146 
CULTURE AND PRODUCTS OF THE VINE. 
The following is a report, to the United States commission at the Universal 
Exposition of Paris, in 1867, of the committee “on the culture and products of 
the vine :” 
The exhibition of wines at the Universal Exposition of 1867 was large. 
Every wine-growing country of Europe, as well as Australia, Canada, California, 
and other sections of North and South America, were represented. As there 
were no jurors from the United States, our American wines were not subjected 
to so full and fair an examination as they were entitled to, and to remedy this 
omission a special committee, consisting of the undersigned, was appointed by 
the Board of Commissioners to make an examination of the wines of our own 
and other countries, and to report especially with reference to wine growing in 
America. To properly judge, however, of the different kinds, of the qualities, 
cost, sanitary influence, and adaptability to our country—points upon which we 
would have been glad to report more fully—would require more thorough tasting 
and more time than the committee could command, or had a right to demand 
from the courtesies of foreign exhibitors or commissioners. 
As regards French wines, full reliance cannot be placed on what is furnished 
to the American traveller at hotels or cafés, or even what is sold him at the 
shops, no matter what price he pays. It would, however, be doing French wines 
a great injustice to judge them by the qualities sold in this way, or exported to 
America. ‘The great body of American consumers have palates as yet so 
unskilled, and the merchants of Bordeaux, and fabricators and imitators are so 
adroit, that it seems impossible for the honest wine grower here to come into 
such relations with the wine drinkers there as shall secure to the latter the 
benefits, sanitary and moral, which the French people themselves derive from 
the pure juice of the grape so abundantly produced in this country. It is not 
an unusual practice for dealers to buy of producers in the back country a coarse, 
deep red wine for 30 cents per gallon, and a strong white wine for 45 cents per 
gallon, mix and bottle them, and send them abroad labelled with all the high- 
sounding names of “ Medoe,’’ to sell at enormous profits to unsuspecting foreigners. 
Further south than Bordeaux, in the country about Montpelier and Bezires, 
an inferior article, but perfectly pure,.can be obtained of the producer at five 
and six cents per gallon, or one cent per bottle. Of late years, and since the 
abatement of the grape disease, the production of France has been very large, 
the 4,000,000 of acres in cultivation yielding an average of 1,200,000,000 of 
gallons, which would give to every man, woman, and child in the country, a half 
bottle-full every day, even after allowing 200,000,600 of gallons for exportation. 
Owing, perhaps, to the intimate relations between America and Germany, our 
wine commerce with that country is couducted in a much more satisfactory man- 
ner. A good deal of excellent German white wine now makes its way to us, 
and is highly appreciated. 
Hungary, whose product is second to that of France only, can supply a wide 
range of varieties, and at prices extremely reasonable. As the Hungarian pro- 
ducers seem to know, as yet, but little of chemistry, we suppose their wines to 
be generally pure, and as they are not yet fully introduced into the markets of 
the world, we should think they might be advantageously purchased to a greater 
extent than has yet been done. 
Besides the sherry, of which we consume so largely, Spain has an abundant 
and rich vintage with-which American consumers would be better acquainted if 
her merchants had more of the enterprise of those of Bordeaux. 
Portugal also produces plenty of excellent and pure wines of which we know 
little, for hardly a drop is allowed to leave the country without being so strongly 
brandied as to lose its character as a wine, and become rather a spirituous liquor 
