The Emperor was, perhaps, the best judge of his favourite Chambertin that France ever could boast of, except, probably, in the case of the good Lindsay, of Balcarras, Bishop of Kildare. This Prelate long resided at Tours, and was an excellent connoisseur in wine, though he modestly used to say, “If I know any thing, it is the management of turnip crops and mangel-wurzel.” It is no disparagement of the episcopal bench to say, that many of its members could not justifiably make a similar boast. Lord Brougham, I believe, used to say, that “if he knew any thing, it was, that claret should always be drunk after game.” There is an imperial authority in favour of Champagne. When the Emperor Wenceslaus visited France in the fourteenth century, to negotiate with Charles VI., it was impossible ever to get him sober to a conference. “It was no matter,” he said; “they might decide as they liked, and he would drink as he liked; and thus both parties would be on an equality.” There is something curious in the caprices of Champagne; particularly of the vin mousseux, or effervescing wine. In the same cellar, the same wine, all similarly placed, will mousser in some bottles, and not in others. It will even, when poured from the same bottle, mousser in some glasses into which it is poured, while in others it will fall as heavily placid as oil. In warm weather, however, a great Champagne cellar is a very lively place; so lively, that it is unsafe to walk through the serried hosts of bottles, without a wire mask over the face.
There are one or two sorts of French wine which are considered to be improved by letting a small portion of the stalk be trodden in with the grape. But, probably, in the selection of the grape, there is no where such care taken, as in the matter of imperial Tokay. The grapes are selected with the greatest care; sometimes a second selection is made from the first selected lot. No grape is chosen that is not perfectly sound. The resulting wine is of a highly delicious flavour; but I need not add, that the general public know but very little about it. To them is vouchsafed the brewage from the damaged grape, or the distillation of the refuse of the first grape. The product is an acid one, resembling moderately good Rhine wine; but it is not Tokay.
“Old Wortley Montague” was a great drinker of Tokay. He lived to the patriarchal age of eighty-three. Gray, writing of him, says, that it was not mere avarice, and its companion, abstinence, that kept him alive so long. He imported his own wine from Hungary, in greater quantity than he could use, and he sold the overplus,—drinking himself a half-pint every day,—for any price he chose to set upon it. It was a fashionable wine with the drinkers of the last century. Walpole records its being offered at a supper given by Miss Chudleigh to the Duke of Kingston, her then “protector.” “At supper she offered him Tokay, and told him she believed he would find it good.” The entertainment was splendid, and untidy. “The supper was in two rooms, and very fine; and on all the sideboards, and even on the chairs, were pyramids and troughs of strawberries and cherries; you would have thought she was kept by Vertumnus!”
Our ancient acquaintance, “mustard,” was originally raised to the character of “wine,” in common with some other of the seeds used at ancient tables. Our warm friend mustard was the mustum ardens, or “hot wine.” It was held as good for persons of bilious temperament, and as being more beneficial in summer than in winter. Coriander was used in the same season. It was mixed with vinegar, and poured over meat to preserve its freshness. There are some men who faint at the smell of linseed. A bread made therefrom was once, however, readily eaten by various European and Asiatic people. Cakes made of it were placed before the altars of gods,—men making willing sacrifice of what they accounted as of small value. Similar sacrifices are made daily even now; only they are not in the form of aniseed cakes.
It is said of the Arabs, that they manufactured an intoxicating wine from linseed. This beverage was worthy of being served with that strange dish at dessert,—fried hempseed,—a dish that would have been appropriate enough at a highwayman’s last supper, the night before he rode to Tyburn.
It used to be said of old, that wine was a sympathetic liquor; and this is alluded to by more than one writer. Sir Kenelm Digby, in his “Dissertation on the Cure of Wounds,” makes a singular remark with respect to wine. “The wine-merchants observe every where, (where there is wine,) that during the season the vines are in the flower, the wines in the cellar make a kind of fermentation, and percolate forth a little white lee (which I think they call ‘the mother of the wine’) upon the surface of the wine, which continues in a kind of disorder till the flower of the vines be fallen; and then, this agitation being ceased, all the wine returns to the same state as it was in before.”
It was a custom with the ancients to swallow, to the health of their mistresses, as many cups or glasses as there were letters in her name. To this custom Martial refers:—
“Nævia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur, Quinque Lycas, Lyde quatuor, Ida tribus: Omnis ab infuso numeretur amica Falerno.”
It became us, as a more mechanical people, to drink upon pegs rather than letters: the peg-tankards were said to be the invention of King Edgar. The two-gallon measure had eight pegs; and the half-pint, from peg to peg, was deemed a fitting draught for an honest man; but as the statute, or custom, did not define how often the toper might be permitted to indulge in this measure, people of thirsty propensities got rather more inebriated than they had dared to be previously. As the half-pint was roughly set down as the maximum of their draught, it was a point of honour with them never to drink less,—and to drink to that extent as often as opportunity offered. The Council of London (Archbishop Anselm’s “Canons,” A.D. 1102) expressly warned the Clergy against the perils of peg-drinking; but the same Council looked upon perukes as being quite as perilous as these pegged half-pints, and denounced wigs with as much intensity as tankards,—and to about as much purpose. Karloman understood the Ecclesiastics better; at least, if traditionary history be worthy of any respect.
Among the legends of the Rhine connected with my present subject of wine, there is one which is worth mentioning. The great Karloman, who loved good liquor, bequeathed to the brotherhood of Monks at Rheinfeld a marvellous and covetable butt of wine, which had not only the merit of being of first-rate quality, but which never decreased, though it was continually running at the spigot! This wine was for the use of the brethren; but the good Emperor also left a sum of money which he desired should be spent in treating visitors to the monastery with good Rhenish wine. When a weary traveller claimed the hospitality of the Monks, he was immediately conducted to an inner apartment. Here he was invested with the collar of Karloman, and gravely informed that, it being necessary that he should be baptized, he had only to say whether he preferred that the ceremony should be performed with wine or with water. If, like an honest fellow, he selected wine, he was gently constrained to swallow three monster bumpers of Muscatel. He was then crowned with a parcel-gilt coronet, and so became installed one of the jolly Knaves of St. Goar. There were some privileges attached to this dignity; among others, was the right to fish on the summit of the Lurley Berg, where there is no water; and of hunting on the sand-banks of the Rhine, where there is not safe footing for a sparrow. The poor temperate wight, on the other hand, who preferred the modest medium of water for the ceremony of his baptism, was proclaimed a blind Heathen, and was immediately drenched to the skin, from outpouring buckets of water that were showered upon him in all directions. Such was the solemnity of the Hänsel, as instituted by Karloman. This Emperor’s affection for the Rhine and its vicinity was as strong as that of an old gastronomic English Bishop for his native island. The episcopal attachment is exemplified in the story of the Prelate’s last moments, when his faithful servant John endeavoured to encourage him. “Be comforted, my Lord,” said John: “your Lordship is going to a better place.” “Ah, John!” said the Bishop, “there is no place like old England!”