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<< previous...Viticulture and vinification languished in the United States until attention was called in 1826 to the catawba vine by Major Adlum, of Georgetown, near Washington, who thought that by so doing he was conferring a greater benefit on his country than if he had liquidated its national debt. This vine, which is derived from the wild Vitis labrusca, was first planted on an extensive scale by Nicholas Longworth, justly looked upon as one of the founders of American viticulture, and gradually supplanted all others, remaining for many years the principal plant cultivated along the banks of the Ohio—the so-called “Rhine of America”—until, ceaselessly attacked by rot, mildew, and leaf-blight, it was found necessary in many places to supplant it by more robust varieties.

Mr. Longworth, about the year 1837, among his numerous experiments at Cincinnati, included that of making sparkling wines from the catawba, isabella, and other varieties of grapes, and to-day there are several manufactories of sparkling catawba and other wines in the capital of Ohio—the self-named “Queen city,” which its detractors have jocularly dubbed Porcopolis on account of the immense trade done there in smoked and salted pork. The chief sparkling wine establishments at Cincinnati are those of Messrs. Werk and Sons, whose sparkling catawba obtained a medal for progress at the Vienna Exhibition in 1873, and who have, moreover, largely experimented with ives’ and virginia seedlings, delaware and other grapes, in making effervescent wines, though only with doubtful success. Another Cincinnati firm is that of Messrs. George Bogen and Co., whose sparkling wines also met with recognition at Vienna.

The reader will remember Longfellow’s well-known song extolling catawba wine, which, with more than a poet’s licence, he ranks above the best of the Old World vintages:—

“There grows no vine
By the haunted Rhine,

By Danube or Guadalquivir,

Nor on island nor cape,
That bears such a grape

As grows by the Beautiful River.

“Very good in its way
Is the Verzenay,

Or the Sillery, soft and creamy,

But Catawba wine
Has a taste more divine,

More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.”

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