GRAPES AND WINES IN CALIFORNIA. I53 



in the ■wines ; the color, the strength, the flavor, the age — even the 

 name under which they are sold. There are wines which do not 

 contain a drop of grape-juice. Even science is impotent to dis- 

 tinguish the true from the false, so complete is the imitation. 

 You may every day see advertised in the French newspapers the 

 Seve de Medoc, of which a small flagon, costing three francs, is de- 

 clared sufficient to give flavor to 600 litres. 



" Paris and Cette arc the principal seats of this fraudulent 

 adulteration. It is practiced in both places on the most colossal 

 scale. Certainly one half of the Parisian population drink, un- 

 der the name of wine, a mixture of which there is not one drop 

 of grape-juice. The police are unable to prevent this adultera- 

 tion ; but the laws punish it with great severity. Every week do 

 the newspapers publish judgments against wine-merchants and 

 grocers, in execution of which their wines — twenty, thirty, eighty 

 hogsheads at once — are poured into the gutters. But this dis- 

 honest art is now so perfect that even clever chemists can with 

 difficulty distinguish the true wine from the false. Such was the 

 case in a very recent trial. The chemist, after reporting every 

 ingredient of which the wine was composed, observed that if one 

 of them were in less quantity he would have been unable to dis- 

 tinguish it from the natural wine. The prosecuted wine-mer- 

 chant, who was present, listened attentively to the chemist's re- 

 port, and at last asked him which ingredient it was. The chem- 

 ist very imprudently told him, and the accused immediately 

 answered, "I am very much obliged, sir; and I don't regret now 

 my forty hogsheads of wine which will be destroyed,.because now 

 I am certain of my business. 



" The quantity of the French home consumption is exactly 

 known. Taking, as an example, the year 1857 : France pro- 

 duced 85,410,000 hectolitres ; she imported, besides, foreign wine, 

 626,000 hectolitres ; total, 36,026,000 hectolitres. Of this quan- 

 tity, in France was consumed: as wine, 17,142,000 hectolitres; as 

 spirit, 2,453,000 hectolitres ; as vinegar, 222,000 hectolitres ; total 

 of the French consumption, 19,817,000 hectolitres. We see that 

 what is left for stock and exportation is not too much, and still 

 less if we consider such years as 1854, 1855, 1856, in which the 

 total production was only 10,000,000, 15,000,000, and 21,000,000 

 hectolitres, instead of 35,000,000, as it was in 1857. If, there- 

 fore, France itself, in 1857, consumed more than she can produce 

 in some years, is it unreasonable to doubt whether she would al- 

 ways be able to export natural and unadulterated wines ? In 

 any case, can one believe that under such circumstances old 

 French wines could be found any where but in private cellars?" 



About Hungary and its wines he says : 



"1. With the exception of six counties, the vine is cultivated 

 in all Hungary (in France eleven departments have no vines, and 



