Africa: Constantias—Rota—Mascara. America: Catawbas—Muscatel—Chacoli—Mosto. Australia: Carbinet—Kaludah—Verdeilho—Conatto. Canaries: Vidueño—Sack. England: Home-made Wines.
Africa.
Of this country the most important wines of the present are, perhaps, Pontac, Hanepoot, Frontignac, and Drakenstein. On the wines of the Cape of Good Hope, Dr. Edward Kretschmar is a great authority. Kokwyn, made from Muscat grapes, resembles Malaga. The best dry white wines, called Cape Hocks, are produced in the village of Paarl. The Constantias, so called from the wife of the Dutch governor, Van der Stell, are of three kinds. These excellent sweet wines are too frequently falsified and adulterated before reaching the palate of the English consumer. A red wine, called Rota, is made at Stellenbosch. Cape Madeira is a boiled and mixed wine. Stein wine is excellent when old. Red Cape, when drunk in the country, is a “sound, good wine,” says Cyrus Redding.[19] The wine of Morocco is chiefly made by the Jews; it is light, acid, and will not keep. In Tetuan a wine is made nearly equal, according to Cyrus Redding, to the Spanish wine of Xeres. Palm wines are, of course, common. The people of Cacongo prepare a wine called Embeth, and those of Benin Pali and Pardon. The Caffres make a wine called Pombie, from millet or Guinea corn.[20] In Congo they drink a wine called Milaffo, which will not keep beyond three days.
Of the many wines produced at Algiers, the best is probably the white wine of Mascara, situated on a slope of the plane of Egbris, 1,800 feet above the sea level. The Arabic name of the place is a corruption of Umm-al-asakir, or the Mother of Soldiers. The wine is the principal industry of Algiers. It is eagerly bought up by agents of Bordeaux houses. Wines of inferior quality are made at Boue, Tlemcen, Medeah, and Milianah. The wines of Oran are said to resemble the small wines of Languedoc. In ancient times the valley of the Nile produced the wines of Mareotis, Mendes, Koptos, and Arsinoe, and its Delta the liqueur wine of Sebenytus.
America.
The first attempt to cultivate the vine in North America was made, we are informed by Drs. Thudichum and Dupré, in 1564. Some of its best known wines at the present time are the Catawbas[21] (still and sparkling), red Aliso and Angelico. Wine has been made from the vines on the Ohio, said to resemble Bordeaux in quality. In several parts of Mexico, as at Passo del Norte, at Zalaya, and at St. Louis de la Paz, wines are made of tolerable flavour. The red wine of California is agreeable. In Florida, according to Sir John Hawkins, wine was made from a grape like that of Orleans, as far back as 1564. The island of Cuba possesses a “light, cool, sharp wine,” according to Redding.
In South America wine was made long ago in Paraguay. A sweet wine resembling Malaga is made at Mendoza, at the foot of the Andes, and is found to improve by transportation some thousand miles across the Pampas. The wines made in Chili and Peru are white and red. The Muscatel of Chili is considered to be especially good.[22] The white wine of Nasca is inferior. The wine of Pisco is highly esteemed. Though the white is held by connoisseurs to be superior to the red wine of Chili, yet it is little drunk in the cradle of its production. Chacoli is a wine commonly patronised by labourers. The Mosto of Concepcion differs from Mosto asoleado by the grapes of the latter being sundried for some twenty days.
Australia.
Australian wines are pretty well known from our tradesmen’s circulars. For instance, there is the Gouais, the Carbinet, a soft wine like Burgundy, the Mataro, the Sauvignon. There is that “elegant dinner wine,” Kaludah, the Singleton Red or White Hermitage, “noted for its refinement”; the Tintara Ferruginous, of “immense power and generous quality”; the Tokay Imperatrice; and the Alexandrian Moscat, both poetically described as “abounding in memories of the sun which begot them,” and possessing the “most beautiful bouquet that can be imagined,” with a flavour “resembling the first crush in the mouth of three or four fine ripe Muscatel grapes—the large white oval ones—covered with a light bloom, and attached to a clean, thin stalk.”
Drs. Thudichum and Dupré, who are themselves indebted to a publication by Toovey, have given an excellent description of these wines. Verdeilho is a wine, like Madeira, of delicate aroma and a full body; Frontignac is described as a thin white wine with a slight taste of the Muscat grape, being a fictitious elderflower flavour; Malbee is described as made from “claret” grape; Tavoora is described as a pure “port” of 1859; Tintara, a red, clear wine; Adelaide, a pure white wine, mainly from Riessling grapes with a soupçon of Muscatel, “a little too fiery for greatness.” Wattlesville is an acidulous white wine. The poor and acid Chasselas, the strong-scented Highercombe, said to resemble good Sauterne, with many varieties of so-called claret, as Emu, St. Hubert, and so-called Hock, as Heron and Royal Reserve, are also imported from Australia. The Conatto is a rich liqueur with a flavour of Curaçoa and Rum Shrub combined.
Canaries.
The Canary Islands have long been celebrated for their wines. The favourite Teneriffe wine is Vidueño or Vidonia. Canary sack is supposed to have been made from the Malvasia sweet grape, whereas the modern sack is dry (sec). The best vineyards are at Orotava, S. Ursula, Ycod de los Vinos, Buenavista, and Valle de Guerra.
England.
British made wines hold no very high rank. A cheap foreign manufacture is, according to some of their vendors, gradually ousting them from the market. But at one time they formed a part of the education of the good housewives of Great Britain. Home wines were chiefly made from plums, apples, gooseberries, bilberries, elderberries, blackberries, currants (red and black), raspberries, cherries, cowslips, parsnips, raisins, greengages, damsons, ginger, oranges, and lemons. Less commonly and in former times we had wines from mulberries, quinces, peaches, apricots, and from the sap of the birch, beech, sycamore, and other trees. Years ago “sweets” or home-made wines were sent from Scotland and Ireland, such as ginger wine and so-called cherry and raspberry whiskies. The flowers of meadow-sweet (Spiræa ulmaria) yield a fragrant distilled water, which is said to be used by wine merchants to improve the flavour of their wines. In a little work by Mr. G. Vine on Home-made Wines, the reader will find numerous receipts how to make and keep these wines, with observations on gathering and preparing the fruit, fining, bottling, and storing. A correspondent of the Gardeners’ Chronicle gives a receipt for beer wine, a beverage which has puzzled many connoisseurs. The curious may find it also quoted in Vine’s brochure.
The manufacture of home-made wines is familiar. An excellent wine is sometimes made from a mixture of the fruits above mentioned, as, for instance, that from gooseberries and currants. All home-made wines are prone to run into acetous fermentation without the addition of a due proportion of pure spirits. Plums or sloes, with other ingredients, can, it is said, be turned into excellent fruity port, the “very choice” kind, silky, soft, and full bodied. A wine said to be agreeable is also made from the red berries of the mountain ash or service-tree (pyrus aucuparia). Birch wine is still made in some parts of England. Morewood gives a long receipt for its manufacture. Like most other wines, it improves greatly with age. This is especially true of parsnip wine. From potatoes which have suffered a sort of malting from frost, a tolerable wine has been obtained. It is said—but there are people who will say anything—that a great portion of the champagne drunk in this country is made from sugar and green gooseberries. Rhubarb wine has been affirmed to be synonymous with British champagne. The reader anxious on this subject may consult Dr. Shannon’s elaborate Treatise on Brewing. Cowslip wine is all too like some of the Muscatel wines of Southern France, and the wine of the Sambucus nigra has been more than once, through some unlucky accident, confused with Frontignac.