The indigenous wines which come from Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and Mississippi are likely to be musty and foxy, and are not pleasant to an American taste. The Catawbas are pleasant, and are of three colours,—rose colour, straw colour, and colourless, if that be a colour. In taste they are like sparkling Moselle, but fuller to the palate.
The wine produced from the Isabella grape is of a decided raspberry flavour. The finest American wines are those produced from the vines known as Norton's Virginia and the Cynthiana. The former produces a well-blended, full-bodied, deep-coloured, aromatic, and almost astringent wine; the second,—probably the finer of the two,—is a darker, less astringent, and more delicate product.
Among the American red wines may be mentioned the product 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 crûs of the Gironde. It was a bitter, 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 flood
Of whose purple blood
Has a dash of Spanish bravado."
The Carolina Scuppernong is detestable, reminding us of the sweet and bitter medicines of childhood. The Herbemont, a rose-tinted wine is very like Spanish Manganilla.
Longfellow says of sparkling Catawba, that it "fills the room with a benison on the giver." It has, indeed, a charming bouquet, as says the poet.
The name of Nicholas Longworth is intimately connected with the subject of American wines. To him will ever be given all honour, as being the father of this industry in the New World; but the superior excellence of the California wines has driven the New York and Ohio wines, it is said, to a second place in the market.