1872 Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (Mixellany)

2 Wines. of culture from the earliest ages, and its history is inseparably connected with those countries where it flourishes. It is capable of producing many varie- ties of wines, possessing different qualities, the result of peculiarities of soil and climate, as well as of the aspect it presents to the sun, and other causes, many of which are not yet well ascertained. Thus it happens that one vineyard, perhaps sepa- rated from the next by merely a few stakes, and without particular difference of soil, culture, or aspect, may produce a far superior wine to its neighbour. Sir Emerson Tennant tells us, that,— " The finest known wines are the produce of soils the combination and proportions of whose ingre- dients are extremely rare and exceptional; and co- operating with these, they require the agency of peculiar degrees of light, moisture, and heat. The richest wine of France, Italy, Hungary, Madeira, and Teneriffe are grown on the sites of extinct vol- janoes." If proof be required of the value of the adage, "not to trust to appearances," we would recommend a visit to some of the celebrated vine- lands of Europe; for example, those of M^doc, near Bordeaux, where the traveller's classical associations connected with the vine would be much disturbed on viewing the cropped and stunted expanse of