VINE CULTURE AS EXEMPLIFIED AT THE PARIS EXHIBITION. 443 



goes to produce the finest natural wines in Europe — as, for example, 

 Hock, Champagne, and Claret. The further south, beyond a certain point, 

 the coarser is the natural wine produced ; indeed, the extra heat of the 

 sun has, as in the case of Port, necessitated the checking of natural pro- 

 cesses. Unchecked they would generate a wine which, apart from 

 carrying stability, lacks the characteristics which are sought in a natural 

 wine. 



The greater the natural amount of saccharine in wine the greater the 

 danger of a second fermentation, and this is particularly the case if, when 

 the first fermentation is completed, a certain amount of unconverted 

 saccharine remains in the wine. This applies to very hot countries like 

 Portugal, where — as we have before explained — the produce can never be 

 exported in its natural state, but must be fortified with an additional 

 amount of grape-brandy in order to preserve the still unconverted sugar, 

 which procedure is the means of producing what we call Port Wine — the 

 French would more correctly call it a Vin de Liqueur. 



An example of this increasing popular taste for a full red wine, more 

 nearly approaching Port in character, is furnished by the following figures 

 of the 



Import of Spanish Wines into the United Kingdom. 





Gallons in 1870 



Gallons in 1880 



Gallons in 1890 



Gallons in 1900 



White (Sherry type) 

 Red (Port type) . 



5,419,757 

 849,568 



3,775,782 

 1,024,628 



2,270,777 

 1,327,250 



1,507,653 

 2,567,453 



Total 



6,269,325 



4,800,410 



3,598,027 



4,075,106 



The table is also interesting as showing how a wine so popular as 

 Sherry once was has, for reasons impossible fully to divine, fallen from 

 something under 5 J million gallons in 1870 to 1^ million gallons in 1900. 

 Parallel with its decline, however, there appears as compensation to Spain 

 an increase in her red wine, of the Port type — principally Tarragona — of 

 nearly 1| million gallons during the same period, which increase cannot 

 but be attributed to the causes to which allusions have been made. 



While it cannot be decided offhand whether any locality is suitable 

 to produce a certain kind of wine, it will help those interested if they 

 keep well in mind the facts to which we have adverted, that not only is 

 France the largest, but also the most successful wine-grower of the 

 world, her products giving generic names to the productions of other 

 countries, and also furnishing the prototypes which are set up everywhere 

 for imitation, which is the surest evidence of commercial appreciation of 

 excellence. To boast, as has lately been done, " that in respect to still 

 wines we (Australia) are able to produce Hocks, Chablis, Claret, Bur- 

 gundy, &c., which are very much superior to anything of a similar class 

 grown in Europe," is to lull to sleep the increasing enterprise of viticul- 

 turists in the Colonies, in the midst of a, perhaps, ephemeral popularity, 

 Avon partly in consequence of the past distress of France from the 

 phylloxera, which cost her, it is said, 400 million pounds sterling — double 



M 2 



