The fortifying of these wines (Port) is carried on to the same extent as formerly, partly because it is a kind of tradition with the growers and shippers that a high spirituous quality is looked for in Port by foreigners. generally, partly to disguise the extreme roughness of the inferior vintages, but mainly to make up for a clumsy mode of vinification, and to render the wine quickly marketable.

Mr. Bernard estimated the amount of spirit ordinarily added to Port wine at 22 per cent., or 25 gallons per pipe; Baron Forrester, at 26 gallons of over-proof spirits; while Mr. Johnstone considered 49 gallons of "adventurous proof spirits per pipe" to be nearer the standard of the Port wine ordinarily imported into England. It is a significant fact that not long ago Portugal imported upward of 1,600,000 gallons of British spirits in a single year. Since then it has obtained from Prussia a cheaper article of spirit distilled from potatoes and beets.

1 Wine Juror at Vienna in 1873.

* Who visited Portugal wine districts for the British Government.

* Himself a wine grower.

4 Of the Testing Department of her Majesty's Customs.

Seventy-five years ago it appeared in evidence that the average quantity of Port wine imported into England was 20,000 pipes annually, while the annual consumption was not less than 60,000 pipes; and before a parliamentary committee it appeared that Port wine was made of Cape wine, cider, and brandy; others from common French, Spanish, and Sicilian wines and a liberal admixture of raw spirits. These and a variety of other mixings were made in the London docks. One witness produced a book, called the "Licensed Victualer's Guide," which gave receipts for the manufacture of Port and other wines:

Nowadays (says Mr. Vizetelly) spurious Port is produced on a large scale at Taragona, in Spain, which imports considerable quantities of dried elderberries presumably for deepening the color of, if not for actually adulterating, the so-called "Spanish Reds." A couple of years ago I tasted scores of samples of fictitious Ports, in every stage of early and intermediate development-rough, fruity, fiery, rounded, and tawny-in the cellars of some of the manufacturers at Cette, and saw some thousands of pipes of converted Rousillon wine lying ready for shipment to England and various northern countries as vintage Port.

Mr. Vizetelly gives similar facts in regard to the rectification. and adulteration of the popular Sherry wine. Dr. Thudichum, who speaks from personal observation of the practices in wine countries, after mentioning the use of plaster of Paris and sulphur, says that subsequently "spirit is added to the wine, the finer qualities receiving a couple of gallons to the butt, and the commoner ones six gallons. This is simply the first dose, for sulphured Sherry cannot be properly clarified without having its alcoholic strength materially raised; besides which, whenever the wine chances to fall sick, as it frequently does, spirit, the pabulum for all disorders with rearers of common Sherry, is again had recourse to." The conventional Sherry receives seven gallons of proof spirit to the butt; the golden, fifteen gallons; and the pale-brown, twenty gallons. Mr. C. H. Vince, a correspondent of the London "Times," stated a few years ago that "many hundreds of tests made by him in Spain of young wines, the primary fermentation of which was complete, gave

an average of 26 per cent. of proof spirit; " and Mr. Walter Burton, late of her Majesty's Customs, said that "of many thousands of tests, which he had made at the London Custom House, the average showed 37 per cent. of proof spirit, while some exhibited as much as 50 per cent." The same unbiased authority says that "the wine supply in the Custom's warehouses is often amplified under the positive superintendence of Government officials, and at public cost." "A wine jobber having, say 1,000 gallons of wine, can add thereto 100 gallons of spirit, making a total of 1,100 gallons of wine, thereby converting in a few minutes 100 gallons of crude potato whisky, diluted with London water, and costing about a shilling per gallon, into, it may be, a "special Sherry" or a "vintage Port."

"With regard to the natural strength of the native Jerez (Spain) wines, samples procured on the spot by Mr. Bernard, for her Majesty's Commissioners of Customs, were found to contain 26 to 28 degrees of proof spirit," or about 17 per cent. of alcohol. Two exceptional wines showed 29 to 35 degrees.

These statements we have been careful to obtain from gentlemen who will not be charged with "temperance fanaticism.” Mr. Vizetelly, near the close of his book, says:

Fortified wines, it should be remembered, are never by any chance consumed by the inhabitants of the country where they are produced. They avoid them as the manufacturers of imitation wines avoid their own compounds. I remember, when at Cette, one of the largest of these amalgamators, in allowing me the use of his extensive cellars, candidly enough informed me that he would not admit a single one of his transformed products to his own table.

Is it said that there are some wines so cheap that there can be no profit in imitating or adulterating them?

"The Italian wines do not bear exportation. Hence the demand for them is limited, and their prices very cheap." "The pure juice of the grape," says an eminent American long resident in Florence, "can be furnished here for two cents a bottle,