20 



began ninth on the list of large importers into 

 England and last year stood the second. Hun- 

 garian pride was touched and gratified. This 

 wine merchant was considered as a great 

 patriot. He was honored with the order of the 

 "Golden Cross of Merit with the Crown." 

 In 1875, the Emperor of Austria conferred 

 upon him the title of "Knight of the Imperial 

 Order of Franz Josef." And still further, he 

 was raised to the nobility, with rank to de- 

 scend to his children. The Crown Prince of 

 Austria, in 1878, when visiting England, 

 found among the notable places he was in- 

 structed to visit, the cellars of Mr. Max Gre- 

 ger, which he inspected in a public manner 

 most gratifying to his countrymen. 



No other industry begets so much local and 

 national pride. It inspires laudable ambi- 

 tion, rather than avarice. We have seen 

 much of this industry among the pioneers in 

 our own State. Agoston Haraszthy began to 

 think of it, and the more he thought the 

 more did his self-interest sink out of sight in 

 the grand idea to be the promoter of vinicul- 

 ture. He traveled throughout Europe, nom- 

 inally as a StateCommissioner from California 

 but in fact at his own expense, and gathered 

 not only information but thousands of vines 

 of many hundred varieties, wiiich he culti- 

 vated at Sonoma, and upon the success of 

 which has been based the many experiments 

 which have so successfully proved the value 

 of our new industry. Among his greatest 

 successes was the culture of the Zinfandel, a 

 Hungarian grape heretofore little known in 

 viniculture, but which is destined to lift Cali- 

 fornia wine cellars into successful rivalry 

 with the boasted cellars of Bordeaux. His 

 son, Arpad Haraszthy, was educated to pur- 

 sue this work. The father realized how much 

 there was to learn; his son caught the spirit 

 and devoted several years to study in the 

 Civil Polytechnic School at Paris, to appren- 

 ticeship in the champagne district, and to 

 practical work in the vineyards and cellars of 

 Bordeaux. Our pioneer vineyardists risked 

 everything, and struggled for years against 

 shy capital, creditors and a prejudiced public; 

 very few of them lost their faith, even when 

 oppressed by disaster and debt. The vine is 

 a spring of hope, promising gladness. Now 

 the battle has been won against capital, 

 against inexperience and the mistakes of 

 judgment and against popular prejudice. It 

 is pleasant to know that of the pioneers in 

 this industry fewer have failed, notwithstand- 

 ing their inexperience and the hazards ot ex- 

 perimenting, than are recorded in the history 

 of other efforts to make this State habitable. 

 Such vitality is the promise of grand successes 

 in the not distant future. 



Now, as to the consequences. California 



is becoming a community of wine drinkers. 

 This means a great deal. We can foresee 

 the time when pure, natural light wines will 

 become a part of the daily food of the major- 

 ity of our people. How will this affect their 

 social dispositions and their habits ? Care- 

 fully prepared statistics show that the dispo- 

 sition toward alcoholic excesses, and the 

 dyspeptic predisposition to dipsomania, are 

 scarcely appreciable in places where pure 

 natural wine particularly red wine, of the 

 claret or Burgundy types are substituted as 

 popular beverages for other stimulants. 

 Dyspepsia and liver troubles are scarcely 

 known among regular wine drinkers, while 

 they are common even among the most care- 

 ful teetotalers. Where wine is produced, the 

 people know enough to avoid alcoholic com- 

 pounds, such as port and sherry, as prepared 

 for foreign markets. Pure wine does not in- 

 clude port and sherry, as known to us, for 

 they contain an addition of distilled spir- 

 its. Old fashioned English and American 

 physicians prescribe port and sherry; a 

 French physician knows better; he pres- 

 cribes a ripened, pure, dry claret, as a tonic 

 beverage and regulator of the digestive and 

 assimilating organs. France manufactures 

 great quantities of ports and sherries, but 

 she refuses to drink them. Our people, 

 with an abundance of pure table wine, will 

 reject heavy beer, whisky, bar-room and club 

 tippling, and all the abominations of com- 

 pounded and alcoholized wines. A proper, 

 well-fermented wine, used habitually as an 

 accompaniment of meals, rapidly exhausts 

 the common thirst for a stimulant, which is 

 now the cause of frequent tippling. The 

 "pint" of pure wine is grape-juice, in which 

 its sugar has been converted into fermented, 

 not distilled, spirit, and in which certain 

 etherial parts become ripened into natural 

 bouquets and aromas, which bring quiet to 

 restless -nerves and content to the mind. It 

 contains also the natural acids of the fruit. 

 The wine drinker, therefore, eats fruit regu- 

 larly at his meals, and has no trouble with 

 his stomach and his liver. The wine brings 

 him health, and the world looks bright to 

 him, because he is not "bilious." The revo- 

 lutionists of France are not the wine drink- 

 ers; it is absinthe, beet-root spirits, and 

 wretched adulterations, that give life to the 

 restless, complaining, and brutal commune. 

 A fruit diet, such as wine drinkers reason- 

 ably and regularly indulge in, cures dyspep- 

 sia and a bilious temper. They need little 

 fresh fruit; they take it bottled, as some take 

 it canned. 



The habit of wine drinking at meals, be- 

 sides conducing to a general healthful action 

 of the digestive and assimilating organs of 



