Wine Harvest Failure and Grain Shortages in the Etschland

Austrian Monarchy.

Meran, Dec. 7. (Corresp.) Wine prices remain at the very same level as two months ago. Shipments from Italy are very sparse; all who expected a significant drop in prices from them see their hopes dashed. A richer supply is hardly to be expected; for the grape disease has devastated the vineyards in northern Italy as in Tyrol, imports from central and southern Italy are too expensive, Neapolitan wines do not suit the palate of our people, and the wine yield of Roveredo, though richly blessed, is nonetheless too small to turn into a flood the deep ebb that reigns in the cellars and upon the tables of the entire Etschland.

The surroundings of Bozen usually produced an average of 150,000 Yhren, this year 10,000; the Bozner Boden usually yielded 40,000, this year 2,000 Yhren. The same proportion runs, with rare exceptions, through the entire Etschland. Even the large wine merchants must open and deplete their storage cellars to satisfy their regular wine customers. It is clear that in this year of general crop failure, a few fortunate individuals whose wine yield suffered little are enriching themselves. Thus, a farmer who pressed 150 Yhren of noble Etschland wine gains 5,000 guilders. - Should the Weinsäule again spoil the entire yield of the soil next year, these years of failure might easily bring about an altered cultivation of the soil. As much as one must deplore the economic ruin of many agricultural estates that rely solely on the proceeds of vineyards for their income, a different cultivation of the soil might yield lasting benefit. Instead of expecting their sole salvation from unnatural wine production and wine consumption, our farmers will partially convert their vineyards into clear fields, that is, grain fields, and thus restore the proportion of agricultural products to the old, proper measure, just as elderly men still recall quite clearly.

For Meran and the adjoining upper Etsch valley cannot meet their grain needs. To purchase grain to meet immediate necessities, our grain merchants range as far as Verona, Mantua, and the Po, where they buy out the Italian granaries, which are replenished by supplies from the allied Duchies of Parma and Modena. Italian wheat is very rich in flour and therefore much sought after, especially when cleaned of the impurities that Italian indolence takes no pleasure in winnowing during the harvest. This grain trade suggests the utility of the customs union with central Italy. - Meran has now become the Eldorado of visitors for the winter season as well; they prefer the constancy of our mild air to the much-lauded Pisa on the Arno. Approximately 30 families have taken up winter residence here. Only the dense fog, which today shrouded our finest sunshine and threatens suffocation to anyone venturing outdoors, might introduce a harsh discord into this serene mood.