Purity and adulteration in native wines. Address

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Purity and Adulteration

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Native Wines

Address

BY

PERCY T. MORGAN

PRESIDENT OF THE CALIFORNIA WINE ASSOCIATION

AT THE

International Pure Food Congress
St. Louis

SEPTEMBER

1904

LIBRARY

L&3ITY CF CiLI7
D VV'iS

Purity and Adulteration in
Native Wines.

Address by PERCY T. MORGAN,
President of the California Wine Association,
at the International Pure Food Congress,
St. Louis, September, 1904.

In speaking to the subject assigned to me by the Committee it may
not be amiss to give a short historical sketch of Grape Culture and Wine
Making in the United States, in order to demonstrate the importance of
the Native Wine Industry and the necessity for its protection from
spurious or adulterated products.

Almost five centuries before the discovery by Columbus of the
American continent early Scandinavian navigators visited the eastern
shores of what are now the United States, and finding grapes growing
in great abundance named the country "Vinland."

Wines were produced in considerable quantities from native grapes
in Florida as far back as 1564, according to the testimony of Sir John
Hawkins. Amadas and Barlowe, who visited North Carolina in 1584,
were so impressed with the luxuriance of the growth of vines that one of
them wrote that he found the land "so full of grapes " that "I think in
all the world the like abundance is not to be found."

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During the French occupation of Louisiana, history records that
the wine production reached such proportions that the government
becoming alarmed for its domestic trade forbade its manufacture in the
colony.

About 1630 the "London Company " sent French vignerons to
Virginia to cultivate imported vines, Lord Delaware having enthusi-
astically recommended the experiment.

Almost all the early attempts at viticulture were directed to the
introduction of vines from Europe, until Nicholas Longworth, who
might be called the "father of the Native Wine Industry, " in 1850, after
experimenting with foreign varieties along the Ohio Eiver for thirty
years, gave up the attempt to grow them, and remarked :

"If we intend cultivating the grape for wine we must rely

only on our native grapes and new varieties arising from their

seed."

Mr. Downey in 1851 also stated in the Horticulturist that,

"The introduction of European vines into America for

cultivation on a large scale is impossible. There is first a

season or two of promise and then a complete failure."

When the above testimony was given, the Pacific Slope was prac-
tically an unknown country, having only recently become part of the
United States. The gentlemen above quoted were, therefore, unaware

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that vines from Spain were successfully introduced into Mexico in the
sixteenth century, and that when Franciscan monks, under Father Juni-
pero Serra, established in 1769 the first California mission at San Diego,
they brought with them cuttings of the Vitis Vinifera from which they
propagated the Mission Grape, pioneer of the California Wine
Industry.

It was not until the early '40 's that the Wine Industry in the East-
ern and Southern States commenced to assume commercial proportions,
though Volney testifies to having tasted, in 1796, wine made at Galli-
polis, Ohio, and there are records to show that grape growing was
carried on about this time in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, Mary-
land, Illinois, North and South Carolina, and a little later in New York
and the District of Columbia.

The early efforts having resulted in comparative failure, through
the attempt to propagate imported vines, earnest attention was turned
to the improvement of the native varieties. When Major Adlum first
brought the Catawba grape prominently to notice in 1824 he sounded
the tocsin of the Native American Wine Industry.

The transactions of the "Cincinnati Horticultural Society " show
that great interest was taken in viniculture even in the '30 's, when
annual wine exhibitions were held and premiums awarded, and so much

was thought of the region as a wine growing section that the Ohio
Elver was designated the * * Rhine of America. ' '

From the Fox, the Cape, the Catawha, Ives Seedling and Norton
Seedling have sprung nearly all the Eastern wine bearing varieties, of
which more than fifty are now in general use.

In the South, among many other varieties, the Scuppernong grape
is largely cultivated, and a "Mother Vine" still exists which was
planted on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, in the days of Sir Walter
Raleigh.

Around the Scuppernong vine is entwined a romance of early times
in America, which has been immortalized by Sallie Southall Gotten in
the "Legend of the White Doe," which purports to relate the fate of
Virginia Dare, the first white child born of English parents on the soil
of North America, whose disappearance, together with that of an entire
party of colonists, is a mystery which history has not solved. The
legend runs that this beautiful young girl was turned by Indian
sorcery into a white doe, which, being shot by a silver arrow, returned
to human form, and dying, her heart's blood fertilized a seedling vine,
the fruit from which yielded a deep red wine instead of the white juice
usual to this grape.

