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WINE CULTURE IN N. S. WALES. 931 
arrivals for sale. The trade was duly invited to sample and 
select ; wines were sold in the auction mart, and went at 
ridiculous prices ; but the trade was not to be won by a Govern- 
ment guarantee, and the manager finally made arrangements with 
the old-established wine house of Blandy & Co. to push South 
Australian wines under the “Orion” brand. The first questions 
asked by a British wine merchant is whether repeat orders can be 
filled, and what quantities can be relied on for the future. 
Because of doubt on these two points very few, if any, British 
firms have as yet cordially welcomed Australian wines. More- 
over, much depends on the British palate, which is governed by 
prejudice. A Sydney house recently established an office in 
London, under a manager educated in their Sydney business, and 
supplied with their very best wines, the quality of which received 
the highest praise from a noted London expert. The diffi- 
culty of inducing British wine merchants and wine-distributing 
agencies to introduce a new wine of distinguished merits to their 
customers could not be overcome. So great is the society prejudice 
in favour of certain continental wines, that when the Australian 
wines were placed on a dinner-table under their own labels the 
critics condemned, but when the European labels were put on the 
Australian bottles the critics were enraptured. Messrs. Burgoyne 
and others havé, however, captured, at no small cost, a market for 
Australian wines amongst’a strata of society in the United 
Kingdom entirely new to wine drinking, and the greatest hope 
of an export trade for N. S. Wales lies in working up to the re- 
quirements of this and other enterprising firms. The South 
Australian London wine depét has its own lesson to impart, in 
that there should be one—and one only—dep5t in London to 
which the winegrowers of Australia could consign their wines, 
where they would be nurtured into proper sale condition, and to 
which the wine merchants of Britain would look for their pur- 
chases. Jt would in fact become the Australian wine depét, and 
if the prospects of the expenses being met by commissions on sales 
are small for many years to come, a federation of Government 
assistance in support of this depét would prove in the long run of 
no small advantage to the colonies interested. I take it that this 
is the utmost limits to which a Government could be expected to 
go in marketing wines, and the less the State interferes with the 
private enterprise of distribution the sounder will be the ultimate 
trade. It is possible that France might purchase Australian 
wines for blending, seeing how largely raisins and sugar are used 
to make cheap wines. The Freuch buyers may be relied on to do 
a large trade provided price and quality meet their views—and 
quality comes first. The Eastern trade in wines also lies at the 
door of Australia, more especially now that freights are moderate ; 
but the European official element is wedded to European wines, 
