New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1860-03-26
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/. The following extract upon the subject OF wine
: talk. Va tase from spirited sketch BY Wise
Collins. the English novelist Il . excellent ana
Il 40 very sruthfuli ii win Apply nearly u well ~
this country as il England. Wine talk : IN vogue
among weli-toso and fashionable Americans o u
I 7 i among Englshmen. What dinner party taxes
,.ce t,as tlaes not draw out number of gentle
,,,s,, an thls ;ntercstisg snhject! And which one
q slem e,.sr cosasassed that he was not judge Of
II, tI,e contrary, which one Of them ever
fsie,5 Is speak is q judge, and to be able to de-
sacf The errors and to laugh at the conceits of
i ccntisnaen who were no judges We commend
Ibis extract to the wine critics and to those who
have laughed at their criticisms
/ As matter of course, we talked wine. No
company Of Englisbmen can assemble together for
| ar evening without doing that. Every man IN this
country who is rich enough to pay income tax, has
at one time or other in his life effected very re-
markable transaction IN wine. Sometimes he has
made such bargain as he never expects to make
agaiR Sometimes he j. the only man ia England,
not peer OF the realm. who has got single drop
| of certain famous vintage which has persisted
| from the face of the earth. Sometimes he has
| purchased, with friend, few last left dozens
from the cellar of deceased notentate, at price
SO exorbitant that he can only wag his head and
decline mentioning It; and, II yoH ask his friend
that friend will wag his head, and decline mention
/ ing It also. Sometimes he has been at an outrof
+ tne-8ay country I'M J mas fOunu lne Snerry mol
/ drinkable has asked if there is no other wine in
the house; has been informed that there is some
sourish foreign stuff that nobody ever drinks has
called for it has found it Burgundy, such as all
1 France cannot now produce has cunniBgy kept
his own eonnsel with the widowed landlady, and
i has bought the whole stock for IAN old song.
/ Sometimes he knows the proprietor of q famous
tlyern in London, and he recommends his one or
two particular friends the next time they are pass
ing that way to go in and dine, and give his com
pliments to the landlord and ask for bottle of the
brown sherry, with the light blue-as distinguished
| from the dark biue-seal.
Thousands of people dine there every year, and
think they have got the famous sherry when they
get the dark blue seal but the real wine, the
famous wine, is the light blue seal, and nobody in
England knows il but the landlord and his friends.
In an these wine conversations. whatever variety
there may be in the various experiences related,
one of the first great principles is invariably as-
sumed by each speaker in succession. Either he
knows more about it than any one else, or he has
got better wine Of his own even than theexcelent
wine he is now drinking. Men can get together
sometimes without talking of women, without talk
ing Of horses without talking Of politics. hut they
cannot assemble to eat meal together without
talking of wine, and they cannot talk of wine with
out assuming to each one Of themselves an abso-
Lutte infalbility in connection with that single sub
| ject which they would shrink from asserting in re-
| atom to any other topic under the sun.