SECOND PROGRESS REPORT ON VITICULTURE IN EUROPE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2660, 19 May 1908, Page 7

SECOND PROGRESS REPORT ON VITICULTURE IN EUROPE.

- F. DE CASTELLA.

I have the honour to report as follows on the work done during the month prior to my arrival in London.

I. As already seated in letters, after having inquired into Swiss methods k ajd. icsults, at Lausanne and other points fn the Canton dc Vaud, and at Coloii«bk-r, Auvernier, etc., in Uiq , Canton I proceeded to Dijon, whence I went south again as far as Yillefranche, V the capital of the ileati.'dial's district, wherj .wines of a quality intermediate between the cheap wines of the "Midi" and tho j Celebrated Burgundies of the Cota j d'Or, are produced in very large quantities. These wines are among the best of the cheaper wines of France : they are of sufficient quality to be worth bottling and keeping for a few years, instead of being consumed before they are eighteen months old, the fafe of the cheap "vins ordinaires" of the Midi, which seldom improve sufficiently in bottle to be worth maturing. The Beaujolais wines are of similar quality to many of our Australian light wines, though still lighter. They arc very agreeable, and the type of wine a French business man likes to take .with his lunch. -

As was the case in Hermitage, the Beaujolais district resembles Australia in the absence of excess of lime in its soils. The climate is cooler, though, than that of our Victorian wine districts.

In Beaujolais I visited vineyards, experimental plots, and collections at Villefranche. Belleville and Chirouhlcs. and also in the adjoining Maconais. This district is intermediate bet wren Beaujolais and Burgundy, so far as geographical situation is concerned, but the quality of the-nine is scarcely equal to that produced In those districts.

Burgundy was next visited. Heconstitution here lias been completed for a good many years, though not. for quite so long a time as in the south of France.

Though the climate of Burgundy and Beaujolais is colder than that of the parts of Victoria where most of our vineyards are situated they are famed for quality. I thonght it well to examine these districts rather, fully, and to inquire more particularly into the effect of grafting on .resistant stocks on the quality of the wine. Throughout . central and eastern France and Switzerland one is struck by the amount, of experimental work which Is being done, with the happiest results so far as the instruction oi growers is, concerned, and the confidence in ultimalo success with which they have thus •been enabled to tackle the problem of reconstitution on a practical scale. In Switzerland experimental plots are usually conducted on private land, with the assistance and under the auspices of the viticultural branch of the State Department of Agriculture. whose well-known Viticultural Station at the Cham]) de ITAir, near Lausanne, lias a Eurol>ean reputation.

I am pleased to he able to record a continuance of the same courteous receptions and hearty assistance fro mi all those with whom the work of my mission has brought me in contact, to which I referred in my first report.