1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

93

best Greek wines are those Ithaca, Zante, Tenos, Samos, Thera (Santorin)/ and Cyprus. The white wine of Zante, called Verdea, resembles Madeira in flavour. The wine of Naxos is of consider- able strength, and is greatly improved by age. A quantity of it, known as Vino Santo, is exported. Andros was sacred to Dion^^sus, and a tradition (Plin. Pans. vi. 26) says that for seven days during a festival of this god the waters of a cer- tain fountain were changed to wine. The wine did no credit to the god, if it resembled that which this island at present produces. The *' Nectar" of Morta Dr. Charnock has recom- mended the Monthymet as a good mild wine, and the CEconomos. A white wine, called " tAe wtne of night I' is supplied under the distinctive names of St. Elie and of the islands ii. 103; xxxi. 13; is bitter and astringent. The wines of Hungary, we are told, " possess con- siderable body with a moderate astririgency." The varieties of wine known as Ausbruch and Maszlacz, compound of lime, resin, spirits of wine, and grapes, without body or flavour. Nor were things better in the days of old. Dugald Dal- getty, 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 Calliste ; the latter is the better. Hungary.

Pliny says it favours the preservation

adorned with a pine cone.

is

of the drink. ^ The island owes this name to its patron saint Irene, martyred here a.d. 304.