the sounder, most delicate and _recherche_ of the red wines to be
readily obtained at Tours, we may particularly enumerate Bordeaux--which
even when prepared for the English markets, still possesses the fine
qualities of the pure wine;--and Burgundy, of which, the Romanee
Saint-Vivant, and Romanee Conti, are the best and most perfect. It may
also be observed that the _vin cremant d'Ay_ which is the least frothy
and fullest bodied of the effervescing wines, is held in high repute,
being grateful and stomachic.

The Champagne wines are divided into sparkling (_mousseux_), demi
sparkling (_demi-mousseux_), and still wines (_non mousseux_). Their
effervescence is owing to the _carbonic acid gas_, produced in the
process of fermentation. And we are told that as this gas is produced in
the cask or (as more quickly) in the bottle, the saccharine and
tartarous principles are decomposed.

If the latter principle predominates, the wine effervesces strongly, but
is weak; if the saccharine principle be considerable and the alcohol
found in sufficient quantity to limit its decomposition, the quality is
good. Wine of moderate effervescence is invariably selected by
connoisseurs in Champagne, and such wine carries the best price.

Of the still class, a wine put into bottles when about ten or twelve
months old designated, _ptisannes_ of Champagne, is greatly recommended
as aperient and diuretic.

The champagne wines are light in quality in respect to spirit, the
average of alcohol in the generality of them, according to professor
Brande, being but 12.61 per cent.

It is a remarkable and well ascertained fact, that the alcohol in wine
combined in the _natural way_, when drank in that state, is not
productive of those complaints of the liver, and other diseases, which
arise from drinking the brandied wines of Portugal, in which the _spirit
is foreign_. The union of the alcohol, being mingled with the other
ingredients of the wine by artificial means, is never perfect, and is
beyond calculation more pernicious than the strongest natural product.

The light wines of France may not on first acquaintance prove so
relishing or pleasant to the English palate accustomed to adulterated
or brandied wines; they however in reality, not only impart a
cheerfulness and exhilaration, a kind of pleasant easy buoyancy entirely
different from what arises from the use of port, or the spirituous
heavier wines but have when taken largely a much less in