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office, where I was introduced to the Flag-Lieutenant-a very kind-hearted old fellow, who saw that I was much fatigued, and said he knew my brother, and told me that if I would go over to the George Inn and get a good night's rest, he would have my brother there by nine o'clock the next morning. About that time I was handed into the presence of two Admirals, one resigning, Sir Roger Curtis, the other Sir Richard Bickerton, taking office. Neither of these important functionaries deigned to notice me. The Flag Lieutenant asked them if they had any commands for this gentleman, to which he received from each the curt answer "No," and he beckoned me to go out with him. He then told me that my brother had arrived, and on emerging from the Admiral's office, he discovered my brother,

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saying to him at the instant, "There, Jackson, that's what I've brought you."

My brother was greatly affected at this unexpected meeting. He had been summoned by the Flag-Lieutenant that morning to appear at the Admiral's office, without being informed for what purpose, and as he had made up his mind that something unpleasant was afloat, the deception was all the more powerful. He had considered me dead long since, as it turned out that Captain Fane, to whom I had entrusted a message for my surviving parent-my mother, had forgotten to deliver it.

I now lost no time in going home to join my mother, and here I reaped, in the embraces of a kind and rejoicing parent, a full reward for the toils and hardships of the last few painful years of my life.

BORDEAUX AND ITS WINES.

BY STEPHEN GWYNN.

THE wine trade of Bordeaux must be one of the oldest branches of Atlantic commerce. Greeks from Marseilles taught the people of what the Romans (later) called Aquitaine to grow grapes and make wine: but the Aquitanians invented the wine-cask to replace the brittle amphora. That was the idea of a seafaring people. The oldest records of these islands of ours come through the Gaelic, but they make no mention of a first importation of wine: as far back as there is any transmitted tradition, Scots and Irish were drinking claret. Bordeaux laments bitterly that both these nations are falling away from this good custom.

Still there are persons (and institutions) in both countries maintaining their interest in Bordeaux's merchandise; and it has long been my desirewhich this year at last I fulfilled to go and see these famous wines actually in the making.

In some ways the vintage of 1926 was a depressing occasion. No vineyard hoped to produce more than half its average yield, and many spoke of getting only a quarter. Also, it appears to be unusually hard to predict the development of what is vintaged after so long a drought. There is a possibility that the red wines may prove

harsh, and that the white wines may hold more sugar than the alcohol can absorb. On the other hand, there is the chance of wholly exceptional quality. I learnt one fact. After the vintage of 1921, another year of excessive sun, nobody would buy the output of Château Yquem, fearing, no doubt, that the excess of sugar would spoil the fermentation. Finally, one great merchant took the whole for 6000 francs a tonneau1500 francs a hogshead. He could have actually had it for less, but refused to, lest he should spoil the reputation of the famous vineyard. To-day, that wine of 1921 is about the highest priced wine in most lists; and its success has sent up the demand for Yquem of every and any year-and, to some extent, that for all similar wines.

One of the gentlemen to whom I was lucky enough to have an introduction told me that the taste and demand for sweet white wines are growing: and no one could be in a better position to judge. But it was also clear that the Bordeaux trade must desire this change; for if a demand for the best red wines increased, they could not meet it. In the war period, Bordeaux's cellars were drunk to an ebb. The presence of the Americans,

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than three years old: claret seldom stays longer in the cask than a third year. The oeremony of tasting is scientific, not convivial. The maître de chai (in Bordeaux a cellar is never called cave unless it is underground) produces a glass syringe, and, removing a bung from the top of a barrel kept for demonstration, draws out some of the wine and fills it carefully into tumblers : everything is meticulously, surgically, clean. From these tumblers you sip-and if you are wise, you do not swallow. Indeed, the raw red wines in them do not tempt you: the white do; but after drinking some of them I did not find myself the better of it. These were the very strong Sauternes growths, needing to mature.

whose main camps were near
Bordeaux, their port of de-
barcation, accounted for much:
they had large money to spend.
But the main fact was that
the French themselves, when
money became plenty, all had
the same idea; they drank
the wines they had always
wanted to drink. France has
a real feeling for excellence,
and they expressed it as thor-
oughly as they could. The
result was shown to me in one
great establishment. "There
are half a million bottles here,"
said the owner: "there used wise,
"there used
to be a million and a half
before the war." But the ex-
haustion of stocks in the older
vintages is far more complete
than this figure conveys. He
had gone to look for a parcel
of one wine of 1899 (a Brane
Cantenac), and came to the
conclusion that all the mer-
chants of Bordeaux together
could not produce more than
fifteen or twenty dozens of it.

