VINE. 11 



The Spanish Wines, particularly sack, are eagerly bought up 

 by foreign nations ; and the value of the wines and raisins annually 

 exported out of the country, about Malaga alone, amounts to a 

 million and a half of piastres, an imaginary coin of about three shil- 

 lings and seven-pence value. The wine produced in the kingdom of 

 Old Castile is excellent. 



The country round Malaga is covered with vines and the greatest 

 variety of fruit ; it yields a very beautiful prospect, both from the 

 land and sea. Their wines, raisins, oranges, lemons, almonds, figs, 

 and other fruit, are well known, from the large quantities imported 

 to England, beside those sent into other parts of Europe ; so that 

 the duties paid to the king, are computed to produce annually eight 

 hundred thousand ducats. 



The grape which produces the wine of Portugal, is chiefly cul- 

 tivated near Oporto, and hence is derived the name of Port Wine. 



France produces great abundance and variety of wines, the cul- 

 tivation of th evine having been attended to in almost all the pro- 

 vinces, and is probably not less regarded since the revolution in 

 that country. Among the several French wines, that of Cham- 

 pagne is most esteemed, it being a good stomachic, racy, and in 

 taste and flavour exquisite, with an agreeable tartness. That of 

 Burgundy, the best of which is produced about Beaume, has a tine 

 colour, and a pleasant taste. The wines of Angers and Orleans are 

 also delicate, but heady. In Poictou is produced a white wine that 

 resembles Rhenish. The neighbourhood of Bourdeaux, and the 

 tower parts of Gascony, produce excellent wines. Pontac grows 

 in Guienne. Muscadel and Frontignac are the delicious products of 

 Languedoc. Between Valence and St. Valiere, along the banks of 

 the Rhone, is produced a very agreeable, but roughish red wine, 

 that has a taste not unlike that of bilberries ; it is named hermitage, 

 and is considered as very wholesome. 



Sterne calls the Bourbonnois * the sweetest part of France " and 

 speaks in raptures of travelling through it u in the hey-day of the 

 vintage, when nature is pouring her abundauce into everyone's lap. 

 A journey, through each step of which music beats time to labour, 

 and all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters." 



[Chandler. Hawkszcorth. Kindersley, Pantologia, 



