lo May, 1909.] Cataliiha. 315 



district is also of Primary age. The varieties of wine grown are, liowever, 

 quite different in the two cases, the Garnacho of the Priorato not being 

 cultivated in the Alto Douro. Whether the true Port varieties, introduced 

 on the schistose hillsides of Cataluiia, would produce wine more similar 

 to that of the A!to Douro has not been tried ; it is at any rate quite 

 possible. 



Tarxagona Ports, however, are not the only Rancio wines exported. This 

 class also forms the basis of many of the wines shipped to South 

 America, though in this case they are, as a rule, unfortified and 

 almost dry. 



The Priorato type of 30 or 40 years ago is now a thing of the past, but 

 it has given rise to two distinct wines of which it constitutes the basis, viz. : 

 a stronger and sweeter wine for shipment to England and a lighter and 

 drier wine which has South America for its destination. 



To Victorians, Rancio wines should prove decidedly interesting, seeing 

 that large areas in our State consist of poor stony hillsides of Primary 

 formation verv similar to those which vield Ports and Rancios in Portugal 

 and North-eastern Spain. 1 have, in Rutherglen and elsewhere, seen 

 wines grown on soils of this description with a distinctly Rancio tendency, 

 though made frorr, vaxietieSj such as the Shiraz^ which are not specially 

 suited for the de^■elopment of this character. The Grenache and the true 

 Port varieties would in all probability, under similar circumstances, have 

 produced Rancios and wines of Port type of far higher commercial value. 



It should be satisfactory to Australians to remember that wines of high 

 quality are frequently produced on Primary formations. So far as the 

 Peninsula is concerned, we find the Ports of the Alto Douro ; the Mountain 

 wine of Malaga, now unfortunately almost extinct ; and the Rancios of the 

 Prioxato. all of which are grown on formations very largely represented in 

 Victoria. 



The Bodegas of Barcelona. 



The magnitude of the Barcelona wine trade came as a surprise to me. 

 The statistics quoted above give some idea of it, but it requires a visit 

 to one of the bodegas of the large wine merchants to enable it to be fully 

 realized. Thanks to Don Jose Gras y Fort, I was able to visit two oi 

 these mammoth establishments. That of Don Pedro G. Maristany (pro- 

 nounced Maristang), Rambla Cataluna 83, is one of the oldest-established 

 houses in Barcelona. This business was formerly well known in South 

 America vmder the then name of the firm of Pera Grau, the trade mark 

 or brand of which, P.M.G., was equally familiar. A few notes I was 

 able to take during my hurried visit will give some idea of the enormous 

 quantity of wine handled. Don Pedro owns important vinevards of his 

 own which yield annually over 100.000 gallons of wine, but this constitutes 

 orily a small portion of the contents of these cellars, for he buys far more 

 wine than he grows. 



The first cellar one is shown into is a high well-ventihited building with 

 a heavy tiled roof, such as is usual in Spain. In this, stand two giant 

 storage vats ; everything being well proportioned, their enormous size does 

 not at first strike one and it comes rather as a shock to learn that each 

 of these is capable of containing 88,000 gallons of wine. At fixst I 

 could scarcely credit this, but there could be no doubt about its correctness, 

 4,000 hectolitres of 22 gallons each are equivalent to 88.000 gallons 

 according to our measures. As these vats were some 25 feet in diameter 

 at the bottom, with staves over 25 feet long, a simple calculation will 

 :^uffice to approximately check the correctness of the gauge. These giants 



