Dont un quidam apre aux pots a propos
A fort blâmé les tours pervers en vers.”
Good wine, on the contrary, has very good effects. Erasmus[2] preserved himself from the plague, by drinking a glass of Burgundy at a proper season.
You see now the efficacy of good wine, which, to be in its perfection, the adepts in the free-schools of Liber Pater say, must have these four properties, and please these four senses:— the taste by its savour, the smell by its flavour, the sight by its clean and bright colour, and the ear by the fame of the country where it grows. Old wine was looked upon to be the best by the ancients.
A beauty, when advanc’d in age,
No more her lovers can engage;
But wine, the rare advantage, knows,
It pleases more, more old it grows.
And were they never so old themselves, they would still, if possible, have the wine older than they were. Nec cuiquam adeo longa erat vita, ut non ante se genita potaret[3]. Which these words of Seneca[4] also confirm, “Why at your house do you drink wine older than yourself? Cur apud te vinum apud te vetustius bibitur.”
Martial says, “Do you ask me of what consulate this wine is? It was before there were any consuls in the world.