Paladin of Wine

In dry Manhattan arrived last week damp London's courtly George Reeves Smith Esq., perhaps England's leading paladin and patron of the wine. Most smart U. S. citizens have stopped at one or another of his luxury hotels-- the Berkeley, Claridge's, the Savoy--but few know that the presumably go-getting General Director of these up-to-date hostels is in fact contemplative Mr. Reeves-Smith, venerable doyen of British wine connoisseurs.

Recently appraised at three-quarters of a million dollars was the General Director's unique 15,000-volume library of curious wine lore. More valuable still, however, are the super-sensitive taste-buds on his tongue, and the keen olfactory sense which enables Mr, Reeves-Smith to classify most wines by merely sniffing their bouquet. For 35 years he has passed upon every vintage offered for purchase to the Savoy. Just now he is enjoying a brief U. S. vacation, resting his taste buds, sticking strictly and amiably for a fortnight to legal U. S. mineral water and the hotel business.

"I came to America to see what's at the bottom of all this 'Prosperity' of yours." said the General Director last week in his suite at Manhattan's Ambassador. "Take bathrooms for instance. Extr'ord'nary how little your hotel men spend on bathrooms! They tell me one really can't pay over $1,500 in New York for a bathroom with the finest standard fittings. Now in London what do you suppose we have to pay? Not less than -L-1,000, or almost 5,000 of your dollars!" Though obviously keen to plunge into the riddles of "Prosperity" and "Standardization," tall, snowy-haired Connoisseur George Reeves-Smith soon consented to answer several questions which are riddles to many a U. S. traveler in Europe. Questions such as: "Which are the rarest and finest wines?" "Should Chaateau Yquem be iced, or Chaateau Lafite warmed?" "Which wines ought one to drink with the soup, fish, roast, fowl?" "At a mixed dinner of ladies and gentlemen in a restaurant is it smart or vulgar to drink exclusively cocktails and Champagne?"

Regretfully, disapprovingly Connoisseur George Reeves-Smith placed the tips of his fingers together and said, "Since the War we have become as bad a cocktail and Champagne country as you ever were in America. I am speaking not of the Americans who come to London but of English people themselves. They are drinking more cocktails all the time, and the Vermouth dealers are making fortunes. As for Champagne it is crowding all the other wines out of our smart restaurants. The women are responsible; they always want Champagne! Every year they want it sweeter, more heavily liquored. And after a meal what is their favorite liqueur? Creme de menthe! I suppose because they like the green color and sickly sweetness." Asked what wines he would serve at a dinner of connoisseurs, Mr. Reeves-Smith quickly replied, "If some men were coming in to dine with me, we would have Sherry with the soup, Moselle with the fish, and then we should really begin--we should start drinking clarets!" If to some tyros "claret" means the cheapest sort of vinegary red wine, it means to the initiate a splendorous ascending scale of Bordeaux reds, culminating in massive, regal Chaateau Haut-Brion and finally in sublime Chateau Lafite, a wine possessing so grand a flavor and bouquet as to make mere Champagne an anticlimax. After recovering from the ecstacy of sniffing and sipping red Chateau Lafite. however, Mr. George Reeves-Smith likes to end with a white Chateau Yquem, "the sweetest, most wonderful of wines." "I never drink any of the wine when I test it," he continued. "That's what most people think is done, but if I swallowed it I couldn't taste its flavor. I look at the color, smell for bouquet, take a little in my mouth to get the taste, and then spit it out. Incidentally America has some of the best water I have ever tasted." Worth memorizing is the fact that 1921 was a "great year" not only for Chaateau Yquem but for almost every white wine of note in France or Germany. Memorable too are Chaateau Lafite 1920 and Chaateau Haut-Brion 1921. Due to the craze for Champagne, these superb red and white Bordeaux, the wines of connoisseurs, sell commonly for a trifle less than a good bot tle of "bubbly." Of course Bordeaux of the very oldest and greatest years, such as Chaateau Yquem 1874 or Chaateau Haut-Brion 1875, are well nigh unobtainable at any price. Preferred brands of Champagne are Clicquot Veuve, R. Bollinger and G. H. Mumm. Generally speaking the correspondence of wines to food is : red meat -- red wine ; white meat -- white wine. Markedly sweet wines, however, are not to be served with meat at all. Thus Sherry goes with either soup or dessert, Chaateau Yquem always with dessert. As to preparing wines for the table, white vintages should be well iced in bottle; but red wines ought to be decanted some hours before serving, placed in the dining room, and allowed gradually to assume its temperature. Absolutely ruinous to the bouquet of any wine, according to Mr. Reeves-Smith, is the awful vandalism of "taking the chill off" by setting the dacanter in hot water. A simple brandy of the finer sort is today the only liqueur taken by smart males and connoisseurs, in the experience of the Director General. But smart women go in for everything from Creme de Menthe, Chartreuse and Cointreau to liqueur vodka. "The vilest, most scorching, absolutely abominable drink I can call to mind," growled Connoisseur Reeves-Smith, concluding his homily, "is Russian vodka! It scorches ten times worse than the rawest whiskey. I should as soon drink pickled herrings!" The General Director's youth and apprenticeship in wine tasting were spent in France. For almost two score years he has been guiding the destinies of British hotels, and of late years he has taken over that historic, intensely robust restaurant called Simpson's-in-the-Strand, haunt of all sportsmen who love their beef and game. During the War so many hogsheads of wine were tapped and tampered with en route across the Channel that Mr. Reeves-Smith was obliged to taste personally the wine "in every cask bought by his hotels. Today the honesty of Channel sailormen is back to normal, however, and it suffices to taste a sample from each batch of hogsheads. "At present we have more than $1,500,000 in wines in our cellars at Dover," declared the General Director. "Probably enough to last our three hotels for about two and a half years." The War took Mr. Reeves-Smith's only son, left him his only daughter. "My wife won't let me ride in airplanes," he says. "But every morning I ride in the Row from half after seven to quarter past eight. Before his illness the King would leave Buckingham Palace to ride in the Row about eight ten or eight fifteen. I suppose it is well known that His Majesty likes a whiskey-soda as well as most of his subjects--any good whiskey. I have never heard that he prefers a particular brand."