In short, if the world wants really good red wine from Bordeaux in profusion, the world must wait. Quantities of it have been made in a series of good years from 1914 on, but it is not mature. White wine comes much quicker to its prime; Yquem (or any of its neighbours) of 1925 was already delicious to taste out of the cask; Haut Brion or Lafite even of 1923 were quite unpalatable.

What we tasted-for every vintage time brings visitors to Bordeaux, and I went round with parties-was never more

What I set down here is offered in all humility: having just discovered elementary facts about the distribution of Bordeaux wines, I think they may be of interest to other winelovers who are not versed in the subject. Briefly then, all the great wines are grown along the left bank of the Garonne-which a few miles below Bordeaux becomes the Gironde, where the Dordogne joins it. There is one exception. St Emilion is on the north bank of the Dordogne, and therefore is divided from the other districts by two broad tideways and from fifteen to fifty miles of land. This was the first wine district I visited, and, going there without guidance, I entered no vineyards; my object

was to see the little old town, which grew up about a hermitage hewn in the rock some eleven hundred years ago. Few places even in France have more varied interest; but what concerns me here is the grand ordinaire of its restaurantwhere I realised for the first time that a particular type of Bordeaux wine, quite unlike the rest, is St Emilion: also, that I was for the first time drinking it in matured perfection. It cost nine francs, and was very good but it was like a Burgundy. They call it in They call it in Bordeaux "le Bourgogne du Bordelais.' Certain growths of the St Emilion district, though so small in quantity that no wine merchant troubles to make them known abroad, fetch a higher price almost than Lafite or Margaux. Chief of these is Château Ausone, which commemorates the Latin poet Ausonius, a Gaul from Bordeaux, who praised the wines of his district in fine hexameters about A.D.

300.

Another is called Cheval Blanc, and while I was in Bordeaux the yield of this little vineyard was eagerly bid for at auction before the grapes were in the press.

It is not unnatural that this wine should be unlike the others of Bordeaux: for on the right or northern bank of the rivers there are steep coteaux, while the left bank rises very gently from the water to an undulating plain. The wines of St Emilion grow on steep slopes; and presumably these

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The districts on the left bank are not continuous, and there are three of them: one, the Médoc, yielding red wines one, Sauternes and Barsac, yielding white; and one, Graves, yielding both. This district is the nearest to Bordeaux.

To all English people, Graves stands for a light white wine; but in Bordeaux it is valued rather for the red which it produces-and which includes one of the four "first growths." A recent correspondence has made many aware that Haut Brion is grown on the outskirts of Bordeaux, and that the town is invading this famous estate-to which I was first taken. Happily, the vineyards are intact, though suburban villas are springing up about them. There are two properties

one, La Mission Haut Brion, formerly owned by some religious order: the other, the Château Haut Brion itself. Only a road with walls on each side divides the two; the exposure of the ground is the same in both; but it is the wine of Château Haut Brion

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Another fact was new to me. Every vineyard is planted with different kinds of vines, which vary as, for example, apples do. One sort of grape gives more colour, another abundance, and so on: the vine-growers' art consists in suiting the distribution of kinds to the particular ground. Those who say that the official classification of Bordeaux wines made in 1855 is not quite trustworthy (though it is still officially recognised) will tell you that when the phylloxera forced a general replanting, the old distribution was not always maintained: changes were made, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

I cleared up my mind on one point, which may be unclear to inexperienced readers of wine lists. Haut Brion, for instance, is an estate: there is no village or commune of that name. What is sold as Haut Brion must be either Château Haut Brion or La Mission Haut Brion. Each, in its wider classification, is a Graves: as is also another famous red wine, Pape Clément, grown in what was once the vineyard of Bertrand de Got, Archbishop

of Bordeaux, who, as Clement V., transferred the Papal seat to Avignon. On the other hand, Margaux is a commune of the Médoc, and any wine made in the commune is entitled to be sold as Margauxand will probably be very good. But the "first growth" is Château Margaux. The other two "first growths," La Tour and Lafite, escape this confusion: they are the names of estates in the commune of Pauillac. Château La Tour is a Pauillac, as Château Margaux is a Margaux: and both are wines of Médoc.

Médoc is the triangle of low land enclosed between the Gironde, as it runs north-west from Bordeaux, and the Atlantic, which here makes a coast-line straight north to south. A line from Bordeaux to the Bay of Arcachon is the base of the triangle. Most of this big territory-for the sea and river sides are nearly 100 kilometres long-consists of landes; and as we motored out, having the Gironde half a mile on our right, we passed through outlying bits of these vast heaths and pinewoods before we came to Margaux and its tract of fertile yet gravelly soil. Next -fifteen kilometres on-came St Julien, a commune which has no "first growth" but several " seconds," which run the others hard-the three Léovilles, the two Laroses in particular. A little farther on is Pauillac, and beyond that again St Estèphe-furthest out of the four main divisions of

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