JOIIANN CARL LEUCHS ON WINES. I33 



Alba Flora, a white wine, fine, spirituous, and of a good bouquet 

 and taste, is also of some repute. 



Catalonia has mostly red wines, little tenable, losing in a short 

 time their color and taste. 



Majorca produces, near Pallcnzia, a valuable kind of Malvasie. 



Murcia furnishes only thick and tart wines, though those of 

 Carthagena attain sometimes the quality of inferior Alicante. 



Navarre exports but small quantites. Around Tudela, sixteen 

 leagues from Pampeluna, they make joretty good wines, approach- 

 ing inferior qualities of Burgundy. Near Peralto, two valuable 

 wines are produced: the Rancio, similar to the Paraxete, and a 

 sweet wine, delicious and spirituous. The staple place for these 

 wines is Pampeluna. 



New Castile has wines in La Mancha and Valdagenas, which 

 are less colored and less strong, but have nevertheless a more 

 agreeable taste than most of the other Spanish wines. The better 

 ones arc compared with the middle wines of Burgundy. They 

 have fineness, spirit, and even some bouquet. In the second class 

 we may count those of Manzanares, Albacete, and Ciudad Real, 

 though most of them are sent to Madrid in skins, from which they 

 contract an odor and strange taste. Fuencarol, near Madrid, has 

 a celebrated Muscat wine, sweet, of good taste and bouquet. 



In Valencia, the vineyards are partly on hills and partly in the 

 valleys ; therefore they difter in quality. The graj)es on the 

 plains are mostly made into brandy, of which from 500,000 to 

 600,000 cantaros are distilled. Alicante, thirty leagues from Va- 

 lencia, produces the celebrated Tinto. This wine bears long keep- 

 ing, with a continual improving ; is very tonic, and therefore much 

 valued for a stomach-invigorating beverage. It is of a dark red 

 color, which in course of time covers the bottles with a layer. It 

 is very sweet, warming, of an agreeable bouquet and taste. They 

 also make here a pretty good sweet white wine. Benicarlo, twen- 

 ty leagues from Valencia, and Viueroz, produce dark red wines 

 of first quality, preferable to the common Alicante. The caniaro 

 contains lOf quarts, the botta from 103 to 117 gallons. 



VIII. 



PORTUGUESE WINES. 



Portugal has an important vine-culture, producing mostly red 

 wines, and exports yearly over 100,000 pipes. The prominent sta- 

 ple place is Oporto, with an exportation of about 80,000 pipes, 

 the pipe worth from sixty to eighty dollars. The wines of Por- 

 tugal are inferior to those of Spain, being of less strength, and re- 

 quiring, therefore, an addition of alcohol to enable them to keep 

 and bear a sea- voyage. 



