Name/Title
LetterEntry/Object ID
Q2022.21.100Scope and Content
A copy of a letter, on onion skin paper, from Wilbur P. McDonald, M. D. to Mr. Mark Miller, Benmarl Vineyards, Marlboro, New York, dated April 21, 1969.
The letters COPY in red ink are down the left hand side of the page.Context
Dear Mr. Miller:
It was a pleasant surprise to find a notice telling of your entrance into the Home Winemakers Supply Business on page 36 of the winter issue of The Bacchus Journal. May I please have your catalogue?
Several years ago you were very kind to my wife while she was in New York, sending a bottle of your Delaware 1963 home with her. . . . . Two years ago I tried to contact you while I was in New York City, but had no success so I had lost tract of your whereabouts, thus it was a pleasure to read about you in the Bacchus Journal.
As an amateur vintner in Missouri, I have been trying to grow the hybrid grapes that can be grown and fruited here. . . . I have been trying to grow Ruby Cabernet which I obtain from the Broody Vineyards, and also grafting some of the native root stock with graft sticks obtained from the University of California . . . the Ruby Cabernet obtained from the Broody . . . have all succumbed to the winter weather, but I have three vines of Ruby Cabernet grafted on to Baco #1roots that have survived the last two winters. This spring I set out some Ruby Cabernet that I had bench grafted at the New York State Fruit Testing Cooperative Association, on to 3306 roots, so I am trying to grow a Vinafera here in Northwest Missouri, certainly no one has done it before.
After threatening my wife for several years, I . . . am digging a wine cellar under our present dining room where we have had no basement before. Right now everything is mud and dirt, but the weather has been better the past two days, the grapes are beginning to bud, my vineyard is all pruned & sprayed and hope spring's eternal for the new season and a decent wine.
Sincerely,Lexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
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Category 08: Communication ObjectsDimensions
Dimension Notes
8.5" x 11"