"And the tiny shoot with leaflets, by the sunlight ivarmed to life,
"Was the Vine of Civilization in the wilderness of strife."

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The production of still wines of distinctive types has reached very
considerable proportions in the Eastern and Southern States. A trade
of many million gallons per annum has been created in wines, prin-
cipally under individual labels, named after the grapes from which
they are derived. Many of these wines are of excellent quality .and
have received substantial recognition at domestic and foreign Exposi-
tions, including Paris, 1900.

Few realize the enormous growth of the American Sparkling Wine
Industry. Since Nicholas Longworth in 1842 announced that he had
"by chance " produced a wine naturally fermented in the bottle, the
output has increased from year to year, but more rapidly in the last
decade, until at the present day the consumption of wine made after
the champagne process from native American grapes equals approx-
imately one-half of the quantity imported from abroad ; in other words,
almost one-third of all the Sparkling Wine drunk in the United States
to-day is produced from American grapes, and this ratio is constantly
increasing. How much enterprise and energy, coupled with extensive
advertising, has brought about this splendid result, only those can tell
who have fought the battle against the natural predilection in favor of
imported champagnes.

The American product has a characteristic flavor extremely
pleasant to those who are accustomed to drinking it. In point of

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sparkle, finish, bouquet and general excellence the native wine can
to-day bear very favorable comparison with the imported article, as an
evidence of which may be cited that American Sparkling Wines were
awarded both gold and silver medals at the Paris Exposition of 1900.

In California the Vitis Vinifera immediately found congenial sur-
roundings, and for the last fifty years viniculture has been a leading
industry of the State. Numerous varieties of foreign grapes are cul-
tivated. In one vineyard cuttings from the celebrated Lafite Vineyard
are growing, the grapes from which produce a very high class wine.
Wild grape vines are also found indigenous to the soil of California,
and grow luxuriantly along the streams of almost every county, but so
far native stocks have not been employed for wine grape culture.

Upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand acres are devoted to
grape culture for wine and raisins, and the investment in these indus-
tries in California aggregates over eighty million dollars.

The vintage of 1902 yielded about forty-five million gallons of
wine, and the average annual production is not far short of thirty-five
million gallons, of which about two-thirds are dry white and red wines,
and one-third sweet wines.

The climate of California permits of the production of wines, bear-
ing a close resemblance to European types, which are largely consumed

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with ever increasing favor all over the United States, in Mexico, Central
and South America, the Hawaiian Islands, China, Japan and other
Oriental countries, as well as Great Britain and even on the continent
of Europe.

California Wines have taken gold medals at many International
Expositions, the most recent foreign recognition being that accorded in
Paris in 1900, when four gold, nine silver, and nine bronze medals were
awarded by the jury.

Grape culture is carried on to a greater or less extent in more than
two-thirds of all the States and Territories of the Union. Measures
which tend to the uplifting of the Wine Industry should, therefore, in
the interest of their constituents, be a subject for the solicitude of a
great majority of the members of both Houses of Congress.

It is in domestic consumption that an industry must find its great
prosperity. France, typical as a wine producing country, despite her
great home production, imports on the average almost four times as
much wine as is exported.

Americans are not wine drinkers in the same sense as the French,
the Italians and the Spanish, who consume annually almost fifty times
as much wine per capita as the people of the United States. While it
is gratifying to note that over ninety per cent of the wine consumed in

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lishment of happy and prosperous homes thereon; and also to the
greater prosperity of transportation companies in freight on many
carloads of wine, where they now carry only pounds of tea and coffee.

A dissertation on the Native Wine Industry, detailing conditions of
production in the various localities and the variety of wines in each
district, would consume many hours. Eealizing, therefore, that the time
allowed to each speaker at this Convention must necessarily be short in
order to give opportunity for discussion of the many important topics
before it, I will turn to subject matter which is perhaps of most interest
to those here assembled.

