CHAMPAGNE
pours like melting snow down Soracte’s sides, or spring torrents in the Acroceraunian hills. The dullard stands amazed at his own wit; and the professional talker-out moves not to envy; and the sorriest dog of us barks in rhapsodies and epigrams. No less than Port it carries the vintage glory with it; for do we not speak of that ’74 Perrier-Jouet (now for ever laid to rest in pious gastronomic cells!) as of darling poet or statesman idolised in the Abbey by the stream of Thames? And the masterful Eighties, the fickle, fleeting, delicate-souled Eighty-Fours, the once speculative, broadly -promising but now fully-realised Eighty-Nines—do we not discuss them, even as the children of our loins? Wine does more than generate talk: it is talk itself; and do we not glory
49
