At Coblenz, the capital of Rhenish Prussia, and one of the strongest fortresses in the world, the so-called blue Moselle mingles its waters with those of the Rhine, and hence the original Roman name of Confluentia. With so favourable a situation it is not surprising that the city should be the abode of several important firms trading in the wines of the two rivers. At the head of these is the well-known house of Deinhard and Co., dealing extensively both in the magnificent still vintages of the Rheingau and the Moselle, and the higher-cla.s.s sparkling wines of these districts. In the resident partner, Herr Julius Wegeler, I was pleased to meet again my courteous colleague of the Wine Jury of the Vienna Exhibition, and accompanied by him I went over their establishment on the Clemens Platz--one of the most perfect and admirably appointed in Germany. The firm was founded in 1798 by Herr F. Deinhard, who in 1806, when Coblenz was in the hands of the French, secured a ninety-nine years" lease of some cellars under an old convent at the low rental of 30 francs per annum, and to-day this curious doc.u.ment exists amongst the archives of the firm. Rents of wine-cellars were low enough in those days of uncertainty and peril, when commerce was at a standstill and Europe gazed panic-stricken on the course of warlike events; nevertheless, for such a trifle as 30 francs a year of course no very extensive entrepot could have been rented. To-day Messrs.
Deinhard"s new cellars on the Clemens Platz alone cover an area of nearly 43,000 square feet, besides which they have several other vaults stored with wine in various quarters of the city, the whole giving employment to upwards of eighty workmen and a score of coopers. Their Clemens Platz establishment was only completed in the autumn of 1875, when it was formally inaugurated in presence of the Empress Augusta, who left behind her the following graceful memento of her visit:--
"In grateful attachment to Coblenz, in full appreciation of a work which does honour to the town and to the firm, I wish continued prosperity to both.
AUGUSTA,
"German Empress and Queen of Prussia."
[Ill.u.s.tration: MESSRS. DEINHARD & CO."S NEW ESTABLISHMENT AT COBLENZ. (p. 178)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: MESSRS. DEINHARD & CO."S NEW CELLARS AT COBLENZ. (p. 179.)]
The proximity of the establishment to the Rhine did not allow of the cellars being excavated to a greater depth than 30 feet below the surface--a mere trifle when compared with the depth of many vaults in the Champagne. Any lower excavation, however, would have been attended with danger, and as it is, when the Rhine rose to an unusual height in March, 1876, the water percolated through the soil and inundated the lower cellars to a height of 5 feet. Above these vaults is a corresponding range of buildings of picturesque design and substantial construction, divided like the cellars into three aisles, each 210 feet in length and 23 feet broad. One of the arches of the facade looking on to the courtyard is decorated with a graceful and characteristic bas-relief, an engraving of which is subjoined.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The cellars, containing 1,400 stucks, as they are termed, of still wines--the stuck being equal to 1,500 bottles--present a striking appearance with their long vistas of vaulted arcades, admirably built of brick, and illuminated by innumerable gas jets, aided by powerful reflectors at the extremities of the three aisles. The capacious elliptical-headed casks, ranged side by side in uninterrupted sequence, contain the choicest German vintages, including the grand wines of the Rheingau--Johannisberger, Steinberger, Rudesheimer, Rauenthaler, and the like; the red growths of a.s.smannshausen and Walporzheim; Deidesheimers, with rare bouquets and of tender tonical flavour; Liebfrauenmilch, of flowery perfume; the finest Moselles from Josefshof and Scharzhofberg, Brauneberg and Berncastel, with other growths too numerous to mention, of grand years, and from the best situations.
The sparkling wines stored in separate vaults form to-day an important item in Messrs. Deinhard"s business. In 1843 the firm made their first cuvee, consisting of less than 10,000 bottles. Four years later their cuvee amounted to over 50,000 bottles. A falling off was shown during the revolutionary epoch, and business only recovered its normal condition in 1851, since which time it has gradually increased as the wines have grown in favour, until in 1875 the tirage of 1874 vintage wines exceeded half a million bottles.
Messrs. Deinhard draw their supplies of wine from white grapes, for conversion into sparkling wines, from the Rhine, the Main, the Moselle, and the Palatinate, giving preference to the produce of the riesling grape, as to this the wine is indebted for its natural bouquet. The proportion of wine from black grapes, mingled with the other wines, is vintaged by themselves in the Ahr valley and at Ingelheim on the Rhine.
