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Whereupon his Holiness pronounced it to be nectar, surpassing all other wines, exclaiming with ready wit, "Summum Pontificum talia vina decent." This place, so happily distinguished by Papal wit, is pleasantly situated on the side of the hill; it possesses about 2100 acres of vineyards. The places in the Hegyalia are all called towns, though in reality they are not much more than large villages.
Everywhere in Hungary the different races are strangely mixed up together: the Tokay Hegyalia, it is true, is chiefly peopled by Magyars, and the language is said to be the purest Magyar spoken anywhere; but there are Slavs and Jews amongst them, and our drive of twenty miles brought us into an area where the Slavs predominate.
Our indifferent luck was to be accounted for from the fact of there being, comparatively speaking, not much snow. Tokay vineyards The vine-grower's difficulties Geology of the Hegyalia The Pope's compliment to the wine of Tállya Towns of the Hegyalia Farming System of wages at harvest The different sorts of Tokay wine.
The easy transfer of land facilitates the purchase of small lots, and the result is that every peasant in the Hegyalia tries to possess himself of an acre or two, or even half an acre of vineyard. The cultivation seems to pay them well; but a succession of bad seasons must be very trying, for the vineyards cannot be neglected be the year good or bad.
The vintage is the season of all others for Tokay; in former days it was a very gay affair, for then every noble family in Hungary, especially the bishops, had vineyards in the Hegyalia, and the magnates came to the vintage with large retinues of servants and horses; and feasting and hospitality were the order of the day.
One of the prettiest little places in the Hegyalia is Erdö-Benye; it is off the main road, right in amongst the hills. It boasts the largest wine-cellar in the whole district; it has twenty-two ramifications at two different levels, the whole being cut out of the solid rock; it is more like a subterranean labyrinth than a cellar.
The railway system has been enormously extended in this country during the last ten years. In Transylvania, in the Tokay Hegyalia, in the Zipsland, and in the mining district of Schemnitz a whole network of lines has been opened up. Our route from Debreczin to Szigeth is one of those recently opened. The railway statistics of Hungary are very significant of progress.
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