have no doubt, but an analytic review of Beauvilliers' wine cellar, will be as instructing and interesting as any review whatever which your magazine can furnish. I have added a few notes which I presume to think, will not be out of place.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

A CONSTANT READER.

Choice of wines.-In choosing wine, examine it well, immediately from the cask which is offered you. It should be perfectly clear;* if red, of a bright ruby colour; and smell like a nosegay. Taste it, to ascertain if it be free from any earthy taste-not sweet-lively without being tartt-full without being hard-but dry. These are the qualities of good wine. If it have these, you may buy; all that relates to flavour depends on delicacy of taste, and an experienced palate.

Wine is not good, till it has acquired maturity in the cask, and lost part of its watery substance. New wine ferments in the stomach, and affects the head: if it be too old, it loses its liveliness and flavour, and affects the nerves. The maturity of wine, does not depend entirely on the years of its age. Wines of some vintages will be ripe in two or three, others not till four or five years old. This depends partly on its age, and partly on the circumstances of its growth; which should be inquired into; for the taste alone cannot decide exactly when wine is fit for use.

Of the wines of France. Of the French wines, which are every where held in great estimation, those of Burgundy are the best: at least if we may judge from the coincidence of taste among connoisseurs, who prefer them to the other wines of France, for odour, flavour, fineness, and facility of digestion. In upper Burgundy, every vineyard has its peculiar character and name. Those of Auxerre and Tonnere, are justly prized. If I were to dwell upon each of them, I should exceed my limits; I speak, therefore, now, of the principal kinds.

The wine of Beaure, enjoys the first reputation. It is of a bright ruby colour; it has all the good qualities that wine should have. It bears mixing with water‡ well. It keeps longer also without alteration than most others. But this wine is at its best usually at four or five years old.

Next to Beaure wine, come those of Pomard, Volnay, Nuit, Chassagne, St. Georges, Vonne, Chambutin, Clos Vougeot, and la Romanée. Perhaps la Romanèe-Conty, is the best of the Burgundy red wines. Of the white wines of that district, le Morachet

* Wine merchants do not trust to a glass: they have a well polished widemouthed silver cup, not plain but figured at the bottom, to reflect the light through the wine, more distinctly.

† Judge Cooper's recommendation of litmus paper as a test of pricked wines, deserves notice: all wines are acid to a certain degree: those are wholesomest which are least so. The morning head-ach is owing to the acid of tartar.

The French drink this wine, or wine and water, as a beverage at dinner. This is seldom the practice of an English table, where the beverage is malt liquor; or at an American table, where it is usually brandy and water.

is the finest; then comes the wine of Meursault; then the wine of Chablais. Burgundy does not produce many white wines.

Next to the wines of Burgundy, are those of Champagne; so well known as to render it unnecessary for me to dwell upon them. At all grand entertainments, Champagne wine is indispensable; its known quality is to produce gayety, and to enliven the spirits. Throughout Champagne, the grapes cultivated are black, although the wine be white, or slightly tinged with red (oeil de perdrix.) The red wines of Champagne are lightly esteemed, except those from Bouzy, Verzai, or Vergenai. They are somewhat fiery in the mouth, though light and of a pleasant odour. Champagne is aperitive; it intoxicates easily; but will not bear water.* The most esteemed vineyards of Champagne, are those in the neighbourhood of Rheims, such as Ay, Silleri, and Espernay. These white wines keep best, when made of black grapes. Before the late method of making Champagne wine, it was rare that it would keep more than three years before it became sick. In fact, few wines are so liable to disorder and to spoil, as Champagne. When they are so, they become muddy, they let fall a sediment, and a kind of filament, or threads are seen in the liquor, which are unpleasant to the eye. Hence, you should not lay in a large stock of Champagne, even though the price should be reasonable, and the vintage good; for the accidents to which it is liable, may make it come ultimately at a high price.

Bourdeaux wines. (Claret.)-These also are reckoned among the best wines of France. They may be classed thus:

1st. The principal vineyards for the red wines of Bourdeaux, are Lafitte-du-Chateau; La Tour; Chateau Margau; Aubrion du Chateau; Premier Grave; and Segur Medoc.

