The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-08-30
UNDER THE GRHPEVINES.
A Picturesque Vineyard Among south
ern Indiana Hills.

The time is not far distant when it shall
have passed into an axiom that what
cannot be found in Indiana cannot he
found anywhere" John Burroughs long
ago discovered that men need not travel
for discovery or entertainment; that we
nave but to ''sit on our doorsteps and see
the procession pass" "A Day at La
guerre's." in all its charm and novelty,
has passed in among the literary classics
from the delightful pen of Mr.. F. Hop
kiDson Smith, but the freshness. the pleas
ure, the quaintness. the oddness and out
of-the-wayness of that enhancing idyl
may any day be duplicated-nay. even
added to and improved upon by those who
know the way through the hills to the
shaded arbors and sunny terraces of the
Gony vineyard. The road to the Gony
vineyard is known as the Budd road. CIR
Elizabeth pike. 1t should be rechristened
''Hazlett's highway for 1t has all the
requisites which that epicurean pedestrian
demanded-"a clear, blue sky overhead.
the green turf beneath my feet and a
winding road before me-"
Down this winding road, which goes due
west, then makes south, as if to meet the
river, then changes its mind and climbs a
hill, then twists TO the north before dart
ing westward again-it is a four-mile
march between densely wooded hills, here
and there an old French house along the
way, until a curve around the knoll, where
stand an old Napoleon soldiers home,
brings into view the old Gony homestead
"Laguerre's' was not yet a quarter Of a
century old when the artist-author discov-
cred it's charm, but Monsieur Claude Gony.
with his wife and daughter, found his way
from France to this quaint nook in The
Indiana hills nearly forty years ago.
Pathos tinges the story of those early days
before these blooming terraces and this
smiling garden had been brought into sub
lection: years of experiment with vine and
soil, seasons of blight and frost precede
all victories which nature grants even her
most earnest votaries. In a circuit of high
hills nestles the home which these French
hearts long ago made on alien soil, and
the acres of the Gony vineyard, now
known through the marriage of the daugh-
ter. as the 'Mosemiller vineyard"
stretch away in the sunshine up and over
the steep slopes behind the comfortable
and picturesque homestead. On a higl,
shining. green and gold background of ter
race and vine the deep. pointed gables of
the house stand out; its long porch hospit-
ably fronts the ~hill-path. up which the
visitor climbs, betty cen blooming garden
beds. and in the long. densely vine-grown
arbor, a step aside, a table and benches
offer restful retreat.
The Mosemiller vine crop has ripened
two weeks earlier than usual this golden
summer, and yesterday almost the last OF
the grapes were cut from the vines devoted
to wine-making. All over that sunny hill
side, crested at the top with a tiny wood
IN Uateh fnUpr man wore C0afterad
among the short. wire-strung grape trel-
Uses. cutting the heavy punches of the
dark grapes and the white, and bearing
them down to Jean Francois Guillaume's
low she'd, where the grape-pickers sat.
Jean Francois was a tiny Frenchman of
the old French settlement days. He built
chimneyS and made sheds, but measured
everything by his own stature, so If you
bump your head in Porrentruy, you must
watt your eXecration towards the vanished
shade of the quaint little Frenchman. In
the shade of this low shed, facing east
ward, the pickers sat, men, women and
children, stripping the grapes from the
punches into deep wooden buckets. Some
French badinage throws a pleasant foreign
flavor into dialogue, which is also native
Hoosier. Behind the pickers' shed is the
vat house, where the grapes are borne af-
ter being crushed in a large grape press
Just outside the door. The vat house is an
old log cabin, and its stanch tlmbers. en-
blems of early America, contrast strange
ly in the mind with the picture of this
old-world occupation, w-ine-making. About
two weeks OF steady labor are consumed
by the, grape gathering and picking in the
Mosemiller vineyard. but the longer pro-
cess goes on under the roof and in the cell
lars. A strong, spicy odor of fermentation
arises from the large. open, purple-stained
hogsheads. in which the bruised grapes
are evolving themselves slowly into that
fragrant and abused beverage which Rob-
ert Louis Stevenson calls bottled poetry
Pink foam crests the deep watts, and the
fresh grape juice. only a day or so old,
has a taste like Incompatible sweet cider.
From the fumes Of this vat-room, we are
told. unseemly exhilaration may ensue. and
here the large family dog, Fossil" comes
TO lie and absorb refrigeration when the
cares of life depress him.
From the fermentation house, the cell
lars come next in order of logical inspec-
ton: they are two. one under each wing
of the house, and Mr.. Hopkinson Smith
has already described one of them, in his
Day at Laguerre's:" outside is an old