Taken as a general proposition, the wines of native production
offered to the consumer in the United States compare very favorably
in purity with those of any country in the world, and the great per-
centage are absolutely pure.

Grapes in the wine producing sections can, as a rule, be grown in
sufficient quantities and at a cost which offers little inducement for the
use of adulterants to increase the volume. In fact, in the largest native
wine producing center it is frequently a question of how profitably to
distribute the generous yield of certain seasons. This, it is true, would
be easily solved if laws could be passed limiting or prohibiting the mar-
keting of wine until it has reached a certain period of maturity. It is
the competition of immature wines of a succeeding generous crop that

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the United States is domestically produced, the fact is rather discourag-
ing that only about one-half gallon of wine per annum is drunk per
capita as against one and one-half gallons of distilled liquors.

That the habitual drinking of pure wine, as practiced in European
countries, is conducive to temperance, and not, therefore, to be classed
with intoxicating liquors in general, is a generally acknowledged fact,
which, in early days, was testified to by no less a personage than a
President of the United States, the great Thomas Jefferson, who
remarked :

"I rejoice, as a moralist, at a prospect of a reduction of
the duties on wine by our National Legislature. It is an error
to view a tax on that liquor as merely a tax on the rich. It is
prohibition of its use to the middling classes of our citizens,
and a condemnation of them to the poisons of spirits, which is
desolating their homes. NO NATION IS DEUNKEN
WHERE WINE IS CHEAP; AND NONE SOBER WHERE
THE DEARNESS OF WINE SUBSTITUTES ARDENT
SPIRITS AS ITS COMMON BEVERAGE. "

The evils following an unstinted and excessive use of coffee and
tea are little realized, and if this could be partly or largely replaced by
a consumption of pure, light native wines it would redound to the
benefit not only of the people at large in healthfulness, but to the
increased profitable occupation of large acreage of land, and the estab-

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often destroys or injures the value of previous maturing vintages.
Holders become nervous for their market, and a panicky feeling some-
times ensues, which impels them to attempt to force their product on the
market at a greater rate than consumption will warrant.

The Native Wine Industry will never attain its proper prominence
until the public has the opportunity of judging the true merits of the
best wines through selected vintages carefully matured and bottled at
originating cellars, whether these be cellars of individual vintners or of
large central handlers, like those of Bordeaux, having the opportunity
of picking out suitable wines throughout a region for properly aging,
and able, like the great French houses, to guarantee under standard
labels the quality and maturity of the wine and to stand or fall by the
public approbation or disapproval of any deviation from a given
standard.

Such wines, of course, will have to command an adequate price to
compensate for all the care and attention necessary, and will not, there-
fore, in any way come in competition with the cheaper wines.

The use of sugar to strengthen musts, which from climatic or
weather conditions have not attained the necessary degree of sweetness
to produce by fermentation an adequate alcoholic strength for the
proper preservation of the wine, is practiced pretty generally all over

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the world. In some countries it is, under proper restrictions, per-
mitted by legislative enactment. It would perhaps, therefore, be unjust
for one section, blessed by Nature with a benign climate which seldom
fails to properly mature its crops, to endeavor to force upon another
less favored section any unfair legislation; but great care must be
exercised that privilege shall not degenerate into license, and while
restrictive measures should not be carried to the extent of preventing
the artificial strengthening of grapes which are too low in natural sweet-
ness to admit of their being made into wine, it is nevertheless not only
necessary that the law should designate what kind of sugar shall be
used, and to what extent, but that wines which are wholly or in part
derived from glucose and contain antiseptics and artificial coloring
should be plainly so designated upon the casks and bottles.

It is not claimed that glucose is unhealthful, for being a vegetable
product, carefully extracted by the most modern and approved methods,
it will probably bear favorable comparison with sugar produced from
any other source; but its use under the general designation of WINE
—of which the meaning, according to Webster, is

"The fermented juice of the grape/'

would soon render unprofitable the great vineyard investments of this
country, from the fact that alcohol can be produced from the fer-

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mentation of glucose at probably one-fifth of its cost when produced
from grapes.

Let each stand on its own merits. Let grape wine be marked and
sold as WINE, and glucose be marked and sold as a corn product ; or,
if mixed, let this fact be plainly apparent to the consumer, and then if
he prefer the corn or the mixed product to the pure wine the law will
have done all that can reasonably be asked by the producer of grapes.

