THE AUSTRALIAN WINE QUESTION.

Evening Star, Issue 9702, 10 May 1895, Page 2

THE AUSTRALIAN WINE QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sin, —Your correspondent " Tokay " dees not help us much in the unravelling of the puzzle presented in the figures of Mr Bragato on the possible or probable pecuniary return to prospective wine-makeis in Central Otago. "Tokay" admits that wages in the wine industry in Victoria have ■a downward tendency, owing to the financial cloud hanging over that colony. Wages have not yet fallen to the level of Italy's Is and Gd per day, bub as the tendency is downwards there is no saying how soon they may reach that level. The important question is: Will the wine industry pay in Otago with wages above the rate paid in Italy ?

Your correspondent tells us of wages paid three years ago at Rutherglen. WiU he say if the grapes in that district were grown for the wine trade or if they or their products were nob sent in large quantities to the distillery of Joshua Bros, at Port Melbourne to be converted into brandy ? I did not overlook the large profits made by the culture of grapes for table use. I referred specially to them as promising better results to the grape-grower than the making of wine. We are left in the daik aa to whether Morris and Sona grow grapes for the table or the wine press. If I am correctly informed the same class of grapes are not suitable for both purposes. If the firm .named grow both it would be interesting aud instructive to know from which they get the best return. &n4 what

that return is. But even though Morris and »Son make their business pay, as one swallow does not make a summer, so the profitable working of this business is no evidence thut the average grape grower in Victoria gets a satisfactory return for his wine. Your eotv respondent yields the case, 1 think, when he | says it is " impossible to state the **act profit made by vignerons.''' Me <foeS nbt try. to give even the approximate profit. What f theDj have proposing investors to go by? Are we to conclude from "TokayV la*fc sentence that before the wine industry wilt pay it mnst be supplemented by the brandy mamlfacturerj with an "immense under; taking" yielding' no profits.for many £cars ' I did not notice that Mr Bragato said tfnjS thing about brandy-making as the necessary accompaniment pi the wine industry. I have read somewhere that 6d per ib wag got for Victorian-grown raisins, with '&. ready market, while viguerons were selling wine at 6i a gallon, which it took 141b of grapes to make! There is, besides, no large outlay necessary for plant to prepare raisins as there is in the case of wine making. If these statements are correct, an 4 "Tokay " may be able to say whether they are or not, then, I again say, men ,will be wise to pause and consider ere they rush into wine making as au industry from which they expect to obtain satisfactory financial results.—l am, etc., St. Muxgo. Dunedin, May S.