ALSACE-LORRAINE

By George Wharton Edwards

 “Section 8”

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The Vineyards

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The traveler who confines himself to the larger towns rarely becomes familiar with the real characteristics of the people. It is necessary to go out into the country and live for a while among the farmers, who are glad to welcome the stranger, who can assure them that he is willing to conform to their way of living, and so to say "take pot luck." Rarely will he suffer in consequence, be it urged, for the very best in the house is at his command. The beds are clean and good, and the food, though simple, is the same, and all for almost whatever one chooses to pay, while the good-will and hospitality of the farmers of Alsace-Lorraine are proverbial.

Here within a few miles of Colmar is a region filled with interest and charm; of legend and antiquity; and if one is not interested in these, there is the practical side of vine culture, and the gathering and pressing of the grape to be witnessed in all its perfection. The valley of the Rheingau, of course, produces the very finest of the wines, but here in the Sundgau grapes are grown, with which experts are well content. The delicious white

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wines, pressed from the fragrant grapes grown upon the sunny slopes in the neighborhood, can, in the opinion of experts, successfully compete in quality with any other produced. The great Liebig affirmed that the exquisite bouquet of the white wines is owing to the free acid which they contain, and that certain of their most salutary properties arise from the percentage of tartar present in them. Another great advantage is the almost total absence of brandy, an ingredient invariably found in the wines of Spain and Sicily, which is said to be so injurious both to the flavor of the wine and the health of the drinker. It is said by competent authorities that these so called Rhine wines often retain their bouquet and excellence for a half century, although they rarely contain more than nine per cent. of alcohol. The Still Hoch or the Moselle is wine highly recommended by the people, and is to be had in perfection at the cost of three or four marks a bottle. The Moselle wines are chiefly grown amidst wild rugged fields and sterile seeming slaty rock, and are distinguished by their extraordinarily delicate, aromatic flavor. The best of these are "Bern­castler Doctor," "Brauneberger," and "Ohligsberger." These wines are largely consumed in their several districts. The yield is said to be by no means uniformly excellent, for climatic conditions are not the same throughout the region. The vineyards in the most favored positions, where the grapes ripen soonest, often,

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so it is said, suffer the most severely from the heavy early spring frosts. In a good season, or what the growers call a good "full autumn," rarely attained, a "Morgen," that is, about three-fifths of an acre of land, planted with three or four thousand vines, is expected to yield five "Ohm," or about one hundred and fifty gallons of wine. I had many of these details and technical terms from a little book written by the French author, Andre Theuriet, else I should not have known how to describe them.

The whole population of the countryside, men and women, are busy in the vineyards from early morn to dark, and the scene is most entertaining and informing. Our host was a master cooper, with a very considerable trade, a rather melancholy, absorbed man, with a bulbous nose "all limned by libidinousness" into a network of fine red veins. His trade, it may be urged, had too much and too intimate a relation with the seductive juice of the grape for him not to have a weakness for the "Soup of September," as it is sometimes called by the natives, in M. Theuriet's book, who relates of a wine grower: "To him came the care of many a customer's product, so quite naturally he had become a wine taster of considerable reputation. With the years his taste had refined, and in my mind's eye I can see him pour out a few drops of wine into a tall narrow glass and, sipping it with closed eyes, tell not only the date of its making, but the particular vineyard which produced it. Of his skill the

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following little story is told. Called to give his opinion of a certain wine, he said, after tasting it, 'This is good, but it has been in contact with iron and leather.' The grower was astonished, indignant, and denied that it had ever been out of the cask before, but lo, says the story, 'when the butt was empty, they found in the bottom a small piece of leather in which was an iron nail!'" And thus this man's fame spread over the country side.

