I.
/The Champagne Vinelands--The Vineyards of the River./
The vinelands in the neighbourhood of Epernay--Viticultural area
of the Champagne--A visit to the vineyards of 'golden plants'--The
Dizy vineyards--Antiquity of the Ay vineyards--St. Tresain and
the wine-growers of Ay--The Ay vintage of 1871--The Mareuil
vineyards and their produce--Avernay; its vineyards, wines, and
ancient abbey--The vineyards of Mutigny and Cumières--Damery
and 'la belle hôtesse' of Henri Quatre--Adrienne Lecouvreur
and the Maréchal de Saxe's matrimonial schemes--Pilgrimage to
Hautvillers--Remains of the Royal Abbey of St. Peter--The ancient
church--Its quaint decorations and monuments--The view from the
heights of Hautvillers--The abbey vineyards and wine-cellars in the
days of Dom Perignon--The vinelands of the Côte d'Epernay--Pierry
and its vineyard cellars--The Moussy, Vinay, and Ablois St. Martin
vineyards--The Côte d'Avize--Chavot, Monthelon, Grauves, and
Cuis--The vineyards of Cramant and Avize, and their light delicate
white wines--The Oger and Le Mesnil vineyards--Vertus and its
picturesque ancient remains--Its vineyards planted with Burgundy
grapes from Beaune--The red wine of Vertus a favourite beverage of
William III. of England.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE BOURSAULT.]
With the exception of certain famous vineyards of the Rhône, the
vinelands of the Champagne may, perhaps, be classed among the most
picturesque of the more notable vine-districts of France. Between
Paris and Epernay, even, the banks of the Marne present a series of
scenes of quiet beauty. The undulating ground is everywhere cultivated
like a garden. Handsome châteaux and charming country houses peep
out from amid luxuriant foliage. Picturesque antiquated villages
line the river's bank or climb the hill-sides, and after leaving La
Ferté-sous-Jouarre, the cradle of the Condés, all the more favoured
situations commence to be covered with vines.
This is especially the case in the vicinity of Château-Thierry--the
birthplace of La Fontaine--where the view is shut in on all sides by
vine-clad slopes, which the spring frosts seldom spare. Hence merely
one good vintage out of four gladdens the hearts of the peasant
proprietors, who find eager purchasers for their produce among the
lower-class manufacturers of Champagne. In the same way the _petit vin
de Chierry_, dexterously prepared and judiciously mingled with other
growths, often figures as 'Fleur de Sillery' or 'Ay Mousseux.' In
reality it is not until we have passed the ornate modern Gothic château
of Boursault, erected in her declining years by the wealthy Veuve
Clicquot, by far the shrewdest manipulator of the sparkling products
of Ay and Bouzy of her day, and the many towers and turrets of which,
rising above umbrageous trees, crown the loftiest height within eyeshot
of Epernay, that we find ourselves in that charmed circle of vineyards
whence Champagne--the wine, not merely of princes, as it has been
somewhat obsequiously termed, but essentially the _vin de société_--is
derived.
The vinelands in the vicinity of Epernay, and consequently near the
Marne, are commonly known as the 'Vineyards of the River,' whilst
those covering the slopes in the neighbourhood of Reims are termed the
'Vineyards of the Mountain.' The Vineyards of the River comprise three
distinct divisions--first, those lining the right bank of the Marne
and enjoying a southern and south-eastern aspect, among which are Ay,
Hautvillers, Cumières, Dizy, and Mareuil; secondly, the Côte d'Epernay
on the left bank of the river, of which Pierry, Moussy, and Vinay form
part; and thirdly, the Côte d'Avize (the region _par excellence_ of
white grapes), which stretches towards the south-east, and includes the
vinelands of Cramant, Avize, Oger, Le Mesnil, and Vertus. The entire
vineyard area is upwards of 40,000 acres.[378]
The Champagne vineyards most widely celebrated abroad are those of Ay
and Sillery, although the last named are really the smallest in the
Champagne district. Ay, distant only a few minutes by rail from Epernay,
is in the immediate centre of the Vinelands of the River, having Mareuil
and Avenay on the east, and Dizy, Hautvillers, and Cumières on the west;
while Sillery lies at the foot of the so-called Mountain of Reims, and
within an hour's drive of the old cathedral city.
