For
some time before arriving at the farm where my companion's partner
lived, he indulged in praises of the wine which their vineyard produced,
and assurances of the safety with which it would perform a journey to
England. He urged its excellent _bouquet_, and gave me a card of prices
which certainly seemed marvellously reasonable. Finally, he proposed to
join me at a bottle of white _muscat_, from the farmer's _cave_, in
order that I might have an opportunity of seeing how true was his
account of the wine. We seated ourselves accordingly in the farmyard,
and drank a bottle of delightful wine at 65 centimes the bottle, clear
and sparkling, and with a strong muscat flavour. Liotir combined with it
intoxication of a different kind, and showed unmistakeable signs of his
determination to take another member of the farmer's household into
partnership,--the mysterious friend, in fact, for whose astonishment the
ice was intended. The white muscat, they told me, would not keep over
the year; but they had a wine at the same price which they highly
recommended, and warranted to keep for a considerable number of years.
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