In September the vine god grants his gifts of splendid ripe days and nights of radiance. From the slopes above the busy vineyards, one inhales the fragrance of the growing grapes, and scans the golden hillsides and the dim valleys with appreciative eyes. Over all the warm sun shines, gilding the roofs and spires, and bringing forth tender shadows among the trees. As the peasants say, poetically, for the peasants are poetic, although they do not know it, "The Virgin unwinds her distaff and spreads the golden threads over Alsace." Through the air, as clear as crystal, the workers can be heard calling to each other from hill to hill. Some of the badinage is coarse and the jests are often very unseemly, but you must remember that this very coarseness is a necessary part of the peasant's make up. He does not know that he is coarse or that his talk is unseemly. He thinks that he is witty, and nothing delights him more than that one should reprove him for some bit of repartee. This he

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will dwell upon for days thereafter, as proof of his brilliancy.

In the noonday sun the vineyards blaze in the transparent haze rising from the moist furrows of newly­plowed fields, where the laborers are toiling. These are called "vintagers," both men and women. They are, as a rule, hired by the week, and thus paid. They are from the country round, each squad, one is told, keeping to itself clannishly under an elected leader. The women are, as a rule, brawny and rarely pretty. They dress in short skirts or petticoats of gaily printed calico, and wear bodices and jackets of vivid colors. On their heads are short veils, or kerchiefs tied behind at the nape of the neck. Each woman carries an osier basket, in which she drops the fragrant grapes as she cuts them from the vine with a sharp bill-hook.

The married and unmarried are lodged in separate sheds, and furnished with coarse food by the proprietor. I was told that they earned thirty sous a day. For this meagre sum they toil from dawn to dark, but they are content and cheerful, although should you question one of them, at once, after the custom of the peasant under all circumstances, she will grumble and bewail her lot, and curse the rich proprietor who fattens upon the result of her toil.

In spite of this, the peasants look upon this work as

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an agreeable change from their other toil. At early dawn they are awakened by the call of the "Bellonier," he who carries the grapes to the wine press in a large tub called a "Bellon." The half·asleep men and women vintagers gather in the court with their baskets under their arms, some of them yawning and rubbing their eyes. One of the number with a good voice acts as singer, and bellows out one of the vintage songs, of which there are many. One had a chorus which ran something as follows:

"Aller au vendage

Pour gagner dix sous

Coucher sur la paille

Ramasser des poux,

Chante et danse

Toute comme un fou."

In the early morning hours, ere the sun has gotten its full power, the best work is done, and the peasants perform their tasks with astonishing skill and energy. They form in long lines, proceeding rapidly, stripping each vine of its bunches, which they drop in their baskets. These filled, they are emptied into large hampers, which are held up by poles stuck in the ground. When the hamper is filled the carrier who attends it lifts it to his back and trots down the hillside to the "Bellon," which is ready to receive it to transport it to the great wagons standing under the shade of the trees. At one side are tethered the large, heavy bodied, hairy-legged horses, and

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hanging from the branches of the trees are the harnesses, all brass-mounted. The large collars of leather-covered wood are decorated with tassels and heavy cushions and stuffings of bright scarlet and pale blue wool. The scene is one of considerable picturesqueness. Imagine the feeding horses in the shadows, switching their tails at the flies; a laughing group of gaily-clad peasant girls coquetting with some of the young gallants. Where the sunbeams fall is a tall peasant, bareheaded, brown skinned, his loose blouse of brown linen open at the neck, showing the splendid development of muscles, pouring a stream of golden yellow grapes out of his basket into the wagon. Down through the thick, heavy foliage shines the sun in dusty beams of golden light upon his ruddy face, neck and bare arms. All about is ceaseless activity and animation, and over all is the strong, sweet odor of rich ripe grapes.

At the end of the day, when in the valleys the pale white mists form above the beds of the small streams, and the upper slopes swim in a hazy, warm glow from the final gleam of the departed sun, the word is given, and the "Bellonier," all bedecked with a green branch and surrounded by young girls, arm in arm, and followed by the hamper carriers and the cutters, descend the slope to the wagons, which are already in motion. Then home­ward along the dim shady roads they take their way, singing the sweet, tender songs so dear to the peasants of

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the lost province. Can I make you see the picture as I see it'?

