GRAPES AND WINES IN CALIFORNIA. 



155 



and the poor, light, stony, granitic land, from whence alone the 

 choicest and the most highly-flavored wines can be obtained, is 

 preferred to a rich, manured soil, insuring an abundant, but, in 

 quality, far inferior return. 



"Nothing is grander or more beautiful than our mountains, 

 crowned either with shady woods or with vines of exuberant veg- 

 etation. Where you see a mountain, there you will find our vine- 

 yards. The superb Badacsony mountains form a high semicircle 

 around the majestic Lake of Balaton, covering a surface of one 

 hundred and twenty-five English square miles. The arid mount- 

 ains of Mcnes or Vilagos overlook proudly the rich plains of Ba- 

 nat, the holy Canaan of Ilungary. The mountain called Tokay 

 rises, in an another large plain, like a lofty pyramid. It has the 

 form of Vesuvius, and, indeed, its existing but silent crater, its 

 volcanic formation, shows evidently that it was once a fire-spread- 

 ing mountain. The cultivation of such a soil is very difiicult and 

 expensive, the produce obtained but little ; but then the latent fire 

 of this volcanic mountain is what we call Tokay wine. 



"Now I do not mean to say that the best wine is that which 

 contains the most alcohol ; this is only one of its elements ; and 

 other qualities, as delicacy, taste, flavor, are equally essential. My 

 intention is to establish that, as the Hungarian natural wine is 

 stronger than the Ehine, French, or even Spanish or Portuguese 

 wines (taken without the usual addition of brandy), we may rea- 

 sonably presume, first, that the Hungarian wine is particularly 

 adapted to the English climate, and then that it will, more than 

 any other light wine, facilitate to the English consumer the tran- 

 sition from the spirits and brandied wine to natural ones, which 

 are undoubtedly more beneficial to the human health. 



" It is a fact universally known, that to all wines exported to 

 England is added more or less brandy (and in most cases not 

 Cognac, but what is quite another thing, corn, fig, sugar-brandy) ; 

 thus the Ehine wines receive an addition of 2-5, the French 4-7, 

 the Spanish and Port wines 8-15 per cent, of alcohol. 



" This practice is in Hungary quite unknown. Notwithstand- 

 ing the mentioned addition of brandy, the Ehine wines never 

 mark above 10-14 degrees (of Sykes), and the lest clarets, like 

 Chateau Lafitte, do not reach 18 ; whereas the quite pure and 

 natural Hungarian wines, when examined by the Custom-house 

 Test Office in London, gave the following results : 



Buda, red table wine 21.1 



Eger 21.5 



Szegszard 22.8 



Menes, 1842 23. 



Neszraely, white table wine 19.1^^ 



Balaton 20.6 



Bakator 20.6 



Tokay dry 23.6 



" But I think there could be found inferior wines not surpass- 

 ing eighteen degrees ; consequently their introduction (at the shil- 

 ling duty) would be very advantageous to the great mass of the 



English consumers. 



