Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)

1958-02-01 / 2. szám

10

FRATERNITY

THE AUTHENTIC HARASZTHY STORY

ABOUT “THE FATHER OF MODERN CALIFORNIA VITICULTURE” By Paul Fredericksen

Chapter 5

BUSY LAST YEARS

Ágoston Haraszthy, the greatest grape and wine protagonist that California has known, was a most resilient man. He bounced right back in 1862 after the politically-minded State Senate had refused to accept and recompense him for the choice new grape vines he had gathered and brought from Europe as a State Commissioner. On April 23, just a week after the Senate rebuff, the State Agricultural Society met in the Senate’s own chamber at Sacramento and elected Haraszthy as president. The Sonoman was thus acknowledged leader of California agriculture.

The following month the Legislature struck at Colonel Haraszthy and other large users of Chinese labor by imposing a tax of $2.50 a month on almost every Chinese in California. Haraszthy struck back in September, in the opening address at the State Fair, held at Sacramento. The tax, he declared, would necessitate an increase in wages for Chinese labor, and the effort to discourage Chinese immigration would work harm not only to viniculture but to other essential State interests.

He also asserted that the State must adapt its agriculture to that of the rest of the nation. East and West had already been connected by telegraph, he pointed out; before many years (actually 1869) they would be linked by railroad. Therefore, he urged farmers to concentrate on raising crops that would not compete with those east of the Rockies. He suggested, among other things, the growing of vines, almonds, “even cotton in some localities.”

The vintage at Buena Vista ranch that fall excited Haraszthy. One reason was that the Colonel’s son, Arpad, was back from a five-year stay in France, where he had studied wine- and Champagne-making. Arpad was only 22, but his father gave him charge over Buena Vista’s wine productions.

Another reason for excitement was that now, for the first time in California, Zinfandel wine came into being. Eleven summers had passed since the Colonel had received a few Zinfandel vines from Hungary and planted them at San Francisco; he had transplanted the vines to Crystal Springs and then to Sonoma, and propagated them. Now, after his long wait, he was able to look fondly on two casks of wine from their dark purple grapes. Many another vintner has looked as fondly since at other casks of Zinfandel.

Very soon Haraszthy exercised his leadership in another way. On November 19, 1862, he presided over a meeting of wine growers in San Francisco called to protest a newly-levied Federal tax of five cents a gallon on grape wine. From this meeting grew the first State wine convention, held at San Francisco, beginning December 9. The convention delegates adopted a memorial declaring the tax “unjust, oppressive and impolitic.” They also formed the California Wine-Growers’ Association, with Wilson Flint of Cache Creek as president.