2d class. Mouton-Canon; Medoc-Canon; Saint Emilion, (or Emelien;) Rosans; Margau; la rose Medoc; Pichon-Longueville; Medoc-Potelet; St. Julien-les-Ville; St. Julien; Vin du Pape, (red Grave wine); Vin de la Mission, (red Grave wine also); and all the wine of upper, Pevac; all these are equally delicious.

3d class. These wines, as commonly classed, may serve at entertainments for the second course of wine. All the numerous wines of Pouillac, are of good quality; those of Mess. de Gescourt, and St. Esteve-Catenac are much esteemed; so indeed are many others, too numerous to particularize. I shall only observe to purchasers of these wines, that they may expect them all to be sick in the bottle, after having been bottled about two months. † In this state, they will seem far inferior to cask wine; but about four months more brings them round. All these wines require to be bottled, to bring them to perfection.

* Champagne is too cold a climate to produce a good wine. Dr. Clark is right about it, when, in his Travels, he says, it is seldom made of ripe grapes, and is doctored with sugar, to supply the deficient perfection of the fruit.

† Wine changes in proportion to the quantity of air included between the cork and the wine: so says the editor of the Emporium.

White wines of Bourdeaux.-Those of upper Barsac (Haut Barsac et le haut Perpignac) and upper Perpignac are of the first quality. After these comes Santerne. The wines of Barsac, Lanjon, Carbonieux, and Podecilac, are of the second order.

The wines of Languedoc, Hermitage and Cota Rota* of Dauphiny and Provence. The wine of l'Ermitage is red, bright, wellflavoured, and of excellent odour; it is well known. They require time, several years, to ripen; but when arrived at maturity they are delicious.

The white wines of these districts are more heady, and bear upon a yellow tint. Those of Rousillon are stronger, and fuller. They require considerable time to ripen. They must settle perfectly, and require for this, frequent racking. When clear, they will keep thirty years or more, and then assume the flavour of Alicant wine. They must be filtered for use, for they afford a sediment in the bottle; that is, the red wines do so; the white, do not.

The wines of Languedoc are very good; the ladies like them; particularly the Muscat wine of Frontignan. It is both white and red. It is a clammy luscious wine, and intoxicates easily: a glass of this wine is good with sweetmeats and preserves, but not to drink in larger quantity.

After this, come the white and red Lunel, which in some years are equal to the Frontignan (Frontiniac generally, but improperly so called.) The white wine of Jurancon in le Bearn, lower Pyrenees, is excellent. It has the peculiarity of reminding one, by its flavour and by its odour, of Trufles. These wines keep many years.

The wines of Provence are good, but the red are too luscious (liquereux.) The white wines are Muscats for the most part. The most esteemed are those of Gemenos, called wine of Toulon, of la Marque, of Barbautan; with many others too numerous to recount. They are drank at the desert.

The wines of Tavelle, are heady, but very good. Those of Cote Rotie, Saint Peyret, Condrieux, are much esteemed: and formerly no others were served between the courses. At present, the Bourdeaux wine has occupied their place at Paris.

I have not room to mention all the good vineyards of France. Those I have already noticed, are of the first estimation.

After the French, I proceed to speak of other wines. Those of the United Provinces, such as de Barre; de la Moselle, du Rhin.*

Cote Rotie; commonly, but improperly, spelt Cota Rota, as if it were an Italian wine.

* All these are thin, meagre, acidulous, pleasant wines: good to wash the mouth with after soup. Apt to produce heart-burn; unfit for gouty people: even old Hock, is an inferior wine. They are the produce of cold countries: inferior to fine cider or perry.

The wine of Barre, is red; pleasant; but not a superior wine. It is wholesome, easy of digestion; but does not bear transportation; hence its use is chiefly confined to the vicinity of its growth. Moselle wine is white, light, aperient, pleasant.-(acid, gouty.) Rhine wine, from the mountains bordering that river, is much the same,

Not to hurry the reader too far away from one country to another, I proceed to the wines of Hungary.

