A northern exposure has always been considered the most unfavourable, as the vine, from being most exposed to cold and moist winds, is most subject to injury from frosts and fogs, and the grape seldom attains its maturity where it enjoys, in a small degree, the rays of the sun.
A western exposure is little favourable for the vine. The heat of the day has already dried up all moisture from the soil, when the evening sun, darting his oblique rays under the foliage, scorches and withers the fruit, stopping its vegetation before it has attained its full growth, and inducing a premature ripeness. It is the more unfavourable, that the grape, dried and heated by the last rays of the sun, passes suddenly to a temperature cold and moist; and, that the juices dilated by the heat, and spread through the whole plant, are there fixed, coagulated, and frequently frozen instantaneously.
In Champagne, there is a difference of value, of
possesses at his rising, the same power as in wine countries; consequently, the change from cold to heat is not so sudden. While the temperature of the atmosphere, which, in wine countries, is high enough to melt the frost, and gradually dilate the vessels contracted by it, after the sun rises, though his direct rays are excluded, is too low to have the same effect in England, and hence the injury sustained by the increased strength of his rays.—
