Part 18

At Marburg on the river Drave, in the vicinity of the Bacher Mountains, which stretch far into Carinthia, and have their lower slopes covered with vines, Herr F. Auchmann has established a successful sparkling wine manufactory. The raw wine comes from the vineyards around Marburg and from Pettau, some ten or twelve miles lower down the Drave. The vintage commonly lasts from the middle of October until the middle of November. Black grapes of the clevener and portuguese varieties are pressed as in the Champagne, so as to yield a white must, with which a certain portion of white wine from the mosler or furmint grape is subsequently mingled. The bottling takes place as early as April or May. The wines are principally consumed in Austria, but are also exported to Russia, Italy, Egypt, the Danubian Principalities, Australia, &c.

Sparkling wines seem to be made in various parts of Hungary, judging from the samples sent to the Vienna and Paris Exhibitions from Pesth, Pressburg, Oedenburg, Pécs, Velencze, and Kolozsvár. Rose-colour wines are evidently much in favour with the respective manufacturers, several of whom make sparkling red wines as well, but with none of the success of their Styrian neighbours. The best Hungarian sparkling wines we have met with are those of Hubert and Habermann, made at Pressburg, the former capital of Hungary, where its kings, after being crowned, used to ride up the Königsberg brandishing the sword of St. Stephen towards the four points of the compass in token of their determination to defend the kingdom against all enemies. The white sparkling wines are made exclusively from white grapes grown in the neighbouring vineyards of Bösing, Geñnau, and St. Georgen, but the firm make red sparkling wines as well from the produce of the Ratzersdorf and Wainor vineyards. The vintage takes place some time in October, and the wines are bottled both in the spring and autumn, but never until they are fully twelve months old. With these variations the system pursued with regard to the wines is the same as is followed in the Champagne. There are several other sparkling wine manufacturers at Pressburg, and the principal market for these wines is Austro-Hungary, but shipments of them are made to England, the United States, India, Roumania, and Servia. The production of sparkling wine in Hungary is now estimated to amount to one million bottles annually.

In Croatia Prince Lippe-Schaumburg has established a sparkling wine manufactory at Slatina, where he produces a so-called Riesling-Champagner, and it would appear from the collection of Austro-Hungarian sparkling wines exhibited at Vienna by Herr Bogdan Hoff of Cracow, that these wines are also made at Melnik, in Bohemia, at Bisenz in Moravia, at Sebenicodi Maraschino in Dalmatia, at Botzen in the Tyrol, at Tasnad in Transylvania, and at Weiss-Kirchen in the Banat. All these wines had been submitted to examination at the Imperial oeno-chemical laboratory at Klosterneuberg, and one was not surprised to find that the majority were pronounced to be of too robust a character for transformation into sparkling wines.

Switzerland long since turned its attention to the manufacture of sparkling wines, not, however, to meet the requirements of its own population, but those of the many tourists with well-lined purses who annually explore its valleys, lakes, and mountains. Neuchâtel champagne has met with a certain amount of success, and at the present time there are a couple of establishments devoted to its production, the best known being that of Bouvier frères. There are, moreover, sparkling wine manufactories at Vevay in the Vaud Canton, and at Sion in the Valais. In the Canton of Neuchâtel the best Swiss red wines are produced—notably Cortaillod and Faverge of a ruby hue and Burgundy-like flavour—and the sparkling wine manufacturers of the district wisely blend a considerable proportion of wine from black grapes with that from white when making their cuvées. Vaud, on the other hand, being noted for white wines bearing some resemblance to certain Rhine growths, it is of these that sparkling wines are exclusively made at Vevay.

The Vevay vineyards occupy the heights which skirt the Lake of Geneva on its northern side. The innumerable terraces, steep and difficult of access to the toiling vine-dresser, on which the vines are planted, are the result of centuries of patient labour. Here the vine seems to flourish at an altitude of more than 1,800 feet above the sea level. To compensate for the deficiency of sunshine the leaves are largely stripped from the vines so as to expose the fruit, and thereby assist its ripening.

The sparkling wine factory at Sion, bordering the river Rhône, in the Canton of the Valais, was established in 1872 by MM. de Riedmatten and De Quay, who derive their raw wine from vineyards in the immediate neighbourhood, almost all of which have a southern exposure, and occupy gentle slopes. The soil chiefly consists of a decomposed limestone schist, locally termed "brisé." In these vineyards, and more especially the district known as the Clavaux, some of the best and most alcoholic wines in Switzerland are produced.

