Canary wine

“ I think also, there is a hundred times more drunk under the name of Canary wine, than there is brought in; for Sherries and Malagas, well mingled, pass for Canaries in most taverns. When Sacks and Canaries," he continues, "were brought in first amongst us, they were used to be drunk in aqua vitæ measures, and 'twas held fit only for those to drink who were used to carry their legs in their hands, their eyes upon their noses, and an almanack in their bones; but now they go down every one's throat, both young and old, like milk." ”

“ It kept to advantage in wood for a quarter of a century, and in bottle it improved faster. My belief is that the properest use of Tenerife was to 'lengthen out' the finer growths. I found Canary bearing the same relation to madeira as marsala bears to sherry: the best specimens almost equalled the second- or third-rate madeiras. Moreover, these wines are even more heady and spirituous than those of the northern island; and there will be greater difficulty in converting them to the category vino de pasto, a light dinner-wine. ”

“ In 1860-65 I saw the grape in a piteous plight: the huge bunches were composed of dwarfed and wilted berries, furred and cobwebbed with the foul mycelium. The produce fell to 100-150 pipes, and at present only some 200 to 300 are exported. The Peninsula and the West African coast take the bulk; England and Germany ranking next, and lastly Spain, which used the import largely in making-up wines. The islanders now mostly drink the harsh, coarse Catalonians; they still, however, make for home consumption a cheap white wine, which improves with age. ”

“ The wine culture of the Canary Islands and the Azores has recently suffered greatly from diseases of the vines. The United States produced 23,453,000 gallons of wine in 1880, and it was worth $16,000,000. More than a quarter in value of the product came from California. Wine is produced in a primitive way in Mexico, Brazil, the Argentine Republic, and Chili. The wine industry has been developed to a considerable importance in Australia, and promises to grow. ”

“ An ocean of sweet sack.
Canary was in great esteem. John Howell praises it as ‘accounted the richest, the most firm, the best bodied, and lastingest wine: while French wine pickles meat in the stomach, this is the wine that digests, and doth not only breed good bloud, but it nutrifieth also, being a glutinous substantial liquor. Of this wine, if of any other, may be verified that merry induction, that good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humours, good humours causeth good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a man to heaven ”

“ The seniors of both families have all passed away; but their sons and grandsons still inhabit the picturesque old houses on the 'Marina.' In 1812-15 the annual export of wine was 8,000 to 11,000 pipes. The Peace of 1815 was a severe blow to the trade. Between 1830 and 1840, however, the vintage of the seven chief islands averaged upwards of 46,000; of these Tenerife supplied between 4,000 and 5,000, equivalent to the total produce since the days of the oïdium. ”

“ When subject to Venetian rule Candia and Cyprus supplied [Pg 132] Europe with their finest wines, the former island alone being said to have exported 200,000 casks of Malmsey annually.
Sack is another generic term for sweet wine, [87] and is not of necessity, as Nares describes it, ‘the same wine which is now named sherry;’ a statement which the rest of his own remarks contradict. Thus we find not only sherry-sack, but canary-sack, Malaga-sack, rumney-sack, palm-sack, &c. [88] The derivation of the word is much disputed; the town Xique, and the Spanish saco, a bag, have been suggested ”

“ Is a pure cup of rich Canary Wine, Which is the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine. ”

“ Here, too, are the vines of the vino secco and the abocado, and Rota, [38] which produces Andalusia’s best red wines. Here are Ranico, Moguro, or Moguer, a cheap light wine, Negio, and the capital Seville. Catalonia yields a large quantity of red wine shipped to England mostly as a drink for the general. The Malaga of Granada is well known. Sherry [39] wines are, or ought to be, the products of Cadiz, including Xeres de la Frontera, San Lucar de Barrameda,—where Tintilla, an excellent Muscadine red wine, is manufactured,—Trebujena, and Puerto de Santa Maria. ”

