The Complete Wine Book

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE COMPLETE WINE BOOK

BY

FRANK SCHOONMAKER

AND

TOM MARVEL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 8

FOREWORD 9

INTRODUCTORY 10

CHAPTER I—FRENCH WINES 14

BORDEAUX 15

THE MÉDOC 19

GRAVES 21

SAUTERNES 22

ST. EMILION AND POMEROL 23

BURGUNDY 25

THE CÔTE D’OR 25

CHABLIS 33

BEAUJOLAIS 35

CÔTES DU RHÔNE 36

CHAMPAGNE 38

ALSACE 43

THE LOIRE 45

OTHER FRENCH WINES 48

CHAPTER II—GERMAN WINES 51

THE MOSELLE, SAAR AND RUWER 56

THE RHEINGAU 63

THE NAHE 67

RHEINHESSEN 68

RHEINPFALZ 72

STEINWEIN (FRANKENWEIN) 74

OTHER GERMAN WINES 76

CHAPTER III—THE WINES OF SPAIN 77

RIOJA 79

OTHER SPANISH TABLE WINES 81

MÁLAGA AND THE LESSER SWEET WINES 82

SHERRY 84

MANZANILLA 88

MONTILLA 89

CHAPTER IV—PORT, MADEIRA AND OTHER WINES OF PORTUGAL 90

THE DOURO REGION 91

MAKING PORT 93

DIFFERENT KINDS OF PORT 95

MADEIRA 97

OTHER PORTUGUESE WINES 100

CHAPTER V—ITALIAN WINES 101

PIEDMONT 109

LIGURIA 113

LOMBARDY 114

VENETO 115

VENEZIA TRIDENTINA 116

ISTRIA 117

EMILIA 118

TUSCANY 119

MARCHE AND UMBRIA 121

LATIUM 122

CAMPANIA 123

BASILICATA, CALABRIA AND APULIA 125

SICILY 126

SARDINIA 129

CHAPTER VI—OTHER EUROPEAN WINES 130

TOKAY 130

GREAT WINES OF THE WORLD 135

CHAPTER VII—BUYING, STORING AND SERVING WINE 136

BUYING WINE 136

ORDERING WINE IN A RESTAURANT 142

STORING WINE 143

SERVING WINE 146

CHAPTER VIII—HOW TO DRINK WINE 159

CHAPTER IX—WINE IN THE KITCHEN 163

A FEW RECIPES CALLING FOR THE USE OF WINE AND SPIRITS 165

SOUPE AU VIN (A Burgundian Peasant Dish) 165

MUSHROOM SAUCE 165

LOBSTER À L’AMÉRICAINE 165

SOLE (OR FLOUNDER) AU VIN BLANC 166

BEEF VIGNERONNE 166

BŒUF À L’ÉTOUFFE 166

SAUTÉ OF VEAL CHASSEUR 167

STEAK MARCHAND DE VINS 167

CHICKEN ROY GOURMET 167

PÊCHES FLAMBÉES 168

CRÊPES FLAMBÉES 168

CHAPTER X—BRANDY, LIQUEURS, VERMOUTH 169

BRANDY 170

COGNAC 171

ARMAGNAC 175

OTHER WINE BRANDIES 176

MARC 177

OTHER FRUIT BRANDIES 178

LIQUEURS 179

VERMOUTH 183

BIBLIOGRAPHY 185

ENGLISH 185

FRENCH 186

GERMAN 187

ITALIAN 187

SPANISH 188

APPENDIX I—THE PRINCIPAL GROWTHS OF BORDEAUX 189

1. RED WINES OF THE MÉDOC 189

FIRST GROWTHS (Premiers Crus) 189

SECOND GROWTHS (Deuxièmes Crus) 189

THIRD GROWTHS (Troisièmes Crus) 190

FOURTH GROWTHS (Quatrièmes Crus) 190

FIFTH GROWTHS (Cinquièmes Crus) 190

THE EXCEPTIONAL GROWTHS (Crus Exceptionnels) 191

2. RED WINES OF GRAVES 195

3. WHITE WINES OF GRAVES 197

4. WHITE WINES OF SAUTERNES 198

5. RED WINES OF ST. EMILION 199

6. RED WINES OF POMEROL 203

VINTAGE YEARS IN BORDEAUX 204

APPENDIX II—BURGUNDY 207

THE MORE IMPORTANT VINEYARDS OF THE CÔTE D’OR 207

CHABLIS 213

VINTAGE YEARS IN BURGUNDY 213

APPENDIX III—THE LEADING SHIPPERS OF SHERRY, PORT AND MADEIRA 215

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 217

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MAP OF BORDEAUX, SHOWING PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS

