Sublime

other producers in the area. Marqués de Murrieta Rioja Gran Reserva

Château d’Yquem is often described as the world’s most expensive wine. During its long history, it has attracted admirers as varied as Thomas Jefferson, Napoléon, the czars of Russia, Stalin, Ronald Reagan, and Prince Charles, all of them drawn to the wine’s luminous golden complexion and its luscious, creamy taste. Fewer than eighty thousand bottl

Bâtard-Montrachet

He prided himself on his ability to judge by appearances, a pardonable weakness in one who was already fifty—an age when an intelligent, well-to-do man of the world always starts to take himself seriously, sometimes even against his better judgement.

Perhaps a glass of Madeira? They have an excellent sercial here, that I can conscientiously recommend.’

It was a tribute to Léon de Valmy’s rather overwhelming personality that my own first impression had nothing to do with his crippled state; it was merely that this was the handsomest man I had ever seen. My experience, admittedly, had not been large, but in any company he would have been conspicuous. The years had only added to his extraordinary go

We know from the letter-books of King Jayme II of Aragon (1291–1327) that he cultivated an extensive network of informers in Italy and elsewhere. His surviving letter-books record an impressive fifteen thousand items of incoming intelligence.33 The king received information from a wide variety of correspondents, including Cristiano Spinola, a merch