Daily Los Angeles herald., 1882-06-09
AN I0wAH ON CALIFORNIA.
His Opinion of Our Wines and
Climate.

Mr.. John P. Irish, editor of the IoVa
State Press, who, our readers will re-
member, visited Los Angeles some weeks
ago, is still giving the readers of that
able journal his impressions of Califor-
nia His last letter, written from San
Francisco, is devoted principally to the
wine production, climate and cost of
living. We extract those portions in
which he refers to Los Angeles.
California has for its great interests
wine, wheat, stock and mining. The
annual output of the mines is equal to
the value of the wheat crop. l have no
statistics of the wine trade, but it is des-
tined to be the richest and most endur-
ing of the States four legs. The soil is
volcanic, like all good grape soils, and
the vine fiourishes from Siskiyou to San
Diego. There is scarcely q county that
is without vineyards. The Spaniards
began this culture, and years were
wasted by their successors in cultivating
the old Mission grape. 1t was fit to
produce only narrow range of wines
and the business languished until new
varieties were introduced, and now it is
mighty interest though in its infancy.
Reflect that here is grape soil over an
area greater than all the wine districts
of Europe and capable of duplicating
every foreign wine from Port to Imperial
Tokay and you may conceive what is to
come out OF this industry. The brands
most commonly produced now are Port,
Angelica, Dry Muscatel, Hooks, Ma
deira, Reisling, Sherry, Zinfandel Claret
and Champagne. l have written already
of Roses product, which as to its Port,
Angelich, Blauelben, Burger and brandy
cannot be excelled by any vineyards
in the world. At the wholesale house
of Lips & Craigue, Los Angeles, old
wines, well ripened, of all brands made
there may be found in their purity,
and this milk of old age, is the COM
mon drink of q community in which /
only saw one drunken man during a So
jourp of a week, and he was q son of
Harvard Professor, on his travels, and
on drunk as a protest, | suppose,
against Puritan primness, pruneness and
prismness. In Iowa we are about to
legislate against the vine. The Repub-
lican party of our State is about to de-
stroy important domestic interests and
outlaw the vineyards of California. 1t
may tantalise the beastly sober part of
our community to dwell upon this sub
ject, but, as reference to those "who
sip nectar on high Olympus or mighty
mead in Valhalla" may soon be an in
dictable offense in our State | will take
liberties with my liberty while have
it. was agreeably surprised to find
the production of champagne by natural
method going ON in San Francisco. L
believe that genuine champagne is not
produced elsewhere in America. 1t is
true that we have sparkling wines, like
Longworth's Catawba which inspired
Longfellow's muse, and the Hammonds-
port wines in New York and the effer-
vescent wines of Missouri, but none of
them is champagne. 1t is true they
sparkle, but so does cider fermented in
bottle. This California champagne
produced only by Arpad Haraszthy &
Co., is the result of combining in one
cugee six different wines, of diverse fla
vors and degrees of dryness. After COM
bination they pass two years in the
vaults undergoing confined fermentation,
which precipitates the cream tartar and
produces the carbonic acid gas which
makes the wine bubble and sparkle
and imparts its agreeable effects. You
may ask wherein does this wine differ
from sparkling Catawba or Hammonds
port. Let me answer that these wines
may be compared to salad. Your Ca
tawba is an austere juice any way and
without any palliation of its defects it is
made to sparkle and pass for champagne.
Haraszthy & Cos California ECLIPSE"
is the mingling of several vintages, each
bringing its own flavor, its peculiar zest,
its individual excellence kissed into life
by the sun, born of the soil to which it
is native.
The climate of California is very fasci-
mating 1t tempts to outdoor life. 1t
has few sudden changes and the differ
ence between winter and summer tenn
perature is very slight. Take Oakland
for example. The mean winter temper
ature is As the mean summer 60, differ
ence of only IL degrees! As result
there is general good health and pro-
longation of life even under the friction
of chronic diseases. People with worn
out kidneys, livers that have retired
from business, hypertrophied spleens
and atrophied stomachs go to Oak
land, and in that equable climate
live out their span-in considerable
comfort. Los Angeles, however, is the
great sanitarium for invalids from
abroad, and found there so many con-
sumptives, settled and rearing families,
that would like to live long enough to
| see the end of the contest between eli
mate and heredity.
The State is, by reason of its climate,
q paradise for women and children. The
ladies of California are of that un-Amer-
lean type = healthy women, and the
children are born to heritage of health,
The whole coast is remarkable in this
sanitary respect. l read with much in
terest the report of the Health Officer OF
Oakland, publication which is the best
investment that city has made, by which
it is demonstrated that there is the low.
est death rate shown by any city in the
country, if not the lowest in the world,
to like population. An Oakland lady
explained to me that there house is
only needed "to roost in." Life is prin.
/ o;nnIl,r a,,ont out of doors and the SIN