Daily Los Angeles herald., 1879-12-09

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 25, 1879.
EDITOR GAZETTE: In your issue
OF the 21st inst. is published o let
ter by Mr.. M. Keller, of Los Ange-
les, in which he gives the advice to
those who find the old Mission
grape productive and reliable
enough, not to seek any other va
riety for the southern counties. Mr..
Keller adds that that grape will
make sherry, port, angelica and
brandy perhaps better than any
other grape. This advice must be
based upon experience, and as Mr..
Keller is one Of the wine-growers
of long-standing, his experience
must be a considerable one, and
entitled to respect. The writer of
the present is greatly in favor Of
the Mission grape, and has admired
in the Southern counties that pro-
life vine, and had opportunity to
observe its produce from the grape
to one year old wines of the descrip-
tions Mr.. Keller mentions made of
that grape. Not only this, but also
in the country where the progeni-
tors of the California Mission vines
came, Spain, the writer has handled
many thousand pipes Of white Mis-
sion wines from the grape to sew
eral years of development. Now L
know it to be fact that none but
the most common wines can be
made from the Mission grape. For
wonder q cask of Mis-
sion wine, grown perhaps on soil
which contained all the elements
for it, may have turned out a no.
BILE wine, but it may just as we'll be
suspected that the ennobling quail
tiles of it were derived from an ad-
dition of some grape nobler than
the common Mission. To make
what is called sherry from the
same grape which is to make port
type wine, is only permitted where
no standard, not of perfection but
for comparison only of common
original wine of these denomina-
tions, is present. Angelica, or
sweetening wine (uino opagado)
may be made of any grape of rich
saccharine contents. Brandy from
the Mission wine is really good and
would not be much better from
other wines. except, perhaps, for
certain admirers of it from the like
wise we'll bearing and profitable
Muscatel grape.
Well, grow by all means, and
abundantly, the Mission grape,
and go on making only the COM
mQpest wines of some description
"for real profit aud durability,u as
Mr.. Keller says, giving them
names, which they are, to say it
mildly, "shades," aud with which
they have some similarity. For
tho daily bread be content to follow
on with that we'll acclimatized
Mission grape. "But,n as Mr..
Keller says, "wine will in the
great future cope with the cereals
as the substantial industry of this
State;p and this is a truth. Wine
making, then, being an industry,
and an Important one already, it
must be implied that progress is
needed. Should the national motto,
Ego ahead" be sounded in vain for
this industry? Should intelligent
growers, out of pure self-satisfac-
tion, stop at one success and not
look about and see what neighbors
and rivals are doing? Is it u fact
that the Mission grape only is a
success?
Never would Jerez have gained
the fame for Its wines if one kind
alone, or few kinds of vines, had
been cultivated on its fields, where
nearly a hundred varieties of
grapes give those great qualities to
the wines reaped from them. Taste
the numberless grades of wines of
the bodegas Of Andalusia, inhale
their fragrance, examine their
beauty derived from the different
kinds of grapes and developed by
an intelligent, laborious and care
full breeding, and then compare.
Compare the lowest grades of Jerez
wines, made chiefly from the kinds
of grapes analogous to our Mission
grape, and still you will find diff
ference which places the California
product in the background. The
writer has stated his firm opinion
In several American trade-pa-
pers that the southern counties of
California have the elements of
every kind for the production and
the natural deUeIopnent by cTefuL
rearing of as noble, as generous
and as fragrant and well.tasting
wines as the south of Spain, and
not only the south of Spain, but
also the south of France, Naples,
Sicily and the Hellenic Isles pro-
duce. To effect this, different
kinds, nobler kinds of grapes than
the Mission grape, is the first. re-
common and successful produce of
the southern counties may be as an
addition to the press, for higher
class grapes. Has the Mission
grape taken to the soil in way
that makes the southern counties
love it for its safe and abundant
yield? Why, then, will not some of
the great number of Spanish vines
that have created the fame of the
perfection of high class dry wines
of Montilla, the Manzanilla, ,Aman-
tillados, Pedro Ximenez and other
Andalusian wines find equally con-
genial circumstances in Los Ange-
les, San Bernardino and other
southern counties?
1t is not in spirit of contradic.
tion, but from q high sence of
truth and the desire to be in an
humble way useful to the State of
his adoption, that the writer wishes
to express the necessity for progress
by united action of all intelligent
wine-growers, and far from advis.
ing to be contented with what little
has been done so far, inquire and
act as to what kinds of vines on
the side of the now American Mis-
sion vine will thrive, and improve
upon the small beginnings of the
CoIffnrnio uipionJft1roI ipdIotrxy fnr