The Ahr, in summer a rippling streamlet and in winter a rushing torrent, falls into the Rhine about twenty miles below Coblenz. The soil of the neighbouring hills seems peculiarly adapted for the growth of black grapes, one of the best of German red wines being produced in the vineyards adjacent to the village of Walporzheim. In order that the wine may be as pale as possible, the black grapes are pressed as soon after gathering as they can be, and only the juice resulting from the first pressure is reserved, the subsequently extracted must being sold to the small growers of the neighbourhood. The newly-made wine is brought in casks to Coblenz, and rests for eight weeks while completing its fermentation. It is then racked into stucks and double stucks, and is blended in casks of the latter capacity during the early part of the following year, great care being taken to preserve the bouquet of the white grapes, with which view, contrary to the practice followed in the Champagne, only a moderate proportion of wine from black grapes enters into the blend.
[Ill.u.s.tration: VINEYARDS IN THE AHR VALLEY.]
Next comes the fining, and four weeks afterwards the wine is newly racked. The bottling takes place during May or June, when any deficiency of natural saccharine in the wine is supplied by the addition of pure sugar-candy. At Messrs. Deinhard"s the wine is bottled at a temperature of 72 Fahr., and the bottles remain resting on large stone tables until the fermentation is completed, and the saccharine is converted into alcohol and carbonic acid gas. This result is commonly obtained in ordinary hot weather in eight days" time, most of the breakage taking place during this interval. If on being tested with a manometer the wine should indicate too high a pressure, it is at once removed to a cool cellar, consequently the average total breakage rarely exceeds 2 per cent. The wine is now left quiet for at least a year, and if possible for two years, after which the bottles are placed on stands in the customary inverted position, and shaken daily for a period of six weeks, in order to dislodge the sediment and force it against the cork. German workmen are far less expert at this operation than their fellows in the Champagne, as few of the former can manage more than their four-and-twenty thousand bottles per diem. The disgorgement and liqueuring of the wine is accomplished at Messrs. Deinhard"s and other German establishments in precisely the same fashion as is followed in the Champagne.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE BRIDGE AT RECH, AHR VALLEY.]
The dry sparkling hocks we tasted here had the real riesling flavour and the fine natural perfume common to this grape. In preparing them no attempt had been made to imitate champagne; but, on the other hand, every care had been taken to preserve the true hock character with its distinguishing freshness of taste combined with a lightness which wines containing liqueur in excess could never have exhibited. The sparkling moselles, too, depended not on any imparted muscatel flavour and perfume, but on their own natural bouquet and the flavour they derive from the schistous soil in which these wines are grown.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LIEBENSTEIN AND STERRENBERG.]
XVII.--THE SPARKLING WINES OF GERMANY (_continued_).
From Coblenz to Rudesheim-- Ewald and Co."s Establishment and its Pleasant Situation-- Their Fine Vaulted Cellars and Convenient Accessories-- Their Supplies of Wine drawn from the most favoured Localities-- The Celebrated Vineyards of the Rheingau-- Eltville and the extensive Establishment of Matheus Muller-- His Vast Stocks of Still and Sparkling German Wines-- The Vineyards laid under contribution for the latter-- M. Muller"s Sparkling Johannisberger, Champagne, and Red Sparkling a.s.smannshauser-- The Site of Gutenberg"s Birthplace at Mayence occupied by the Offices and Wine-cellars of Lauteren Sohn-- The Sparkling Wine Establishment of the Firm, and their Fine Collection of Hocks and Moselles-- The Hochheim Sparkling Wine a.s.sociation-- Foundation of the Establishment-- Its Superior Sparkling Hocks and Moselles-- The Sparkling Wine Establishments of Stock and Sons at Creuznach in the Nahe Valley, of Kessler and Co. at Esslingen, on the Neckar, and of M. Oppmann at Wurzburg-- The Historic Cellars of the King of Bavaria beneath the Residenz-- The Establishment of F. A. Siligmuller.
[Ill.u.s.tration: STOLZENFELS.]
