Chap. XXIX Third Rule, With Good Wine
When one has a mind to get drunk, one should make choice of good wine, and not drink bad, which is prejudicial to health. For example, green wine is very bad; this Guilleaume Cretin1, a great punster, has expressed in these verses, which, I own, I am not able to put into English:—
“Par ce vin verds Atropos a trop os
Des corps humains ruez envers en vers
Dont un quidam apre aux pots a propos
A fort blâmé les tours pervers en vers.”
Good wine, on the contrary, has very good effects. Erasmus2 preserved himself from the plague, by drinking a glass of Burgundy at a proper season.
You see now the efficacy of good wine, which, to be in its perfection, the adepts in the free-schools of Liber Pater say, must have these four properties, and please these four senses:— the taste by its savour, the smell by its flavour, the sight by its clean and bright colour, and the ear by the fame of the country where it grows. Old wine was looked upon to be the best by the ancients.
A beauty, when advanc’d in age,
No more her lovers can engage;
But wine, the rare advantage, knows,
It pleases more, more old it grows.
And were they never so old themselves, they would still, if possible, have the wine older than they were. Nec cuiquam adeo longa erat vita, ut non ante se genita potaret3. Which these words of Seneca4 also confirm, “Why at your house do you drink wine older than yourself? Cur apud te vinum apud te vetustius bibitur.”
Martial says, “Do you ask me of what consulate this wine is? It was before there were any consuls in the world.
“De sinuessanis venerunt massica prælis:
Condita quo quæris consule? nullus erat.”4a
At present the fame of the best wine in Europe is reckoned to be, that of Monte Fiascone, two days journey from Rome. Here it was a German abbot killed himself by drinking too much of this delicious creature. The story is this, and it is related in Lassell’s Travels:—
A certain German abbot, travelling to Rome, ordered his servant to ride before him, and when he found the best wine, to chalk upon the door of the inn (in order to save time) the word EST. Coming to Monte Fiascone, he found it so excellent, that he put down, Est, Est, Est, which the abbot finding true, drank so plentifully of it, that he went no farther on his journey, but lies buried, they say, in the cathedral church, with this epitaph, written by his servant the purveyor.
Est, Est, Est,
et
Propter nimium Est,
Herus meus Dominus Abbas
mortuus Est.
The wine called Lachrymæ Christi, or the Tears of Christ, is a most delicious wine. At least a master of arts of the university of Cologn thought so, who going also to Rome, drank at the same place pretty heartily of it, and out of the abundance of his heart cried out,
Utinam Christus lachrymatus fuisset in nostra patria.
I wish Christ had shed tears in our country.
M. Hofman believes, that Rhenish wine is the best of all wines for one’s health.
There grows also most excellent wines in France, such as Champagne.
Wenceslaus5, king of Bohemia and the Romans, being come into France on account of some negociations with Charles the Sixth, arrived at Rheins in the month of March, 1397. When he was in that city he found the wine so good, that he got drunk more than once; and being one day in that condition, that he could not enter into any serious discourses, he rather chose to grant what was asked of him than leave off drinking.
The wines of Burgundy must not be forgotten, which some prefer to Champagne. “Baudius called vin de beaulne, vinum deorum, the wine of the gods6.”
The wines of Ai are also very excellent. S. Evremont7 says, that Leo the Tenth, Charles the Fifth, Francis the First, and Hen. VIII. king of England, did not think it below their dignity, amongst the most important affairs of state, to take care to have the wines of Ai. Henry IV. caused himself to be styled lord of Ai and Gonesse.
But I shall desire my readers here to observe two things, First, That artificial wines, and a many other liquors, containing a great deal of gross, viscous matter, excite a drunkenness more long and dangerous than that which is produced by ordinary wines. Another thing is, Never to get drunk with brandy, spirits, and strong waters. Patin8 says very pleasantly, that these are sugared poisons which surely kill: they give life to those who sell them, and death to those who use them.
1. Rem. sur. Rabel. t. iii. p. 39.
2. Journ. des Sçav. June, 1706.
3. Plin. Natural History XIX.20 (or XIX.xix.53).
4. De Vit. beat. c. 17.
4a. Martial XIII.111.
5. Journ. de Sçav. June, 1706.
6. Patimana, p. 34.
7. Lett. S. Evrem.
8. Vign. Marvill, t. ii. p. 7.