Another Considerable Article In House-Keeping Is Wine, Which We
Have Here Good And Reasonable.
The wine of Tavelle in Languedoc
is very near as good as Burgundy, and may be had at Nice, at the
rate of six-pence a bottle.
The sweet wine of St. Laurent,
counted equal to that of Frontignan, costs about eight or nine-pence
a quart: pretty good Malaga may be had for half the money.
Those who make their own wine choose the grapes from different
vineyards, and have them picked, pressed, and fermented at home.
That which is made by the peasants, both red and white, is
generally genuine: but the wine-merchants of Nice brew and
balderdash, and even mix it with pigeons dung and quick-lime. It
cannot be supposed, that a stranger and sojourner should buy his
own grapes, and make his own provision of wine: but he may buy it
by recommendation from the peasants, for about eighteen or twenty
livres the charge, consisting of eleven rup five pounds; in other
words, of two hundred and eighty pounds of this country, so as to
bring it for something less than three-pence a quart. The Nice
wine, when mixed with water, makes an agreeable beverage. There
is an inferior sort for servants drank by the common people,
which in the cabaret does not cost above a penny a bottle. The
people here are not so nice as the English, in the management of
their wine. It is kept in flacons, or large flasks, without
corks, having a little oil at top. It is not deemed the worse for
having been opened a day or two before; and they expose it to the
hot sun, and all kinds of weather, without hesitation. Certain it
is, this treatment has little or no effect upon its taste,
flavour, and transparency.
The brandy of Nice is very indifferent: and the liqueurs are so
sweetened with coarse sugar, that they scarce retain the taste or
flavour of any other ingredient.
The last article of domestic oeconomy which I shall mention is
fuel, or wood for firing, which I buy for eleven sols (a little
more than six-pence halfpenny) a quintal, consisting of one
hundred and fifty pound Nice weight. The best, which is of oak,
comes from Sardinia. The common sort is olive, which being cut
with the sap in it, ought to be laid in during the summer;
otherwise, it will make a very uncomfortable fire. In my kitchen
and two chambers, I burned fifteen thousand weight of wood in
four weeks, exclusive of charcoal for the kitchen stoves, and of
pine-tops for lighting the fires. These last are as large as
pineapples, which they greatly resemble in shape, and to which,
indeed, they give their name; and being full of turpentine, make
a wonderful blaze. For the same purpose, the people of these
countries use the sarments, or cuttings of the vines, which they
sell made up in small fascines.
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