Grape Culture, Wines, and With Notes Upon Agriculture and Horti-Culture (Classic Reprint)
(California. The short time allowed me to complete a work ...)
California. The short time allowed me to complete a work of such magnitude and importance will, I hope, serve as a partial excuse for its defects. To make a tour through a large portion of Europe examine and collect information select vines and trees write the following work, with many of the extracts translated from eminent foreign authors and reports of scientific committees, I was allowed, including my journey to Europe and my return, but seven months and twenty-five days. The task was augmented by extensive and necessary correspondence with government officials, scientific societies, and eminent writers. During this time I have allowed myself little time for rest or recreation; and if I have succeeded in fulfilling my duty to my State and to her people, I shall feel myself amply rewarded. I plead for a lenient judgment on the work on account of my defective English, being a native of Hungary, although a naturalized American citizen, which will, I hope, fully explain this unavoidable defect. That my readers will understand my meaning without difficulty is all that I dare hope. The translations contained in the work were, in most cases, necessarily literal, and therefore presented difficulties not easily overcome. With these explanations, the author presents his work to the; agricultural public, sincerely hoping that future experience may not belie present promises, but that the matter upon which it treats may prove a valuable and an enduring source of wealth to the American horticulturist and farmer. A. H. BuENA Vista, Sonoma Counti, CuH
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
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(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
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Agoston Haraszthy was a Hungarian-American viticulturist, traveler, and writer. He was a pioneer winemaker in Wisconsin and California, the founder of the Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma, California, and an early writer on California wine and viticulture.
Background
Agoston Haraszthy was born c. 1812, in Pest, Hungary. He was the only child of Karoly Haraszthy and his wife, Anna Maria Fischer. It had been previously claimed that he was born in Futog, Hungary, but that was disproved in 1995.
The Haraszthys were a Hungarian noble family who traced their roots to Ung county in northeastern Hungary, now part of Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine. Agoston Haraszthy belonged to the Mokcsai branch of the Haraszthy family, signifying that at one time or another his ancestors owned estates at places called Mokcsa and Haraszth. In Hungary, he was formally known as Mokcsai Haraszthy Agoston. The name has sometimes been written as Agoston Haraszthy de Mokcsa. This is the Latin form of the name, which was used in official government business and in Catholic Church records in Hungary. In the United States, Haraszthy was known as Agoston Haraszthy.
As a Hungarian nobleman, Haraszthy was entitled to be addressed as Spectabilis Dominus (in Latin) or Tekintetes Ur (in Magyar). These titles were the equivalent of Honorable Sir or Noble Lord in English. When he lived in Wisconsin in the 1840s, the local settlers, mostly German-speaking immigrants, called him "Count" Haraszthy, although he was never addressed by that title in Hungary, California, or Nicaragua. In California, he was addressed as "Colonel" Haraszthy, an honorary designation commonly given to distinguished “gentlemen” and vaguely derived from his military service in Hungary.
Both Agoston and Charles Haraszthy owned estates in a part of southern Hungary called the Bacska, now a part of Serbia. Agoston's father-in-law was Ferenc Dedinszky, the superintendent of a large estate at Futak on the Danube River where, among other things, vines were cultivated and wine was produced. Both of the Haraszthys were engaged in the wine business in and around Futak.
Career
Haraszthy came to the United States in 1840 and eventually went to Wisconsin, where on the Wisconsin River he founded what is the present village of Sauk City, first named by him "Szeptaj" (iBelleview), then "Haraszthy, " and later called Westfield.
Going into partnership with an Englishman, Robert Bryant, he began erecting a house, brick store (which still stands), school, and sawmill, and immediately attracted German, English, and Swiss emigrants. In 1842 he went to Hungary, sold his estate, and returned to America. He published an account of his adventures, in Hungarian, Utazas Ejszakamerikaban.
On his return to Sauk City, he opened a brick yard and began the manufacture of brick, October 25, 1842. He planted the first hop yard in Wisconsin; operated the first ferryboat across the Wisconsin River at Sauk City in 1844; and as the head of an emigrant association, brought colonists to the place. He also erected the first frame structure in the Baraboo Valley, at Baraboo, in 1845, and conducted a store there.
Afflicted with asthma and advised by physicians to seek a milder climate, in April 1849 he set out with his family for California, arriving in San Diego after an adventurous trip of nine months. Here he fought the Indians successfully and was elected county sheriff in 1850 and a member of the state legislature in 1852. In March of that year he imported the first vines which were planted in the vicinity of San Francisco. They were Tokay and Zinfandel, sent to him by friends in Hungary, and the celebrated Shiras vine from Persia.
In 1857 he was appointed assayer and then smelter and refiner at the San Francisco Mint but resigned after a few months under a charge of embezzlement, of which he was later acquitted. Together with three Hungarians, Urnay, Wass, and Molitor, with whom he had been associated at the Mint, he bought a choice piece of land in the Sonoma Valley, a short distance from Buena Vista, and there in 1858 the first large vineyard in California was planted. He continued importing, and about the end of 1862 he and his associates had 300 acres of vineland under cultivation.
In 1861 he was appointed by the legislature a commissioner "to report upon ways and means best adapted to promote the improvement and culture of the grape-vine in California, " and in this capacity he made a tour of the wine-producing countries of Europe, bringing with him upon his return about three hundred distinct varieties of vines, and other fruit in addition. His report was published under the title Grape Culture, Wines, and Wine-Making; with Notes upon Agriculture and Horticulture (1862). In 1863 he formed his Sonoma properties into a corporation, called "The Buena Vista Viticultural Society, " with 300 acres of vineland and 5, 000 acres of farmland.
Having lost all his holdings in 1866, he moved with his oldest son, his wife, and his father to Nicaragua, where he acquired 100, 000 acres of some of the best land in Central America and obtained a license to plant sugarcane and to manufacture sugar. Upon this plantation, the Hacienda San Antonio, near the port of Corinto, he met an accidental death by drowning.
In addition to his report mentioned above, Haraszthy published a report on his farm, grapes, and wine, and on the early history of viticulture in California, in Transactions of the California State Agricultural Society During the Year 1858 (1859). His catalogue of the trees and vines which he brought from Europe was published posthumously as Addenda to the second edition, revised (1881), of the First Annual Report of the Board of State Viticultural Commissioners, of which his son Arpad was president.
Achievements
Agoston Haraszthy, often referred to as the "Father of California Viticulture, " or the "Father of Modern Winemaking in California, " became the first Hungarian to settle permanently in the United States and only the second to write a book about the country in his native language. He is remembered in Wisconsin as the founder of the oldest incorporated village in the state. He also operated the first commercial steamboat on the upper Mississippi River. In San Diego he is remembered as the first town marshal and the first county sheriff. In California he introduced more than three hundred varieties of European grapes.
In March 2007, Haraszthy was inducted into the Vintners Hall of Fame by the Culinary Institute of America. Seventy wine journalists cast ballots, honoring Haraszthy for his contributions to the early development of the wine industry in California.
On April 23, 1862, Haraszthy was elected president of the California State Agricultural Society.
Connections
On January 6, 1833, Haraszthy married Eleonora Dedinszky in Bacs County, Hungary. The Dedinszkys were originally a Polish family, though they had lived in Hungary for many centuries and in 1272 were accepted into the Hungarian nobility. Agoston and Eleonora Haraszthy were the parents of six children.
