HOCK. From a very early date, certainly not later than the
century, the German traders from the hanseatic cities, who had a "hanse" or headquarters in London, brought to England some of the wines of the Rhine. In all official documents relating to the importation and taxation of wine in England from the earliest times until the end of the 17th century all wines from Germany are named "Rhenish wines," but they were known to the public under the name of hock as early as the 16th century. Although no actual evidence has as yet come to light to place beyond dispute the origin of the name hock, it was probably first used to designate the wines from Hochheim, a village surrounded by vineyards, situated upon the right bank of the river Main, close to where it flows into the Rhine. The name hock, short for Hochheim, being a name easy to pronounce and to remember, would quite naturally be used by most people in place of so many long and difficult names of German vineyards ; so in time hock was used to designate all wines which were shipped to England from the Rhine, whether red or white. As a matter of fact, the output of red Rhine wines is so small, and the demand for them is so much greater in Germany than the supply, that they are hardly ever exported and the name "hock" is, in practice, re stricted to the white wines of the Rhine.
The finest hocks are those from the Rhinegau vineyards, which are situated upon the right bank of the Rhine from Rudesheim, opposite Bingen, to the hills of Rauenthal. It is within that comparatively small area that are to be found the most famous Rhinegau vineyards : Rudesheim, Geisenheim, Win kel, Mittelheim, Oestrich, Johannisberg, V olrads. A little far ther east are the no less celebrated hills of Steinberg, whilst nearer the Rhine are the famous growths of Hattenheim, Marco brunn, Erbach and Eltville.
Upon the opposite bank of the Rhine, in Hesse, from Bingen to Mayence and from Mayence to Worms, there are far more extensive vineyards than those of the Rhinegau, but they do not produce wines of the same high degree of excellence : the best wines of Hesse are those of Nierstein and Oppenheim, from vineyards situated a few miles south of Mayence, and those of Lieb f raumilch grown near Worms, close to the southern bound ary of Hesse.
Hocks which are quite distinctive in character, possessing more breed and bouquet than the Hesse wines, and more sweetness than those of the Rhinegau, are made in the Palatinate, the best being those of Deidesheim, Forst, Durkheim, Wackenheim and Ruppertsberg.
In Franconia, in quite another part of Bavaria, farther east and north, we find the Stein wines, which are very characteristic and in good years are also very fine.
Andre L. Simon, In Vino Veritas (1913), The Bibliography. Andre L. Simon, In Vino Veritas (1913), The Blood of the Grape (192o), Wine and the Wine Trade (1921), The Supply, Care and Sale of Wine (1923) ; Frank Hedges Butler, Wine and the Wine Lands of the World (1926) ; P. Morton Shand, A Book of Wine (1926), The Wines of Germany and other European Countries (1928) . (A. L. S.)
