Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/76

 blood; and is not that, teste the vintner, the whole duty of Burgundy? Amongst white Burgundies it is hopeless, indeed, to find a blameless wine. Mont Rachet, if we could hit on the right quality, is fit for the symposia of the gods; but, alack, there be three kinds, and the value of the second is but half that of the first, and the third only a bare two-thirds the value of the second. If we would judge aright of the first red wine of France we must go to Brussels, to Dinant, to Charleroi, to Namur. Not on the banks of the Loire but of the Meuse dwell the folk who know what Burgundy is, what Burgundy means. Indeed, the inhabitants of the Ardennes care little enough for the choicer arts. It is not for them to collect enamels. Neither pottery nor pictures seduce them to extravagance. But