THE WINE-DUTIES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.']
SIR,—Your correspondent, " Parvo Bene," is not yet purged of some misconceptions about French wine. I gave the average produce of the French vineyards for twenty years, not ten years, and the actual produce of 1887 ; the figures were the French Government official figures.
In our purchases of wine, he says, "we have to share and share alike with the mass of the French people." This is not so. The very cheapest wine shipped for English use is worth at least double the average price of that used by the bulk of the French people. " Parvo Bene " assures me he gets from the Rhine red wine which is infinitely better than any Bordeaux, and rather better than any Burgundy. This is news indeed. Why, the quantity of red wine made in Germany is not worth naming, and no real German red wine at 16s. to 24s. a dozen, delivered in England, is fit to be named for a moment with the Bordeaux and Burgundy to be procured in England at the same prices. Let it be under- stood that the Burgundy districts have not suffered from the phylloxera, and the Bordeaux districts only slightly compared with other departments. As a sample of the non- sense afloat about wine, within the last two weeks I read one extract from the Globe stating that there was only as much true champagne made as would supply one house. Why, in 1887 the Department of the Marne—the true champagne district— produced, according to official statistics, 10,409,278 gallons of wine, and at the end of the year 1887-88 there were in mer- chants' stocks 75,218,074 bottles of champagne.—I am, Sir, &e.,
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