is alive with the moving figures of
men and women, stooping among the vines, or bearing pails and
basketfuls of grapes out to the grass-grown cross-roads, along which
the labouring oxen drag the rough vintage-carts, groaning and cracking
as they stagger along beneath their weight of purple tubs, heaped high
with the tumbling masses of luscious fruit. The congregation of every
age and both sexes, and the careless variety of costume, add
additional features of picturesqueness to the scene. The white-haired
old man labours with shaking hands to fill the basket which his
black-eyed imp of a grandchild carries rejoicingly away. Quaint,
broad-brimmed straw and felt hats; handkerchiefs twisted like turbans
over straggling elf-locks; swarthy skins tanned to an olive-brown;
black flashing eyes; and hands and feet stained in the abounding
juices of the precious fruit--all these southern peculiarities of
costume and appearance supply the vintage with its pleasant
characteristics. The clatter of tongues is incessant. A fire of jokes
and jeers, of saucy questions and more saucy retorts--of what, in
fact, in the humble and unpoetic, but expressive vernacular, is called
"chaff"--is kept up with a vigour which seldom flags, except now and
then, when the but-end of a song, or the twanging close of a chorus,
strikes the general fancy, and procures for the _morceau_ a lusty
_encore_. Meantime, the master wine-grower moves observingly from rank
to rank. No neglected bunch of fruit escapes his watchful eye; no
careless vintager shakes the precious berries rudely upon the soil,
but he is promptly reminded of his slovenly work. Sometimes the tubs
attract the careful superintendent: he turns up the clusters, to
ascertain that no leaves nor useless length of tendril are entombed in
the juicy masses, and anon directs his steps to the pressing-trough,
anxious to find that the lusty treaders are persevering manfully in
their long-continued dance.'

The pressure of the grapes is a curious part of the process in an age
of mechanical improvement like the present. It is performed by men
treading among the fruit with their naked feet. 'The wine-press, or
_cuvier de pressoir_, consists, in the majority of cases, of a massive
shallow tub, varying in size from four square feet to as many square
yards. It is placed either upon wooden trestles, or on a regularly
built platform of mason-work, under the huge rafters of a substantial
outhouse. Close to it sta