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Though they begin to make wine as has been said, at Cologne,
and continue it up the river indefinitely, yet it is only from
Rudesheim to Hocheim that wines of the very first quality are made.
The river happens there to run due east and west, so as to give its
hills on that side a southern aspect. And even in this canton, it is
only Hocheim, Johansberg, and Rudesheim, that are considered as of
the very first quality. Johansberg is a little mountain (berg
signifies mountain), whereon is a religious house, about fifteen
miles below Mayence, and near the village of Vingel. It has a
southern aspect, the soil a barren mulatto clay, mixed with a good
deal of stone, and some slate. This wine used to be but on a par
with Hocheim and Rudesheim; but the place having come to the Bishop
of Fulda, he improved its culture so as to render it stronger; and
since the year 1775, it sells at double the price of the other two.
It has none of the acid of the Hocheim and other Rhenish wines.
There are about sixty tons made in a good year, which sell, as soon
as of a drinkable age, at one thousand franks each. The tun here
contains seven and a-half aumes of one hundred and seventy bottles
each. Rudesheim is a village of about eighteen or twenty miles below
Mayence. Its fine wines are made on the hills about a mile below the
village, which look to the south, and on the middle and lower parts
of them. They are terraced. The soil is gray, about one-half of
slate and rotten stone, the other half of barren clay, excessively
steep. Just behind the village also is a little spot, called Hinder
House, belonging to the Counts of Sicken and Oschstein, whereon each
makes about a ton of wine of the very first quality. This spot
extends from the bottom to the top of the hill. The vignerons of
Rudesheim dung their wines about once in five or six years, putting a
one-horse tumbrel load of dung on every twelve feet square. One
thousand plants yield about four aumes in a good year. The best
crops are,
The Chanoines of Mayence, who make . . . . 15 pieces of 7 1/2 aumes.
Le Comte de Sicken . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 " "
Le Comte d'Oschstein . . . . . . . . . . . 9 " "
L'Electeur de Mayence . . . . . . . . . . 6 " "
Le Comte de Meternisch . . . . . . . . . . 6 " "
Monsieur de Boze . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 " "
M. Ackerman, baliff et aubergiste des 3
couronnes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 " "
M. Ackerman le fils, aubergiste a la couronne 5 " "
M. Lynn, aubergiste de l'ange . . . . . . 5 " "
Baron de Wetzel . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 " "
Convent de Mariahousen, des religieuses
Benedictines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 " "
M. Johan Yung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 " "
M. de Rieden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 " "
---
92
These wines begin to be drinkable at about five years old. The
proprietors sell them old or young, according to the prices offered,
and according to their own want of money. There is always a little
difference between different casks, and therefore when you choose and
buy a single cask, you pay three, four, five or six hundred florins
for it. They are not at all acid, and to my taste much preferable to
Hocheim, though but of the same price. Hocheim is a village about
three miles above Mayence, on the Maine, where it empties into the
Rhine. The spot whereon the good wine is made is the hill side from
the church down to the plain, a gentle slope of about a quarter of a
mile wide, and extending half a mile towards Mayence. It is of
south-western aspect, very poor, sometimes gray, sometimes mulatto,
with a moderate mixture of small broken stone. The wines are planted
three feet apart, and stuck with sticks about six feet high. The
wine, too, is cut at that height. They are dunged once in three or
four years. One thousand plants yield from one to two aumes a year:
they begin to yield a little at three years old, and continue to one
hundred years, unless sooner killed by a cold winter. Dick, keeper
of the Rothen-house tavern at Frankfort, a great wine merchant, who
has between three and four hundred tons of wine in his cellars, tells
me that Hocheim of the year 1783, sold, as soon as it was made, at
ninety florins the aume, Rudesheim of the same year, as soon as made,
at one hundred and fifteen florins, and Markebronn seventy florins.
But a peasant of Hocheim tells me that the best crops of Hocheim in
the good years, when sold new, sell but for about thirty-two or
thirty-three florins the aume; but that it is only the poorer
proprietors who sell new. The fine crops are,
Count Ingleheim about . . . 10 tuns.}
Baron d'Alberg . . . . . . 8 " } All of these keep till about
Count Schimbon . . . . . . 14 " } fifteen years old, before they
The Chanoines of Mayence. . 18 " } sell, unless they are offered
Counsellor Schik de Vetsler 15 " } a very good price sooner.
Convent of Jacobsberg . . . 8 " }
The Chanoine of Fechbach . 10 " }
The Carmelites of Frankfort.. 8 " } Who only sell by the bottle
in their own tavern in
Frankfort.
The Bailiff of Hocheim.......11 " } Who sells at three or four
years old.
Zimmerman, a bourgeois....... 4 " } These being poor, sell new.
Feldman, a carpenter......... 2 " }
Markebronn (bronn signifies a spring, and is probably of
affinity with the Scotch word, burn) is a little canton in the same
range of hills, adjoining to the village of Hagenheim, about three
miles above Johansberg, subject to the elector of Mayence. It is a
sloping hill side of southern aspect, mulatto, poor, and mixed with
some stone. This yields wine of the second quality.
April 12th.
