Through a Wineglass Hazily

In That still-Depression year of 1937 my salary as associate editor of the American Wine and Liquor Journal was a mere pittance, but attractive fringe benefits went with the job.

I particularly enjoyed the time spent around the town interviewing the greats and near greats and near greats of the trade that was being re-established in the United States following the repeal of Probibition in 1933. Many of these were the representatives of foreign wine and liquor concerns seeking to restore the name and fame of their brands. I remember several talks with Charles Martell and Maurice Hennessy, who were striving gamely to kindle a taste for fine cognac in palates deadened by bootleg rye. And I recall an especially lively session with the Right Honorable Andrew Jameson, then 81 years old, who told me he had once shot buffalo on the plains with Teddy Roosevelt. A man not easily daunted, Jameson cherished the notion that quality-whiskey drinkers would prefer John Jameson's Irish to Scotch. In this hope, alas, he was deceived. Irish got off to a slow start in the post-repeal market, though the invention of Irish coffee has since helped make up some of the lost ground.

In those days, André Simon, dean of the gourmets, came from abroad to president at the tastings of the Wine and Food Society, which generally took place at the Plaza. I hardly qualified as a gourmet, but my crass connection with the trade got me in. I succeeded in impressing an up-to-then skeptical young woman by escorting her to a superb tasting of oysters and champagnes. A trial of port wines and cheeses greased the way to another romantic triumph.

I also recall, through a haze for which the interval of years can only partly be held accountable, the graduation exercises of the first bartenders' school to function in the post-Prohibition era. Behind a brightly burnished bar that had been bountifully provisioned by a thoughtful distiller stood a dozen confident young men. The exercises differed from most commencements in that the graduation ceremony and final examinations took place simultaneously. In their gleaming white uniforms, the graduates awaited your drink order and your critique of their performance. The guests rose to the challenge. In a freeloading session probably unmatched in academic history, they conscientiously tested the virtuosity and versatility of the fledgling barkeeps, gravely recording their judgments (for as long as they could) on the official rating forms.

My work took me to all forms of distilling, rectifying and wine-making establishments, including some whose hasty veneer of respectability but thinly concealed their more dubious status in Prohibition days. By way of encouragement, I was usually invited to sample the newly legitimized products, and what I have referred to as fringe benefits came perilously close at times to being occupational hazards. One languorous spring afternoon, after a morning visit to a Brooklyn winery topped off by a heavy Italian lunch, I was interviewing an important distilling executive. I asked him a provocative question, leaned back expectantly for his reply, and immediately dropped off to sleep.

Lest the reader be misled by these bibulous accounts, let me hasten to say that most of my days were grubby ones, spent in the business publication's dirty, drafty office on Lafayette Street. There I wrote up my interviews, phoned trade sources for market quotations, edited correspondents' copy, shamelessly cribbed relevant news items from the dailies, and spent long, lugubrious hours compiling entries and reading proof for the Red Book of the Wine and Liquor Trades, first directory of the resurgent industry. Our business manager had an idea a minute, and most of them involved more work for the harried editorial staff, which consisted mainly of me. I badly needed a holiday, but saw no chance of a respite until summer. Suddenly, deliverance came from an unexpected source.

For some months, our advertising columns had carried advance notice of the Good Will Tour to France. The basic idea for the tour was a sound one. The French wine and liquor interests were anxious to extend their market in the United States. Americans traditionally crave to visit France. Why not charter the Ile de France, take over a shipload of American wine and liquor dealers to see the sights of Paris, visit the vineyards and distilleries and sample the goods at the source? The enterprising American promoters went the next step and persuaded the French to pick up most of the tab. The tourists' outlay would be limited to the round-trip ship passage at minimum rates. All living expenses in France--hotels, meals, transportation, Paris entertainments--were to be defrayed by the French.

I began to salivate when the first ad for the three-week tour appeared in our magazine, but there seemed little hope of making the trip. Our business manager had staked it out for his very own. But the winds of chance felled him with a nervous breakdown shortly before the take-off date and I fell heir to a first-class cabin for the journey.

In a burst of generosity, I invited my sister along, at her expense. I gave her my cabin and she put down the minimum fare for a tourist accommodation which I occupied. On a glorious April morning our friends and relatives came to see us off, my brother brandishing a bon voyage bottle which proved wholly redundant, since one of the importers had ordered up drinks for all hands.

