The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-04


tonic in character, and great favorite
with the court OF Spain"
Our golden sherry, our Chambertin. ou-
chateau Lahtte, is said TO often come
from the vineyards of Jersey City and the
generous hillsides of Brooklyn, and We
might perhaps quote from the song of
1.-THE Canai:n
"Ihe tradesmen who in liquor deal,
VI our canal good use can make,
Ana when they mean their casks to MI,
they oft its water freely take
BY this device they render less
The Ills that spring from drunkenness
For harmless Is the wine you'll own
From vines that in canals is grown.
A large portion of the so-called foreign
wines sold in America are of American
manufacture. The medium grade clarets
and so-called Moselles are made in Cali
fornia IN great quantities. Our senator,
Leland stanford, makes excellent wines.
On the Islands of Lake Erie, the lake re-
glons OF Central New York, and along the
banks of the Ohio and Nississipsi rivers,
are vineyards producing excellent wines.
An honest American wine is an excel
lent thing to drink. And yet it Disguised.
Commodore McNicker, who was enter
tanned IN London, as president of our
yacht club, to be asked to drink American
wines. Still the catawbas, 'dulcet, delic-
ious and dreamy" are not to be despised
Neither are the sweet and dry California.
growths.
The indigenous wines which come from
Ohio. Iowa, Missouri and Mississippi are
apt to be musky and foxy, and are not
pleasant to an American taste The cataw-
bas are pleasant and are of three colors
rose color, straw color and colorless, if that
be color. In taste they are like sparkling
Moselle, but fuller to the palate
The wine produced from the Isabella
grape is of a decided raspberry flavor The
finest American wines are those produced
from the vines known as Norton's Virginia
and Cynthiana. The former produces
well blended. full bodied, deep colored, ar
omatic and almost astringent wine, only
needing finesse to equal a frst-rate Bur
gundy. The second, probably the finer
OF the two, being darker. less astringent
and more delicate growth.
Among the American red wines may be
mentioned the produce of the Schuylkill
muscadel, which was the only esteemed
growth In the country previous to the
cultivation OF the catawba grape; being in
fact ambitiously compared to the Crus of
the Glronde. 1t was a better acidulous
wine, little suited to the American palate,
and invariably requiring an addition of
either sugar or alcohol.
Longfellow sings of the wine of the
mustang grape of Texas and New Mexico:
"The fiery food
OF whose purple blood
Has dash of Spanish bravado"
The Carolina Scuppernong is detestable,
reminding US of the sweet and bitter medi-
cines of childhood. The Herbemont,
rose-tinted wine, is very like the Spanish
Manganilla.
Longfellow says of sparkling catawba
that it fills the room with benson to
the giver. sit has, indeed, charming
bouquet" says the poet.
The name of Nicholas Longworth is in
timately connected with the subject of
MI htr, mill bx.
given all honor, as being the father of this
industry in the American new world.
But the superior excellence of the Cali
fornia wines has driven the New York and
the Ohio wines, it is said. to q second place
in the market.
in Melbourne, silver medals were awarded
to the Inglewood wines, which are of the
red claret, Burgundy and medoc type, also
white wines, Sauterne Chasselas and Hook
Chablis, Riesling, etc., etc.
The right soil for the cultivation of the
grape is hard thing to find, but Captain
Niebaum, a rich California grower, has hit
the keynote when he says:
81 have no wish to make any money out
of my vineyard by producing large guam
tity of wine at cheap or moderate price.
! am going to make California wine
which, if it can be made. will be worthily
sought for by connoisseurs, aud am pre-
accomplish that result" He says frankly
that he has not yet produced the best wine
of which California is capable, but that he
has succeeded In producing better wine
than many of the foreign wines sold in
America.
He might have added that hogsheads of
California grape Juice are sent annually to
Bordeaux to be doctored and returned to
America as French claret.
The misfortunes of the wine-grower in
Europe. the ruin of acres of grape-produc-
ing country by the phylloxera, should be
the opportunities for these new wine
growers in the United States.
1t is by travel, experiment and by a
close study of the foreign wIne-growers
that Californian can possibly make him.
self vineyard which shall be successful
He must induce nature to sweeten his
wines. and he can then laugh at the
chemist
Of vegetables we have not only all that
Europe can boast excepting perhaps the
artichoke) but we have some in constant
use and of great excellence which they
have not. For instance, sweet corn boiled
or roasted and eaten from the cob with
butter and salt is unknown in Europe.
They have not the sweet potato, so deli
cious when baked. They have not the
pumpkin pie, although they have the
pumpkin. They have eggplant and cauli-
flower and beans and peas, but so have we.
They have bananas, but never fried, which
is a negro dish and excellent. They have
not the plantain, good baked, nor the av-
ogarde or alligator pear, which cooked,
fried in butter or oil, is SO admir-
able They have not the ochra of
which the negro cooks make such excel
lent gumbo soup. They have all the salads
and use sorrel much more than We do.
They do not cook summer squash as we
do, nor have they anything to equal it.
They use vegetables always, as an entree,
not served with the meat, unless the
vegetable is cooked with the meat like a
beef stewed in carrots, turnips and onions,
or veal and green pease, or veal with
spinach, and so on. The peas are passed
as an entree, so is the caulihower, the beet
root and the turnips. They treat all
vegetables as we do corn and asparagus TO
separate course. For asparagus we must
give the French the palm; particularly
when they serve it with Hollendaise sauce,
and the Italians cook caulifiower with
cheese, "a rayir."
NJ E. W. SHERWOOD.