There has been no other good year since 1779. The celebrated vineyards
before mentioned, are plains, as is generally the canton of Medoc,
and that of the Grave. The soil of Hautbrion, particularly, which I
examined, is a sand, in which is near as much round gravel or small
stone, and very little loam: and this is the general soil of Medoc. That
of Pontac, which I examined also, is a little different. It is clayey,
with a fourth or fifth of fine rotten stone; and at two feet depth,
it becomes all a rotten stone. M. de Lamont tells me, he has a kind of
grape without seeds, which I did not formerly suppose to exist; but I
saw at Marseilles dried raisins from Smyrna without seeds. I see in his
farm at Pontac, some plants of white clover, and a good deal of yellow:
also some small peach trees in the open ground. The principal English
wine merchants at Bordeaux, are Jernon, Barton, Johnston, Foster,
Skinner, Copinger, and M'Cartey: the chief French wine merchants, are
Feger, Nerac, Bruneaux Jauge, and Du Verget. Desgrands, a wine-broker,
tells me they never mix the wines of first quality: but that they mix
the inferior ones to improve them.
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