Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/80

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THROUGH A GLASS LIGHTLY

prevails not in Wallonia. Your cunning wine merchant never clarifies his wine, and never delays his bottling beyond the appointed time. Also, he corks the bottles with the nicety of a worker in mosaics. Strange it is that the best Burgundy should find its way from the land of its nativity to Belgium, the land of its adoption; yet it is a notable and pleasant fact that a wayfaring man in the Ardennes may light on a bottle of wine of such a quality that he might search all England through with Fortunatus’ purse and not meet withal. The best Bordeaux leaves not Bordeaux, but no one would go to the Bourgogne to drink its treasures.

The dispute which raged between Burgundy and Champagne in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could scarce be revived

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