1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

144

In the Port Wine Country.

subsequently bad added to it merely10 per cent,of winefortified, in tbe usual manner, indicated as many as 34 degrees wlieii tested rather more than twelve months afterwards. The above are exceedingly high figui-es; still Iam satisfied, from what I saw during my sojourn at Jerez, that sherries which have had merely 1 or 2 per cent, of spirit added to them will in course of time indicate 34 degrees. People accus tomed to the moist climate of England do not realise the fact that in these drier latitudes wines are rapidly deprived of their aqueous element, and that it is no unusual thing for a com pletely-fermented wine, which will indicate only 26 degrees when young,to mark 30 degrees in the course of a fe-^ years simply by the evaporation of its watery parts. It is this circum stance which renders the luniting of the one shilling duty to wines of 26 degrees of proof spirit so utterly unfair to the higher-class growths of the Peninsula. The late Baron Forrester was one ofthe first to advocate and occupy himself with the manufacture of Alto Douro wine without any adventitious spirit, and since his time many growers and shippers have satisfied themselves that it is quite possible to make wine of this description and to ship it without fear of after-consequences, but then it is no longer Port wine. Having ■consumed all its natural sugar by means of its more perfect fermentation, it has none of the rich fruity flavour' of the younger vintage wines, nor the refined liqueur-like character of the older growths to which Port 'wine drinkera have been ac customed, and they naturally refuse to accept it as a substitute for their favourite beverage. We ha,ve tasted at difierent times numerous wines of the above description made from the best varieties of grapes, and on the manufacture of which unusual ■care and attention had been bestowed. Undoubtedly they were all wines of some character; still they were not to be compared, either as regards flavour or bouquet, with the highest growths of the Medoc or the Cote d'Or, simply because the Douro vines, with all their advantages of soil, climate, and aspect, are not equal to the carbenet and the cruchinet rouge of the Gironde