Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/52

This page has been validated.
12
EXPOSURE.

matter, and four-fifths of the vineyards of France are planted in soils which would not pay the expense of cultivation in another form.




SECTION III

Of the Influence of Exposure on the Vine[1].

The same climate, culture, and soils of the same nature furnish, frequently, wines of a very different quality. We daily see a hill covered with vines, afford, under different aspects, the most amazing diversity of produce. One would imagine that every variety of climate and soil had concurred in furnishing products, which are the natural fruits of contiguous fields differently exposed.

This difference in product, owing to exposure,


  1. It is almost unnecessary to remark, that these observations are only literally applicable in the northern hemisphere. I have preferred stating them as I found them, because the illustrations are all drawn from it, and it will be an easy matter to apply the general principles, which it is the object of this chapter to establish, as far as mere latitude is concerned. They will, of course, in their application to New South Wales, be modified by various circumstances, which it would probably be difficult for even the oldest and most observant resident fully to appreciate.