King Charlemagne, in golden robe,—
So runs the rustic rhyme,—
Doth come to bless the mellowing crops
While bells of Heaven chime."
The Steinbergers, the Hochheimers, Marcobrunners, and Rüdesheimers, sound like so many noble families. Indeed an American senator, hearing these fine names, remarked: "I have no doubt, sir, they are all very nice girls."
There is a famous Hochheimer, no less than a hundred and sixty-seven years old, the vintage of that year when the Duke of Marlborough gained the Battle of Ramillies. Let us hope that he and Prince Eugene moistened their clay and labours with some of this famous wine. These wines do not last, however. The best age is ten years, and those which have been stored in the antique vaulted cellar of the Bernardine Abbey of Eberbach, world-renowned as the Grand-ducal Cabinet wine of the ruler of Nassau, are now completely run out. Even Rudesheimer of 1872 is no longer good.
It must be remembered, however, that these wines are never fortified. To put extraneous alcohol into their beloved Rhine wine would rouse Rudolph of Hapsburg and Conrad of Hotstettin from the sleep of centuries.
The Steinberger Cabinet of 1862 is the most superb. Of Rhine wines for bouquet, refined flavour, combined richness and delicacy. We do not except Schloss Johannisberger, because that is not in the market. A Marcobrunner and a Rüdesheimer are not to be despised.
Prince Metternich sent to Jules Janin for his autograph, and the witty poet editor sent a receipt for twelve bottles of Imperial Schloss Johannisberger. The Prince took the hint and had a dozen of the very best cabinet wine forwarded, every bottle being sealed and every cork duly branded with the Prince's crest! The Johannisberger wine is excessively sweet, singularly soft, and gives forth a delicious perfume, a rich, limpid, amber-coloured wine, with a faint bitter flavour; it is as beautiful to look at as it is luscious to the taste, and it possesses a bouquet which the Empress Eugénie compared to that of heliotrope, violets, and geranium leaves combined.
The refined pungent flavour of a good Hock, its slight racy sharpness, with an after almond flavour, make it an admirable appetizer. The staircase vineyards, in which the grapes grow on the Rhine, seem to catch all the revivifying influences of sunshine. Their splendid golden colour is caught from those first beams of the sun as he greets his bride, the Earth, after he has been separated from her for twelve dark hours.