In the vine country

by E. Oe. Somerville; Martin Ross

When we got into the carriage again we were crammed with information, and a silence as of indigestion settled upon us as we whirled along the hog-backed vineyard road to Château Lafite. It is not only in wine that Mouton Rothschild is beaten by its nearest neighbour. In the matter of a château, Lafite scores still more decidedly; of that no one could have any doubt who saw this old country-house, with its pointed towers, its terraced gardens with their ambushed perfumes that took the hot wind by surprise, its view over the soft country to other châteaux, and its delightful wood, where grassy walks wound away into the shadows. After these things, going to see the cuviers and the wine-making was like beginning again on roast beef after dessert; but the appetite came in eating. It was Mouton Rothschild over again, only more so; it could not be more dazzlingly smart than its kinsman, but it was larger; more outhouses and more imposing, a greater number of cuves, a more ambitious manner of regulating the temperature. We were truly and genuinely interested, but none the less were we penetrated by a sense of the gross absurdity of our pose as students of viticulture, while Monsieur Z. and the manager of Château Lafite imparted fact upon fact antiphonally and seriously, without a shadow of distrust of our capabilities. Indeed, in all our vintage experiences we met with this heartfelt devotion to the subject, and this touching belief in our intelligence, and it was both a glory and a humiliation to us.

Enfiladed thus by a cross-fire of what might be called grape-shot, we progressed in fullest importance round the quiet nurseries of the claret for which such an incredible future of dessert-tables is in store, and entered at last the doorway of a long low building. A few steps led downwards to another doorway, where a grave and courteous attendant presented us each with a candle placed in a socket at the end of a long handle, and unlocked a door into profound and pitchy blackness. It was like going to see the mummies at Bordeaux, it was even more like going into the cellar at home to look for rats, and my cousin’s skirts were instinctively gathered up and her candle lowered to the ground as the darkness closed its mouth upon us. It was cool and damp, it smelt of must and wine-barrels, and in some way one could feel that it was immense. Our guides turned to the right without hesitation, into a gallery whose walls, from the sandy floor to the vaulted ceiling, were made of bottles of wine. We walked on, and still on, trying to take it in, while on either side the tiers of bottles looked at us out of their partitions with cold uncountable eyes, eyebrowed sometimes, or bearded, with a fungus as snowy and delicate as crêpe lisse, on which the specks of dew glittered as the candle-light procession passed by.

‘There are here a hundred and fifty thousand bottles of claret,’ said the manager, with prosaic calm. ‘Some of them are a century old. This is the private cellar of Baron de Rothschild.’

‘He will not drink it all,’ said Monsieur Z.; and we laughed a feeble giggle, whose fatuity told that we had become exhausted receivers.

More and yet more aisles followed, catacombs of silence and black heavy air, but full of the strange life of the wine that lay, biding its time

ON EITHER SIDE THE TIERS OF BOTTLES LOOKED AT US OUT OF THEIR PARTITIONS WITH COLD UNCOUNTABLE EYES.

according to its tribe and family, in a ‘monotony of enchanted pride,’ as Ruskin has said about pine trees.

We saw very little more of wine-making, when we got out again into the blustry heat, and crawled back to the carriage, feeling cheaper and more modern than we had done for some time. A new phase of sight-seeing was in store for us, and one with which we were even less fitted to compete. The inner life of a French country-house does not come within the scope of the ordinary tourist; and when, later in the afternoon, we were led up the curving and creeper-wreathed steps of a château, and ushered into an atmosphere of polished floors, still more polished manners, afternoon tea, and a billiard-table, there was only one drawback to perfect enjoyment of the situation. The ladies of the household—there were several of them—did not speak English, and at once that delusive glibness that had been nurtured by talking to Suzanne began to wither in the shadeless glare of drawing-room conversation.

We shall never know what absurdities we said, or what bêtises we committed; we can only feel satisfied that in a general way we said and did the wrong thing, and we can but ‘faintly trust the larger hope’ that our kind hosts made due allowance for insular imbecility. Whatever they may have thought of the strangers so unexpectedly brought within their gates, they kept alike their countenances and their counsel; and when the guests had faltered and smirked through their difficult farewells, and hidden their hot faces in the shelter of the landau, they were aware, as they drove away in the clear southern starlight, of two great fragrant bouquets of roses and heliotrope on the seat opposite, the last charming expression of the hospitality of the Médoc.