vessel, and heated until not more than a fifth part remains, when it looks and tastes like treacle. This is turned into a cask containing more must, which causes it to ferment, and the result is a very full luscious wine, which, if originally good, becomes after many years invaluable for giving softness, richuess, and colour to others. Large quantities of this product, when new, are used to colour, and to cover the harsh thinness of poor qualities. It is for this reason that it is called 'the Doctor;' and many a butt that comes to England, to be sold as 'curious old brown' at an immense price, has to thank the old boiled mosto stocks for its character."

Now, the above description may appear very bad to those who flatter themselves that they have been in the habit of drinking pure Sherry, but it must be remembered that much of the so-called Sherry has no Sherry in its composition at all, and is merely spirits altered and flavoured, so as to give it a resemblance to what is so universally used in England under the name. The consequence of drinking wine into which this large quantity of alcohol enters is marked indisposition and depression"reaction" next day, if any quantity be consumed. Such wines, even the best of them, must be looked upon as liqueurs, and they are practically used as such. Wine is not meant to be sipped but to be drank, and it is needless to remark that should the wines above described be "drank," in the true sense of the word, the result would be, with most persons, subsequent headache, depression, and indigestion. This result would not follow indulgence in a similar quantity of pure wine, the action of which is to restore to comfort, cheerfulness, and activity of body and mind those who are worn out by bodily or mental toil as well as to promote appetite and digestion. Dr Druitt, of London, has published an admirable treatise (the substance of which appeared originally in the columns of the Medical Times and Gazette) upon the cheap wines of France, Greece, and Hungary. We confidently recommend this little work to all those who wish to think independently upon the subject, to escape from the thraldom of custom, prejudice, and acquired taste, to find out for themselves how to tell good wine, and to contrast the advantages offered by cheap pure wines over those which are adulterated and expensive. Dr Druitt gives, amongst others, two simple and practical tests to be employed in the tasting of wine, even by those who are neither wine merchants nor professional | connoisseurs, he says

unity; it should taste as one whole. True, we may distinguish various properties on reflection, but they should be as parts of a whole, and not as independent units mixed together. But bad wine resembles a black draught; here a something sweet meets one part of our gustatory organs, there something sour, there something fruity, or bitter, or hot, or harsh, just as if half-adozen ill-blended liquids came out of one bottle.

"2. Wine should have a certain generosity of taste; unless spirit could be extracted by distillation, it would not be wine; but there should be no smell nor taste of added and ill-combined spirits, nor that heat about the throat which they cause."

Dr Druitt strongly advocates the use of well selected cheap pure wines, such as those of Greece and Hungary, not only as restorative, but as tonic beverages. He also advises that they should be given to weakly and delicate children, and to children who require stimulating treatment during the course of acute disease, in preference to Port and Sherry. An able writer in "All the Year Round," for June 24, 1865, in reviewing Dr Druitt's book, says:

"It need hardly be said that the cheap wines now coming into common use are not cheap by reason of inferiority. They are actually superior, not only as pure wines, but for intrinsic commercial worth of material, to many Ports and Sherries sold at twice their price. We export raw spirit to re-import a considerable part of it from Portugal and Hamburg as Port and other wine. A fifth part of even a good bottle of Port consists of proof spirit, costing at the rate of about three-farthings a bottle; for the Portuguese buy the spirit they send back to us at the rate of two shillings the proof gallon, taking in one year a million and a half of gallons of spirits, and sending us back three-and-half million gallons of their wine. In all pure wines the natural proportion of proof spirit is usually from eighteen to twenty-two per cent.; many contain eighteen; some reach twenty-five or even twenty-seven; and, in rare cases, the proportion of proof spirit may even be thirty per cent. Port wine that has not been brandied for the English market contains twenty-three-and-a-half per cent. Port wine, as we get it, contains thirty-five or even forty-five per cent. of spirit, that will only blend in flavour with the natural wine after the costly process of long keeping, although one of its uses is to throw down the fermentable extractive, and give to the wine at once the appearance, without the flavour, of 'tawny old Port.' This sort of old Port is usually said to have been long in wood, lest people should look too

"In the first place, in drinking a good large sip of the wine, does it prima facie strike us as being one liquid, or a compound of many? Wine should have an absolute

curiously at the cork, or seek in the bottle for the crust of tartaric acid which is deposited in course of time, and leaves the wine mellower for its absence. Since the vine disease, really good Ports and Sherries have almost doubled in price; and at prices below five, six, or seven shillings a bottle they are factitious wines, incomparably worse than many a pure wine of France, Hungary, Austria, or Greece, of which a choice quality is to be had for half the

money.