Ascending the Rhine from Coblenz--past many an ancient ruined castle, past restored Stolzenfels, the historic Konigs-stuhl, the romantic Liebenstein and Sterrenberg, the legendary Lurlei, the tribute-exacting Pfalz, and the old town of Bacharach, famous in the Middle Ages for its wine mart--we eventually come to Lorch, where the Wisper brook flows into the Rhine, and the grand wine-producing district known as the Rheingau begins. A few miles higher up are the vineyards of a.s.smannshausen, dominated by the Niederwald, and yielding the finest red wine in all Germany. Then pa.s.sing by Bishop Hatto"s legendary tower we emerge from the gorge of the Rhine and soon reach Rudesheim, crouched at the foot of lofty terraced vineyards, which, according to doubtful tradition, were planted with Burgundy and Orleans vines by Charlemagne.
Rudesheim, like other antiquated little Rhine-side towns, boasts its ancient castle with its own poetical legend, while many modern houses have sprung up there of late years, and signs of further development are apparent on all sides. In the outskirts of the town there are a couple of sparkling wine establishments, the one nigh the railway station on the western side belonging to Messrs. Dietrich and Co., while eastwards on a picturesque slope overlooking the Rhine, and in the midst of extensive pleasure-grounds, is the establishment of Messrs. Ewald and Co., who date from the year 1858, and rank to-day amongst the leading shippers of sparkling hocks and moselles to England.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MESSRS. EWALD & CO."S ESTABLISHMENT AT RuDESHEIM. (p. 185)]
Here are handsome and capacious buildings aboveground, and two floors of cellars comprising five vaults, each 160 feet in length and 30 feet broad. The lower vaults, 40 feet from the surface, are arched over and walled with stone, while the upper ones are faced with brick, both being floored with concrete and slanting towards the centre to allow of the wine from bottles that have burst running off. Each range of cellars is separately ventilated by shafts, generally kept open in winter and closed in the summer so as to maintain a temperature not exceeding 47 Fahr. in the lower cellars and under 52 in those above. Moreover, with the view of conducing to this result the cellars have an ice well communicating with them.
Late in the spring, when the newly-bottled wine indicates a sufficient number of atmospheres to insure a satisfactory effervescence, it is deposited in the lower vaults, the upper ones being devoted to reserve wines in wood and wines awaiting the process of disgorgement, or undergoing their daily shaking in order to force the deposit against the cork. Aboveground there are rooms for storing the liqueur, the corks, and the packing-cases, and in a s.p.a.cious apartment, provided with three lifts for communicating with the cellars beneath, the wine is blended and bottled, and in due time disgorged and packed. In very warm weather, however, it is found preferable for the disgorging and its attendant operations to be performed in the cooler temperature of the cellars.
Messrs. Ewald formerly tested the strength of their bottles with a manometer before using them, but for some time past they have given up the practice, feeling convinced that it was productive of more harm than good. Gla.s.s is an amorphous and unelastic substance which, although it will stand a high pressure once, often succ.u.mbs when put to a second test by the action of the fermenting wine. The firm calculate their annual breakage at from 2 to 3 per cent.
Messrs. Ewald being installed almost in the heart or the Rheingau can readily draw their supplies of wine from the most favoured localities.
Johannisberg is within a few miles of Rudesheim, and in those years when, owing to the grapes not having thoroughly ripened, the wine is only of intermediate value as a still wine, it serves admirably for conversion into sparkling wine, retaining as it does its powerful bouquet. Ingelheim, too, noted for its vineyards of black grapes, whose produce is much sought after for blending with the finer sparkling Rhine wines, is only a few miles higher up the river, on the opposite bank.
The drier varieties of sparkling hocks and moselles shipped by Messrs.
