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THE GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION
WINE at TEA TIME
The smartest people
in
America used to serve sweet wine-Ca–
tawba, or Virginia Dare scuppernong, with cake or tiny small cakes,
just as in France a sweet Bordeaux or champagne was often served
with cakes
in
the late afternoon.... Ports, sherries, Malagas, Madeiras
and Marsalas were also offered... . The old custom has merit. Why
not offer favoured calfers a nip of decent wine and handsome small
cakes, to relieve the eternal tea and macaroons, or cocktails? We've
tried it and the combination tastes so good it's well worth con–
sideration.
EXPLODED OLD ALEWIVES' TALE No. IV, OVERRULING
the COMMON BELIEF here in AMERICA, that a TRULY MAG–
NIFICENT RED VINTAGE WINE-such as an ANCIENT
PORT, a PRICELESS
HOSPICE de BEAUNE
BURGUNDY, or
a .
CHATEAU LAFITE
CLARET-CAN BE OPENED by
DRAWING the CORK
Let us hasten to explain this does not apply to average wines, but to
the priceless citizens in bottles; to those grand seigneurs whose name
and dating should be mentioned only in bated breath. . . .
In
such
ancient affairs it is just as ruinous to spoil the excellence through agita–
tion-even with the greatest care-in cork pulling. An agitated great
red wine becomes an average red wine, immediately. There is no more
sanity in such spoilage than there is in checking a Raphael madonna,
uncrated, in a baggage van.
·
Go to the nearest good hotel or club and get a pair of bottle tongs.
Heat them quite hot and fasten about the bottle neck just below the
lower cork end. Count
10,
take tongs away, and touch the spot with
a pad of cloth soaked in cold water. The neck cracks all around in a
clean break-no fuss, no splinters.... Even during this slight activity
a fine old red wine should be lifted gently as a babe, and carried so; no
sudden jolts, no agitation whatsoever. Only in this way can the ancient
sediments remain in their undisturbed position, and be kept from
clouding, injuring the whole bottle.
"Gloomy or depressed people should never be given good food, or any
sort of wines or alcoholic beverages, as neither will go down well. The
first quality a gourmet must possess is
joie de vivre
which implies a
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