six varieties, four of which are of a very superior quality, and have
already taken a prominent position in the estimation of the best tastes
in the country.

In 1854, Messrs. Köhler and Fröhling commenced business in Los Angeles,
and shortly after opened a house in San Francisco. They were assisted by
Charles Stern, who had enjoyed a long and valuable experience in the
wine-business upon the Rhine. The vintage was very small and inferior in
quality, as they had had no experience in making wine from such a grape
as California produced. Numberless difficulties were met with, and it
was only the indomitable energy of the gentlemen engaged in the
enterprise, sustained by a firm faith in its ultimate success, which
brought them triumphantly out of the slough of despond that seemed at
times almost to overwhelm them. They have to-day the satisfaction of
being the pioneers in what is soon to be one of the most important
branches of industry in California. They own one of the finest vineyards
in the State, from which some magnificent wine has been produced. They
have contracts with owners of other vineyards; and after making the wine
in their own, the men and machinery are moved into these, the grapes
pressed, and the juice at once conveyed to their cellars, they paying
the producers of the grapes a stipulated price per ton on the vines. The
vintage commences about the first of October, and generally continues
into November. The labor employed in gathering the grapes and in the
work of the press is mostly performed by Indians. It is a novel and
interesting sight to see them filing up to the press, each one bearing
on his head about fifty pounds of the delicious fruit, which is soon to
be reduced to an unseemly mass, and yield up its purple life-blood for
the benefit of man. Some of the best wine made in the State is from the
"Asuza" and "Sunny Slope" vineyards, both of which lie directly at the
foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. From a small beginning Messrs.