Approaching the "Pressoir," where the grapes are pressed, they give loud calls, at which the great double doors are swung wide open, and the inside of the building, its roof supported by huge oaken beams, and fitted with immense round tubs, is plainly seen, and there, at the far end, around which strange figures appear mis­shapen in the flickering ruddy light of the large lanterns, is the brobdingnagian structure of the wine press, its beams all shining and dripping with the "must." Into its capacious maw is dumped the fragrant contents of the "Bellons." Round and round goes the great dripping beam, drawn by two huge hollow-backed horses in gaily­decked collars. Round and round-to the sound of the women's roundelays, one of which, and a very popular one, goes something as follows:

"The day is gone, and now its sweets

Shall come. To thee, dear heart,

To thee, dear heart.

Sweet voice of thine; sweet lips and starry eyes;

Come, let us clasp, and never, never part, dear heart,

And never, never part."

and then the chorus:

"From thee, dear heart, I'll never, never part."

It lingers in one's memory with something of painful in­

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sistence. The fragrant odor of new sweet wine exhales from the press. The whole place is saturated with it. Every cellar is filled with huge fat round-bellied casks, every gutter runs with the lees of wine. At night these small villages are filled with noisy laughter, and rather rough gaiety for these people who work so hard during the day must have their pleasures before midnight, when the local gendarme solemnly bids the cafes to close, and the workers to take themselves off to their straw heaps for the night. But until this hour yellow lights gleam and flicker in the windows of the houses, while from press to press are lines of large swinging oil lanterns hung overhead, lighting up the narrow lanes, with strange staggering, shifting, drunken shadows as the lanterns swing in the night air, and the long lines of heavily laden wagons come in from the distant vineyards.

The scene at suppertime in one of the large kitchens is an animated one. In the center is a long oaken table, lighted by kerosene oil lamps hanging from the white­washed beams overhead. This table can seat as many as thirty at one time. The supper is of vegetable soup, very greasy, but savory and good, and there is plenty of dark bread and potatoes. The meat is generally salt pork, of which the peasant is inordinately fond. Some­times a coarse, poor cheese is included, but not often. Of sweets there are none, but there is, of course, plenty of thin, watery wine provided, usually the second or third

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squeezing of the grape. The peasants feed noisily, and do full justice to the provender.

Supper over, they have just one desire-to dance. In each community is one large barn floor set apart for this purpose, and here both sexes caper and waltz or polka, until they well nigh drop with fatigue. Often, 'tis said, these affairs degenerate into orgies and quarrels, accom­panied with the inevitable results. But it is very amus­ing to slip into a shadowed corner and from there watch one of these dances. At one side, upon a large upturned wine cask, is perched the "Jouer." It may be he is a fiddler, or perchance a piper from the town of Ferrette. At any rate there he sits, and beside him astride of a chair or stool is the dance master, calling out in loud tones the figures of the peasant dance. "Keep time, keep time, you," he calls to some unusually clumsy swain. "Where are your feet, Henri? You look like a duck in a hen yard." And then he will roar with laughter, clapping his hands to the rhythm of the dance. The fiddle squeaks or the pipe drones, the dust from the barn floor rises in clouds, and descends upon the bare heads and flushed faces of the young men and women. There is much good-natured jostling, and the noise of the heavy iron-shod clogs of the dancers is well nigh deafen­ing; but it is all very dear to the peasants, and harmless enough, though at times there is considerable horseplay.

And so the days and nights of the vintage pass each

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year until the last bunch is picked and pressed, and the rainy, dark days of early November bring the season to an end. Then the peasants scatter to their different villages for the winter, and the storks and cranes begin to fly in long lines toward the south, or wherever it is they nest in the dark wintry days.

In the narrow street under our windows one day was an excited group, composed of the proprietor of the Hotel, hatless, red-faced; a baker's boy in a long blue blouse and laden with two hampers of crisp brown loaves of bread; a girl carrying a solemn, wide-eyed baby, and a fat little man with a large saw, all gathered about the old carriage in which we had arrived a few days before. On the seat was the driver, recognizable by the faded blue coat with brass buttons-one could see no more of him than his knees and feet because of the carriage top. We speculated disinterestedly upon his presence there, be­cause he had been well paid for his appreciated services and dismissed, as far as we were concerned.