It is possible, as has been suggested by the eminent advocate of
pure food legislation, who is now Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry of
the United States Department of Agriculture, that deficiencies in Grape
Must in one section of the country might be supplemented by the use of
concentrated sugar produced from the grapes of a more favored section,
so that the use of either cane or glucose sugars in pure wine in this
country might be entirely dispensed with, and that pure wines so desig-
nated shall cover only the pure product of grapes, unadulterated by any
foreign substance.

This would place our Native Wines on a high plane, and we could
challenge comparison with all the world, for if wines contained no added
substance, nothing but the naturally matured article could be marketed
as pure; and immature, adulterated or sophisticated wines could no
longer sail under false colors.

The greatest sufferer from spurious or adulterated wines must

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necessarily be the wine producing center the most remote from the great
consuming markets, for freight on the wine and the extra cost of cooper-
age may almost equal the cost of growing the grapes. When stretching
or adulteration is practiced near the centers of consumption such so-
called wines can be, and often are, offered at prices which make it im-
possible for the distant grower to profitably compete.

The curse of the wine business to-day, in common perhaps with
other industries, is the cry for cheapness. The trade seldom asks, How
good is your article, but How cheap is itf The cheapest wine cannot
be really good, for the costs of properly maturing and handling are
great and inexorable. Immature wines, and so-called wines which have
only a sort of relationship to the grape product, make fierce competition
for the honestly matured and wholesome article.

Handlers who wish nothing but the best— and to their credit be it
said there are many such— get disheartened when they see their neigh-
bors taking advantage of an undiscriminating and trusting public, and
waxing rich selling wines at prices which spell penury for the more con-
scientious dealers.

The question which now confronts us, therefore, is, shall QUAL-
ITY prevail or shall cheapness rule? It is you, Gentlemen of the
National Association of State Dairy and Food Departments, who can
influence the answer to this question.

Shall the enactment of such National Legislation be encouraged, as
will supplement the existing very generally excellent State laws, to
enforce the labeling of an article, whether it be in barrels or in bottles,
for what it actually is, and not for what the distributor chooses to say
it is ! Shall the public be entitled to truthful representation, or shall the
edict of Barnum that "The public loves to be humbugged, " be the
watchword?

In this connection it is well to mention that in order that laws be
respected the responsibility of analysts must be unquestioned. In-
stances have occurred where an absolutely pure article has been branded
as impure and dealers put to humiliation and expense through inex-
perience in wine composition and analysis on the part of chemists
to whom samples have been submitted. Such occurrences tend to bring
upon Pure Food Laws opposition and antagonistic comment. No
article should be publicly condemned without previous right of appeal
to a disinterested tribunal, preferably the Bureau of Chemistry of the
United States Department of Agriculture, which should be made the
Supreme Court for Pure Food Decisions.

It is frequent gatherings, such as this distinguished company here
assembled, which are needed to arouse the public sentiment of cus-
tomers to demand what they pay for, namely, THE BEST, under labels
guaranteeing purity and maturity. If the consumer really desires the

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cheapest, without regard to quality, the fact should stare him in the
face daily in the label on his bottle, but the masquerading of immature
or fake wines under the guise of a good, honest article should be stopped
by the strong arm of law, judiciously and equitably executed.

When this is accomplished a discriminating taste will be rapidly
awakened among consumers, which will increase ten-fold the present
consumption of honest, pure, healthful wines.

The security of investments in vineyard property will then be
assured, and fluctuation in prices which now cloud the enterprise be
avoided; and, relieved of the incubus of cheap goods masquerading
under standard quality labels, the Native Wine Industry will go for-
ward by leaps and bounds.

I wish, in conclusion, to acknowledge the courtesy and kindness of
Mr. Paul Garrett, of Norfolk, Virginia, in furnishing statistics and
valuable old records for my use ; and also of many other Eastern Wine
Makers who have courteously answered inquiries on matters relating to
their districts; my thanks are also due to Mr. E. E. Emerson, who,
sometime ago, kindly sent for my perusal his work, "The Story of the
Vine," all of which have been of material assistance to me in preparing
this paper.

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