448 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Port, it may be mentioned, is merely a shortening of the Portuguese 

 name for the place of shipment, which we call Oporto, and which, 

 curiously enough, is called Porto in Portugal and throughout the 

 Continent. 



After an experience of almost every wine made upon the surface of 

 the globe, I venture to affirm that Port is a wine which up to now has not 

 been approximately imitated away from its native locality on the river 

 Douro. There is, among the productions grown outside France, much 

 more similarity to Claret, Burgundy, Champagne, or Cognac brandy than 

 there is to the true Port. The honour, therefore, of matching this 

 hitherto inimitable wine may yet be won by our own brethren in the 

 Colonies, though Europe has been baffled in the endeavour. 



The details of the making of the many varieties of wine to which 

 reference has been made must, for brevity's sake, be left undiscussed. 

 The main purpose has been to awaken general commercial interest in 

 wine-growing rather than to describe all the technicalities of the industry, 

 and on general grounds of trade policy good will have been done by 

 placing the chief facts and considerations before our commercial men. 



That viticulture is of as great importance to the French nation as the 

 other branches of agriculture will be recognised by the high position 

 which has been taken by the Press devoted exclusively to the art of wine- 

 making, and probably no journal published in any country in connection 

 with any science is more instructive than are the Bevue de Viticulture 

 and the Moniteur Vinicole to all who ara interested in the production of 

 wine. Each conducted by a body of gentlemen of great scientific 

 knowledge, these representative organs have, more than any other 

 authority, been the means of enabling France— and therefore the whole 

 world — to combat that most gigantic of evils, the phylloxera. 



It is the application to new territories under other skies of the 

 accumulated knowledge of France and other countries which will give the 

 speediest results in the future to the enterprising wine-grower. This 

 knowledge li3S open to the inquirer everywhere, in France particularly, 

 where the observations of sunshine, temperature, and rainfall have been 

 most carefully observed and tabulated. Would-be wine-growers from all 

 parts of the globe are certain of a cordial welcome throughout the French 

 wine country, and equally certain of obtaining all information bearing on 

 the culture of the vine. At Chateau Loudenne, in the Medoc, for 

 example, which has been owned by an English firm (Messrs. W. & A. 

 Gilbey) since 1875, an accurate account for the whole quarter-century has 

 daily been kept of temperature, duration of sunshine, and extent of rain- 

 fall, all of which factors contribute to the making or marring of a vintage. 

 Also, at every vintage- time, the alcoholic strengths of the separate 

 pressings from each kind of grape — Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet- Sauvign on 

 —have been carefully tested and recorded. All these particulars are put at 

 the service of visitors, and may be obtained and studied by those desirous 

 of entering on vine culture, or who are already engaged in that pursuit. 



Reviewing in our minds the respective capabilities of our Colonies, we 

 are inclined to look to the Australian Commonwealth for a very large 

 contribution in the near future to the world's total supplies of light wines 

 of the Burgundy and Claret types from black grapes, the Hock and 