The firm originally experimented with the choicer and more powerful growths, and, as may be imagined, soon discovered they were not well adapted for conversion into sparkling wines. To-day they limit themselves to wines produced from what is known as the "fendant" variety of grape, said by some to be identical with the German riesling, and by others to be of the same type as the French chasselas. The vintage in the Valais is the earliest in Switzerland, taking place in favourable years at the close of September, but ordinarily in the course of October. Some fine white candy syrup is added to the wine at the epoch of bottling, in order to provoke the requisite effervescence, which it does so effectually that the tirage is obliged to take place some time between November and May, as at any other period the temperature would be too high and the bottles would burst. MM. Riedmatten and De Quay have two varieties of sparkling wine—their Carte Blanche, which goes under the name of Mont Blanc, and is rather sweet, and their Carte Verte known as Glacier de Rhône, a drier variety and finding a readier sale.

Of late years, since many improvements have been effected in Italy both in the cultivation of the vineyards and the vintaging of the wine, numerous attempts have been made, although on the whole with but indifferent success, to produce a good sparkling wine. The principal seat of the manufacture is Asti, where the Societa Unione Enofila make considerable quantities of a common strong sweet sparkling wine, as well as a sparkling muscatel. Alessandria, Ancona, Bologna, Castagnolo, Genoa, Modena, Naples, Palermo, and Treviso also profess to make sparkling wines, but only in insignificant quantities. Alessandria produces sparkling malmsey and red sparkling brachetto; and on the Marquis Della Stufa's estate of Castagnolo a sparkling wine is manufactured from the currajola variety of grape, one of the best in the Tuscan vineyards. The vines at Castagnolo are cultivated in accordance with the French system, and at the vintage all unripe and unsound grapes are thrown aside. There is an evident flavour of the muscat grape in the Castagnolo sparkling wine, which has the merit of lightness and of being well made. The alcoholic strength is equivalent to rather more than 20° of proof spirit, and the highest quality wine is remarkable for its excessive dryness in comparison with all other samples of Italian sparkling wines that we have met with. Naples appears to confine itself to producing sparkling white lacryma christi, for which, as a curiosity, there exists a certain demand.

Spain of late years has shown itself equally ambitious with Italy to achieve distinction in the production of sparkling wines, and at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 there were samples from the majority of the wine centres skirting the Mediterranean coast, including Gerona, Barcelona, Tarragona, and Valencia. Other samples come from Logroño, in the north of Spain; and years ago sparkling wine used to be made at Villaviciosa, on the Bay of Biscay. To Paris there were also sent samples of sparkling orange wine, an agreeable beverage, and unquestionably preferable to the majority of Spanish sparkling wines composed of the juice of the grape.

Greek sparkling wines, said to be of very fair quality, are made at Athens, Corinth, and Tripoliza, and are exported in moderate quantities to Russia. Algeria, too, is turning its attention to the production of sparkling wines, but solely for home consumption, and at the Paris Exhibition there was a sparkling wine from Uruguay, but of execrable quality.

The sparkling wines of the Crimea and the Don, known in Russia respectively as Krimski and Donski champagnes, are described as being superior to much of the wine which passes in England under the name of champagne. In Russia it is the fashion to speak contemptuously of them, just as rhubarb and gooseberry champagne is spoken of in England, still these Crimean and Don products are genuine wines, and, though somewhat sweet, may be drunk with satisfaction and in moderate quantities with impunity. One of the best Donski brands is that of Abrahamof, and as much as six roubles per bottle is demanded for the finer qualities at Novoi Tscherkash. About a million bottles of the Donski champagne are exported annually, but the wine finds its principal market at the great Russian fairs, where almost every important bargain is "wetted" with sparkling Donski.

XIX.—THE SPARKLING WINES OF THE UNITED STATES.

Earliest Efforts at Wine-Making in America— Failures to Acclimatise European Vines— Wines Made by the Swiss Settlers and the Mission Fathers— The Yield of the Mission Vineyards— The Monster Vine of the Montecito Valley— The Catawba Vine and its General Cultivation— Mr. Longworth one of the Founders of American Viticulture— Fresh Attempts to make Sparkling Wine at Cincinnati— Existing Sparkling Wine Manufactures there— Longfellow's Song in Praise of Catawba— The Kelley Island Wine Company— Vintaging and Treatment of their Sparkling Wines— Decrease of Consumption— The Vineyards of Hammondsport— Varieties of Grapes used for Sparkling Wines— The Vintage— After-Treatment of the Wines— The Pleasant Valley and Urbana Wine Companies and their Various Brands— Californian Sparkling Wines— The Buena Vista Vinicultural Society of San Francisco— Its Early Failures and Eventual Success in Manufacturing Sparkling Wines— The Vintage in California— Chinese Vintagers— How the Wine is Made— American Spurious Sparkling Wines.

