Wines Of France. In respect to soil, climate, and the abundance and variety of the wines which she produces, France has been called the vineyard of the earth. Nearly seven eighths of her territory is grape-bearing, and the products of her vines being for the most part but slightly alcoholic, her people are, as a rule, wine drinkers without being addicted to intemperance. With the exception of the extreme northern and northwestern departments, the whole country is more or less devoted to the culture of the grape; but as certain soils and exposures are better adapted to that purpose than others, the wines of high commercial value are produced in limited and comparatively isolated districts. By far the greater part of the French vintage is consumed within the country, or is mixed with or employed to imitate various wines of established reputation. The total product of the country amounts to between 1,500,000,000 and 2,000,000,000 gallons, worth about $350,000,000.-First in importance as an article of commerce, and in the estimationof connoisseurs for their intrinsic excellence, are the wines produced in the department of Gironde, a part of the old province of Guienne, of which Bordeaux is the capital; whence the district is also viticul-turally known by its old name of the Borde-lais. Gironde is practically divisible into five wine-producing districts: Medoc, a strip of territory on the left bank of the river Gironde, extending from Blanquefort, near Bordeaux, to the sea; the Graves, or high plains near the confluence of the Garonne and the Dor-dogne; the Cotes, or slopes on the right bank of the Garonne; the Palus, or low marshy territory on both banks of the Garonne, in the immediate neighborhood of Bordeaux; and the district of Entre-deux-Mers, or low lands between the Dordogne and Garonne. Within this area more than 350,000 acres are devoted to vineyards, whose annual production exceeds 50,000,000 gallons, five eighths of which are red and three eighths white wines, worth $56,000,000. The poorest kinds are sold at less than a franc the gallon, while the best fetch in favorable seasons considerably more than 20 francs.

The distinguishing qualities of the wines of Gironde are purity, sub-astringency, lightness, and fragrance. In its general features Medoc is a long, narrow plain, inclining somewhat to the Gironde, and containing about 45,000 acres of vineyards, producing annually 8,000,000 gallons. Of these nearly one eighth are high-class wines, an equal amount are simply fine wines, and the remainder are ordinary qualities. The two first mentioned grades yield a net product of about 5,000,000 bottles. They are red in color, and, notwithstanding a slight characteristic roughness, have great flavor and strength without being intoxicating, and after lying several years in the bottle acquire a delicious bouquet. They not only bear transportation better than other French wines, but are even improved by long sea voyages. It is customary to arrange them in three categories: 1, the classified wines, of which there are about 60 growths recognized by the commerce of Bordeaux; 2, the citizen or bourgeois wines; 3, the peasants, or wines of the small proprietors.

The classified growths are again subdivided into four or five kinds, the first of which comprises the celebrated first three growths (les trois premiers crus) of the whole Medoc, viz., the Chateau Margaux, Chateau Laffitte, and Chateau Latour, which are of equal excellence and of enormous price even in France. In this division it is also customary to include the Chateau Haut-Brion, a red wine of great richness and delicacy belonging to the neighboring district of Graves. Among the second and other growths, well known and excellent wines are the Mouton, Leoville, Gruau-Larose, Pichon-Longueville, Cos-Des-tournel, Pontet-Canet, Chateau de Beyche-ville, etc. To all red wines exported from Medoe, and in fact from the whole Bordelais, to Great Britain and the United States, it has long been customary to apply the general name of claret, derived from the French clai-ret, which simply means a clarified wine. The product called claret is, however, properly a mixture of several kinds of wine, the strong-bodied varieties of Spain and southern and southeastern France being mingled with the ordinary growths of Gironde, to suit the English and American palate.

The term is unknown in France. A comparatively small amount of genuine Medoc wine reaches this country, as the popular taste here inclines to a factitious, reenforced wine, having body and spirituous strength, rather than to the natural product of the vineyards. The same may be said of Great Britain, notwithstanding she is the principal consumer of the first-class wines of Medoc. The amount of mixing carried on at Bordeaux is prodigious! Her exports of wine are twelve times greater than the production of the entire Medoc, and half of these exports sell as Bordeaux wine; so that it is fair to assume that the growths of Gironde are several times multiplied by the addition or substitution of other wines. There are 42 communes in Medoc in which wine is made, from each of which the wine takes its name, although the grand wines are named after the estates on which they are made. A Margaux wine means a wine from the commune so called, and must not be confounded with Chateau Margaux, which is wine from a particular estate in that commune.

Other familiar names are Pauillae, in which Chateau Laffitte is situated, St. Ju-lien de Reignac, and St. Estephe. South of Medoc lies the district of Graves, which produces wines, both red and white, of greater body and more spirituous than those just described, and bearing some resemblance to the growths of Burgundy. The best of the red wines is the Haut-Brion, heretofore mentioned. The district of Sauternes. a prolongation of that of Graves, extending along the left bank of the Garonne, produces exclusively white wines, the best of which, though of delicate flavor and pure aroma, are excessively sweet in comparison with the wines of Medoc. The latter quality has been given to them of late years by the makers in consequence of the growing demand for sweet Sauternes wines in Russia. The poorer grades of Sauternes are thin and acidulous. The principal growths of the district are the Barsacs, Bommes, and Sauternes. the first of which produces the Chateau Coutet, the second the Chateau La Tour Blanche, and the third the world-renowned Chateau Yquem, which sells for from 12,000 to 15,000 francs the tonneau of 200 gallons at the vineyard, and is esteemed almost too costly for use.