Gods, Men, and Wine [antikvár]

ForewordBY JAMES LAVERWhen I was young somé forty years ago it was difficult for a young man to be knowledgeable about wine. If he had occasion to call upon the family solicitor he might perhaps be offered a glass of sherry and a dry biscuit. If he dined with a bachelor uncle the older man might set before him two glasses of port and, flattering his immaturity, ask him which he liked better. At home there might be white Bordeaux, 'because the ladies liked it', or, on special occasions, a bottle of champagne. George Saintsbury's Notes on a Cellar Book might have come his way and inspired an interest in different wines and vintages. The old-fashioned wine merchant was always, of course, a mine of information, but the young man with modest requirements was probably too shy to take advantage of it. There was astonishingly little in print.Now all this is changed. Handbooks pour from the press; little celluloid charts of vintages fmd a place in many pocket books; wine merchants issue 'Lists' which are often miniatűré treatises, and great national newspapers retain a 'Wine Writer' on their staff. Few however have been willing to undertake the formidable task of writing a history of Wine.William Younger was a lively and ingenious writer whose Hammersmith Maggot is recognized as a classic among Whodunits. Trample an Empire, The Lobster Guerillas and Skin Trap were only less successful, and it seemed that a distinguished future lay before him in this branch of fiction. His untimely death put an end to these hopes, but he was able to complete a magnum opus in a different field: the present volume.It is, in the first place, an astounding piece of erudition. Most historians of