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.
FRENCH WINES.
The Great Makers of Champagne—Its Manufacture—Bottling—Treatment—Bordeaux or Claret—Its early Use and Name—Whence it comes—The different Growths—White Wines of the District—Burgundy—Different Growths and Qualities—Other Wines.