As the sleek, immaculate ship churned out of its berth and made for the harbor, Phyllis and I joined the throng on deck. Though our own transatlantic travel had been limited to student trips, we sensed, early in the game, that this was going to be different from most luxury voyages. The passengers somehow lacked the soigné look of characters shown in the cruise-ship ads or depicted by Noel Coward in Private Lives. The bulk of the 800 on board were wine and liquor wholesalers, retail store owners and tavernkeepers making their first crossing. In dress and deportment they fell somewhere between an Atlantic City convention crowd and the Apalachin mob. First class did contain a few affluent importers and industry leaders, but most of those in the better cabins had landed there because an indulgent distiller had poined up the higher fare to accommodate a favored customer.

In addition to the He's superb cuisine, passengers were offered gratis an aperitif and a choice of fine vintage wines at luncheon on the first day. We took this as a commendable initial gesture on the part of one of the better-known importers, and were agreebly surprised when selected beverages of another importer made their appearance at dinner. Imagine our pleasure when still another merchant played host for the evening's gala, with all drinks on the house. Besides all this, expensive favors were freely distributed. The following day three different firms gratuitously stocked the beverage side of the menu. And so it went for each of the six days of the voyage. The ship was afloat in more senses than one. I rode the tide happily until the evening Chauvenet's Sparkling Red Cap and a rolling sea did me in.

But even in the privacy of a stateroom, one was exposed to the temptations of the bottle and other sybaritic enticements. Each cabin, received daily injections of miniature and not-so-miniature gift bottles of brandies and liqueurs, cigarettes and cigars, chocolates, flowers and perfume for the ladies, and other lavish souvenirs.

We reached Le Havre in a comatose state, and looked forward to a few relaxing days in Paris before visiting the wine districts. But any hopes of resting up were dashed when our tireless leaders plunged us into the daily schedule. In addition to large does of the usual sight-seeing, we previewed the Paris Exposition of 1937, lost our francs at the greyhound races at Courbevoie, and took in the Folies-Bergère and several fashion shows, (concluded on page 168) Through a Wineglass (continued from page 150) Conditioned by their shipboard experience, many of our group enthusiastically pursued their new penchant for collecting souvenirs. If no souvenirs were provided, they carried off what was portable, and for some of our more acquisitive types not even the Louvre and the Palais de Versailles were off limits. The log for the three-day stay also included an official reception and banquet, a lunch at which the growers of Burgundy uncorked some of their best bottles for our pleasure and, on our last night, a gay but exhausting finale offered by Cinzano at the Bal Tabarin.

Slit-eyed and bone-weary, we left Paris early the following morning in a fleet of buses headed for the Champagne country. At a brief ceremonial stop at Château-Thierry, we split up for visits to the leading champagne établissements. Phyllis and I went with a group of about 30 to the Bollinger caves at Ay. A tour through the cellars was followed by an exquisite luncheon catered by Prunier of Paris, which included Le Jambon de Bayonne, Le Brochet de la Loire dans sa Gelée with a Sauce Gribiche, and Le Caneton Lamberty, washed down with copious draughts of Bollinger's Extra Quality Brut (1914 and 1920) and topped off with a masterful Marc de Champagne (1917). As a special souvenir of the visit, each guest was presented with a graceful shallow silver tasting cup engraved with the date.

We remounted our bus in a pleasant haze. Next stop was Reims, where we rejoined the main party for a tour of the cathedral and a reception and dinner tendered by the Syndicat du Commerce des Vins de Champagne. The Hôtel de Ville was adorned with French and American flags, the tables were piled high with all manner of delicacies for those who still cared about eating. I couldn't tell you what food was served, but I do have an indelible recollection of champagne, more champagne and still more champagne--the most, surely, that was ever gathered in one place for consumption at one time. The black-frocked dignitaries of the town and Syndicat never got off their prolix phrases on Franco-American friendship. There was no audience to hear them. The rivers of champagne, pouring forth in such ceaseless abundance, had carried away with them all remaining inhibitions. I hold the memory of a swilling, swaying, swinging, singing, dancing, prancing throng of my fellow travelers--their glasses long since discarded--who drank from their bottles and waved them about. Some took aim and squirted their neighbors with the golden fizz. Some left the hall with their bottles and wandered noisily up and down the streets. Some sang questionable ditties on the cathedral steps. An obstinate few perched atop one of the buses and kept spurning the driver's entreaties to climb down. I don't suppose it was more disorderly than some of our classic conventions, but imagine a convention with champagne in prodigal amounts served absolutely free!

