On Colonial Wines. 55 
produce of these colonies, was regarded as a beverage, which 
could be safely placed upon the table, save with great 
caution and an apology, and only in a few rare and excep- 
tional instances ; and it required considerable hardihood in 
any one professing to know aught about wine to assert, in 
the company of gentlemen, that he could relish any of even 
our best colonial wines. 
But while Mr. Blake’s importation of wines, of his own 
making, created a new era, it did much more, for it indirectly 
and by emulation brought the fine wines of South Australia 
for the first time into general notice, and thus gave to the 
public opportunities of comparing our own colonial produce 
with that of our sister colonies. 
I need not say how much this country has profited by 
these opportunities, and what a spirit of emulation has 
sprung up among us. 
At later times I tested some wines said to have been made 
by Mr. Lindemann, on the Hunter, with much the same 
result as to alcohol, but very different in the power of 
endurance. Of this class of wines I have met with fine 
specimens, made by Mr. Walsh and Mr. Everist, of Haw- 
thorn, but they had not the same age as the Irrewang—the 
wine I have always thought the best colonial I ever tasted. 
May I hope for his own benefit and the benefit of the con- 
sumers, that Mr. Blake will be able to equal it at Tabilk. 
Belonging to the same high class are the wines of 
Adelaide, made by Mr. Gilbert and Mr. E. J. Peake, of 
Clarendon. I speak of these, because I am well acquainted 
with them, both red and white. They are wines which 
would do honor to any country in the world. I tasted also 
a few samples from Kapunda, at least called Kapunda, 
chiefly red, which rose to the character of middling young 
port, but with a somewhat different flavour. With reference 
to these wines I am happy to be able to furnish a far higher 
expression of opinion than my own word. A gentleman 
desired me about a year ago to procure a few dozens, and 
send them to friends in England and Ireland. I selected 
a red wine of Mr. Gilbert’s, and a Riesling, a few bottles of 
Kapunda red, and the rest believed to be Mr. Peake’s 
Palomino Blanco. 
Samples of this little lot found their way eventually into 
the hands of one of the largest and most extensively known 
Dublin Wine Merchants, who, when they had rested for a 
month or two, invited some other good judges to sample them. 
And, I have it on the most reliable authority, that they all 
