Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/78

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THROUGH A GLASS LIGHTLY

vintage awaiting its joyful resurrection. The cellars are deeply excavated as cellars should be, in the clay, or hollowed out of limestone rock. They preserve an even temperature of 50 degrees. Upon their doors the torrid sun may shine in vain. The whiffs of kitchen and the tremor of the streets are alike removed from the sacred shrine. Their bottles are yellow-black in colour, and from a cunning—begotten of long experience—are rough inside, differing herein from the bottles of Champagne which for a different reason are smooth on either surface. For it is well-nigh impossible to carry out the perfect maturing of Burgundy with a smooth-stomached bottle, for the deposit in the wines clings, as it should, to the roughened surface, and only the glory of the wine remains to drink, that

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