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the vines at the Cape of Good Hope, are said to have been originally carried out from Burgundy, and none of the Cape wines have any resemblance to those of that province. Most of the wine drank at Madrid is made from stocks originally from the same country.[1]
History informs us, that vine plants, carried from Greece into Italy, produced no longer the same wine; and that the celebrated vines of Falernum, cultivated at the foot of Vesuvius, have changed their nature.
Warm climates, in favouring the production of saccharine matter, generally produce strong spirituous wines, sugar being necessary to the for-
- ↑ This sentence of Chaptal, of course implies, that the wines alluded to are unlike those of Burgundy. In a topographical account of vineyards, I find the following passage:— "The principal vineyards of New Castile, are in the southern provinces of La Mancha and Toledo. Their products are very considerable, and in general of a good quality; but the wines they make in the north are all dry, rough, and destitute of body and spirit. A great deal of the wines of La Mancha are sent to Madrid, where the inhabitants, in easy circumstances, use them as common wines, (vins d'ordinaire). They are less coloured, less strong, and, consequently, more delicate than the greater part of Spanish wines. The best are cultivated in the vicinity of Valdepennas, and it is affirmed, that they have an analogy to our good Burgundy wines, of which they unite almost all the qualities."