Ewald to England have the merit of retaining all the fine flavour and natural perfume of the higher-cla.s.s growths from which, as a rule, these wines are prepared.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MATHEUS MuLLER AT ELTVILLE. (p. 186)]
Above Rudesheim the waters of the Rhine expand, the left bank of the river, if still lofty, is no longer precipitous, while the right continues almost flat so soon as the Rochusberg is left behind. Between here and Eltville all the more celebrated vineyards of the Rheingau are pa.s.sed in rapid succession--Geisenheim-Rothenberg, Johannisberg, Steinberg, Marcobrunn, Kiedrich-Grafenberg, Rauenthal, and others. At Eltville--the former capital of the Rheingau, and where Gunther, of Schwarzburg, resigned his crown to Charles IV., and died poisoned, it is said, by his successful rival--we find one of the most extensive wine establishments in Germany, that of Matheus Muller, who enjoys a high reputation in England both for his still and sparkling hocks and moselles. His stock ordinarily consists of from 800 to 1,000 stuck--equivalent to a quarter of a million gallons--of still Rhine and Moselle wines, much of it of the best years, and from vineyards of repute, together with nearly a million bottles of sparkling wines stored in his cellars at Eltville and on the road to Erbach, the aggregate length of which is some 3,400 feet. The sparkling wines repose in long cool vaulted galleries similar to many cellars in the Champagne, while the still wines are stored in capacious subterranean halls each 100 yards in length.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
For his higher-cla.s.s sparkling hocks Herr Muller derives his princ.i.p.al supplies from the Rheingau, partly from his own vineyards at Eltville, Rauenthal, and Hattenheim, and partly by purchases at Erbach, Hallgarten, strich, Winkel, Johannisberg, Geisenheim, and Rudesheim; while for his best sparkling moselles, Berncastel, Graach, Treves, and the Saar districts are laid under contribution. The Palatinate growths of Durkheim, Deidesheim, Mussbach, Haardt, Rhodt, &c., serve as the basis for the medium and cheaper sparkling hocks, and for sparkling moselles of a corresponding character such wines as Zeltinger, Rachtiger, Erdener, Aldegonder, Winninger, &c., are used. Ingelheim and Heidesheim furnish the wine from black grapes necessary in a subordinate degree to all sparkling hocks, and very freely had recourse to when it is desired to impart a champagne character to the wine, as is commonly the case when this is intended for consumption in Germany. Herr Muller invariably presses the black grapes himself, in order that the wine may be as light in colour as possible. As the house annually lays down large stocks of _vin brut_ it is under no necessity of drawing upon them until they have attained the requisite maturity and developed all their finer qualities.
The dry sparkling hocks and moselles, such as are shipped by Herr Muller to England and its colonies, receive a large addition of liqueur when destined for the Russian market. His sparkling Johannisberger and high-cla.s.s sparkling moselle from Rheingau and Moselle wines of superior vintages are of delicate flavour and great softness, and are frequently shipped without any liqueur whatever. Besides Moussirender Rheinwein of a champagne character, and largely consumed in Germany and Belgium, Herr Muller makes a veritable champagne from wine imported by him from the Champagne district. His shipments also include red sparkling a.s.smannshauser--the result of a blend of a.s.smannshauser, Ingelheimer, and other red Rhenish wines--aromatic and full-bodied, and dry or moderately sweet according to the country to which it is intended to be exported.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE TO LAUTEREN SOHN"S ESTABLISHMENT, MAYENCE. (p. 188)]
The trade in German sparkling wines has numerous representatives at Mayence--the sec of St. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, and the birthplace of Gutenberg, whose fame is universal. The pioneer of printing was born in a house at the corner of the Emmerans and Pfandhaus ga.s.se, the site of which is to-day occupied by the residence of three members of the firm of C. Lauteren Sohn, established at Mayence so far back as 1794, and one of the first in Germany to devote itself to the manufacture of sparkling wines. In 1830 the firm profited by an offer made to them by a cellarman who had been for many years in the service of Madame Clicquot at Reims. The Emmerans-ga.s.se, where the chief establishment of the firm is situated, is in the older quarter of Mayence--in the midst of a network of intricate winding streets bordered by picturesque tall gabled houses and edifices of the Spanish type where ornamental oriel windows with quaint supports, medallions, and bas-reliefs of varied design continually catch the eye, and saints look down upon one from almost every corner. Pa.s.sing under the gateway of the house where Gutenberg was born, and in the rear of which Lauteren Sohn have their offices, cooperage, and cellars for still wines, we notice on our left hand a tablet commemorating the birth of the inventor of printing in these terms:--
"Gensfleisch House. Family residence of the inventor of the art of printing, John Gensfleisch of Gutenberg, who in the year 1398 was here born. Christian Lauteren has dedicated on the site of the ancient house this memorial to the immortal inventor, Jan. 29, 1825."
Messrs. Lauteren"s cellars for sparkling wines extend mainly under an old monastery, and comprise a succession of large vaulted galleries connected by narrow pa.s.sages with arched entrances. Here are stacked some 800,000 bottles of wine in varying conditions of maturity. Messrs.