From the earliest period of the colonisation of America the vine appears to have attracted the attention of the settlers, and it is said that as early as 1564 wine was made from the native grape in Florida. The first attempts to establish a regular vineyard date, however, from 1620, and would seem to have been made in Virginia with European vines, the prospects having become sufficiently encouraging in 1630 for the colonists to send for French vine-dressers to tend their plants. The latter were subsequently accused of ruining the vines by their bad treatment, but most likely this was an error, it having since been made evident that European vines cannot be successfully cultivated east of the Rocky Mountains, where the phylloxera vastatrix prevails. It was in vain that William Penn made repeated attempts to acclimatise European vines in Pennsylvania, that the Swiss emigrants—vine-growers from the Lake of Geneva—made similar trials, they having expended ten thousand dollars to no purpose. In vain, in Jessamine county, Kentucky, Pierre Legaud laboured in the environs of Philadelphia, and Lakanal, the member of the French Convention, experimented in Tennessee, Ohio, and Alabama; all their efforts to introduce the Old World vines proved futile. The attempts that were made by Swiss settlers at Vevay, in Indiana, with the indigenous plants were more successful, and after a time they managed to produce some palatable wine from the Schuylkill muscatel.

Towards the latter part of the 18th century the Mission Fathers had succeeded in planting vineyards in California. It is known that in 1771 the vine was cultivated there, and the San Gabriel Mission in the county of Los Angeles, some 300 miles S.E. of San Francisco, is said to have possessed the first vineyard. A prevalent belief is, that the vines were from roots or cuttings obtained from either Spain or Mexico, but it is also conjectured that they were some of the wild varieties known to be scattered over the country, while a third theory suggests that as attempts to make wine from the wild grapes would most likely have proved a failure, the Fathers planted the seeds of raisins which had come from Spain. The culture must have progressed rapidly, if, as stated, there were planted at San Gabriel in a single spring no fewer than 40,000 vines. These mission vines were mainly of two sorts, the one yielding a white grape with a musky flavour, and the other a dark blue fruit. The latter was the favourite, doubtless from its produce bearing some resemblance to the red wines of Old Castile.

From San Gabriel the planting of the vine extended from mission to mission until each owned its patch of vineland. At the time of the arrival of the Americans in 1846 the smallest of these was five acres in extent, and others as many as thirty acres, and it is calculated the average yield was from 700 to 1,000 gallons of wine per acre. This was owing first to the exceeding richness of the soil, and secondly to its being well irrigated. If the celebrated mission vine grown on one of the sunny slopes overlooking the lovely Montecito valley near Santa Barbara on the blue Pacific had many fellows in the Fathers' vineyards, the above estimate can hardly be an exaggerated one. The stem of this vine, which is four feet four inches in circumference at the ground, rises eight feet before branching out. The branches, under which the country people are fond of dancing, and which are supported by fifty-two trellises, extend over more than 5,000 square feet. This monster vine produces annually from five to six tons of grapes, and one year it yielded no fewer than 7,000 bunches, each from one to four pounds in weight. It is irrigated by water from the hot springs, situated a few miles distant, and is believed to be from half to three-quarters of a century old.

Viticulture and vinification languished in the United States until attention was called in 1826 to the catawba vine by Major Adlum, of Georgetown, near Washington, who thought that by so doing he was conferring a greater benefit on his country than if he had liquidated its national debt. This vine, which is derived from the wild Vitis labrusca, was first planted on an extensive scale by Nicholas Longworth, justly looked upon as one of the founders of American viticulture, and gradually supplanted all others, remaining for many years the principal plant cultivated along the banks of the Ohio—the so-called "Rhine of America"—until, ceaselessly attacked by rot, mildew, and leaf-blight, it was found necessary in many places to supplant it by more robust varieties.

Mr. Longworth, about the year 1837, among his numerous experiments at Cincinnati, included that of making sparkling wines from the catawba, isabella, and other varieties of grapes, and to-day there are several manufactories of sparkling catawba and other wines in the capital of Ohio—the self-named "Queen city," which its detractors have jocularly dubbed Porcopolis on account of the immense trade done there in smoked and salted pork. The chief sparkling wine establishments at Cincinnati are those of Messrs. Werk and Sons, whose sparkling catawba obtained a medal for progress at the Vienna Exhibition in 1873, and who have, moreover, largely experimented with ives' and virginia seedlings, delaware and other grapes, in making effervescent wines, though only with doubtful success. Another Cincinnati firm is that of Messrs. George Bogen and Co., whose sparkling wines also met with recognition at Vienna.

