Wines Of Hungary And Gree...
The Times, 1824-09-08T00:00:00

I From Hcndernon's If istorv of Ae-luint and Modern Wqs.1 tt ungary contains numierous vineyardsi; btlt tiey are chieflY in the hands of the peasantry, who pav no attention to the manufacture of wines. The Tokay wine, however, is highliv celebratedi f(or its excellence. It is the produce of a tract of varioius vinevards in thc tract of country which extendis 25 or 30 miles to the n;irth-west of' Tokay. I t was not till about the year 1650 that the produce of these vineyards came into vngue, in conseoueciee of the methodl adopted of preparing them from picked and hilf-dried grapes, on which tse luscious qiuality of this wine dependN. The wvhole quantity made consists if eighty thousanid casks, containing about iourteen gal- lons earrb. 'fokay is remarkably durable, and, like all sweet wines, it requires to be kept a long timiie, utawil it loses some. what of its lusciout taste, and the flavour begins to preponde- rate. It is accordinglv Itept a long time: and in Poland and .bilesia, where they ire in great den-and, the oldest oniv is drunk. At Cracau, where * the chiefdepositof them is estabisleed, some vinL'ges are said to have been kept a whole century. In this state it is called vino ritratUno, to distinguish it frorm the new anti atveer, vi1no sltiki, arti selis generally at f'rotm four tO six, and in sonie instaneLs as high as eighit, dueats the bottle. WN'hen the Emipe- ror of Atistria wished to nmake a present of some Tokay wine, ini return for a breed of horses which had been senit huin by the eY. Iking of HIolland, the stock itn the imperial anvd oval cellars vas no. deemner. suflicieintly old tor the purpose, anid 2,000 battles uf Z'ino vitratenio w/ere therefore procured to'rom Crac.au, at tite cxtravagant orice of seven ducats the botle." Oreece. with its islands, is extremely favourable to the culti- vation of the vine; atid Candlia and Cvprus. while under rhe Venetian Republic, supplied the wbol'le of Europc with the fin.st dls. sert wines. Under dte tniscries or Turkisi bomidage, every spccies of cultivation and( itidstry has langulished. No great skill is displayed eithier in the cultivationi of the vine or in tlhe matufacture of its pro_ duce. Salt, baketI gypsum, lIiie, and sometimes rosin, are used to correct the lascious qualitict. of thc wins. And the product rf the fermentation is collected in skinx smeared. with tar, wv;ich impart a dis greeable flavour, until the wine has been mellowed by long keep- ing. In many cases the poverty of tile farimiers will inot allow them to adopt proper means for keeping their wines; but those who have subterraneous cellars for the purpose occasionally prsIr!uce good wine. The fbllowimmg is Mr. Hleidersoni's account of the best Greek wines : ' " In the present, as in ftrtner times, the best Greek wines tire of the uIsciousi sweet class. Th'lose made in Cyprus and Tentos, the rel niuscadine of Tene(los, and the white muscadine of Smyrna, vie witi the richest Hungarian wines. Several of the iqlands, however, as Ithaca, Cepialonia, Candil, and Cyprus, yield abundance of dry red wines, which resemble the secondarcy growths of the Rhone, and whici, with a little more care in the manufacture, might be rendereil fit for general exportation. Even now a considerable quantity is sent to the ports of the Black Sea. 'I'he red wine of Ciorfu is distin- guislted by its lightness and delicacy. In the island of Zatite a wine is madle from the Corinth grape, wvhich is said to approach to Tokay. "C1andia anti Cyprus alone, if properly cultivated, would be ca- pable of supplying us with every variety of wine. In the former Island. the vimicvards of Kissanos yield an agrecable claret t whilc those of Rethyrgo gire a fine-flavottred whbite wine, which keeps very well and tile mnalmsey made by the cal vycrs of Canca, and on the hills adjacent to !tIoukt Ida, has been long in high estimation. In Cyprus, the dotosin called the Cormcnidarias, fromn its having be- longed to tlle Knights of Mlalta, affords the choicest sweet wine. When 1e1w, it is red; but as it advances to age it grows tawny, and impro-ves in delicacy and flavour, till it surpasses almost all the other wities of the Archipelago. The whlite muscadine of Cyprus is also an excellert dessert wine, but lias generally a disagreeable taste of the tar or piteh used for coating the bags in which it is con- veved from the mountains. According to Olivier, however, the white wine of Santorini, known under the name of' vino sae-sl, ranks before the best growths of (Cyprs. It is principally exported to Russia." HrWIVES OF HUNGAIRY ANVD GREPCE. Wl%'PI C tlFItW( %RAVY.