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.
[Illustration]
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.
The Pleasant Valley Wine Company, established in 1860 for the commerce
of still wines, in which it continues to do an extensive business,
commenced five years later to make sparkling wines. It grows its own
grapes and consumes annually about 1,500 tons of fruit, bottling from
200,000 to 300,000 bottles of sparkling wine in the course of the year.
Its brands are the Great Western, of which there is a dry and an extra
dry variety, the Carte Blanche, and the Pleasant Valley. Even the extra
dry variety of the first-named wine tastes sweet in comparison with a
moderately dry champagne, in addition to which its flavour, though
agreeable, is certainly too pronounced for a sparkling wine of high
quality. The wines, which secured a medal for progress at the Vienna
Exhibition of 1873, are sold in every city in the United States, and the
company also does a small but increasing trade with England and South
America.
The Urbana Wine Company, also established at Hammondsport at the same
epoch as its rival, deals, like the latter, in still wines as well. It
has three brands--the Gold Seal, of which there is an extra dry variety,
the Imperial, and the Royal Rose. At Vienna a diploma of merit was
awarded to these wines, for which a considerable market is found
throughout the United States and in the West Indies and South America.
The Urbana Wine Company produces excellent sparkling wines of singular
lightness and of delicate though distinctive flavour. In our judgment
the drier varieties are greatly to be preferred. The prices of all the
American sparkling wines are certainly high, being almost equivalent to
the price of first-class champagnes taken at Reims and Epernay.
In California the manufacture of sparkling wines is carried on with
considerable success, and at the Vienna Exhibition the Buena Vista
Vinicultural Society of San Francisco was awarded a medal for progress
for the excellent samples it sent there. The society was originally
organised by Colonel Haraszthy, the pioneer in recent times of
Californian viticulture. It commenced manufacturing sparkling wines with
the assistance of experienced workmen from Epernay and Ay; but the
endeavours, extending over some three or four years, were attended with
but indifferent success, very few _cuvées_ proving of fair quality,
whilst with the majority the wine had to be emptied from the bottles and
distilled into brandy. The son of Colonel Haraszthy subsequently
succeeded, in conjunction with Mr. Isidor Landsberger, of San Francisco,
in discovering the cause of these failures, and for ten years past the
wine has been constantly improving in quality owing to the increased use
of foreign grapes, which yield a _vin brut_ with a delicate bouquet and
flavour approaching in character to the finer champagnes. The wine is
perfectly pure, no flavouring extracts or spirit being employed in the
composition of the liqueur, which, is composed merely of sugar-candy
dissolved in fine old wine. A French connoisseur pronounces sparkling
Sonoma to be the best of American sparkling wines, "clean and fresh,
tasting, with the flavour of a middle-class Ay growth, as well as
remarkably light and delicate, and possessed of considerable
effervescence." The Sonoma valley vineyards produce the lightest wines
of all the Californian growths, some of the white varieties indicating
merely 15° of proof spirit, and the red ones no more than 17½°.
The vintage takes place towards the end of October, and the grapes are
gathered by Chinamen, who will each pick his 12 to 14 cwt. of grapes a
day for the wage of a dollar. Light wooden boxes are used for holding
the grapes, which are stripped from their stalks on their arrival at the
press-house, and then partially crushed by a couple of revolving
rollers. An inclined platform beneath receives them, and after the
expressed juice has been run off into cask they are removed to the
press, and the must subsequently extracted is added to that forced out
by the rollers. When white wine is being made from black grapes the
pressure is less continuous, and the must is of course separated at once
from the skins. The fermentation, which is violent for some ten or
twelve hours, ceases in about a fortnight, providing a temperature of
from 70° to 75° Fahr. is maintained in the vaults. The wine is racked at
the new year, and again before the blending and bottling of it in the
spring.
The Californian sparkling wines not only find a market in the eastern
States, but are sent across the Pacific to the Sandwich Islands, Japan,
China, and even to wine-producing Australia, which has not yet succeeded
in producing sparkling wines of its own.
The manufacture of spurious sparkling wines is carried on to some extent
in the United States. The raw wine is cleared by fining it with albumen
or gelatine and with alum; the latter substance imparting to it great
brilliancy. After being dosed with a flavoured syrup the wine is charged
like soda-water with carbonic acid gas by placing the bottles under a
fountain, and as this gas is derived from marble dust and sulphuric
acid, it is liable to be impregnated with both lead and copper, which
have the effect of disorganising alike the wine and the consumers of
it--nausea, headache, and other ills resulting from drinking sparkling
wines made under such conditions.
[Illustration]