Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1883 — London's Wine-Vaults. [ARTICLE]

London's Wine-Vaults.

The wine-vaults of London are not to be seen every day or by every person. I was fortunate enough to secure a “tasting order,” and I, in'company with one or two others, made a tour of the St. Katherine’s and London Dock vaults. I saw over 5,000,000 packages of port and sherry, over 1,000,000 of claret, and 500,000 of spirits. They were in vast tuns, hogsheads, oasks, and barrels, and the total amount in storage was 260,000,000 gallons. In fact, there were six and one-half gallons for every man, woman adn child of the population' of Great Britain. Some of it had been in store for years. The owners had forgotten about it, and the old and moldy casks had rotted away at their ohines and had been several times replaced. One lot of 1,000 gallons of sherry had been in the vaults for nearly fifty years. It was brought from the South of Spain by its owner, who had fallen dead in the vaults. The wine, along with his other property, had passed into chancery, and the litigation, which has continued for nearly naif a century, is as far frqm being ended, apparently, as when it begun. But the wine has been growing old and valuable, and if sold now would probably bring 5 guineas a gallon. Let me explain that these vaults are simply great cellars under the dockhouses. In area they aggregate some-thirty-five acres. They extend under the Thames On one side and well under Tower Hill on the other. They are about sixteen feet from floor to roof, and are by no means regular in form, but reach ont in strange passages and alleys in all directions. They are bonded by the Government, and owners can have their property in them as ldiig as they like without paying customs duties. A, long, narrow flight of well-worn stone steps that have been in constant use since 1804 opened before our view, and at their foot were dim, twinkling lights that flickered fitfully, as if in a struggle to overcome the fumes of the wines that came up the stone channel like a breeze from a distillery. It was warm, rich with the odor of the wines, and musty and moldy. A sniff of it wasn’t half bad, but you rememjber the fate of the Persian esthete who had his choice of death. “To die amid sweet perfumes,” he said. So they chucked him into a hogshead of attar of roses and he expired in great agony. At the bottom of the flight of steps the guide met us, a tall, broad-shouldered ruddy cockney, who handed us each a lard-oxl lamp, fastened to a straight stick about eighteen inches long. He began by asking ns if any one was a teetotaler. None of us were. “Because," said he, “if you don’t take a drop of something on your stomach you’ll get screwed because of the smell.” He drew a glass of sherry for each one of us out of a big cask near the foot of the steps. It was a heavy, full-bodied wine, with a rich nutty flavor and an aftermath like leather smells. It had 'been hnng in leather skins over one season, having been the last made and too late for the regular wine harvest, but it was good for all that, and “wery mellowin’ to the hdrgans.” Turning then sharply to the left the vaults spread out before us in vast underground acreage. Lights twinkled here and there, moldly men were engaged in moying the packages at some places, and down the long passage under the Than?es the polished steel skids for riding a barrel stretched in narrowing perspective, till they joined apparently in one and flashed on under the line of lights above them.— London, letter.