2-913-852 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Chateau Lafitte, Medoc, near Bordeaux, 1854. Wine-making estate in France. 'At first, I was dainty in my selection of the grapes to be chosen, eschewing the underripe and the over-ripe. A damsel beside me observed this: 'Cut away, she said; 'every grape makes wine.' 'Yes; but the caterpillars?' 'They give it a body !' I was talking to the lord of the vineyard, when some one...dashed at him from behind; and...squashed a huge bunch of grapes over his mouth and nose, rubbing in the bleeding fruit as if it were a healing ointment, while streams of juice squirted from between the fingers of the fair assailant, and streamed down the patron's equivocal shirt...the good man shook his fist at the girl as she flew, laughing, down the alley: and then, resuming his talk with me, he said, 'We call that Faire des moustaches. We all do it at vintage time'.' From "Illustrated London News", 1854.