MAP OF THE BURGUNDIAN CÔTE D’OR

MAP OF THE RHINE AND MOSELLE COUNTRY

THE CHIEF VINEYARD REGIONS OF EUROPE

ORDINARY WINE GLASS

GLASS FOR FINE WINES

GLASS FOR GERMAN WINES

CHAMPAGNE GLASS

WINE CRADLE

FOREWORD

BEING as complete for ordinary purposes as can be reasonably required this book does not belie its title. An abundance of accurate, up-to-date information and sound practical guidance is packed between its boards; for, as the joint authors very properly insist, wine is made, not to be ‘tasted’ by professionals, but to be drunk by amateurs.

The Complete Wine Book has, however, one sovereign merit that—anyhow to myself—transcends all the rest. It stands up boldly for the strictest application of that elementary principle of commercial honesty the French call appellation of origin (which over here, unfortunately, is still quite as often honoured in the breach as in the observance), preaching and exemplifying it throughout. For this alone the authors deserve the gratitude of all amateur wine-lovers and those dwindling aristocrats of the wine trade who remain faithful to its great traditions. The acknowledgments made to such staunch champions of an unpopular cause as M. Raymond Baudouin, founder of La Revue du Vin de France, and its (and my own) old friend M. Maurice Crozet, who introduced the estate-bottling of Beaujolais, are letters of credit no expert on wines or wine-cook can hope to impugn. Mr. Schoonmaker and Mr. Marvel refuse to tolerate the least compromise with any of the specious forms of perjury for which wine-labels have become notorious. District by district they denounce and explain these frauds, naming a batch of the worst French culprits in an appendix that is bluntly worded enough to put all but the most inherently credulous on their guard against similar malpractices elsewhere. After this it is perhaps hardly necessary to add that, though the authors know far more about the growing and making of wine than 999 out of any random thousand wine-merchants, they are not retired vintners. Nor is theirs one of those interesting but interested pens which that once honoured and respectable profession can now command at need. To quote their own words, the only ends they seek to serve are the consumers’ ends. These are, moreover, the only ends which a writer on the subject has any moral right to countenance.

The Complete Wine Book was first published in the United States. In that original form it would have been neither intelligible nor acceptable to the majority of British bottle-men. Yet its intrinsic value was sufficiently evident to encourage the idea of a specifically English edition. It reappears here under the imprint of its English publishers after having been thoroughly revised and very largely recast. Now that The Complete Wine Book is available in what may pass for the language of this country I have no hesitation in recommending it to English readers of one of the most absorbing of the humanities.

P. MORTON SHAND.

INTRODUCTORY

A BOOK on wine, like good wine itself, really needs neither introduction nor excuse. It is its own best introduction. There is no way to know wine, save by drinking it, and all that a book can do is serve as a guide in one’s personal researches and, it is hoped, as a spur to those whose researches have not yet begun.

Those may defend wine who may, yet it has seemed to the authors, on the record of the past, that wine itself has managed to hold its own fairly well through the ages; and it may be doubted whether the spirited and well-meant vindications of wine by poets, authors and propagandists in all times have had a great effect, pro or con. Wine is here; a product of Nature; Man drinks it and no doubt will always do so. There has never been, throughout history, a single instance of an attack on wine per se which has not failed in its purpose. Even Islam, as Mr. Hilaire Belloc recently pointed out, disregarded the letter of the Koran’s injunction until about five hundred years ago—the very point at which her magnificent culture entered its decline.

It is a commonplace which (if we except Gladstone) Anglo-Saxon reformers, both moral and fiscal, seem never to have learned, that cheap wine means temperance; that the most temperate countries in Europe drink wine; that the least temperate are those in which wine is dear and rare.

It is no less true and hardly less well known that cheap, good wine means health; that wine is itself a food, containing among other elements, a notable amount of vitamin В; that, in France at least, longevity, sobriety and relative immunity from influenza, tuberculosis and cancer are greatest in precisely the wine-growing and wine-drinking regions; and that in Bulgaria, the classic land of long-lived persons, 80 per cent of all centenarians (more than half of whom are women) drink wine every day of their lives.

Such facts can be cited endlessly and are familiar to medical men of all countries. Far more important, however, is the fact that good wine is simply a delicious and stimulating beverage, from the enjoyment and benefit of which too many persons in this and other countries are cut off by unfair taxation and consequent high prices. The result is the same anywhere: modest, cheap and sound wines suffer at the expense of handsome pretenders with high-flown, meaningless names; unscrupulous shippers and blenders flourish; and the general public is befuddled and decides to let well alone. Sales of whiskey and beer rise while wine is all but forgotten, save by a comparatively small body of connoisseurs.

