XXIII.
WINE AND BEER CELLARS.
WINE CELLARS.—HOW THEY ARE MADE.—PLACES FOR STORING BEER.—THEIR EXTENT.—THE GREATEST WINE CASK IN THE WORLD.—ITS CAPACITY.—PECULIARITIES OF WINE AND BEER VAULTS.—VISITING A CELLAR IN POLAND.—CURIOUS SIGHTS.—THE ANTIQUITY OF THE BOTTLES.—WHAT A VISITOR DID.—THE RESULT OF TOO MUCH WINE.—A DANGEROUS BRIDGE.
A German resident of New York, engaged in the manufacture of beer, visited the excavations at Hallett’s Point, near the upper end of Manhattan Island, and, on viewing the large space which had been dug out of the solid rock, exclaimed, “What a capital place for storing lager beer.” Many a wine and beer manufacturer has made the same remark on visiting the Mammoth Cave, or other huge caverns. The best places for storing malt or vinous liquors are under ground, for the reason that an equal temperature can be maintained at all times; summer’s heat and winter’s cold make but very little change of the thermometer in the depths of the earth.
PLACES FOR WINE UNDER GROUND.
In various parts of the world, particularly in Europe, there are vast underground spaces specially designed for the storage of wine, beer, and similar beverages. Nearly all these articles require to be kept some time before they are fit for use; especially is this the case with wines, some of which improve steadily during a year, or for ten, or twenty, fifty, or it may be for a hundred, or five hundred years. Some of the wine cellars of Europe have been hewn out of the solid rock, or dug out of the solid earth, at vast expense, for the simple purpose of storage. Other wine cellars were, originally, quarries, or mines; and after they had been abandoned by the miners, they were taken up by the wine and beer manufacturers, and adapted to their present uses. The same is the case in America. Reference is made elsewhere to the cellars of Dubuque, Iowa, which are nothing more nor less than exhausted lead mines. At several places on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers there are cellars which originally were quarries or mines. Their natural treasures were taken from them, and they are now filled with artificial ones.
In California, particularly in the Sonoma Valley, are some wine cellars which have been dug out of the rock for no other purpose than for that of storage. Some years ago I visited one of these establishments with a small party, and the proprietor, in order to give us an idea of the temperature, shut us up a little while, and left us to ourselves. The place was not cold, but it was cool compared with the outer atmosphere, and we very soon began to sneeze. Had we been kept there for any length of time, I suspect that we would have had sore throats and all that sort of thing; but they were prevented by the select assortment of liquids which the wine manufacturer supplied to us with such liberality that some of his visitors’ legs became very much entangled, and refused to perform the duty usually required of them.
All through Europe, and particularly in France and Germany, there are cellars of great extent. The wine makers of France and Germany are able to store away thousands of casks, and other thousands of bottles, every year without any difficulty. The same is the case with the beer makers of North and South Germany, particularly in the vicinity of Munich and Vienna. There is one wine cellar on the Moselle, which is said to be capable of containing a million bottles and twenty or thirty thousand casks of wine at one time, and I have heard of one wine cellar even larger than this. The capacity of the beer vaults of Munich is, I think, greater than that of the German and French wine vaults. It is certain that a storage capacity sufficient to supply the annual consumption of beer in Munich, Vienna, or Berlin, must approach the dimensions of a small city. It is well known that the average German can get outside of a great quantity of beer in the course of twelve months. As an illustration, I may mention that the day before writing this paragraph I was told of a strike among some German laborers in an establishment near New York. Their strike was not for wages, but for beer. They were satisfied with the pay they received, but not with the quantity of beer furnished to them. Their employer allowed them two five-gallon kegs daily for every three men, and in their strike they demanded a daily keg of beer per man. They said that two thirds of a five-gallon keg were not sufficient, but they would manage to get along with five gallons each per day. The employer agreed with them, and they resumed work as soon as he consented to their demand.
FAMOUS BEER DRINKERS.