It was on one of those occasional sunshiny days in the early part of
October[379] when we first visited Ay--the vineyard of 'golden plants,'
the unique _premier cru_ of the Wines of the River--and the various
adjacent vinelands. The road lay between two rows of closely-planted
poplar-trees reaching almost to the village of Dizy, whose quaint gray
church-tower, with its gabled roof, is dominated by the neighbouring
vine-clad slopes, which extend from Avenay to Venteuil, some few
miles beyond Hautvillers, the cradle, so to speak, of the _vin
mousseux_ of the Champagne. The vineyards of Dizy, the upper soil of
which is largely mixed with loose stones, have chiefly a southern or
western aspect, and, excepting in the case of the precipitous height
suggestively styled 'Grimpe Chat,' their incline is generally a gentle
one. In these vineyards, which rank among the _premiers crus_ of the
Champagne, a quantity of wine from white grapes is regularly made.
From Dizy the road runs immediately at the base of vine-clad slopes,
broken up occasionally by a conical peak detaching itself from the
mass, and tinted from base to summit with richly-variegated hues,
among which deep purple, yellow, green, gray, and crimson by turns
predominate. On our right hand we pass a vineyard called Le Léon, which
tradition asserts to be the one whence Pope Leo the Magnificent, the
patron of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, drew his supply of
Ay wine. The village of Ay lies immediately before us at the foot of
the slopes of vines, with the tapering spire of its ancient church
rising above the neighbouring hills and cutting sharply against
the bright blue sky. The vineyards, which spread themselves over a
calcareous declivity, have mostly a full southern aspect, and the
predominating vines are those known as golden plants, the fruit of
which is of a deep purple colour. After these comes the _plant vert
doré_, and then a moderate proportion of the _plant gris_, white
varieties of grapes being no longer cultivated as formerly.[380]
[Illustration: DIZY AND ITS VINEYARD SLOPES.]
The Ay vineyards are mentioned in a charter of Edmund of Lancaster,
son of our Henry II. and guardian of Jehanne, heiress of Henri le
Gros, Count of Champagne, dated 1276, and confirming the right of
the Abbey of Avenay to four hogsheads of wine from the _terroir_ of
Ay.[381] If faith, however, may be placed in monkish legends, their
existence dates back to the sixth century, at which epoch St. Tresain,
the patron saint of Avenay and a contemporary of St. Remi, emigrated
to the Champagne from Scotland. Having given away all he possessed
in charity, he became perforce a swineherd at Mutigny, a village on
the summit of the hill overlooking Ay, Mareuil, and Avenay. One day
the vine-growers of Ay, hearing that St. Remi was at Ville-en-Selve,
sought him out, and clamorously accused St. Tresain of neglecting
to look after his pigs, which had devastated the vineyards on the
slopes, and so caused great loss to the community. When called upon
for his defence, St. Tresain acknowledged that he was wont to listen
in the church-porch to the celebration of mass, and to forget on these
occasions all such sublunary matters as swine. St. Remi, finding him so
deeply religious, not only forgave him his negligence and relieved him
from his porcine charge for the future, but appointed him parish priest
of Mareuil and Mutigny, the inhabitants of which, it is to be hoped,
received more attention from him than his pigs had done. St. Tresain,
although his promotion was brought about by the complaint of the men
of Ay, retorted on the latter in a vindictive and unsaintly spirit,
for he ill-naturedly cursed them, and declared that after thirty years
of age not one of them or their posterity should prosper temporally or
spiritually--a prophecy which, if it affected the vine-growers of that
epoch, has proved harmless enough in the case of their descendants.[382]
At Ay we visited the pressoir of the principal producer of _vin brut_,
who, although the owner of merely five hectares, or about twelve and
a half acres of vines, expected to make as many as 1500 pièces of
wine that year, mainly of course from grapes purchased from other
growers.[383] On our way from Ay to Mareuil, along the lengthy Rue
de Châlons, we looked in at the little auberge at the corner of the
Boulevard du Sud, and found a crowd of coopers and others connected in