Lauteren bottle their wines in August, instead of fully two months earlier according to the usual practice, in the belief that the system they pursue is more conducive to perfect effervescence, besides being attended with less breakage, owing to the newly-bottled wine escaping the heat of the summer. All the arrangements at this establishment are very complete. There is a place for everything, and everything is to be found in its place. Adjoining the courtyard, where new bottles are stacked beneath open ornamental sheds, are the tasting-room and the apartment where the operations of disgorging, dosing, and re-corking are performed. The liqueur added by the firm to their sparkling wines is kept in bottle from three to five years before being used. In the tasting-room we were shown a variety of sparkling hocks and moselles, the former with all the distinguishing characteristics of fine Rhine wine, the older samples having gained considerably in softness. A dry Cabinet specimen submitted to us exhibited a fine bouquet and much delicacy of flavour. The moselles we found particularly interesting, made as they were of genuine wines from some of the best vineyards of the Moselle district.
The largest German sparkling wine establishment is at Hochheim, which, although, situated on the banks of the Main, and several miles distant from its confluence with the Rhine, has curiously enough supplied us with a generic name under which we inconsistently cla.s.s the entire produce of the Rhine vineyards. Behind the Hochheim railway station there rises a long low slope, planted from base to summit with vines, a portion of which are screened on the north by a plain-looking church and a weather-stained deanery. The vines thus sheltered yield the famous Dom Dechanei, the finest Hochheimer known. Some short distance off in a westerly direction are the extensive premises of the Hochheim Sparkling Wine a.s.sociation, whose brands are well known in England. The firm of Burgeff and Co., whose business the a.s.sociation acquired in 1858 and subsequently considerably extended, was founded in 1837. At this establishment all the arrangements are of the most perfect character.
The bottles are cleaned by a machine employing ten persons, and turning out several thousand bottles a day. All the bottles moreover, before being used, have their strength tested by an ingenious apparatus which subjects them to three or four times the pressure they are likely to undergo when filled with wine. Pumps, bottle-washing machine, and the revolving casks in which the sugar is dissolved for the liqueur, are all moved by steam, and the a.s.sociation even manufactures the gas used for lighting up the establishment. We tasted here several sparkling hocks distinguished by their high flavour and refinement, with sparkling moselles vintaged in the best localities and equally excellent in quality.
Sparkling hocks and moselles are made by Messrs. Stock and Sons at Creuznach, a favourite watering-place in the romantic Nahe valley, noted for the picturesque porphyry cliffs which occasionally rise precipitously at the river"s edge. Creuznach, where a capital wine is vintaged, on the southern slopes of the Schlossberg, is at no great distance from Bingen. Messrs. Stock and Sons" establishment dates from 1862, and their sparkling wines are mainly made from white grapes, only about one-eighth of white wine from black grapes entering into their composition. The latter is vintaged at Ingelheim, the grapes being pressed under the firm"s own superintendence, and only the must resulting from the first squeeze of the press being used. The wine from riesling grapes is usually from the Rhine, and with it is mingled a certain quant.i.ty of wine vintaged on the Hessian plain. The vintage generally occurs at the end of October, and the firm remove the new wine to their cellars at Creuznach early in the ensuing spring, and bottle it in the May or June following. They make both dry and sweet varieties of sparkling wines, and their princ.i.p.al markets are England, Germany, the East and West Indies, the United States, and Australia.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BINGEN.]
The establishment of G. C. Kessler and Co. at Esslingen--formerly one of the most important of the free imperial cities, and picturesquely situated on the Neckar--was founded as far back as 1826, and claims to be the oldest sparkling wine factory in Germany. The wine employed comes from vineyards in the vicinity of Heilbronn, and others in the Rheingau and the Grand Duchy of Baden, and is more or less a blend of the clevener, traminer, rulander, riesling, and elbling varieties of grape.
The vintage takes place in October, and the bottling of the wine is effected during the following summer. Messrs. Kessler and Co. treat their wines after the system pursued at the Clicquot champagne establishment, in which the founder of the Esslingen house held an important position for a period of nearly twenty years. The wines are prepared sweet or dry according to the market they are destined for. The princ.i.p.al business of the firm is with Germany, but they also export to England, the United States, the East Indies, and Australia. Their wines have met with favourable recognition at various exhibitions, notably that of Paris in 1867, when a silver medal was awarded them; and at Vienna in 1873, where they received a medal for progress.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NECKAR AT HEIDELBERG.]
