The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1934-02-28

QUIZ tongue, LIl6 OILY "lLIC uc-
serving the name Is made Of
grapes; liquids drawn from
apples or barley or ginger or
dandelions or elderberries when
sailing under the name Of wine
are frauds.
But even the offspring Of the
royal house of Grape are a
motley crowd, for they differ
in their looks as we'll as in their
behavior and their pleasing
qualities. The reason is, wines
are the product Of a given soil
and a given sun. The tropics
and the arctics are bare Of wine,
but the temperate zones grow it
everywhere, although in such a
wide variance of virtues that
sauce for the goose is not al
ways sauce for the gander. It
all depends, in wine as in other
things.
Largest Vineyard
The largest vineyard in all
the world lies in the Mediter-
ranean basin, from Spain and
Portugal in the west to Greece
and the Crimea in the east, and
from the northern rim Of Africa
to France and adjoining Ger.
many, with Switzerland, Austria,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bull
garia and Rumaria thrown in
for good measure.
But the really great wines Of
world renown hail from France,
Germany, Spain and Portugal;
the other vintages constitute so
called light wines or beverage
wines for home consumption.
Fine Wines Vary
Again the great or fine wines
are in their character as far
apart as the poles. In color,
they run the scale from the
palest green and yellow to the
deepest red; in sweetness and
acidity they vary from biga-
room to morello; in body some
are aery and sylph-like, others
round and buxom, even portly
or Falstaffian, and finally, some
are still and some are spark
ling.
The ratio between still and
sparkling wines is about the
ratio between light and fine
wines, nine-tenths to one-tenth.
Explaining Names
In general, it sounds like a
truism that the southern zones
produce sweet and corpulent
vintages. whilst south Germany.
as the northernmost borderland
Of the wine-clad hills, is the
home of wine types that are
full-bodied to thin-bodied, light
colored and more or less dry.
I And yet there is all the diff
r 'erence in the world between
IT,, "Hock" and a "Moselle."
f. Hook" of course, is a label
Utterly unknown in Germany,
but it covers, especially in Eng
land, a multitude of growths,
from the Palatinate, from
Rhinehesse, and from the
Rhinegau, in the neighborhood
of Wiesbaden. the famous Spa.
All these districts border the
vhine, and when the Hanseatic
traders from Germany brought
wines from the Rhine to Lon
don, they were known from
the beginning, perhaps around
the year 1000, as "Rhenish
Wines" But during the six
tenth century the wines from
Hochheim, where the river
Main falls into the Rhine,
seemingly became the favorites
in England, and so their name
was given, in an abbreviated
form, to all Rhenish wines.
Hence the Hook"
From the Rhinegau
The finest of the Hooks"
hail from the Rhinegau, on the
right border of the Rhine, be-
tween Wiesba den and the
"DeutscheS Eek" where the Me
derwald Denkmal or the Ger.
mania monument towers.
The vineyards comprise only
about 1000 acres, but what
names go out into the world
from this little spot! There
is Schloss Johannisberg, there
is the Steinberg, there is
Schloss Vollrads, there is Err.
bach, Markobrunn, Rauental,
Graefenberg, Eltville, Ruedes-
helm, GeiSenheim, Assmanns-
hansen.
If the Johannisberger or the
Steinberger takes first rank
among these princes-nobody
knows and only a few care,
for the price of one of these
bottles makes one dizzy. Yet
they are worth their price, for