line stretching from the Loire, throughChampagne to the Mosel and the Rhineland, and thenceeastwards to the slopes of the Danube, and on to Moldavia andCrimea. There are very few wine-growing districts which did notonce belong to the Roman Empire. Balkan wines in Serbia,Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece, inhibited by the anti-alcoholicOttomans, are every bit as ancient as those of Spain, Italy, or France. The consumption of wine has far-reaching social,psychological, and medical consequences. It has been invoked asa factor in religious and political groupings, such as the Protestant-Catholic divide in Germany, and even in the fate of battles. It waswine and beer that clashed at Waterloo. The red fury of winerepeatedly washed in vain against the immovable wall of the sons of beer. Nor has St. Martins homeland lost its vilticultural excellence. The volcanic soil on the slopes above Tokay, the hot summer air of the Hungarian plain, the moisture of the Bodrog River, and the mostnobly rotten of Aszu grapes, form a unique combination. The pungent, velvety, peachlike essencia of golden Tokay is not toeveryones taste; and has rarely been well produced in recentdecades. But it was once laid down for 200 years in the mostexclusive cellars of Poland, and kept for the death-bed of mon-archs. A bottle of Imperial Tokay from the days of Francis-Josephis still one of the connoisseurs most prized ambitions.