AKD WINE MAKING. 295 



SPARKLING WINES. 



There is at present, I believe, but one firm in the State 

 who make sparkling wine by the old or natural process, fer- 

 menting in the bottles, and I have heard many conflicting 

 opinions as to the success they meet with. While some 

 think highly of the Eclipse champagne, others rate it 

 far below the best brands of French champagnes, but I 

 think upon the whole, it meets with very ready sale. 

 There is a good deal of sparkling wine made in the quick 

 or artificial way, by impregnation with carbonic acid gas, 

 which is sold much cheaper, and, as far as I am able to 

 judge, is a very healthy, harmless, and enlivening bev- 

 erage. I do not pretend to be a nice judge of the article, 

 but I have compared some of the f * Eclipse Extra Dry" 

 with carbonated wine, made here, and especially with 

 some made in New York, from California wine, shipped 

 there, and my preference was for the last; nor have I ever 

 felt any bad effects from the use of these carbonated 

 wines. At any rate, I think the crusade led by some per- 

 sons against these carbonated wines, to petition Congress to 

 impose a special tax on them, a very injudicious measure. 

 If the sparkling wine manufactured by them is really so 

 much superior to carbonated wine, it would seem to need 

 no special legislation to foster and protect it. 



THE MAKING OF BRANDY. 



Brandy-making is another important branch of Cali- 

 fornia grape industry. To show how important it is, I 

 need only mention the fact that one firm made one hun- 

 dred and fifteen thousand gallons of brandy last year, 

 with four hundred and fifty thousand gallons of wine, 

 and that all this brandy is already disposed of. 



While I am no admirer of distilled liquors, and do not 

 claim to know much about them, yet I believe, as long 

 as they are consumed to the extent that they are in this 