It is a matter for honest pride that Great Britain has as many connoisseurs of wine as any country in the world, not excepting France; nevertheless, not all of us possess the time, the fortune or the inclination to be connoisseurs; nor, if we did, would there be enough fine wine to go round! There is, on the other hand, an abundance of lesser wines, every bit as delightful in their way as the aristocrats of the vinous hierarchy; these should be cheap and plentiful in this country. They are neither. The pleasures and benefits of wine are not for the fortunate few; they are for everybody, and there is nothing rare or mysterious about the ability to appreciate good wine. All one needs is—good wine!

Strangely enough, those who are doing the cause of wine the greatest disservice are not its avowed enemies but some who profess to be its friends. These may, for want of a better term, be called the wine-snobs—the curious persons who would surround the whole subject and use of wine with a strange mystery and ritual. Such are the ladies and gentlemen who scorn honest, plebeian wines because they lack a vintage date or a château name; who insist on the most rigid etiquette; who appear to obtain, through some innate gift, an ecstasy out of a single sip of wine that a whole glassful denies most of us. Indeed, the wine-snobs make the rest of us wonder whether the whole business of wine and its appreciation is not itself a vehicle of pretence and snobbery.

Honest wine deserves no such suspicion, and, let us hasten to add, no true connoisseur is, or can be, a wine-snob. The connoisseur loves wine—all good wine—as a music lover loves all good music. There is room always for preferences, but never for stubborn prejudice or affected likes and dislikes. There never has been, and never will be, a connoisseur worthy of the name who did not enjoy and appreciate the lesser wines of the world, as well as the great ones.

In countries where wine is a good familiar creature, there is little hocus-pocus and flummery about wine and its uses; it ranks with bread, cheese and the other simple staple things of life. There is precious little talk of venerable vintages, of the proper glass, of musty bottles and the etiquette of wine-drinking. In fact, there is little talk about wine at all, except among professionals. It is simply there, and one takes it or leaves it. One generally takes it.

In Holland the cheese merchants tell good Edam from bad by crumbling it between their fingers; nevertheless, Edam cheese is made, not to be crumbled, but to be eaten with bread. Similarly (and this is a thing which a great many forget), wine is made, not to be tasted by professionals, but to be drunk by amateurs.

At least ninety per cent of the wine sold throughout the world is anything but great; it is mediocre and always will be mediocre. There is about as much point in applying to such wine the complicated methods of the wine-taster as there would be in constructing a special safe for paste jewellery. To pretend, as some of the old-school literary wine oracles love to pretend, that it is nothing short of criminal to drink a flagon of South African Burgundy after having taken a cocktail; that it is quite wrong, on a hot day to serve a chilled Graves Supérieur with the roast; that it is barbarous to drink a grocer’s claret with salad, is to create a ritual as ridiculous as it is false. Needless to say, a fine wine deserves careful handling, but the really fine wines are not for daily lunch and dinner; they are for special occasions and should be so used.

The authors have in this book no ends except the consumers’ ends to serve. They have enjoyed in the past and expect to enjoy in the future, bottles of Empire wine—but they feel that such wines should be honestly labelled, fairly priced, and pure. They have a profound respect for the wines of Continental Europe—when these wines are (as, alas, they are not always) what they claim to be.

The authors would like particularly to acknowledge a debt of gratitude which they owe to the following persons whose help has been invaluable. They would like at the same time to make it clear that any errors which, despite all possible precautions, may have slipped into the text are their own. Any merit which this book may have is in large part due—

To M. Raymond Baudouin, founder and editor of the Revue du Vin de France—who is not only one of the outstanding œnological authorities of Europe, but who has, for more than a decade, waged unrelenting warfare upon fraudulent practices in the wine business—through whose kindness the authors found all doors open in the wine-producing regions of France.

To Freiherr von Schorlemer of Lieser-an-der-Mosel, former President of the Deutscher Weinbauverband, or Association of German Wine-growers—one of the most hospitable of hosts and most amiable of guides—whose aid, no less as a host than as a guide, proved invaluable in the compilation of the chapter dealing with German wines.

To M. le Baron Le Roy, President of the General Syndicate of Wine-growers of the Côtes-du-Rhône and General Secretary of the Fédération des Grands Crus de France, to whose vigilance and energy the present high standing of the Rhône wines is in no small measure due, who graciously put his knowledge of these wines at the authors’ disposal.

To M. le Marquis d’Angerville, President of the Syndicat Général des Producteurs de Grands Crus de Bourgogne de la Côte d’Or, himself a grower of fine wines and a vigilant protector of the reputation of the famous territorial names of Burgundy.

