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are often prescribed by physicians to be eaten plentifully. I think them one of the best fruits in the world. These alone, of all the red grapes, make good wine by themselves; but they plant them not in so great quantities as the other sorts, because in hot and dry seasons they will dry up before they are ripe.

2. Espiran verdau, or the green espiran, called so from its colour; an admirable grape also to eat, though not altogether so delicate as the black espiran; but its excellency is, that it will keep long in the winter for eating; and I have eat very good of them at Christmas. Their way of keeping them is to gather them when ripe, and so hang them up, every bunch single, to the roof of a close room.

3. Tarret is a black, very large, but not very sweet grape, and therefore used only for wine; wherein it gives a very large quantity, but not much strength.

5. Grumeau negre, or the black grumeau, is an excellent large grape, very fleshy, and well enough tasted, of the fashion of a pear. I have seen one single grape of this sort which was in compass above 3 inches English measure, and in compass the long way 33, and weighed of their weights 3ss. 9j. gr. iij. and all the rest of the grapes of the same bunch proportionable; but I have not observed them ordinarily planted in their vineyards.

10. Raisin de St. Jean is a sort of grape which they have only at the physic-garden at Montpelier: it came from India; it is a black grape, very good, ripe at Midsummer (and therefore called St. John's grape) two months before any of the other sorts.

11. Marroquin, a very black, large, fleshy, round grape, very good to eat, but seldom used in wine.

14. Clarette, white, longish, middle-sized, sweet, good to eat, and good for wine.

19. Ramounen, black, very sweet, middle-sized, good for wine, and eating.

22. Corinth; this we have in England; and I do not find they use it much there for wine.

25. Piquepoul, black and very sweet, good for wine and for eating.

27. Piquardan, white, long, large, very sweet, with a very little of the muscat taste in it; makes very good wine alone or mingled.

29. Musquat blanc, or white muscat ; this is usually planted and pressed alone, and makes the wine we usually call Frontiniac, from Frontignan, a town on the Mediterranean, near two or three leagues from Montpelier, where the most and best sort of this wine is made. It is a pleasant grape, and early ripe, before the ordinary sorts; but they are not near so good to eat as the espiran, being apt to fume to the head and make it ache.

32. Servan, a long, large, white, fleshy, sweet grape, called so because they keep well, and you have of these always latest in winter.

41. Crispata; this I saw nowhere but in the physicgarden at Montpelier: a good sweet white grape; called so from its jagged leaves, and I suppose the same with our parsley grape in England.

At Marmoustier, the great abbey of Benedictins near Tours, I saw in their garden a sort of grapes pretty ripe, which they called raisins de Ste. Magdalene, because they used to be ripe about that time, which is the 22d of July.

Upon the skilful mixture of these several sorts of grapes, as well as on the propriety of the soil, depends, in a great measure, the goodness of their wine: though, as far as I could observe, it was not so far improved as it might; nor any other great care taken, but that there should be always a mixture of white grapes when they made their red wine, which will otherwise be too thick and deep-coloured: and therefore, if they have a sufficient quantity of claret or piquardin grapes in their vineyards, they seem not over curious of an exact proportion of the other sorts, which are planted there promiscuously.

When their grapes are ripe, and they have leave, they cut them, carry them home, and tread them immediately; for they will not keep without spoiling this is the reason they must have leave; for, the parson being to have his tithe, and of that make his wine, the parishioners were not obliged to vintage all at the

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same time, he could not make wine of his share, since one parcel of grapes could not stay till the other was cut to be pressed with them.

The grapes being brought in great tubs, either on mules or men's backs, to the place where the wine is to be made, they put them in a kind of grate over the kuve, and there tread them till they are all broken, and then they throw them, husks, stalks, and all, into the kuve: and thus till all their whole crop of grapes are trod.

When all the mass is in the kuve, they let it work there one, two, or three days, as they think fit to have their wine: the longer it works, and the more stalks are in it (for sometimes they put them not all in) the rougher and deeper-coloured will the wine be, but keep the longer.

When it has wrought its time in the kuve, they put it into buts, and there let it work as long as it will, filling up the working vessel every day with some of the same must kept on purpose, for it wastes much in working.

Of the mare (which is husks, stalks, and other sediment, left at the bottom of the kuve when the must is taken out) they make a worse and coarse sort of wine for the servants, and this they press as we do our apples, to make cyder.

The stones, after pressing, some people cleanse from the rest of the marc, and sell for food for pigeons: the stalks also cleansed they use in making of verdigris. And in some places they take the remaining marc after pressing, put it in great tubs, and cover it with water, keeping the marc down with weights, and of this they give to their horses, which very much cools and refreshes them there in the hot season. This may give one reason to consider, whether any such use might be made of the marc of our apples, after making cyder.

When they have a mind to have their wine fine sooner than ordinary, they put into the cask a pretty good quantity of shavings of fir, and in some places of hazel, and with it they sometimes put some whole white grapes.

A little bread or oil (they say ever so little, and therefore they are very careful in this point) mixed with the

must, turns the wine to vinegar; and so does thunder: but they say iron laid upon the vessels will keep wine from souring by thunder.

The kuve is, in some places, a great vessel made of wood (witness the great kuve that is yet to be seen at Marmoustier, which, they say, will hold two hundred tun of wine) as our brewers vessels for the working of their kuve is in England. But, at Montpelier, it is usually a place made in the ground in some part of the house, proportionably big accordingly to the quantity they ordinarily make, and lined with plaster of Paris, to keep it from leaking. In the kuve (which is made use of but once a year) as well as all other parts of their making wine, they are, according to their manner, sufficiently nasty: the grapes often are also very rotten, and always full of spiders. Besides that, I have been told by those of the country, that they often put salt, dung, and other filthiness, in their wine, to help, as they think, its purging. But, without these additions, the very sight of their treading and making their wine (walking without any scruple out of the grapes into the dirt, and out of the dirt into grapes they are treading) were enough to set one's stomach ever after against this sort of liquor.

In some parts of Languedoc, out of the great roads, their wine is so cheap, that one may ordinarily buy three pints a penny.

It is usual to set fig-trees, pear-trees, &c. up and down in their vineyards, and sometimes I have seen olive-trees. Here at Montpelier, as in other parts of France, it is no discredit for any man to hang out a bush at his door, and sell his wine by retail, either to those that fetch it out of doors, or will come and drink it at his house; for which they usually, for that time, set apart a room or quarter of the house, and have a servant on purpose to attend it. This I have known both gentlemen and churchmen do. But whoever, in Languedoc, sells his own wine at his house, must not afford his customers so much as a bit of bread, or any thing else, to eat with it; for then it will come under the notion of a cabaret, or common drinking-house, and their tax or

VOL. X.

excise overtake them. I mention Languedoc, because in other parts of France they who sell their own wine by retail, are not excused from paying the king a part of what they sell it for. At Saumur, I remember I was told, they then sold their wine (which is a very good sort of white wine) at their bushons, i. e. private houses, for 18 deniers per pint, which is more than our quart; out of which 18d. the king had 10d. and the proprietor the remaining 8d.

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