Connecticut western news., 1900-11-29
tOopyIIEnt' AsOO' LVuHs nIoPScHs N. H'I OUR WINES AT PARIS.
Received Many Awards, but Deserv-
 ed More.

Received Many Awards, but Deserv-
 ed More. e
 The remarkable success of American wines at the Paris exposition thor oughly astonished the French, and when the fact becomes better known In this country it will be 8 cause for reorganization on the part of all loyal Americans. Every wine producing country in the world sent samples of It's product to the exposition. All told, there were 5000 different exhibitors, presenting approximately an average of five kinds of wine each. This made total of about 38,000 samples which the wine jury was obliged to test and pass judgment upon. Of these 36,0O0 samples there were about 500 from the United States, exhibited by about 100 producers. More than so per cent of the samples exhibited received ei- ther gold or silver medals, and one wine missed by only one point of get ting the Grand Prx, says the New York Sun.
 This proportion of awards was higher than that received by any other nation. Even France, with all Its wonderful science in grape culture and winemak- Ing, failed to get more than 42 per cent of It's exhibits into the honor class. And It should be remembered, too, that the jury was composed largely of Frenchmen, who would naturally be disposed to favor the wines of their own country. That the United States got so large a percentage shows that the Frenchmen were surely fair in their judgment. Had 1t not been for the unfortunate practice of American winemakers of labelling their wines with French names the percentage of awards would have been much higher. As 1t was number of the very best wines made in the United States were excluded from the awards by reason of these imitation names.
 To the average wine drinker in the United States-that Is, the person who Is not a connoisseur-the words sherry, sauterne. burgundy, port and cham pagre are descriptive of a kind of wine. Without special thought 1t is taken for granted that these words are generic. And so one often sees ports and sherries and champagnes and bur gundies which are made in the United States, and 1t never occurs to the av- craze person that there is anything un- fair or deceptive in these names. To the Frenchman, raised in an atmos- phere of wine culture, and to the thor ough student of the subject this prac- tice Is most reprehensible. The French man knows that, properly speaking, a burgundy wine can only come from Burgundy, that port wine can only come from the district of Oporto. that a champagne can only come from the Champagne district and that a sherry can only come from the Spanish dis trict of Heres. The character of the wines made in these various districts Is so distinctive and has gained such worldwide reputation that the names of the provinces have come to be used by the general public in this country at least as descriptive of the character of the wine rather than as descriptive of tbe place where 1t Is made. So 1t Is that we have American burgundies and American champagnes, American sherries and American sauternes and American St. Julien clarets and American Medoc clarets and many similar misnomers.