1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

"THE BOY" 133 " See that in your choice of Gascoine wines," continues Gervase, in his minute direction to the overwrought " housewife," " that your Clarret wines be faire coloured, and bright as a Rubie, not deepe as anAmetist; for though it mayshew strength, yet it wants neatnesse. If your Clarret wine be faint, and have lost his color, then take a fresh hogshead with his fresh lees which was very good wine, and draw your wine into the same, then stop it close and tight, and lay it a foretake for two or three daies that the lees may run through it, then lay it up till it be fine, and if the colour be not perfit, draw it into a red wine hogshead . . . and if your Clarret wine have lost his colour, take a pennyworth of Damsens " ha I what is this ? " Or else blacke Bullesses, as you see cause, and stew them with some red wine of the deepest colour, and make thereof a pound or more of sirrup, and put it into a cleane glasse, and after into the hogshead of Clarret wine ; and the same you may likewise doe unto red wine if you please." Ahem ! Evidently they did know something about adulteration in the seventeenth century. It is a common idea that only a very few clarets areentitled to the prefix " Chateau." The truth is very different. The district on the south bank of the Gironde simply teems with chateaux, of a kind. For miles you cannot go a few hundred yards in any direction without seeing or passing two or three ; each with its vineyards and cellars and special labels, and more or less unblemished reputation. There isChateau