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

1958-02-01 / 2. szám

12

FRATERNITY

sparkling-wine attempts, and Arpad had not faced this condition in France. In 1864, when he thought he had the solution, he failed to convince the trustees. Colonel Haraszthy footed the bills for the failures, more than $5,000, and Arpad left Buena Vista’s employ. (In 1867, as a partner of Isidor Landsberger in San Francisco, Arpad began producing successful Champagne, which evolved into the famous brand, “Eclipse”.)

With Arpad gone, Haraszthy turned to P. Debanne, a French Champagne-maker, who had been in this country some years. Debanne’s first effort was almost a total loss, but his second was better, and in 1867, at the Paris Universal Exposition, the “Sparkling Sonoma” of the Buena Vista Vinicultural Society won an honorable mention. After that, the Champagnes of Buena Vista continued among the best, but they cost the society more than they brought in.

In June, 1864, Colonel Haraszthy revealed in “Harper’s New Monthly Magazine” that he had made a beginning in the drying of raisins. Using grapes from vines imported from Malaga and Smyrna, he dried them on inclined pans heated by the sun and at night by fires. He was not the first in California to dry grapes for eating, but his effort preceded that of R. B. Blowers of Woodland, the accredited founder of the California raisin industry. Blowers first marketed raisins in 1867; he had got his vines from Haraszthy in 1863.

In the spring of 1865 the society sent Haraszthy to Washington to confer with a Congressional committee on wine and brandy taxes. On his return he said he feared unreasonable taxes would be imposed unless the “wine growers send a competent person to look after their interests, as all other branches of industry do.”

Haraszthy had convinced the Congressmen they should remove the tax on United States wine; but in 1866 they raised the brandy tax to $2. This threatened wine men with disaster. By then new grape plantings were coming into bearing at such a rate that the market could not absorb all the wine; the balance was mostly distilled into brandy, but the tax made brandy cost more than people would pay at the time.

Haraszthy joined with others in organizing an emergency State convention to be held at San Francisco beginning November 1, 1866. The original California Wine-Growers’ Association apparently was not functioning, and at the convention a new one was formed, with General C. H. S. Williams of Sonoma as president. The delegates asked that the tax be cut to 50 cents; the following spring Congress cut it to $1.

By this time Haraszthy was no longer superintendent of the Buena Vista Vinicultural Society. The corporation was not paying dividends, and, although a committee cleared the Colonel of charges of extravagance in operations, he left the position in the fall of 1866.

While the society continued under another superintendent, Haraszthy operated a wine-growing estate northwest of Sonoma which his son Attila had acquired for his mother, the Colonel’s wife. But not long afterward a distillery boiler blew out and to escape scalding steam Haraszthy leaped from a second-story window, falling heavily when his ankle twisted. The following year he guessed wrong with investments; also one of his wine cellars burned, at a loss of $7,000. His luck in California had turned.

In the spring of 1868 the resilient Haraszthy was in Nicaragua, start-