The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-29 00:00:00

THE KINGDOM OF HALY.

A letter from Turin, dated Oct. 24, says :—The
vintage is in full tide all over Italy, and a glorious
one it turns out, both as to quantity and quality.
There is not one of the winegrowers I meet but
bears a cheerful look and talks in a tone of great
glee. The grape disease has made its appearance
here and there, but it has done trifling havoc, and
its virulence is everywhere on the wane. Hence-
forth there will be in Italy what may be called a
wine trade. This is happy news for the people here,
but it is no less joyous tidings for all the European
peoples, and for the English especially.
There were many good reasons why Italian wines
should be almost unknown in the markets of the
British Islands. England was divided from Italy
by the whole width of France or length of Germany,
and it was natural that the latter countries should not
only be first in possession of the field, but should also
strive hard to shut out all competitors. They gave
Italian wines a bad name, and there is no doubt but,
what with the overwhelming quantity of the natural
produce, the want of skill in making the best of it,
a certain innate sluggishness, heedlessness, and lack
of enterprise, the Italians did not look much beyond
their own country for the consumption of their
liquor, were satisfied with the small but ready re-
turns of home trade, and not only shrank from any
rivalship with more advanced if not more favoured
communities abread, but looked upon French,
Spanish, Greek, Rhenish, and Danubian produce as
luxuries for their own tables, with which their
Southern climate yielded nothing to compare. The
length of the sea voyage, and the heavy duties, also
scared them from any idea of offering their casks
and bottles for the English consumer; for, so long
as the average price of the best Italian wine hardly
rose to one franc per bottle retail sale, it was hardly
supposed that so low-priced an article could bear the
burden of ls. import duty per bottle.
It so happened, however, that England was for
some years closed against the French and Ger-
man wine dealers, and then John Bull's honest
relish for the juice of the grape filled the cellars of
the London and Liverpool docks with liquid fire
from allied Spain and Portugal, from the subject
Cape; from Madeira, Teneriffe, and coasts acces-
sible to the English merchant navy ; and, finally,
from the only spot in an Italian dependency which
the Continental system had not invaded—from the
island of Sicily. Together with port and sherry,
the humbler Marsala held its ground in the English
market after the Peace—a proof that it was, and is,
possible for a vineyard placed between the Alps and
Cape Passaro to delight and stimulate the English
palate. Marsala is not in the highest credit in the
highest English households, though it may be worth
inquiring to what extent its partial unpopularity
may be owing to the very lowness of its charges,
or to the clumsy manner in which the wine is
prepared for the British markets ; or, finally, to
a trick of some of the dealers to pass off good
Marsala for Madiera, or inferior Madeira for
Marsala. In Italy itself the English have brought
this produce of the Sicilian vineyards into extensive
repute, and I have heard epicures from the British
Islands aver that good Marsala is only to be tasted
in Florence, Milan, or Rome. Strange to say, the
Italians have to a great extent taken the cue from
their insular visitors, and Marsala is consumed in
large quantities at the hotels in this country by the
natives themselves. I remember the time in Italy,
not many years since, when the very name of Mar-
sala was utterly unknown in the Italian mainland,
and when the vini forestieri for which the Italians
paid more extravagantly were neither the Sicilian,
nor those of Xeres and Oporto, nor yet those of
Bordeaux or the Rhine, but Malaga and Cyprus,
only the very wealthiest people indulging in the
luxuries of champagne and Tokay.

What follows from all this ? Why, simply that
wines have their own days, as it is said of dogs.
Let only anysuch intelligence, rnrirr, and entorprivo
be applied to the wines of Piedmont, the Emilia,
Tuscany, and Naples, as were applied to the deve-
lopment of the Marsala trade, and there is no reason
why England should not have as extensive a choice
of Italian wines as it has of those of the Rhine, the
Garonne, or the Tagus.
Not to launch for the present beyond the limits of
Piedmont, it is a well-known fact that this Sub-al-
pine region was, up to the year 1849, a wine-export-
ing country to a very extensive amount. Only up
to the latter-mentioned year Piedmont had a good
market at hand in adjoining Lombardy, where,
owing to neutral arrangements between the Sardi-
nian and Austrian Governments, the Piedmontese
dealers exercised a very safe monopoly as to common
wines, to the exclusion of the equally rich JEmilian
districts.

This privilege of the Piedmontese would natu-
rally have fallen to the ground on the first out-
burst of ill feelings between Charles Albert and the
Aulic Council at Vienna, after 1846; but soon after
the events of 1848-9 the crittogama or cryptogama
spread its ravaging blight all over North Italy, and
from that period to the present time Piedmont, no
less than the .tEmilian districts, far from having
any wine to spare, became tributary to the
countries with which they might have as-
pired to enter into competition. This present
vintage at last may be hailed as the harbinger
of better days, and the growth of Italian vineyards
will hereafter not only be free. to circulate from one
end to the other of the Peninsula, but as, with the
exception of the flat Lombard lowlands, wine is re-
dundant in every Italian region, an outlet must be
sought for its consumption in Transalpine and trans-
marine markets. That Italy can muster as good
wines as the best favoured localities in France or
Germany, or the sister Peninsula, is a fact which
those who have tasted the best Chianti or Monte-
pulciano in Florence, the best Orvieto or Monte-
fiascone in Rome, or the best lachrynza or Capri at
Naples, are not likely to dispute. But to keep, for
this present letter, within the limits of Piedmont,
several years' residence has enabled me to satisfy
myself of the impossibility of a passing traveller
forming any correct idea of the excellence of Sub-
alpine wines. The first-rate hutelkeeper, who is
interested in recommending to his guests his
lists des tins fins, never fails to lay before them
the most execrable vin ordinaire, which he may
safely afford to supply a discretion and free of ex-
pense, with a view to compel an order for his alleged
Cote Rotie, or questionable Lafitte. Choice Italian
wine can only, especially afterso many years' blank
vintages, be tasted in private Italian houses, and
those who have been admitted into the sanctum of
Subalpine hospitality are well aware of the value of
the liquors with which their hosts have it in their
power to treat them. There is hardly a Oviiice at
the foot of the Alps or along the wider-spread hill
range of Montferrat without 3:ame peculiar wipe
of its own, enjoying a well-es'&blished "reputation
throughout the country. I do not wish to place
too great a reliance on my own taste, but I have had
frequent opportunities of visiting some of the re-
motest corners of these provinces in the company of
nice and somewhat fastidious English connoisseurs,
who have readily admitted that Piedmontese hospi-
tality had made them acquainted with wines of a
description that they had never fallen in with be-
fore. Try to have some of the old cobweb-clad
flasks and bottles of some well-furnished private
cellar in Turin, or, better, in the country ; ask for
some relics of the wines that used to be gathered on
the hills of the Canarese in the good old times—
that is, before the disease set in ; ask for some first-
rate Campiglione, from the province of Pinerolo, for
some of the best Carema growing at the entrance of
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