“ Not much wine is made in the country; that of Mendoza has a sweet taste, like our homemade wines.
Beer is only used as a bonne bouche. Bottled beer has not that relish to me, that the London draught porter has. Brandy, gin, and rum, are abundant. The latter arrives from the Brazils, Havannah, and Isle of France. The good old Jamaica rum is a scarce commodity. Caña, a sort of white brandy, from the Havannah, Brazils, and Spain, and called Spanish brandy, is much drank, and makes capital punch. ”

“ There is nothing so delicate as the grape in being affected by soil. Similar vines, but grown on slightly dissimilar soil, produce a different quality of grape, and give quite a different flavour to the wine. So, generally speaking, the wine of Argentina has a different tone from that of France, Italy, or Spain. The vintners endeavour by blending to produce a European type, a hock, a moselle, a burgundy, a medoc, a bordeaux, even a champagne—which, though good wines, are not always good imitations of something else. ”

“ Besides potatoes, all other European vegetables and fruit-trees- 309 - grow well; tobacco seems to thrive, and vines promise to furnish a staple of export in the shape of Rio Negro wine. In one of the islands, occupied by Don Benito Crespo, and leased by him on shares to some Spaniards from the neighbourhood of Cadiz, a great number of vines have been planted and large quantities of grapes pressed out yearly. ”

“ And if what you buy for port or sherry be not absolutely a decoction, but only inferior wine made up, then the water equally acts as a detective. For the dilution has the effect of separating, so to speak, the respective tastes of the component parts—brings them out, sir; and you get each distinct. You get, on the one hand, the taste of the bad brandy, harsh, raw, and empyreumatic: and you get, on the other hand, the taste of the poor, paltry wine, wretched stuff, the true vinho ordinario flavour, that makes you think at once of some dirty roadside Portuguese posada, swarming with fleas. ”

“ It might be worth while to apply electricity in the form used to destroy fusel-oil. Lastly, the wine made for the market is a brand or a blend, not a 'vintage-wine.' At any of the armazems, or stores, you can taste the wines of '70, '75, '76, and so forth, of A 1 quality; and you can learn their place as well as their date of birth. But these are mixed when wine of a particular kind is required and the produce becomes artificial. What is now wanted is a thin light wine, red or white, with the Madeira flavour, and this will be the drink of the future. ”

“ Champagne, of course, they make by hogsheads. Do you wish sweet liqueur wines from Italy and the Levant? The Cette people will mingle old Rhone wines with boiled sweet wines from the neighbourhood of Lunel, and charge you any price per bottle. Port, sherry, and Madeira, of course, are fabricated in abundance with any sort of bad, cheap wine and brandy, for a stock, and with half the concoctions in a druggist’s shop for seasoning. Cette, in fact, is the very capital and emporium of the tricks and rascalities of the wine-trade ”

“ In consequence of the high price of the delicious wines, numerous imitations, or inferior sherries, are manufactured, and sold in immense quantities. Of these the best are to be met with at the following places: San Lucar, Porto, Santa Maria, and even Malaga itself. The spurious sherry of the first-named place is consumed in larger quantities, especially in France, than the genuine wine itself. ”

“ French wines may be procured anywhere in South America, but it is not always well to trust the labels. A fair native wine is made in Peru, and Chile produces an unusually good article. If the quality of the claret is not quite equal to Medoc, it is good enough for any one except a connoisseur. English ales also are to be had, and of recent years bottled St. Louis or Milwaukee beer can be obtained at all the larger places. I have found St. Louis beer up in the Cerro de Pasco mining regions of Peru. All of the countries have local breweries, but Americans do not like the brew. ”

“ Great quantities are at present exported to France by sea from Bilbao and San Sebastian, and also by rail, for the purpose of mixing with the thinner and poorer clarets of Bordeaux, to fit them for the taste and market of England. In Catalonia the wine improves, and is less used for mixing. The chief kinds are a red wine, like Rousillon, and sweet, luscious wines, Rancio, somewhat like Muscat or Malaga. Of late the manufacture of effervescing wines like champagne has been carried on with considerable success. The wine made in Catalonia amounts to one-fifth of the whole produce of Spain. ”