The reader will remember Longfellow's well-known song extolling catawba wine, which, with more than a poet's licence, he ranks above the best of the Old World vintages:—

"There grows no vine By the haunted Rhine, By Danube or Guadalquivir, Nor on island nor cape, That bears such a grape As grows by the Beautiful River.

"Very good in its way Is the Verzenay, Or the Sillery, soft and creamy, But Catawba wine Has a taste more divine, More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy."

On Kelley's Island, Erie county, also in the State of Ohio, a wine company, established in 1866, and trading principally in still wines, makes sparkling wines upon a considerable scale exclusively from the catawba variety of grape, which is cultivated in its highest perfection both on the islands of Lake Erie and along a narrow slip of territory not two miles long bordering the southern shore of the lake, and also in the vicinity of Lake Keuka, near Hammondsport, N.Y. The Kelley Island Wine Company, as it is styled, presses the grapes between the middle of October and the end of November, and bottles from about the 20th May until the commencement of July in the year following. Its brands are Island Queen, Nonpareil, and Carte Blanche. Ninety-five per cent. of the wines are dry, and the tendency of the market is in favour of a still drier article. Shipments are principally confined to the United States, the great centre of the trade being St. Louis, on the Mississippi, which has its own sparkling wine establishments, and to-day disputes with Chicago the title of Queen of the West. The company keep some 100,000 bottles of sparkling wines in stock, and possess facilities for bottling five times that quantity whenever the demand might warrant such a step being taken. Of recent years, however, economy has been the rule in American society, and the market for native sparkling wines at any rate is to-day a reduced one.

At Hammondsport, south of Lake Keuka—in other words, Crooked Lake—and in the State of New York, the establishments of the Pleasant Valley and Urbana wine companies, devoting their attention to both still and sparkling wines, are installed. The region, which enthusiastic writers now term the Champagne of America, was colonised in 1793, and vines of the catawba and isabella varieties were first planted for the purpose of making wine in 1854. At the present time there are about 8,000 acres under cultivation with all the better species of vines. The produce from black and white grapes is mingled for the sparkling wines of the district. Of the former but two kinds are considered suitable, the concord and the isabella, both being varieties of the indigenous labrusca, or so-called foxy-flavoured grape. The concord is a hardy and productive plant, producing large and compact bunches of large round sweet grapes, yielding a wine of the obnoxious foxy flavour. The isabella is an equally hardy and productive variety, and its bunches are of good size, although not compact. Its berries, too, are large, oval, and juicy, and marked by a strong musky aroma.

Of the white, or rather pale-coloured grapes—for their hue is usually a reddish one—used for sparkling wines, the principal is the catawba, also of the labrusca variety. The branches are large and tolerably compact; the berries, too, are above the medium size, and have a rich vinous and pronounced musky flavour. Other so-called white species of grapes are the diana and the iona, both, of them seedlings of the catawba; the delaware, the bunches of which are rather small but compact, the berries round, extremely juicy and fresh-tasting, but sweet and aromatic, the wine produced from which is noted for its fragrant bouquet; and, lastly, the walter, a variety obtained by crossing the delaware with the diana. The bunches and berries of the walter are of medium size; the flavour, like that of the delaware, is sweet and aromatic; and the grape is, moreover, remarkable for its agreeable bouquet.

The vintage usually commences about the end of September or the commencement of October, and the grapes, after being carefully sorted, are run through a small mill, which breaks the skins, and admits of the juice running the more readily out when the fruit is placed beneath the press. The latter is worked with a metal screw, and the must is conducted through pipes or hose to casks holding from two to four thousand gallons each, in which it ferments. During the following May the wine is carefully blended, and the operation of bottling commences and lasts for about two or three months. The newly-bottled wine is at first stored in a warm place in order to start the fermentation again, and when the bottles commence to burst it is removed to the subterranean vaults, where it remains stacked in a horizontal fashion until the time arrives to force the sediment down upon the corks. This is accomplished precisely as in the Champagne, the subsequent disgorging and liqueuring being also effected according to the orthodox French system. Altogether a couple of years elapse between the epoch of bottling and shipment, and during this interval each bottle is handled upwards of two hundred times.