Mayence. Oppenheim. Dorms. Manheim. On the road
between Mayence and Oppenheim are three cantons, which are also
esteemed as yielding wines of the second quality. These are
Laudenheim, Bodenheim, and Nierstein. Laudenheim is a village about
four or five miles from Mayence. Its wines are made on a steep hill
side, the soil of which is gray, poor and mixed with some stone. The
river there happens to make a short turn to the south-west, so as to
present its hills to the south-east. Bodenheim is a village nine
miles, and Nierstein another about ten or eleven miles from Mayence.
Here, too, the river is north-east and south-west, so as to give the
hills between these villages a south-east aspect; and at Thierstein,
a valley making off, brings the face of the hill round to the south.
The hills between these villages are almost perpendicular, of a
vermilion red, very poor, and having as much rotten stone as earth.
It is to be observed that these are the only cantons on the south
side of the river which yield good wine, the hills on this side being
generally exposed to the cold winds, and turned from the sun. The
annexed bill of prices current, will give an idea of the estimation
of these wines respectively.
With respect to the grapes in this country, there are three
kinds in use for making white wine, (for I take no notice of the red
wines, as being absolutely worthless.) 1. The Klemperien, of which
the inferior qualities of Rhenish wines are made, and is cultivated
because of its hardness. The wines of this grape descend as low as
one hundred florins the tun of eight aumes. 2. The Rhysslin grape,
which grows only from Hocheim down to Rudesheim. This is small and
delicate, and therefore succeeds only in this chosen spot. Even at
Rudesheim it yields a fine wine only in the little spot called Hinder
House, before mentioned; the mass of good wines made at Rudesheim,
below the village, being of the third kind of grape, which is called
the Orleans grape.
To Oppenheim the plains of the Rhine and Maine are united.
From that place we see the commencement of the Berg-strasse, or
mountains which separate at first the plains of the Rhine and Maine,
then cross the Neckar at Heidelberg, and from thence forms the
separation between the plains of the Neckar and Rhine, leaving those
of the Rhine about ten or twelve miles wide. These plains are
sometimes black, sometimes mulatto, always rich. They are in corn,
potatoes, and some willow. On the other side again, that is, on the
west side, the hills keep at first close to the river. They are
about one hundred and fifty, or two hundred feet high, sloping, red,
good, and mostly in vines. Above Oppenheim, they begin to go off
till they join the mountains of Lorraine and Alsace, which separate
the waters of the Moselle and Rhine, leaving to the whole valley of
the Rhine about twenty or twenty-five miles breadth. About Worms
these plains are sandy, poor, and often covered only with small pine.
April 13th. Manheim. There is a bridge over the Rhine here,
supported on thirty-nine boats, and one over the Neckar on eleven
boats. The bridge over the Rhine is twenty-one and a half feet wide
from rail to rail. The boats are four feet deep, fifty-two feet
long, and nine feet eight inches broad. The space between boat and
boat is eighteen feet ten inches. From these data the length of the
bridge should be 9ft. 8in. + 18ft. 10in. x 40 = 1140 feet. In order
to let vessels pass through, two boats well framed together, with
their flooring, are made to fall down stream together. Here, too,
they make good ham. It is fattened on round potatoes and Indian
corn. The farmers smoke what is for their own use in their chimneys.
When it is made for sale, and in greater quantities than the chimney
will hold, they make the smoke of the chimney pass into an adjoining
loft, or apartment, from which it has no issue; and here they hang
their hams.
An economical curtain bedstead. (Illustration omitted) The
bedstead is seven feet by four feet two inches. From each leg there
goes up an iron rod three-eighths of an inch in diameter. Those from
the legs at the foot of the bed meeting at top as in the margin, and
those from the head meeting in like manner, so that the two at the
foot form one point, and the two at the head another. On these
points lays an oval iron rod, whose long diameter is five feet, and
short one three feet one inch. There is a hole through this rod at
each end, by which it goes on firm on the point of the upright rods.
Then a nut screws it down firmly. Ten breadths of stuff two feet ten
inches wide, and eight feet six inches long, form the curtains.
There is no top nor vallons. The rings are fastened within two and a
half or three inches of the top on the inside, which two and a half
or three inches stand up, and are an ornament somewhat like a ruffle.
I have observed all along the Rhine that they make the oxen
draw by the horns. A pair of very handsome chariot horses, large,
bay, and seven years old, sell for fifty louis. One pound of beef
sells for eight kreitzers, (_i. e. eight sixtieths of a florin;) one
pound of mutton or veal, six kreitzers; one pound of pork, seven and
a half kreitzers; one pound of ham, twelve kreitzers; one pound of
fine wheat bread, two kreitzers; one pound of butter, twenty
kreitzers; one hundred and sixty pounds of wheat, six francs; one
hundred and sixty pounds of maize, five francs; one hundred and sixty
pounds of potatoes, one franc; one hundred pounds of hay, one franc;
a cord of wood (which is 4 4 and 6 feet), seven francs; a laborer by
the day receives twenty-four kreitzers, and feeds himself. A journee
or arpent of land (which is eight by two hundred steps), such as the
middling plains of the Rhine, will s...
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