p. 173 | PURE(?) WINE

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 17, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 11.

PURE(?) WINE.

A GREAT deal of eloquence is wasted in attempting to show the utility of the "pure cheap wines of France." The fact is, a pure cheap wine is a rara avis which the common people on the further Celtic side of the English Channel seldom see in these days. During this last summer a gentleman of American birth, but living in Paris, collected ten specimens of vin ordinaire, or the red wine, from nearly as many different shops, and had them tested by a competent chemist, with the result of finding that only one specimen of all the ten had a single drop of grape juice in it. All the other nine had been manufactured of various drugs and sold for wine.

To this may be added the testimony of a German physician, who said that out of 440 specimens of Bordeaux wines which had been analyzed, only 22 contained the ingredients belonging to real wine. The reason of this lies primarily in the fact that the phylloxera has been fearfully destructive of late years in the southern part of France, and secondly in the fact that the demand is ever increasing, while the supply is decreasing. In no trade is the liability to fraud so great as in that of wines. Moral: If you don't relish being cheated, let them alone.—Selected.