Of the Rhenish Vineyards and Wines.
The strongest and, as they are termed, fullest-bodied wines, those, of course, which are best for keeping, are produced upon mountains of a cold and strong soil; the most brisk and spirited on a warm and gravelly situation. Those produced near the middle of an ascent are esteemed the most wholesome, the soil being there sufficiently watered, without becoming too moist; and, on this account, the vineyards of Hockheim are more esteemed than some, whose produce is better flavoured; on the contrary, those at the feet of hills are thought so unwholesome, on account of their extreme humidity, that the wine is directed to be kept for several years, before it is brought to table. The finest flavour is communicated by soils either argillaceous, or marly. Of this sort is a mountain near Bacharach, the wines of which are said to have a Muscadine flavour and to be so highly valued, that an Emperor, in the fourteenth century, demanded four large barrels of them, instead of 10,000 florins, which the city of Nuremberg would have paid for its privileges.
A vineyard, newly manured, produces a strong, spirited and well flavoured, but usually an unwholesome wine; because the manure contains a corrosive salt and a fat sulphur, which, being dissolved, pass with the juices of the earth into the vines. A manure, consisting of street mud, old earth, the ruins of houses well broken, and whatever has been much exposed to the elements, is, however, laid on, once in five or six years, between the vintage and winter.
The sorts of vines, cultivated in the Rheingau, are the low ones, called the Reistinge, which are the most common and ripen the first; those of Klebroth, or red Burgundy, the wine of which is nearly purple; of Orleans and of Lambert; and lastly the tall vine, raised against houses, or supported by bowers in gardens. The wines of the two first classes are wholesome; those of the latter are reputed dangerous, or, at least, unfit to be preserved.
The vintagers do not pluck the branches by hand, but carefully cut them, that the grapes may not fall off; in the Rheingau and about Worms the cultivators afterwards bruise them with clubs, but those of Franckfort with their feet; after which the grapes are carried to the press, and the wine flows from them by wooden pipes into barrels in the cellar. That, which flows upon the first pressure, is the most delicately flavoured, but the weakest; the next is strongest and most brisk; the third is sour; but the mixture of all forms a good wine. The skins are sometimes pressed a fourth time, and a bad brandy is obtained from the fermented juice; lastly, in the scarcity of pasturage in this part of Germany, they are given for food to oxen, but not to cows, their heat being destructive of milk.
To these particulars it may be useful to add, that one of the surest proofs of the purity of Rhenish is the quick rising and disappearance of the froth, on pouring it into a glass: when the beads are formed slowly and remain long, the wine is mixed and factitious.
[OBERWESEL.]
The account of which has been interrupted by this digression, is the first town of the Electorate of Treves, on this side, to which it has belonged since 1312, when its freedom as an imperial city, granted by the Emperor, Frederic the Second, was perfidiously seized by Henry the Seventh, and the town given to him by his brother Baldwin, the then Elector. The new Sovereign enriched it with a fine collegiate church, which still dignifies the shore of the river. If he used any other endeavours to make the prosperity of the place survive its liberties, they appear to have failed; for Oberwesel now resembles the other towns of the Electorate, except that the great number of towers and steeples tell what it was before its declension into that territory. The Town-house, rendered unnecessary by the power of Baldwin, does not exist to insult the inhabitants with the memory of its former use; but is in ruins, and thus serves for an emblem of the effects, produced by the change.
Between Oberwesel and St. Goar, the river is of extraordinary breadth, and the majestic mountains are covered with forests, which leave space for little more than a road between their feet and the water. A group of peasants, with baskets on their heads, appeared now and then along the winding path, and their diminutive figures, as they passed under the cliffs, seemed to make the heights shew more tremendous. When they disappeared for a moment in the copses, their voices, echoing with several repetitions among the rocks, were heard at intervals, and with good effect, as our oars were suspended.