VINE CULTURE AS EXEMPLIFIED AT THE PARIS EXHIBITION. 437 



keep equally well everywhere provided they are lodged in moderately 

 cool cellars. 



It will probably be news to many that the initial cost of beverage 

 wines in abundant vintages in almost every country of Europe is not far 

 from being equivalent to the price of beer in this country. We of course 

 except those coming under the category of Vins de Luxe, or the growths 

 of certain favoured localities, which, by reason of special excellence, the 

 demand of the connoisseur, or even passing fashion, possess an adventi- 

 tious value often out of proportion to their intrinsic worth. These are, 

 however, but a very small fraction of the whole. 



Natural wine is, after all, a more direct product of the soil than even 

 beer, which in its manufacture requires yeast or some equivalent by 

 which fermentation is artificially started. In the production of wine, 

 after the grapes are simply pressed, the juice ferments naturally by its 

 own inherent qualities, and the wine, having been more or less matured, 

 is, when bright, ready for use. 



Beer, in its process of manufacture, is made of grain which in most 

 cases has been previously malted, afterwards ground or bruised, then 

 mashed and fermented ; a group of processes much more complex than 

 those undergone by wine. 



A comparison of the figures of wine and beer production respectively 

 per acre provokes some reflections which may possibly not be without 

 interest to those responsible for apportioning the contributions to the 

 National Revenue from one or other commodity. 



Taking the figures already given for France : 1,482 million gallons of 

 wine, grown on 4,325,000 acres, show a production of 343 gallons of wine 

 per acre. 



Assuming that land on which barley is grown is of the same average 

 value as the vine-land in France, and that the beer is all made of barley 

 malt only ; further, that the acre yields four quarters of barley, and that 

 these thirty- two bushels of barley produce 320 gallons of beer, we have 

 to the good the value of twenty-three gallons of wine per acre towards 

 providing for the doubtless greater cost of labour in cultivating the 

 vine. 



Even in this comparison the advantage has purposely been given to 

 beer, for, as we have just pointed out, the process of its manufacture is 

 far more complex than wine. It may therefore be . stated, ^\ith a con- 

 siderable degree of certainty, that wine, at the place of its production, is 

 as cheap as, if not cheaper than, beer. If this fact be brought home to 

 the public mind it will tend to dissipate the idea that a cheap wine can- 

 not be genuine, and may also induce our statesmen to reconsider their 

 argument, implied if not uttered, that wine is necessarily a -luxury and to 

 be taxed as such, because consumed by, so to say, a higher grade of society 

 than beer, which is treated as a necessary of life. The fallacy of this 

 conclusion regarding wine lies in the fact that, without: allowing for ^ 

 increased production, increased facilities of transit, and general cheapen- 

 ing of the article, our fiscal authorities have continued to treat it more 

 or less as an exotic production, which must be dear comparatively, and 

 therefore fated always to pay the taxes payable by luxuries, regardless of 

 whether they are beverage wines or Vins de Luxe. 



