Cyprus, as I Saw It in 1879

by Sir Samuel White Baker

CHAPTER X.

THE WINE DISTRICT OF LIMASOL.

In the fifteenth century the Cyprian vines were selected for the now celebrated vineyards of Madeira; nothing can better exemplify the standard of industry and consequent prosperity than the vine, when we regard the identical plant in the hands of the Portuguese and in its original home in Cyprus under the Turkish administration. The first historical notice of the vine occurs when Noah, stranded upon Mount Ararat, took advantage, upon the first subsidence of the waters, to plant a vineyard; and, according to the curt biblical description, it grew, produced, and the wine intoxicated the proprietor, all within a few days. It may not have occurred to the wine trade that this biblical fact proves that the consumption of wine had been among the first assumed necessities of the human race; if Noah's first impulse upon landing suggested the cultivation of the vine, he was restoring to the world a plant that had been considered so absolutely important that he must have provided himself with either buds or cuttings in great quantities when he selected his animals for the Ark BEFORE the Deluge. If this is true, the use of wine must have been pre-historical, and its abuse historical; the two purposes having continued to the present day. It may therefore be acknowledged that no custom has been so universal and continuous as the drinking of wine from the earliest period of human existence. The vine is a mysterious plant; it is so peculiarly sensitive that, like a musical instrument which produces harmony or discord at the hands of different performers, the produce of the same variety is affected by the soil upon which the plants are grown. Thus ten thousand young vines may be planted upon one mountain, all of the same stock; but various qualities of wine will be produced, each with a special peculiarity of flavour, according to the peculiarities of soil. The same estate, planted with the same vines, may produce high class wines and others that would hardly command a market, if the soil varies according to the degrees of certain localities. It would now be impossible to produce Madeira wine in Cyprus, although the plants might be imported and cultivated with the greatest attention. When the vines were shipped from Cyprus and planted in Madeira during the rule of the Venetians, it must not be supposed that those vines had ever produced wine of the well-known Madeira flavour and quality; that flavour was the result of some peculiarity in the soil of the new country to which the vines had been transplanted, and there can be little doubt that the rich and extremely luscious variety known in Cyprus as "Commanderia" was the parent vine of the Madeira vineyards.

It is well known that the costly experiments of a century at the Cape of Good Hope have verified the fact that the vine is the slave of certain conditions of soil, which impart to this extremely delicate and sensitive plant a special flavour that is incorporated with the wine, and can never be eradicated. The vines of the Cape, although of infinite variety, produce wines with a family taint which is a flavour absorbed from the soil. Any person who knows Constantia, the luscious wine of the Cape of Good Hope, will at once detect the soupcon of that flavour in every quality of wine produced in the colony. It may therefore be accepted that the flavour of wines depends upon the soil; thus it would be impossible for a vine-grower to succeed simply by planting well- known superior varieties of vines, unless he has had practical experience of the locality to be converted into vineyards.

This fact is thoroughly exhibited in Cyprus, where the peculiarities of soils are exceedingly remarkable, and cannot fail to attract attention, each of these qualities of earth producing a special wine.

If a planter establishes a vineyard he will naturally select a certain variety of vine, and a corresponding situation that will ensure a marketable quantity of wine; thus in Cyprus a comparatively small area of the island is devoted to the cultivation of the grape, which is comprised chiefly within the district of Limasol. No wine is made in the Carpas district, nor to the north of the Carpasian range of jurassic limestone; there are no vineyards of importance in the western district; or yet in the plain of Messaria, except upon the western border, in the neighbourhood of Dali, towards the Makhaeras mountain.

Although there are many varieties of Cyprus wines, there is one prevailing rule: the white commanderia, a luscious high-flavoured wine, is grown upon the reddish chocolate-coloured soil of metamorphous rocks. The dark red, or black astringent wines, are produced upon the white marls and cretaceous limestone. The quantity produced is large, and the dark wines can be purchased retail in the villages for one penny the quart bottle!—and in my opinion are very dear at the money.

According to the official returns kindly supplied to me by Mr. Robson, the chief of customs, the following list represents the declared duty-paid production from 1877 to 1879.

Spirits— Commanderia— Black Wines—
Okes 2.75 lbs. Okes 2.75 lbs. Okes 2.75 lbs.
1877-1878. . 155,451 117,000 2,500,000
1878-1879. . 430,000 300,000 6,000,000

Spirit is valued at about 2.5 Piastres the Oke
Commanderia " " 2 " " "
Black Wines " " 1.25 " " "
The rate of exchange: 9 Piastres to 1 shilling = 180 per
pound sterling.