Upon the principle, I suppose, of the nearer the church, the further from God, Bordeaux is by no means a good place for good ordinary wine; on the contrary, the stuff they give you for every-day tipple is positively poor, and very flavourless. In southern Burgundy, the most ordinary of the wines is capital. At Macon, for a quarter of a handful of sous they give you nectar; at the little town of Tain, where the Rhone sweeps gloriously round the great Hermitage rock, they give you something better than nectar for less. But the ordinary Bordeaux wine is very ordinary indeed; not quite so red-inky, perhaps, as the _Vin de Surenne_, which, Brillat Savarin says, requires three men to swallow a glassful--the man who drinks, and the friends who uphold him on either side, and coax, and encourage him; but still meagre and starveling, as if it had been strained through something which took the virtue out of it. Of course, the best of wine can be had by the simple process of paying for it, but I am talking of the ordinary work-a-day tipple of the place. A few days' lounging in Bordeaux over, and hearing that the vintage was in full operation, I put myself into a respectable little omnibus, and started for the true claret country. In a couple of hours I was put down at the door of the only auberge in the tiny village of Margaux, and to any traveller who may hereafter wish to visit the famous wine district, I cordially commend "The Rising Sun," kept by the worthy "Mere Cadillac." There you will have a bedroom clean and bright as a Dutch parlour; a grand old four-poster of the ancient regime, something between a bed and a cathedral; a profusion of linen deliciously white and sweet smelling; and _la Mere_ will toss you up a nice little potage, and a cotelette done to a turn, and an omelette which is perfection; and she will ask you, in the matter of wine, whether you prefer _ordinaire_ or _vieux_? and when you reply, _Vieux et du meilleur_, she will presently bustle in with a glorious long-necked, cobwebby flask, the first glass of which will induce you to lean back in a tranquil state of general happiness, and contemplate with satisfaction even the naughty doings of the wicked Marguerite of Burgundy, and her sisters Blanche and Henriette, with Buridan and Gaulnay, in the _Tour de Nesle_--illustrations of which popular tragedy deck the walls on every side.