Some of the Wines We Get.
By Gath
"WHAT do you think about the wines of the countries you entered?" "That is a question well worth your attention," said Mr. Normile. "In Spain I was astonished at the price of sherry wine. It costs from $2 to $10 a gallon at Cadiz, which is the mart for it, and that is the rate when you buy a butt. I was told that sherry in the process of distillation is just as apt to turn into vinegar as into wine, and when a man starts to make it he does not know whether his vintage is to make his fortune or to beggar him. When this wine spoils it is treated with sugar and alcohol, and is the stuff they send to England to be drank as sherry. Nearly all the sherry in the United States is made right here in pretty much the same way, of alcohol and brown sugar." "What about the claret wine of France?" "That is also horrible stuff. I changed my view during this trip in Europe about wine-drinking in general. The champagne, for instance, that is sent to England is nearly all branded on the cork for the English market, and is stuff of a quality that could not pass the ocean. Indeed, the wine crop of Europe is pretty well extinct as an honest thing, and has to be doctored and fixed up until it sends an American home with the idea that if there is to be any wine-drinking in the future it must be out of something we can grow in the fresh soil of this continent."