But when we went down to the salon for coffee and rolls, we were at once summoned by the landlord, who gravely informed us that the driver had come for us, in­sisting that we were to depart at once upon our journey. In vain was it explained that we had no such purpose in view; that he had been paid and dismissed. The proprietor was plainly offended about something or other, and waved us forth to the doorway.

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The old carriage was now surrounded by people who had gathered to know of the happening, whatever it might be, for the peasant loves a dispute of whatever nature, and apparently has unlimited leisure in which to enjoy it, more especially where a foreigner is involved. They gave way for me politely, and listened eagerly and breathlessly to my questions and the answers of the driver, who very plainly had, even at that early hour, a much heavier cargo of drink than he could well manage. In brief, he insisted that he felt it his duty, his simple duty - understand? - to Monsieur and the gracious Madame to look out for their welfare - to see that their journey was comfortable and safe--trust him for that; that they should not stop longer in Colmar where--yes, he would say it, and say it truthfully, too, in spite of any landlord, no matter who he might be - he would say it even to M. Ie Mayor himself, as an old soldier, who had served loyally his country and had his papers to show it, too. If this was not believed, all they had to do was to accompany him to his home and there, over the stove, hanging upon the wall, were those very papers framed in a good gilt frame to prove it. "Was not that enough? Eh, bien! Then why should not his word be taken? Had he not a good horse, too? Was he not well shod? Had he not paid for the shoeing that very week before he had the honor of conducting Monsieur and the gracious Madame on their safe journey? Then why had the

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landlord insulted him and attempted to keep him from guarding the interests of the distinguished strangers who had confided themselves to his protection? Would he depart without them? Would he leave them to their fate in Colmar? Not so! That never should be said against him - never!" and he beat his breast with his left hand while he waved and snapped his whip with his right. "M'sieur has heard," said the landlord; "is it his wish that this man should remain?" I explained the circumstances of my agreement with the driver, and then turned to close the matter with him, while the loiterers listened eagerly, wagging their heads at each other, and grinning appreciatively. My words seemed to convey no meaning whatever to the driver, who was now gesticulating and nodding to the bystanders. Endeavoring to catch his eye, I saw that he was too far gone for any comprehension. Suddenly he burst into song-roaring out:

"O! donnez moi jeunesse,

mon blonde-

O! donnez moi jeunesse!­

the final words dwindling away in a hoarse, broken whisper, accompanied by copious tears and a despairing wave of the hand holding the whip, at which the fat horse awoke and started off so suddenly that the singer rolled out of his seat and would have fallen to the pavement had not a bystander caught him, while others stopped the horse.

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Left reeling there on the pavement, the driver promptly sat down in the gutter, propped against a post, and went to sleep. The proprietor sent for the gendarme who, after hearing the history, entered our names in his book, saluted us, had him bundled into the old carriage, the bystanders took themselves off, and away went the old soldier, the fat horse and the lumbering old carriage, out of our ken. Thereafter we thought best to journey by train.

"Praise of the vintage," said the scholarly wine grower to whom I had been introduced and with whom I sat in the lovely old garden behind the mossy wall that sur­rounded his chateau on the river road, "should be uttered in the musical rhythm of poetry, which alone can convey the expression, like unto the most generous liquor pressed from the fragrant crushed grape.

"How else," he continued, "can one express the whispering of the fermenting; the liquid murmur of the bubbling 'must,' the song of the laboring great wine press as the oaken-bound beam swings around its circle in the cobwebby gloom, and the all pervading bouquet of the new running wine!" And then he went on in infinite detail of the art of wine making, telling how the sugary juice undergoes fermentation; how and why the grapes are crushed in wooden tubs at a certain temperature; how the skins and solid matter are removed by setting free the carbonic acid, forming on the surface of the

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liquid what is called the "chapeau" of the vintage; that the juice extracted is still very sweet and is called "must" ; and that put in strong casks it undergoes a second and slow fermentation, at which it arrives at the period of preservation and is fit for consuming. Thereafter he showed me the mysterious and most picturesque spectacle in one of the large "pressoirs" which he owned and operated.

