1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

The Sparkling Wines of Aitslro-Hitngary, &c.

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sword of St. Stephen towards the four points of the compass in token of their determination to defend the kingdom against all enemies. The white sparkling wines are made exclusively from white grapes grown in the neighbouring vineyards of Basing, Geiinau, and St. Georgen, but the firm ma,ke reel spark– ling wines as well from the produce of the Ratzersdorf and W ainor vineyards. The vintage takes place some time in October, and the wines are· bottled both in the spring and autumn, but never until they are fully twelve months old. With these variations the system pursuecl with regard to the wines is the same as is followed in the Champagne. There are several other sparkling wine manufacturers at Pressburg, and the prin– cipal market for these wines is Austro-Hungarl, but shipments of them are made to England, the United States, India, Roumania, and Servia. The production of sparkling wine in Hungary is now estimat ed to amount to one million bottles annually. In Croatia Prince Lippe-Schaumburg has established a sparkling wine manufactory at Slatina, where he produces a so– called Riesling-Champagner, and it would appear from the collection of Austro-Hungarian sparkling wines exhibited at Vienna by Herr Bogdan Hoff of Cracow, that these wines are also made at Melnik, in Bohemia, at Biscnz in Moravia, at Sebenicodi Maraschino in Dalmatia, at Botzen in the Tyrol, at Tasnad in Transylvania, and at Weiss-Kirchen in the Banat. All these wines had been submitted to examination at the Im– perial ceno-chemical laboratory at Klosterneuberg , and one was not surprised to find that the majority were pronounced to be of too rnbust a character for transformation into sparkling wines. Switzerland long since turned its attention to the manufacture of sparkling wines, not, however, to meet the requirements of its own population, but those of the many tourists with well-lined purses who annually explore its valleys, lakes, and mountains. Neuchat el champagne has met with a certain amount of success, and at the present time there are a couple of establishments devoted to its production, the best known being that of Bouvier