been lately bottled, was heaped up in a corner of a merchant’s common large cellar, with a view of removing it soon to the wine-cellar. In the meantime a load of salt, from the want of a more convenient place, was thrown on the bottles, and remained there several months before it was removed. This wine was afterwards found to be much superior to the wine of the same growth, which had been imported and bottled about the same time, and had been immediately placed in the wine-cellar. The large quantity of salt formed a compact vault over the bottles, which entirely defended the wine from the influence of the air, though greatly exposed to it; and probably the coldness of the salt contributed to this improvement.
“The ancients certainly more effectually preserved their wine in larger earthen vessels, pitched externally, than we can in our bottles, as they are more capable, from their superior density and capacity, of resisting the frequent changes in the air; and it is a common observation, that the wine received into bottles which contain two quarts proves better than that which has been kept in single quarts.”
Of the truth of this latter remark there can be no doubt, as any who have tasted a pint and a quart bottle of wine out of the same hogshead will freely admit.
It is no doubt true that many of the usages adopted by the ancients for preserving and mellowing their wines have fallen into disrepute; but their rules for the site and construction of a wine-cellar—some of which I have quoted—their observations on the proper time for tasting and racking wines, are still sanctioned by modern practice.