440 JOURNAL OF THE EOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



sugar to the " must " at the time of pressing the grapes, when, in sunless 

 years, they have not reached their proper degree of ripeness and con- 

 sequently will not, after fermentation, produce naturally the proper 

 amount of alcohol for the perfect preservation of the wine. 



Consequently, the more favourable the- season and more bountiful the 

 vintage, the purer is the Vi?i Ordinaire consumed in France, or indeed 

 in any wine-producing country. It is only after a short or unripe vintage 

 that resort is had to methods to make up a deficiency, firstly by imports, 

 upon which an extra duty is levied, from other countries more favoured 

 at the moment by Nature, and then by making Vin de Sucre. Unlike 

 beer, wine cannot be produced in absolute accordance with the demand ; 



. since, whatever the yield of grapes, the juice must be almost wholly 

 utilised in making wine, and that too at the fittest moment, whereas 

 barley, to say nothing of its substitutes, forming the component parts of 

 beer, is also utilised in the manufacture of other commodities — whether 

 the harvest be abundant or the reverse makes no material difference, the 

 production of beer being governed by the law of supply and demand. 



In this connection it should be noted that the process of wine-produc- 

 tion is less open to suspicion than other beverages, by reason of the 

 manufacture being limited by circumstances far more exclusively to the 

 use of the fresh grape than are the makers of other beverages to any 

 particular materials. When, therefore, the manufacture of any other 



"beverage is spoken of as involving more complexity than wine-production, 

 it should be remembered that, whereas pure wine is entirely the pure 

 juice of the grape, there are risks attaching to beverages conventionally 

 called pure by reason of the introduction of substances the purity of each 

 of which may depend upon the processes of its own separate manu- 

 facture. 



A vast number of baseless assertions are made from time to time 

 concerning adulteration of wine, which are the result of ignorance of the 

 facts regarding its production and failure to appreciate the enormous 

 quantity of grapes annually harvested. A moment's reflection upon the 

 comparative simplicity of the process observed in producing wine, as 

 already explained, would show how absurd are the fables about the 

 introduction of other fruits or vegetables — the fact being that in wine- 

 growing countries grapes are cheaper than any other fruit or substitute 

 whatever, whether wild or cultivated. 



Indeed, any possible addition of what is foreign to the grape is likely 

 to be for the purpose of improving the apparent vinosity or body of 

 higher-classed wines rather than for the purpose of cheapening the 

 lower category known as Vin Ordinaire, which in abundant vintages is 

 cheaper than any feasible adulteration can make it. 



In directing the attention of our Colonial wine-growers and land- 

 owners to the lessons they may learn from France and other countries as 

 to choice of soil and situation, mode of culture, and precautions against 

 and remedies for vine disease, it is necessary to warn our Colonists 

 against attempting in any one district or expanse of country too much 

 in the way of producing for export many kinds of wine merely because 

 grapes will grow. If w^e look at France we find a distinctive wine coming 

 from a. certain territory, and making, away from its own country, a 



