VOL. LXtll.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 453 



though in this and all similar cases, it requires experience to be able to put such 

 rules in practice. 1. The colour should neither be reddish, which it often is, 

 nor very pale, but a light silver. 1. In trying it, you should not swallow it im- 

 mediately, but only wet your palate and the tip of the tongue. If it discover 

 any acrimony to the tongue, or bite it, it is not good. The taste ought to be 

 soft and mild. 3. It should, when poured out, form globules in the glass, and 

 have an oily appearance. 4. When genuine, the strongest is always of the best 

 quality. 5. When swallowed, it should have an earthy astringent taste in the 

 mouth, which they call the taste of the root. The Poles particularly are fond 

 of this astringency and austerity in their Tokay. There is so great a difference 

 between the Tokay used in Poland and what Mr. D. drank both at Tokay and 

 Vienna, which, he was sure, was of the best and most genuine kind, that he 

 thinks their wine is composed of the Masslasch, which, by the severe pressure 

 it suffers, must carry with it much of the astringent quality which, in all grapes, 

 resides in the skin, and a smaller proportion than usual of the essence. But this 

 is mere conjecture. 



Besides the qualities already mentioned, all Tokay wine has an aromatic taste; 

 so peculiar, that nobody who has ever drank it genuine can confound it with any 

 other species of wine. The only species that bears a resemblance to it grows, in 

 a very small quantity, in the Venetian Friule, and is only to be met with in 

 private families at Venice, where, in the dialect of the place, it is called vin 

 piccolit. The Tokay wine, both the Essence and Auspruch, keeps to any age, 

 and improves by time. Mr. D. has drank of the latter at Vienna, which had 

 been in the same cellar since the year l686. It is never good till it is about 3 

 years old. All the sorts are generally kept in small casks, called antheils, which 

 legally hold 80 Hungarian mediae, a measure containing about two-thirds of an 

 English quart. When you buy it of the gentlemen who are proprietors, you 

 have commonly more than the legal quantity in the antheil; if from the Greek 

 merchants, always less. 



The particular year, or vintage, and the age, vary the price of this, as of all 

 other wines. The medium price of the antheil of Essence is between 6o and 70 

 ducats. It is sometimes sold on the spot for more than 100. Prince Radzivil 

 paid 300 ducats for 2 antheils about 4 years before. When the price is 6o 

 ducats, and the antheil large measure, that is, about go mediae, it is exactly a 

 ducat the English quart. The price of the Auspruch is from 26 to about 30 

 ducats the antheil. This is at the rate of two florins, or near a crown the 

 English quart. The variety in the prices of the Essence and Auspruch, accounts 

 for the opposite accounts of people, who say sometimes that it costs half a 

 guinea, sometimes 5 shillings, on the spot. 



There are people who come every year from Poland, about the time of the 