"For poor hard-working people who lead in-door lives,-teachers, milliners, dressmakers, to whom even good beer (the best cheap drink for healthy folks who take active out-door exercise) is indigestible, there is food and medicine in a small dose of light pure wine. The white nervous tongue of the sickly dressmaker, who thirsts for tea that weakens further the deficient appetite, if she took in place of tea a little cheap pure Bordeaux wine, with an equal quantity of water, would recover healthy colour as her stomach regained tone and appetite, and her blood flowed in healthier current. It would be well for the town child between seven and ten years old, who flags in appetite, and is dainty with his meat, as children are allowed to flag in nurseries from which no comfort need be excluded, if the doctor's order answered to Dr Druitt's suggestion in such case. Give some kind of light, clean tasting, sub-acid wine-Rhine Bordeaux, Chablis, or some of the clean, dry wine of Greece and Hungary; let this be sipped freely at dinner, and then look to your mutton."

It is, perhaps, fair to state that the author is assured by wine merchants that there is a large quantity of inferior Port wine brought from districts, both in Spain and Portugal, where the higher class wines cannot be made, and that this Port constitutes a considerable proportion of the cheap wine now largely used in hospitals, and in Poor-law districts. It certainly seems to answer the purpose for which it is given in ordinary cases, and it is undoubtedly superior to much of the wine sold as genuine Oporto Port at the usual high prices. The faith reposed by the poor in the virtues of "Real Port," will for long make it difficult to satisfy them with lighter wines, such as those of France, Greece, Hungary, &c.

| they could get them for money. The Greek and Hungarian wines are even now cheaper than the most inferior growths of the French and Rhenish wines, and, of course, if they become as generally used as they deserve to be, the price would be much lower still. The talented and well known authoress, Frederika Bremer, in her recent work upon Greece and its Greeks, thus describes the Island of Santorin and its wines:

"I have visited a great wine cellar excavated within the mountain, and have there tasted sixteen or eighteen different sorts of wine, all prepared from the grapes of Santorin. I was most pleased with the 'wine of Bacchus,' with the taste of nectar and colour of liquid gold; so also the 'wine of Night,' (St Elie,) which is colourless, and has obtained that name from the fact of the vintage taking place during the night, and from the grapes being hidden under the leaves of the vine, and not exposed to the influence of the sun, by which means the wine is not coloured by it. It has an agreeable acid flavour, like Rhine wine, only milder. The entire island is a vineyard, and the productiveness of its volcanic soil for wine has attracted thither a population which is now too large for the resources of the island.

"We ate a cheerful dinner at the Dimarch's, with compliments and toasts, which were drunk in nine different kinds of wine,-Bacchus wine, Santo wine, Night wine, Callista wine, and other kinds,—all good, but the wine of Bacchus, nevertheless, the best.

There we found sent

down for us a superabundance of good things,-grapes, apricots, figs, and large bottles of Callista wine, sweet, red, and thick, almost like a liqueur, and which is especially refreshing when mixed with water."

When one first essays a trial of the newly introduced Greek and Hungarian wines, the puzzle is in the embarras de richesses which to select, and for those who really wish to test them fairly, the better plan is to get a number of the different kinds and go over them fairly in the way of ordinary drinking, keeping notes. Those who do so will not find that it is always the most expensive that are the pleasantest. If personal experience might go for anything, the writer would certainly agree with what Miss Bremer says regarding the "St Elie," or Wine of Night-Resembling a very light dry Sherry, it seems a pure drinking and most wholesome wine; in strength and body, between the Sherry and the light wines of France and the Rhine. The Thera is a wine of somewhat similar character, but with more peculiarity of flavour, and therefore not so readily taken into favour by those unaccustomed to it. The

One of the great advantages of the Greek and Hungarian wines is, that they can be taken with benefit by those whose sedentary occupations and want of exercise prohibit them from the use of beer, while their cheap ness (the price of the Greek wines ranging from 1s 4d to 2s 6d a bottle) puts them within the reach of those who cannot afford to drink first class Port and Sherry, even if

same remark applies to Santorin. a red wine approaching Burgundy. The red Hymet, also of a Burgundy character, is liked by most. Another red wine, but more of a Claret, the Alderberger Ofner is well adapted for ordinary drinking, and Red Keffesia may be put in the same category. It is said to be much liked by, and found of service to consumptive patients. Of the white wines, the White Hymet, White Keffesia, Patras, and Hungarian Chablis are all good. It would, of course, be out of place here to go over the whole long list of Greek, Hungarian, and other wines, and those who desire more information will find it either in Dr Druitt's

"Report on Cheap Wine," or in a small pamphlet published by Mr Denman, of Piccadilly. The author has mentioned only those of which he can speak from personal trial, and having recommended them somewhat largely, knows that they agree well with the majority of people. He quite coincides with Dr Druitt in the opinion that, when these wines come to be better known, they will form no inconsiderable amount of the wine consumed in Britain. In some ways, and for some persons, in the colder months of the year. they seem preferable to the lighter, and certainly more acid wines of France.

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