GRAPE AND GRAIN

     Man has been accorded by a kindly nature four stout companions to sustain and console him on his terrestrial pilgrimage. They are wine, spirits, fortified wines and beer. These drinks provide the solace, relaxation and stimulus that a man needs if he is to complete with equanimity his arduous and often arid journey. The golfer standing  on the 18th tee gathers his strength at the prospect of cooling Gin and Tonic or Beer that awaits him whether or not that final putt has won him the game; the businessman exhausted at the end of the day by the noise of the telephone and the people around him anticipates the first cool sip of the Martini when he reaches home.
     The Highball, the cocktail and the glass of beer have helped so many of us to unwind, to make the transition from one kind of moment to another, totally different one. Wine, on the other hand, fills a somewhat different aspect of our need. It is for a different time, a different place from the stronger beverages. Wine may safely be said to be more subtle. For wine enormously enhances the pleasure of the table. "A meal without wine is a day without sunshine" is a famous French saying. A meal accompanied by wine is taken slowly; it  has to be, since wine must be sipped. It should not be quaffed. And there  should be a long pause between sips, so that the bouquet can linger on the palate and the wine can spread its beneficent warmth through every vein and nerve cell; you are in no hurry to take the next mouthful; you let the magic of that last sip remain. And as you are in no hurry to eat or drink, you have time to talk and wine aids the digestive process, from the very fact that it prevents hurried eating.
     Although there are many reasons why a man could wish to have lived in another century rather than in our own, none of them concerns wines and spirits. There has never been a time such as the present when those who wish for alcoholic beverages have had such a variety of choice. The best of everything is available. We have only to decide how to make good use of it.