“ Wheat and other necessary grains are produced there in abundance: deer, Cattle, buffaloes, goats, and wild boars; and fruits and spices. If there be anything lacking, the Chinese from Chincheo bring it, such as chinaware and silks. The wine always used and drunk there is made from palms, by cutting off the clusters of fruit that they produce, when green—that fruit is called cocos—from which, after cutting the leaf stalks, they gather the liquor that flows forth, and boil it in jars, until it becomes so strong that it causes intoxication and has the same effects as the strongest Spanish wine. ”

“ Different countries produce wines peculiar to themselves; and the wine of Western Australia will be found to be entirely sui generis. All that I have tasted, though made from the poorest of grapes, the common sweet-water, have one peculiarity; a good draught, instead of affecting the head or flushing the face, causes a most delightful glow to pervade the stomach; and it is of so comforting a nature, that the labourers in harvest prefer the home-made colonial wine to any other beverage. Every farm-settler is now adding a vineyard to his estate. ”

“ Every body knows that no product of the arts varies so much as wine; that different countries, and sometimes the different provinces of the same country, produce different wines. These differences, no doubt, must be attributed chiefly to the climate in which the vineyard is situated—to its culture—the quantity of sugar contained in the [Pg 90] grape juice—the manufacture of the wine; or the mode of suffering its fermentation to be accomplished. If the grapes be gathered unripe, the wine abounds with acid; but if the fruit be gathered ripe, the wine will be rich. ”

“ Lisbon is the one city in Portugal where the cooking is worthy of any serious consideration.
The wines of Spain are the Valdepenàs, which is very strong and really requires eight or ten years in bottle to mature, a Rioja claret, which is a good wine when four years in bottle, and of course sherry in the south, of which all the leading brands are obtainable. In the north I have found Diamante a pleasant wine to drink. The Spanish brandy is, if a good brand is chosen, excellent. ”

“ When heat greatly exceeds moisture, the wines may be mild to mouth and nose, yet they are exceedingly potent; witness the vino d'oro of the Libanus.
At Funchal I also tasted a very neat wine, a vin de pays with the island flavour and not old enough to become spirituous. If the vine be again grown in these parts, its produce will be drunk in England under some such form. But Madeira has at last found her 'manifest destiny:' she will be an orchard to Northern Europe and (like the England of the future) a kitchen-garden to the West African Coast, especially the Gold Mines. ”

“ What remains unsold, therefore, at the end of the year, is frequently poured into the street, in order that the casks may be available for the new wine.—Such would also be the fate of all the light wines grown on the banks of the Guadalete, but that the vicinity of Port St. Mary and Cadiz makes it worth the grower’s while to prepare them with brandy and stronger bodied wines, to bear the rolling over the Bay of Biscay. ”

“ They are, without any manner of doubt, the most perfect wines that France produces. They keep perfectly, are improved by sea carriage, and may be freely exported to any part of the world. The original fermentation being usually very complete, they are less disposed to acidity, and are more wholesome than the wines of Burgundy. A great proportion of the wine, however, which is drunk as Claret, is but vin ordinaire, or the secondary wine of the country, for the prime growths fall far short of the demand which prevails for these wines all over the world. ”

“ Against the disembarcation of imported spirits the workers of the north rose in arms, in 1920, procedure echoed in Punta Arenas a little later, and an investigator sent to the spot by the Mercurio of Santiago reported that for every pint of good southern wine sold in Taltal, there were twenty pints of noxious alcohol—much of it made on the spot in amateur stills. ”

“ For since the natives of Nueva España are a race inclined to drink and intoxication, and the wine made by the Filipinos is distilled and as strong as brandy, they crave it rather than the wine from España. Consequently it will happen that the trading fleets (from Spain) will bring less wine every year, and what is brought will be more valuable every year. So great is the traffic in this (palm wine) at present on the coast of Navidad, among the Apusabalcos, and throughout Colima, that they lead beasts of burden with this wine in the same way as in España. ”