AUSTRALIAN WINES.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 301, 31 May 1875, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN WINES.

The Saturday Beview says : —“ We must confess to being slightly surprised at the extent, variety, and success with which wines have been produced in Australia. The jury which sat upon the wines were specially conversant with French, Spanish, and German wines, and therefore competent to deal with Australian reproductions of them. The samples of Hermitage from Yictortia were so excellent that the French experts seemed struck with astonishment, and insisted that they were tasting a fine French wine which had been sent to Australia and brought back. They required a distinct affirmation from the agent in charge that these vanes were of genuine Australian growth. The reporter mentions that, in the reports of the Paris Exhibition of 1867, Australian Hermitage is very favourably spoken of by Frenchmen, who are at least excellent judges of their own wines. An ‘admirable Reisling’ from Adelaide sent, several Germans into raptures over this produce from what they regard as the national vine, which had come to them thousands of miles across the ocean. The mataro, grown on an alluvial soil in South Australia, as we understand, * was intensely dark in color, and had all the fullness and fruitiness of an unbrandied port.’ The occasional fortifying of Australian wines is said to be their worst feature, and can no more be justified than corresponding practices with the wines of Spain, Portugal, and the South of France, which ordinarily screen a clumsy system of vinification, or, if not this, allow of the wine travelling before it is properly matured. Wines of the degree of alcoholic strength which those of Australia naturally attain, not only need no adventitious spirit, but any finer qualities they may derive from climate or soil, or which may be developed by age, are destroyed by such a proceeding. It is satisfactory to find that Australian wine is likely to be genuine for the same reason that Australian meat is genuine, because the natural product of the country is cheaper than any substitute. An important feature of the report referred to is that the reporter thinks .that, if the taste for natural, in opposition to fortified, wine is encouraged and maintained, a few years will see a considerable abandonment of the custom of adding alcohol to wine under pretence of its necessity to ensure the wine travelling well and continuing sound. It may gratify an enterprising brewer in New Zealand to note that, in his report upon beer, Mr Yizetelly says : —“The brewer who sent beer all the way from New Zealand to Vienna ought certainly to have had a medal for perseverence.