California Wines. 



Mr. Brace further says, that the fault 

 loes not inhere in the grapes, the soil, 

 or the climate, all of which are extremely 

 well adapted to wine making, but is to 

 be found, in his opinion, in a lack of 

 honesty and tboronghness, both on the 

 part of the manufacturers and on the 

 part of their agents. He says that the 

 Port is doctored, and the Angelica is 

 prepared for us (at the East) by adding 

 sixteen or eighteen per cent, of brandy ; 

 that the casks are often carelessly coop- 

 ered, thus injuring the wine at the start ; 

 that the wine is often not old enough, 

 and ferments on the passage ; that it is 

 re-doctored in New York, and then 

 palmed off on the public for pui'e Cali- 

 fornia wine. Tlien there are other difli- 

 culties. ^Jr. Brace saj's he s.xw one 

 wine-cellar occupied half as ^a stable, 

 and half as a wine-store ; and he justly 

 adds, that any one who knows anything 

 of the sensitive nature of fermenting 

 wine can judge of the effect of the sta- 

 ble odors on its qualit}^ . Too much 

 dependence has been i)laced upon one 

 variety, the Mission Grape, which the 

 writer says is the favorite, because they 

 tried it first, and it happened to succeed. 



Vines are planted about six hundred 

 and eighty to the acre, trained low, and 

 seldom staked. The yield is from four 

 hundred to a thousand gallons per acre. 



The Zinfindal, White Muscatine, and 

 White Riesling are among the kinds 

 grown for wine. 



Innumerable experiments have been 

 made at great cost, and countless fail- 

 ures experienced, in making Cham- 

 pagne wine ; but success seems now 

 not far distant. 



It is curious to learn that the Ca- 

 tawba Crrape is a great favorite with 

 some growers in a climate where the 



Black Hamburg and the Muscat of 

 Alexandria can be grown to sell for 

 eight cents per pound. 



Such is the bad reputation of the 

 Californian wines at home, says Mr. 

 Brace, that, out of four hundred thou- 

 sand gallons made by the Anaheim 

 Colony, two hundred and fifty thousand 

 are still in bond, and the ruling price 

 is twenty-five cents per gallon. 



In spite of all these mistakes and 

 crudities, the writer we quote makes the 

 safe prophecy, that California will come 

 out all right, and be as vast a vine- 

 growing and wine-making State as 

 France herself . 



[In copying the above, we can onl}' 

 add that we have not read anything 

 which, in the main, expresses our views 

 on the subject of California wines more 

 plainly than this article. The author 

 evidently writes with a just apprecia- 

 tion of the difficulties under which the 

 wine growers labor there, difficulties 

 which we can all the more appreciate, 

 as we have labored under them our- 

 selves and still suffer from them to a 

 certain extent here. We allude to the 

 inexperience of our grape growers, to 

 the want of systematic and scientific 

 treatment of our wines, and to the tena- 

 cious adherence here to the Catawba 

 by our vintners, as tenacious as the 

 adherence there to the Mission grape. 

 We exactly coincide in his views about 

 the character of Californian wines. 

 We have tasted hundreds of samples of 

 them, here ami at the East, and the 

 objections we had to them were, not 

 their want of bodj^, for they are only 

 too heav}^, but their total want of bou- 

 quet, flavor and sprightliness. They 

 drink more like cordials than wines, 

 and have about the same effect on the 