Sometimes this scene may be enjoyed at night, and this is how I saw it, sitting with him in a corner of the large cellar, beneath the great rafters and oaken beams of his "pressoir," lighted by pendent oil lanterns, the ruddy glare from which illuminated fitfully the phantom-like figures of half naked men passing to and fro, or treading the masses of grape in the oaken tubs. A most singular low sort of buzzing or humming sound accompanies the fermentation, and in one's nostrils is a warm, most delicious, and semi-intoxicating odor exhaled from the crushing. Into large, burnished, ruddy, golden copper tubs spurts and drips the wondrous dark purple wine, flowing from the bed of the immense press in liquid, tinkling song. In the dim light of the lantern the naked bodies of the pressers gleam as they strain at the capstan beam which controls the screw of the press, while the huge machine groans complainingly, and forth beneath pours the new sweet wine. Men called porters empty the copper pans of the "must" into strangely-shaped

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vessels of wood named “tandelins,” and laboriously carry them below to the cobwebby cellars far beneath. Hereabouts these cellars honeycomb the hills, which they penetrate for long distances, arranged in tiers or stories like catacombs, and the scene presents to the imagination something like an ancient religious rite. From them come strange booming sounds and echoes as the dimly­seen figures of the workmen come and go about their tasks.

The wine grower explained with great detail the importance of the soil and the climate in the production, alleging that the smallest change in the fertilization of the soil is sufficient to alter and even suppress the bouquet so necessary, rendering the product flat and useless. He explained the ancient law promulgated by the great Dukes of Lorraine, forbidding the use of manure in the Duchy under the most severe penalty, it having been proven that any attempt to enrich the sandy, stony hill­sides, while increasing the size and quantity of the grapes, entirely destroyed the strange variety, and the unique and volatile bouquet. Here, then, in these vast catacombs hollowed in the "tufa" are miles of great casks of still and sparkling wines, laden with the odors of violets and honey, awaiting the days of their emancipation. "Here, then, Monsieur," said he enthusiastically, raising his glass to the light of the overhead lantern, "French hearts are beating in patriotism and loyalty to the

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Mother Country, from which, through no fault of ours, we are separated by the odious rule of the invader. Hail to the day of our release. Hail to the wines of Alsace­Lorraine. If our lips are silent over these evil days, our eyes bespeak our unwavering loyalty to France, our hearts understand. "In the days when the English Queen Mary Stuart came to the castle of the great Dukes of Bar on the Ornain, was it not our wine of Alsace that delighted her, and inspired the Poet Ronsard at the banquet to recite in her honor these lines:

"All things I do embrace

And all things nourish:

All things my virtue wakes to flourish:

Bind I all things, my hands hold everything.

Since this is true,-o'er all things rests my power,

I bade expand this fragrant perfect flower,

To rule the whole world over; this youthful King."

He related also tales of the early days, when at the ban­quets of the ecclesiastics for the visiting Cardinals of Trent at the time of the Council, the dignitaries proclaimed unanimously that the wines of Alsace were the noblest and most fragrant of all. And they drank to the glory of France.

"And what did you do all the evening'?" asked Lady Anne when I returned to her at the chateau, where we were the guests of the erudite and scholarly wine grower and his lady. I related what had happened, with all the

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 detail and embroidery at my command, and with considerable enthusiasm, too, I fancy. Lady Anne heard me with somewhat of a bored air, and remarked: "How stupid; and is that all '? I cannot abide those old gloomy, spidery cellars; and as for the wine, we had some here in the salon, and passed a delightful evening, for Madame got out all of her old embroidered linen, and taught me the most wonderful and exquisite stitch. I never saw such linen! Dozens and dozens of pieces...

[End of Section 8]

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