A treatise on the origin, nature, and varieties of wine : being a complete manual of viticulture and œnology / y J.L.W. Thudichum and August Dupré.

  • Thudichum, J. L. W. (John Louis William), 1829-1901
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the origin, nature, and varieties of wine : being a complete manual of viticulture and œnology / y J.L.W. Thudichum and August Dupré. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    E UROPE A N CO UN TRIES. he further argues that they have probably preserved these same characters through an inconceivable series of centuries during which countless generations have been propagated by seed. He describes how, in the lower parts of the district, where there are sources of sweet water not far from the sur- face of the earth, the wild vine forms impenetrable thickets, grottoes, covered walks, winding footpaths, walls, arches, pillars, and by means of other plants, particularly trees, other original shapes, which it is impossible to describe. He states that it cannot be proved by any document that a vine has ever been planted in this neighbourhood in former times. What he says about the improbability of the Arabs having brought the vine thither is perhaps irrelevant, as he bases his argument upon the fact of wine having been for- bidden to them by their religion. They might have culti- vated it for the sake of the grapes and raisins. But the strongest argument in favour of his opinion is the small resem- blance which these wild species of Algaida vines have to the cultivated varieties of the south of Spain. He thereby eli- minates the idea that the first seed of these plants had been carried to these marshes from neighbouring vineyards, within a period not far distant from the time when he (Clemente) wrote, by the agency of men, or animals, or other means. In Ijrovence, Languedoc, and Guyenne there grow many wild vines on hedges, in jungles, or in woods and forests. According to Duhamel,1 they differ from the culti- vated varieties by their leaves being in general smaller, and more cottony on the surface, and particularly by their fruit being much smaller, and of a less soft and sugary taste. These wild vines, to which the ancients had given the name of “ labrusca,” are yet known in the present day in the south of France, under the name of “Lambrusco” and “Lambresquiero.” In the forests which border the marshy shores of the Rhine, between Mannheim and Rastadt, there grow many thousands of wild vines, which, as far as they had been observed at all, were, like the Vitis sylvestris of Gmelin, declared by botanists 1 Duhamel tie Monceau, Traite des Arbres fruitiers, p. 212.