[29] “Hock,” says one of those wine circulars, which weary alike the postman and the public, “is the English name for the noble vintages of the Rhine, which afford models of what wine ought to be. Their purity is attested by their durability. They are almost imperishable. They increase appetite, they exhilarate without producing languor, and they purify the blood. The Germans say good Hock keeps off the doctor. Southey says it deserves to be called the Liquor of Life. And so Pindar would have called it, if he had ever tasted it.” Nothing surely can be added to this description of its virtues.
[30] Thus unfortunately translated, “Rhine wine is good, Neckar pleasant, Frankfort bad, Moselle innocent.” But Moselle, we have been told, is very far from “innocent.” Unnosel is without bouquet. Tranken means not bad but drinkable, and lecker is rather lickerish than good. A sample of the same carelessness occurs on the next page, where ein weinfask von anderhalb ahm ein pipe is intended to express ein Weinfass von anderthalb Ohm, eine Pipe. It is a pity that an excellent work, to which we, as many writers on wine like ourselves, have been deeply indebted, should be marred by these irregularities.
[31] Colonel Leake described the ordinary country wine as a villainous compound of lime, resin, spirits of wine, and grapes, without body or flavour. Nor were things better in the days of old. Dugald Dalgetty, a German Ensign, writing from Athens in 1687, says, “Would that I could exchange a cask of Athenian wine for a cask of German beer!” The vin du pays is impregnated with resin or turpentine now as formerly, whence, according to Plutarch, the Thyrsus of Bacchus is adorned with a pine cone. Pliny says it favours the preservation of the drink.
[32] The island owes this name to its patron saint Irene, martyred here A.D. 304.
[33] The value attached to this wine is one example among many of the caprice of fashion. The Muscadine of Syracuse or the Lagrima of Malaga is equal to it in richness, and few people would prefer it to other wines, did they dare to contradict the decision of fashion in its favour, and to have a taste of their own.
[34] So called from its green colour. It is said to have been a favourite wine of Frederick the Great. It is held now in slighter esteem.
[35] Called Est Est from the writing under the bust of the valet of the bibulous German bishop Defoucris, who drank himself to death, upon which his valet composed his epitaph.
‘Est est,’ propter minium ‘est,’.
Dominus meus mortuus est.
Reverence for antiquity is our sole excuse for the reproduction of these wretched lines. Monte Pulciano has also the credit of having killed a Churchman. Other wines doubtless have had the same honour.