The wine of St. Georges, is usually sold as Tokai. It approaches Tokai, but connoisseurs can well distinguish the one from the other. It sells very high here (Paris.) At St. Georges there are two kinds: one of these kinds is destined exclusively to the manufacture of the wine of Wermouth, by means of an extract of wormwood, as I shall notice presently; this extract communicates the bitter taste and stomachic quality for which that wine is noted. When wine of Wermouth is manufactured out of wine of St. Georges, or Tokai, a small quantity of good extract of wormwood is added to each bottle, which is then well shaken. Such is the method of making the wine of Wermouth; for there is no vineyard of that name, nor any natural wine of that flavour and quality. Tokai, is well known by name, but few persons know it by experience. It is in truth a very fine wine, but it is not sold. The emperor of Austria owns the soil on which it is made. Her imperial majesty, has made a present to the emperor of Russia of a small part of the district wherein the Tokai grape grows; so that those two sovereigns are the sole proprietors of the spot. But presents are made to other courts of a few casks, and also to some accredited ambassadors, so that very little remains for sale: nor indeed is any of it sold, unless at the sales of the effects of persons of this description on their removal or decease. But rich as this wine is, it has its defects; for it does not well bear the fermentative process; and it is spoiled in a few days if the bottles be not filled nearly or quite full: so much so, as that you can hardly recognize it for the same wine. I understand this is not the case with the wine from grapes grown on the summit of the mountain. I can communicate no further particulars of this wine.

Of the Greek wines, that of Cyprus is in most esteem. It keeps for half a century or more. This wine has always been in request among the Apicii of modern times. It is very pleasant, but expensive; often adulterated; when pure, it is balsamic and wholesome. It has a borrachio flavour, from the leathern vessels in which it is kept. Most people would dispense with this superadded flavour if they could; but it is a mark of the genuine wine. After Cyprus comes the wine of Stancon. It is more of a liqueur than that of Cyprus, and the bouquet (odour) of it, is very agreeable. There is another wine, the produce also of the island of Cyprus, the wine of Chio, which passes for nectar. The ancients sought it as ambrosia, the wine of the gods. Little of it comes to France: not more than a few small bottles of it, brought

by admirals and captains of marine, who have occasion to stop there for refreshment. There is also a Malmsey of the isle of Cyprus; musky and much esteemed. This is often sold as the wine of Syracuse. The wine of the island of Madeira, is well known and greatly esteemed in France, and with good reason: but it should be dry, with a very slight bitter, a pleasant odour, and a slight taste of pitch from the skins in which it is transported. The Malmsey-Madeira, is a delicious wine,* greatly esteemed by connoisseurs, and is very wholesome.

Of the Spanish wines the best, and the best known, are those of Malaga; whereof there are several kinds. They should be chosen, oily, full in the mouth, not clammy or ropy, and of a deep gold colour. There is a red Malaga, which is excellent, of a fine colour, and which keeps well. The wines of Malaga, are much esteemed in Europe; in France they are used at the desert; and are given to sick persons, and to convalescents to repair their strength; but care must be taken not to use them in excess.

As to Port wine, I need only say that to deserve the commendations given to it, it should be very old. The inhabitants of Great Britain consume much of it: there is a red and a white Port, but the latter is not common.†

Among the Spanish wines those of Alicant are distinguished; they are of good quality, but not so pleasant; they are too thick and heavy, of a deep red approaching to black when new. They must be frequently racked, and long kept. When bottled, however clear they are when put in, they always deposit a sediment: hence they require to be filtered when a bottle is drawn. As they grow old, their quality is improved, and their colour becomes lighter; in this state, they are pleasant and nourishing; they are restorative also, where debility has been induced by sickness or fatigue, or any circumstance that has brought on too much waste of strength. They are also stomachic; but they must be used in moderation, for they are very heady.

The Rota wine has the same qualities.

The wine of Zeres (Sherry) is white, dry, slightly bitter, and is one of the best of the Spanish wines. It is a desert wine.

The Malmsey of the Canarys (Malvoisie) is preferred by all real connoisseurs, because it is light and keeps well. This is a boiled wine, made from a Muscat grape. It is stomachic in general, but bilious persons are forbidden to drink it.

* In France, where a glass or two only of these wines are drank at dinner, or at the desert, they may deserve the commendations here given: but they will not do to be used, as the English and Americans use wine.

White Port is very common in London. It is a meagre inferior wine. Sherry when old and dry, is the very best of all the wines, if you confine yourself to half a pint. It is less acidulous than Madeira. Of Sherry the Padre Ximenes is said to be the best. Full bodied wines are never drank in. France, but at the middle course of a dinner, or at the desert. They are drank as a kind of liqueur.