Definition—Various Meanings of Wine—Alcohol—Varieties of Wine—Miller—Professor Mulder—Origin of Wine—Brook of Eshcol—Strabo and Reland—Francatelli’s Order of Wines—Classification of M. Batalhai Reis. In the matter of wine, as in that of beer, it is perhaps as well to commence with a dictionary description or definition. Ogilvie declares it to be the “fermented juice of the grape, or fruit of the vine.” It is, however, also the juice of certain fruits, prepared in imitation of wine obtained from grapes, but distinguished by naming the source whence it is derived, as currant wine, gooseberry wine, etc.; and a third meaning of wine—a meaning with which we have happily little to do—is the effect of drinking wine in excess, or intoxication.[17] Wines are practically distinguished by their colour, flavour, stillness or effervescence, and what is known as hardness or softness. The differences in quality depend on the vines, the soils, the exposure of the vineyards, the treatment of the grapes, and the mode of manufacture. The alcohol[18] contained is the leading characteristic. In strong ports and sherries this varies from about 16 to 25 per cent. It is about 7 per cent. in claret, hock, and other so-called light wines. Wine containing about 13 per cent. of alcohol may be assumed to be _fortified_, as it is called, with brandy or other spirit. The varieties of wine produced are said to be “almost endless.” This great number of wines is in some measure owing to an interesting fact mentioned by Miller in his _Organic Chemistry_ (3rd ed. p. 187), who tells us that a particular variety of grape, when grown upon the Rhine, furnishes a species of hock; the same grape, when raised in the valley of the Tagus, yields Bucellas, in which the palate of a connoisseur may possibly detect the flavour of hock; whilst in the island of Madeira the same grape produces the wine known as _Sercial_, which, though generally allowed to be a delicious wine, has suggested, it seems, to no skilled palate the flavour either of Bucellas or of hock. It would therefore be more logical to commence an article on wines with an article on the grapes from which they are produced, but we fear it would be far less interesting. Of the chemical composition of wine, and of its _uses in health and disease_, on which so many books from the days of old have been already written, we shall, in accordance with our preface, say nothing at all, or very little. Every person who feels himself or herself interested in this latter matter may learn as much as he or she will from the pages of the _Lancet_, while Professor Mulder has probably written enough about the former to satisfy the most anxious student.