VINE CULTURE AS EXEMPLIFIED AT THE PARIS EXHIBITION. 441 



reputation in which it stands out as an article separate and generic. 

 This advice is indeed hardly needful for some of our distributors of 

 Australian wines, who have brought these prominently before the British 

 public under distinctive names of their own, and without attaching to 

 them timeworn titles by which the wines of the Continent of Europe are 

 known to the consumer. 



We do not in the least despair of seeing wines of the very highest 

 excellence produced, for example, in Australia and South Africa, which 

 will approach the finer growths of France, Portugal^ Spain, and Germany ; 

 but this will take place not only through the selection of suitable localities 

 and a wise choice of the variety of vine to be grown — be it black or white 

 — but also by a system of painstaking culture which will ensure the high 

 quality necessary to compete with the results of centuries of experience. 



If from this point of view we study the wine industry of France, we 

 shall best see what is needed for our own success in the same field of 

 commerce. 



We have, in the wine territory of which Bordeaux is both the centre 

 and shipping port, an expanse of country which is fitted to produce natural 

 beverage wines of the most suitable description both for maturing at 

 home and for exporting over sea to all the world. We have, in this 

 district stretching north-westward from Bordeaux, a country nearly one 

 hundred miles long by sixty miles broad. The Medoc, on the left bank 

 of the river, is divided into Upper and Lower, the former, containing 

 fifty-nine out of the sixty classified growths — one, Haut-Brion, a first 

 growth — being in the Graves district. The whole forms a stretch of 

 vine-growing country unexampled on the face of the globe, viewing the 

 extent of the territory, and the fame of its individual Chateaux. The 

 wine throughout this district is stored, not in cellars, but in warehouses 

 built upon the ground level. In fact, this form of store for wines in 

 casks is the usual one in towns as well as at the vineyards throughout 

 the Bordeaux country. 



In the Bordeaux district it may be said that as a general rule the 

 finer growths are upon the higher ground, while the less valuable wines 

 come from the lower and marsh lands. Many of the finer Clarets, how- 

 ever, come from the not very elevated slopes of the Medoc, and some few 

 of the most renowned from the sandy flat country of the Graves. 



As a matter of fact, there are three varieties of fine Claret— namely, 

 Haut-Mcdoc, including Chateaux Margaux, Lafite, Latour, &c., on slopes 

 Graves, with Chateaux Haut-Brion and Pape Clement, on sandy flat 

 lands ; and St. Emilion and Fronsac, on the hills embracing the 

 esteemed Cheval Blanc and the Chateau Ausone, to which latter was 

 awarded a Grand Frix. 



The last mentioned are celebrated for their roundness and fulness, 

 which approach the character of Burgundy ; and their repute in Bordeaux 

 among the merchants is great, more so than is apparent to consumers 

 here. Of the three varieties mentioned, the St. Emilion wines are those 

 vv'hich are grown at the greatest elevation, and this fact is one which 

 must be carefully noted by our own selectors of wine-lands in the 

 Colonies. 



Next to Claret comes Burgundy among the natural red wines of the 



