The Wine Press and the Cellar. A Manual for the Wine-Maker and the Cellar-Man

Item Details

San Francisco and New York, Payot, Upham & Co. and D. Van Nostrand, 1883, Hardcover

First Edition, Good

First edition of the first book published in California entirely devoted to wine-making. IMPORTANT NOTE: This copy is lacking the title page (and priced accordingly). Otherwise complete, in original green cloth boards. 8" x 5.5", 240 pp, indexed, with several illustrations in the text.  In the preface, Rixford reviews the development of grape-growing and wine-making in California to date and explains that "what is given here is the result of research on the part of the author chiefly for his own benefit; and in going over the literature of the subject of wine-making, he failed to find a work in the English language adequate to the needs of the practical wine maker." A firm believer in the potential of California as a wine-making region, he concludes his overview with the assertion that "If every grower in the State will only devote a portion of his ground to the cultivation of the choicest varieties of grape, making sure that he knows what he is cultivating, will use the best methods of vinification, preserve each kind of wine by itself, or keep a careful record of all his blends, and will age and rear the products according to the best and most intelligent methods, the writer confidently expects that favored spots will be found in time which will produce wines that will compare favorably with the fine wines of Europe; and we may even venture to hope that some lucky individual will find that he is possessed of a vineyard that will make his name famous as the producer of a grand wine equal to the most renowned wines of the world."