Before the effects had fully worn off, we entrained for Bordeaux, where more goodies were in store. Again, our formidable company was broken up into smaller groups that were theoretically more manageable. Our visit to the old house of Cruse & Fils Frères was a happily uneventful afternoon of wine and sunshine. I found most appealing the lovely vistas of vineyards showing the first blooms of early spring. That evening the Bordeaux Syndicat des Vins, not to be outdone by its competitors of Burgundy and Champagne, produced a magnificent feast to the accompaniment of a glorious succession of Bordeaux greats that climaxed with a classic Latour '21.

The next day we staggered on to Cognac, a busy town of 16,000, for a visit to its famed brandy distilleries and, heaven help us, another sumptuous banquet. The higher proof of the local liquor posed a new challenge to our tosspots. The French did not appreciate it when one of our number, in a sudden fit of chauvinism, pulled out a bottle of Old Taylor and loudly acclaimed its virtues.

France's liqueur and cordial makers were our hosts on the final day. Phyllis and I were in a party of 100 or more who headed for Fécamp, on the Normandy coast between Le Havre and Dieppe, where the Bénédictine Distillery is located. Although it had been a commercial enterprise for some years, the plant retained the lugubrious air of the monastery it once was. In one room--possibly a vestigial link with its religious past--pallid teenaged orphans were patiently wrapping each bottle in its tissue enclosure. We dutifully went the rounds, and were about to leave with the inevitable gift bottles when an officer of the firm that imports Bénédictine to the United States beckoned to us. Mme. Le Grand, truly la grande dame of the establishment, had invited a privileged few to join her for a commemorative glass in the family's private chamber.

About a dozen of us were guided to a high vaulted room heavy with rich tapestries and massive oak furniture. In this setting, flanked by two of her sons, Mme. Le Grand looked frail and tiny, but she carried herself with surpassing dignity. At her command, a flunky opened a huge cabinet, bringing forth an ancient bottle and a set of magnificent fluted glasses. Mme. Le Grand filled the glasses, pouring with a steady hand, and handed them to the guests. The venerable lady spoke briefly in French, then, in English that was quaint but lucid, she offered a toast to the company, imparting a special warmth to her words. It was a sentient moment, and we all stood silent. I was standing next to a beret-clad New Jersey retailer who had wandered in by mistake. He seemed awed by the occasion, but was the first to break the silence. "Bottoms up!" he shouted, drained the liqueur at a gulp--and put the glass in his pocket.

That evening a jaded, droopy, souvenir-laden band boarded the lovely He at Le Havre for the return voyage. Again, the daily schedule called for the wine and liquor firms to play host on every possible occasion, but the sauce had lost its savor. The more durable passengers went through the motions of partygoing. They were joined by replacements for a few members of our original group who had fallen by the wayside somewhere in France. These fresh recruits had been unaware, at the time of booking passage, that their crossing to New York was to be other than routine; they were wide-eyed at the wonderment of it all. Meanwhile, some of our seasoned drinkers, bored with conviviality en masse, sought solace in the ship's bar, where it was actually possible to pay for a drink.

Throughout the trip the ship's gym and steam room were crowded with penitents frantically trying to get themselves back in shape. Morning and evening the decks were crowded with determined walkers. Some of our shipmates released their energies in a last burst of uninhibited souvenir collecting. Silverware, ashtrays, demitasse cups--almost anything that wasn't tied or welded down--disappeared from view. The situation got so bad that the day before our arrival in New York the passengers were warned by the line that unless pilfered items were returned, there would be an intensive search of each cabin. Arumor also went the rounds that a certain French museum had cabled the ship demanding the return of objects d'art which had vanished the day our hoard of locusts had swept through the premises. The threats were never public'y carried out. Perhaps some of the missing loot was returned. But the Customs men at the New York pier were confronted with a conglomeration of curios rivaling those of Citizen Kane, not to mention a stupefying amassment of bottles ranging from miniatures to jeroboams.

When we finally stepped from the pier into Manhattan's spring sunshine, there was an added meaning to the old cliché "to set foot on dry land." I can't honestly say that my days of wine and liquor made a teetotalitarian out of me, but they did help keep me out of the gutter. The next year a second shipload set sail on the Good Will Tour to Italy. When I heard about it I had twinges of nostalgia, not to mention nausea. But by that time I had put the American Wine and Liquor Journal and its temptations behind me.