61 



With a proper system of cellarage with wineries good work could 

 be done, but in the wineries they must have proper cellarmen 

 and experts, not according to our ideas, but for him to give to our 

 wines the taste of the people we want to purchase them. 



Mr. Craike read the following paper on " Wineries— are they 

 required ? " — 



• Therb appears to be a difference of opinion among vine-growers 

 as to the desirability of establishing wineries, and as to whether 

 they would succeed if established. And as the holding of this 

 Conference affords an excellent opportunity of hearing the views 

 of representative wine-growers from all parts of the colony, both 

 for and against the proposal to establish such institutions, I have 

 selected the subject for my paper with a view to prove that 

 wineries are very much required, and are likely to prove as 

 beneficial to the wine industry as the butter factory and creamery 

 have proved to tlie dairying interests. 



, It has for years been conceded that the principal drawback to 

 establishing a profitable export trade for our Victorian wines has 

 been the want of uniformity of type, and consequent difliculty of 

 keeping up a supply of the same quality and character year after 

 year. 



, This is due I think to — 1st. The large number of small growers 

 who have neither the cellar accommodation nor the capital to 

 mature their wine till fit for export ; and 2nd. To the very common 

 mistake of planting too many varieties of grapes. In white grapes 

 we have Aucarot, Tokay, Baxter's Sherry, Pedro Ximines, 

 Vei-deilho Chasselas, Reisling, Grouais, White Hermitage, Pino 

 Blanc, and others ; and in red, Sauvignon, Hermitage, Mataro, 

 Malbeck, Grenacli, Dolcetto, Burgundy, Leverdun, Carignan, 

 Frontignac, &c., &c. The majority of tliese varieties are repre- 

 sented in nearly every vineyard of any size in the colony, and, as 

 the wines produced from each are put on the market under the 

 distinctive name of the grape they represent, we have, instead of 

 two or three distinct types of red and white wines, some twenty 

 different varieties to perplex and confuse the English buyer. 

 ; It is primarily with the view of remedying this state of matters 

 that it is proposed to establish wineries, so that the produce of the 

 many hundreds of' small vineyards may be collected in large 

 central cellars in the various wine-growing districts and classified 

 and blended by experienced experts, and kept undei; careful 

 ■treatment till fit for export or local consumption. ■ 

 ; A secondary yet most important object is to convert coarse and 

 inferior wines into brandy, thus relieving the market of rubbish 

 that ought never to be ofiered for sale, and the blending of which 

 to a, confiding public does so much to retard a healthy local 

 ■demand for our •wines. ; 



