Note 167 — PART I. (continued 2)

Henderson’s History of Ancient and Modern Wines. Pluche, in his Spectacle de la Nature, notices the controversy regarding the respective merits of the wines of the Marne and the Côte d’Or in the following terms:

‘Count: If we will be determined by the finest palates, the Champaign wine is much preferable to Burgundy.

Prior: It is a sufficient honour for Champaign to be admitted to the same degree of estimation with Burgundy; and it may very well dispense with the priority. I always thought Burgundy had some similitude with a solid understanding, which affects us with lasting impressions, and that Champaign resembles a lively wit, which glitters more upon the imagination, but which is not always serviceable to its possessor.

Count: If you had made the froth of some Champaign wines and the sallies of a sprightly wit your parallel, I should have thought it unexceptionable; and several pleasant remarks might be made on this sprightliness without solidity. But such a Champaign wine as that of Sillery unites all the vigour of Burgundy, with an agreeable flavour peculiar to itself.

Prior: I prefer useful qualities to those that are merely agreeable. Burgundy seems to be a more salutary wine than Champaign, and will always be triumphant for that reason. Its colour alone declares it to be a wine of a good body, and I must confess I am apt to be diffident of all dazzling appearances.

Count: People believe that this deep colour, so esteemed in Burgundy wines, is an indication of their wholesomeness; but it is observable in the grossest wines, and results from an intermixture of the husky parts of the grape. Wine, in proportion to the quantity of these particles blended with it, will be less qualified for digestion. The gout, therefore, and the stone, with which the inhabitants of wine-countries are so frequently afflicted, are distempers hardly known either at Reims or on the banks of the Marne, where the wines are very moderately coloured.... Wines may be made almost as white in Burgundy as they are in Champaign, though not so good; and, on the other hand, the Champenois press a wine as red as the Burgundy growth, and the merchants sell it either as the best species of Burgundy to the wine-conners, who are the first people that are deceived in it, or as red Champaign to the connoisseurs, who prefer it to any other wine. If we may judge of the merit of wines by the price, we shall certainly assign the preference to Champaign, since the finest species of this wine is sold in the vaults of Sillery and Epernai for six, seven, or eight hundred livres, when the same quality of the best Burgundy may be purchased for three hundred.

Countess: Let me entreat you, gentlemen, to leave this controversy undecided. The equal pretensions that are formed by these two great provinces promote an emulation which is advantageous to us. The partisans for Burgundy and Champaign form two factions in the State; but their contests are very entertaining, and their encounters not at all dangerous. It is very usual to see the zealots of one party maintaining a correspondence with those of the other; they frequently associate together without any reserve, and those who were advocates for Burgundy at the beginning of the entertainment are generally reconciled to Champaign before the appearance of the dessert.’