WHAT IS WINE? 
153 
400,000,000 gallons of wine. These wines are both red and 
white, and the Hungarians enumerate many hundred varieties, 
most of which show, however, great general similarity. The 
most celebrated is that known as Imperial Tokay, grown on 
an estate belonging to the Emperor of Austria, and it ranks 
among the choicest wines of Europe. 
Hungarian wines are, with few exceptions, like the preceding, 
thoroughly fermented, and contain therefore little or no sugar 
and albuminoid substance: their alcoholic strength ranges from 
7 to 12%. They are generally rather more acid than either 
Rhine wine or claret, owing chiefly to a greater proportion of 
volatile acid, due probably to a less perfect treatment of the must 
or negligence in the storing of the new wine. They leave 
but little ash, which is of the usual normal composition and 
does not, as is sometimes asserted, contain more phosphoric acid 
than other natural wines. Like all unbrandied wines, they 
contain more volatile than fixed ethers. At present, the wines 
of Hungary are on the whole inferior to both Rhine wine 
and claret. The country possesses, however, a climate 
and soil apparently excellently adapted to the cultivation 
of the vine, and if the growers will take a lesson in the art 
of wine-making from either France or Germany, they may 
in time rival both in the quality of their produce, while even 
now they are very far ahead of the latter, as far as quantity 
is concerned. 
The three wine countries just considered all enjoy a temperate 
climate ; in general, warm enough in summer to bring the grape 
to maturity without overloading it with sugar, cool enough in 
autumn to allow the must to be thoroughly fermented without 
danger to the wine. They are emphatically the three natural 
wine-producing countries of Europe. 
Greek Wines . — Greece produces a considerable quantity as 
well as a great many varieties of wine, both on the main land 
and on the surrounding islands. Judging, however, from its 
geographical position and general climate, it would appear to be 
but ill adapted for the production of a sound and perfectly 
natural wine, and this conclusion is fully borne out by the 
chemical character of many of the wines produced. 
A great variety of Greek wines are imported into this country, 
many of them slightly fortified, the alcoholic strength ranging 
from 8 to 14%. They are generally characterised by a rather 
high percentage of acid, due chiefly to an unusually great pro- 
portion of acetic acid, which indeed in some of these wines ig 
present in excessive quantity, equalling or even surpassing the 
fixed acids in amount. Besides this great proportion of acetic 
acid, Greek wines frequently oontain an appreciable amount of 
aldehyde, a product intermediate between alcohol and acetic 