To Mr. Frank Guimaraens, head of the firm of Fonseca & Co., whose hospitality and thorough knowledge of Port and the Port trade combined to make researches in Oporto and the Alto Douro as enjoyable as they were fruitful.

To M. Maurice Crozet, whose wines are among the best of the Beaujolais, who was good enough to put his knowledge of his native region at the authors’ disposal.

To M. Gaston Briand of Ambleville, Charente, the genial Secretary of the Syndicate of Wine-growers of the Charentes, a staunch enemy of anything that might injure the good name of Cognac, who kindly furnished much of the data for the section on brandy.

To Dr. W. Bewerunge of Bonn, Director of the Propagandaverband Preussischer Weinbaugebiete, the author of the best brief book on German wines, who guided the authors through the vineyards of the Rheingau and Rheinhessen; and by his friendliness, tirelessness and store of wine knowledge made the authors trips to the Rhineland experiences they will never cease to look back on with pleasure.

To Messrs. Berry Bros., of St. James’s Street, who were always willing to give their time and advice to the authors, whose introductions, especially in Oporto, proved invaluable.

To MM. Victor and Henri Lanson, the fils of Lanson Père et Fils of Rheims, who introduced the authors into the more esoteric mysteries of Champagne.

To Herr Carl Wurzburger of Bad Kreuznach, whose assistance, both verbal and written, helped immeasurably in the preparation of Chapter V.

To Mr. Carl Williams and Mr. Guy Williams, of the firm of Williams and Humbert, Jerez de la Frontera, who in the course of a morning spent in the dim rooms and sunlit courtyards of their bodegas were good enough to put their vast knowledge of Sherry at the authors’ disposal.

To Dr. Giuseppe Scala, wine expert of the Instituto Nazionale per l’Esportazione in Rome, whose assistance during the authors’ trip through the wine-producing regions of Italy proved invaluable.

To M. Xavier Moreau, Mayor of Podensac, and his brother, M. Henri Moreau, who guided the authors through the white-wine regions of Graves and Sauternes.

To M. Savinien Giraud, Mayor of Pomerol, and proprietor of Château Trotanoy, who kindly furnished a great deal of firsthand data concerning the wines of Pomerol—the smallest, but by no means the least celebrated, of the wine-producing districts of the Bordelais.

To M. Victor Daniel, whose restaurant Le Roy Gourmet, on the Place des Victoires, is one of the gastronomic glories of Paris, who graciously furnished several of the recipes in Chapter IX and constantly gave invaluable aid and advice.

To their good friend, M. Firmin Boucheron, whose Hôtel de France at Sezanne, Marne, is, from well-stocked cellar to hospitable roof, as good an inn as any in Europe, who has devoted whole days of his time to increasing the authors’ knowledge of the Champagne vineyards.

To M. Henri Gouges of Nuits-St.-Georges, Vice-President of the Syndicat Général de Défense des Producteurs de Grands Crus de Bourgogne de la Côte d’Or, an admirable wine-grower and a most cordial host.

CHAPTER I—FRENCH WINES

FRANCE, not content to produce more wine than any other country in the world, buys annually about ten gallons of wine for every gallon that she sells. She has imported, since the War, twice as much wine as all the other countries in the world put together, and at present purchases, even from a country of such slight viticultural importance as Greece, nearly twice as much wine as she ships annually to Great Britain.

France produces not only more wine, but more good wine, than any other country. Of all wines not French there are only five—Port, Madeira, Sherry, Rhine-Moselle and Tokay—that can be ranked as peers of the great vintages of France; Germany, Hungary, Spain and Portugal combined can offer no such range and variety as is offered by a national collection that includes Claret, Sauternes, Burgundy and Champagne—to name only a few.

Because of the superlative excellence of these, the princes royal in the vinous Almanach de Gotha of France, some people are prone to imagine that all French wines are good. As a matter of fact, fully 50 per cent of the wine produced in France is perfectly terrible. Of doubtful paternity at best, it comes from the vast and nameless vineyards of the Midi; cut and blended in the wine-sheds of Sète or of Bercy in Paris (whence the derisive appellation Château de Bercy), it is rated according to alcoholic content, sold for a couple of francs a bottle, and quite properly diluted with water before being drunk.

This wine, known to French political speakers as "le vin de la victoire, and to French soldiers as pinard", is made in France exclusively for the home market, and to supplement the national supply it is found necessary to import something over a billion bottles annually from Algeria alone. Only by sending out her finer vintages for the delectation of connoisseurs in foreign countries, and