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Wines.
than
a
century.
A
red
wine
called
Pontac,
which
is
somewhat
of
a
rough
character,
is
much
used
in
the
colony.
America
(where
the
vine
is
found
growing
wild)
produces
some
good
wine,
hut
it
is
not
very
pro-
bable
that
much
will
find
its
way
to
this
hemi-
sphere.
Their
choicest
production,
Catawba,
is
thus
eulogized
by
Longfellow
:
Very
good
in
its
way
Is
tlie
Verzenay,
Or
the
Sillery,
soft
and
creamy;
But
Catawba
wine
Has
a
taste
most
divine,
More
dulcet,
delicious,
and
dreamy.
It
is
a
fact
not
generally
known,
that
in
the
twelfth
century
vineyards
were
general
in
England.
William
of
Malmesbury
tells
us
that
the
wine
made
in
the
Vale
of Gloucestershire
not
onty
was
abun-
dant,
but
little
inferior
to
the
wine
of
France
:
that
this
might
have
been
possible
has
been
proved
by
the
experiments
of
late
years
of
Sir
Richard
Wors-
ley,
in
the
last
century,
at
St.
Lawrence
in
the
Isle
of
Wight,
and
by
Mr.
Hamilton,
at
Painshill.
The
last-named
gentleman
produced
some
wine
fully
equal
to
second-rate
Champagne,
but
which,
when
kept
for
sixteen
years,
lost
its
Champagne
cha-
racteristic,
and
became
like
dry
Rhine
wine,
and