Wurzburg, one of the most antiquated and picturesque of German cities, is noted for its sparkling Franconian wines vintaged partly in the vineyards that overspread the tall chalk hills which close in around the quaint old university town. The most famous of these vineyards are the Leist and the Stein, the first-named sloping downward towards the Main from the foot of the picturesque Marienberg fort, which, perched on the summit of a commanding height, dominates the city and forms so conspicuous an object in all the views of it. The extensive buildings of the fort not only shield the vines from the winds, but reflect the sun"s rays upon them, thereby materially conducing to the perfect ripening of the grapes at a much earlier period than is customary. The Stein vineyard is situated on the opposite side of the Main, and when viewed from the picturesque bridge, studded with incongruous colossal statues--such as Joseph and the Virgin Mary in close proximity to Charlemagne and Pepin--seems to rise up as an immense rampart behind the city. Here the river acts as a reflector, throwing back the sun"s rays on the lower portions of the slope, where the finest wine is naturally vintaged. An altogether inferior growth is produced on the hill to the north, known as the Middle Stein, and also in the Harfe vineyard, situated in the rear of the latter. The prevalent vines in the Wurzburg district are the riesling, the traminer, the elbling, and the rulander, or pineau gris.
The first sparkling wine establishment at Wurzburg was founded in 1842 by Herr Oppmann, the Royal cellar-master, who died in 1866. The position held by this individual was one of considerable importance, for the King of Bavaria is the largest wine-grower in his own dominions, and stores the produce of his vineyards in the famous cellars extending beneath one of the wings of the deserted Residenz, erected at an epoch when Wurzburg was subject to episcopal rule. These cellars, vaulted in stone, are on a vast scale, and possibly unequalled in the world. You descend a broad flight of steps, flanked by ornamental iron bal.u.s.trades, and encounter half-way down a miniature tun, guarded by the Bavarian lions posted in a niche in the wall. Following your guide with lighted candles, you pa.s.s between rows upon rows of capacious casks filled with the wine last vintaged, and various wines of recent years; large metal chandeliers--fantastically adorned with innumerable coloured bottles and gla.s.ses, and designed to light up the cellars on festive occasions--here and there descending from the arched roof. Eventually you arrive at a gallery where huge casks are poised on ma.s.sive wooden frames in double tiers one above the other. These cellars are said to be capable of holding upwards of 500 casks, but at the time of our visit there were scarcely half that number, and only a mere fraction of these were filled with wine. The cellars no longer contain any of that archaic wine vintaged in 1546, for which they were formerly celebrated. Indeed, all the historic vintages, once their boast, were removed some years ago to Munich and deposited in the Royal cellars there. Of the ancient ornamental tuns holding their ten thousand gallons each, which the Wurzburg cellars formerly contained, only a single one remains, constructed in the year 1784. This tun, carved on the front with the Bavarian arms, is about the dimensions of a fair-sized apartment, and being no longer filled with wine, a Diogenes of the period might take up his abode in it with perfect comfort. Herr Michael Oppmann, who has succeeded to the establishment founded by his father, prepares several varieties of white sparkling Franconian wine, with two kinds of red, and also sparkling hocks and moselles. The first-named wines are vintaged in the best vineyards of Lower Franconia, in the valley of the Main, and the Baden Oberland, the finer qualities being princ.i.p.ally produced from the black clevener grape, usually vintaged the first or second week in October. The white grape vintage occurs some fortnight or more later, and the wine is bottled either late in the spring or during the coming summer. Its after-manipulation differs in no respect from that pursued with reference to champagne. Herr Oppmann, whose wines have met with favourable recognition at various foreign and home Exhibitions, prepares both sweet and dry varieties. Their chief market is Germany, although they are exported in fair quant.i.ties to Belgium, England, and Northern Europe.
Another sparkling wine establishment was founded at Wurzburg by Herr F. A. Siligmuller in 1843. The wine from white grapes employed by him is vintaged partly in his own vineyards on the Stein and the Harfe, and partly in other Main vineyards, at Randersacker, Escheradorf, &c., the wine used by him from red grapes coming from the Baden Oberland around the so-called Kaisers-stuhl--an isolated vine-clad dolerite mountain bordering the Rhine, and on the verge almost of the Black Forest--and from the neighbourhood of Offenburg, one of the ancient imperial free towns, which has lately raised a statue to Sir Francis Drake, "the introducer," as the inscription says, "of the potato into Europe." The vintage here, which commences fully a fortnight earlier than around Wurzburg, usually takes place about the beginning of October, and the wine is bottled in the height of the following summer. Herr Siligmuller"s wines, of which there are four qualities, were awarded a medal for progress at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AT AHRWEILER.]