Useful Knowledge: Volume 2. Vegetables / Or, a familiar account of the various productions of nature

by William Bingley

Several species of vine are cultivated; but by far the most important of the whole is the common vine (Vitis vinifera of Linnæus).

The earliest introduction of the vine into the western parts of Europe is stated to have been about the year 280, under the sanction of Probus, the Roman Emperor, who, throughout his whole dominions, was a zealous encourager of agricultural pursuits. There can be no doubt that vines were anciently propagated in our own island for the purpose of wine, and that there were vineyards of considerable extent in Gloucestershire, Hampshire, and some other counties; but, as vines are principally found to flourish in inland countries, lying betwixt the thirtieth and fifty-first degrees of latitude, it is evident that there can be no part of Great Britain sufficiently adapted to their successful cultivation.

Any person who has seen a hop garden, may easily form an idea of the appearance of a vineyard. Vines are usually propagated by slips, cuttings, or offsets from the roots. These, when they have obtained a sufficiency of roots, are transplanted from the nursery-ground into the vineyard, the soil of which ought to be light and rich. They are placed, in this ground, in rows, and at regular intervals, leaving space sufficient for the vine-dressers and the reapers to pass betwixt them; and as soon as the rooted plants are three years old, they begin to bear fruit. The season for pruning and dressing them is the early part of the year, before the sap begins to rise; and about the time when the flowers appear, the plants are fastened to poles, for the purposes of supporting them, of preventing them from growing entangled with each other, admitting a free circulation of air amongst them, and affording greater convenience for gathering the fruit.

The vintage, which is a season of mirth and delight to the whole country, commences in the early part of autumn. The villagers assemble in the respective vineyards under the direction of overseers. The reaping of the grapes is, in general, performed in three distinct gatherings. The first of these comprehends all the finest and ripest bunches, carefully clearing away from them every grape that appears green or decayed: the second is confined to the large and thick clusters which are not so ripe as the others; and those which are nearly green, withered, or decayed, are gathered last.

To obtain the juice from the grapes, they are subjected to the operation of large presses of somewhat similar construction to the cyder presses of our own country (the separate gatherings being still kept apart), and the juice is received into vessels fixed for that purpose. Afterwards it undergoes the necessary fermentation to convert it into wine. By the ancients the juice was obtained by treading the grapes. This practice is alluded to in various parts of Scripture, but perhaps in none are the characteristics of the ancient vintage expressed more strongly than in the predictions of Isaiah concerning Moab: "And gladness is taken away, and joy out of the plentiful field; and in the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither shall there be any shouting: the treaders shall tread out no wine in their presses; I have made their vintage-shouting to cease." The treading of grapes is still practised in several parts of the world. The ancients frequently kept their wine in skins, or leathern bags, well secured at the seams; hence the passage in the gospels; "neither do men put new wine into old bottles; else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved."

The kinds of wine are extremely various. The difference which exists betwixt them is not, however, so much owing to a distinction in the species of grapes, as in the quality of the fruit, produced by the varieties of soil, cultivation, and climate to which they are subject. This difference likewise depends, in some instances, on the peculiar mode of fermentation, and the state of the grapes from which the wine is produced.

(a) Portuguese Wines.—Of all the kinds of wine that are consumed in England, none are so much in request as red port. This has its name from the city of Oporto, in the neighbourhood of which the vines that produce it are chiefly cultivated. A great proportion, however, of the port that is consumed in England, is said to be mixed with a Spanish red wine of inferior quality, or to be otherwise adulterated. Red port is brought over in casks called pipes, which measure 138 gallons each, and ought to fill fifty-two dozen bottles of legal measure.

The difference in colour betwixt red wines and white does not so much depend upon the quality of the grape, as upon the mode in which the wines are prepared. The juice of red grapes, if carefully pressed, and fermented separately from the skins, forms a white wine. If the skins be pressed so as to discharge the colouring matter they contain, or, if they be allowed to remain in the juice during the fermentation, the wine assumes a red tinge.

White port, and Lisbon, are two kinds of white wine which we receive from Portugal. Of these, the former was much in demand some years ago, but it is now seldom called for; the latter is still in use.

(b) French Wines.—Many excellent wines are produced in France. That usually considered the best is Burgundy, a red wine of very delicate flavour, which has its name from the province where it is made. The wines of the neighbourhood of Orleans, however, after having been matured by age, are much like Burgundy. Claret is the only French red wine for which there is any great demand in England. It is thin and highly flavoured, and is chiefly supplied from the neighbourhood of Bourdeaux. Some of the red wines of Champaigne are highly prized for their excellence and delicacy, though they, occasionally, have a pungent and sourish taste. Hermitage is produced from vineyards, at a place so called, near the village of Thein, on the eastern bank of the Rhone; and Côte Rotie from vineyards on the opposite side of the river.