1939 The Gentleman's Companion volume II Beeing an Exotic Drinking Book

THE GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION

an allotted length of time for grapes to grow and ripen, more time to ferment, still more to age properly in barrels and later in bottles. It takes a man time to learn about wines, time to drink them, a lifetime of appreciation to value them. The chap who is Worth While, and who spends half his life sprinting to offices, naturally has n't time in all that milling about to slow down enough to notice wines. He wants quick action from his spirits, not leisurely sipping and pauses for ap– preciation. Few Americans have ever learned to play. There is noth– ing sadder than most American Big Business out of the office. We have seen a lot of it lately in that predicament, and a more restless, half-lost bunch of sagging muscles, golf alibis, and short breaths we've • never seen. Abroad, in all the wine lands, men have learned to play-at least after a fashion-leisurely, calmly; not fiercely, as though it were a matter of grim life and death. Our Britisher starts his week-end Friday noon, often as not. A whole French family will lie under trees throughout a Sunday, doing nothing in particular-a form of relaxa– tion which would have the American Man Who Matters in a padded cell from sheer triple-distilled boredom. Our great outdoors inheritance in conquering the great west has left us with story and song about two-fisted, two-gun, five-fingered drinkers of raw likker-who tossed off a tumbler full of red eye with– out a blink. All this sort of thing has got us to thinking we are a stout race of monstrous manly fellows, and the thought of dallying with a cobwebby wine cork, and sipping such meek and mild fluids out of a tiny and delicately stemmed glass, appears just the slightest bit effeminate; something grown men left to the companions of older women and visiting alleged foreign titles. In other words America has always consumed hard liquor. She always will, but we are delighted to see the recent renaissance of in– terest in proper wines, along with that renaissance in good cookery we mention through Volume /-and most encouraging of all, in– terest in our truly fine American wines, of the type made by our friend Paul Garrett's family for well over roo years.

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