some way with the vintage, taking their cheerful glasses round. The
walls of the room were appropriately enough decorated with capering
bacchanals squeezing bunches of purple grapes and flourishing their
thyrsi about in a very tipsy fashion. All the talk--and there was an
abundance of it--had reference to the yield of this particular vintage
and the high rate the Ay wine had realised. Eight hundred francs the
pièce of 200 litres, equal to 44 gallons, appeared to be the price
fixed by the agents of the great Champagne houses, and at this figure
the bulk of the vintage was disposed of before a single grape passed
through the winepress.[384]
[Illustration]
The Mareuil vinelands, which include the vineyard bequeathed some
six hundred years ago by Canon John de Brie to the chapter of Reims
cathedral, and possibly those vineyards bestowed in 1208 on the Abbey
of Avenay by Alain de Jouvincourt, cover the slopes of two coteaux,
the first a continuation of the Côte d'Ay, and the second a detached
spur, known as the Mont de Fourche, overlooking the Marne canal. Owing
to the steepness of the slopes and to the roads through the vineyards
being impracticable for carts, the grapes were being conveyed to the
press-houses in baskets slung across the backs of mules and donkeys,
most of which, on account of their known partiality for the ripe
fruit, were muzzled while thus employed. The wine yielded by the
Mareuil vineyards possesses body and vinosity, and while of course
regarded as inferior to that of Ay, found a ready market the year of
our visit at from five to six hundred francs the pièce. Prior to the
French Revolution, the produce of the winepresses of the Seigneurs
of Mareuil and the Abbess of Avenay were almost as renowned as the
best growths of Ay. The reputation of the wine was then shared by the
inhabitants of the village; the popular local diction, 'Les gens d'Ay,
les messieurs de Mareuil, et les crottés d'Avenay,' referring to the
days when the first was inhabited by enriched wine-growers, the second
by people of some position, and the third merely by peasants, simply
from its being cut off, in a great measure, from outside intercourse
through the badness of its approaches. It was not until after 1776,
when the _seigneurie_ of Louvois was purchased from the Marquis de
Souvré by Madame Adelaïde, aunt of Louis XVI., that the road from
Epernay to Louvois, which passes through Mareuil and Avenay, was,
if not constructed, at any rate rendered practicable, in order to
facilitate the visits of the princess to her new acquisition. These
roads exist, though no traces remain of the ancient fort of Mareuil on
the bank of the Marne, taken from the English in 1359 by Gaucher de
Chatillon, captain of Reims, and alternately occupied by Leaguers and
Royalists during the War of Religion in the sixteenth century. Nor does
there seem any chance of identifying either the 'vineyard called la
Gibaudelle, lying next the vineyard of Oudet, surnamed Leclerc,' in the
territory of Mareuil, which Guillaume de Lafors and Marguerite his wife
bestowed upon the Abbey of Avenay in 1273, or those from which, in the
fourteenth century, Archbishop Richard Pique of Reims used to draw ten
muids or hogsheads of wine annually for 'droits de vinage.'
[Illustration: AVENAY AS SEEN FROM THE RAILWAY.]
The vineyards of Avenay also date prior to the thirteenth century,
mention being frequently made of them in the charters of that
epoch.[385] Their best wine, which Saint Evremond extolled so highly,
is vintaged to-day up the slopes of Mont Hurlé. Avenay itself is a
tumbledown little village situated in the direction of Reims, and
the year of our visit we found the yield from its vineyards had been
scarcely more than the third of an average one, and that the wine
produced at the first pressure of the grapes had been sold for 500
francs the pièce. We tasted there some very fair still red wine, made
from the same grapes as Champagne, remarkably deep in colour, full
of body, and possessing that slight sweet bitterish flavour which
characterises certain of the better-class growths of the South of
France.
Although at Avenay vineyards cover the slopes as of yore, when
Marmontel used to wander amongst them in company with his inamorata
Mademoiselle Hévin de Navarre, no traces remain of the ancient royal
abbey--founded by St. Bertha in 660, on the martyrdom of her husband,
St. Gombert, one of the early Christian missionaries to Scotland--where
Charles V. took up his quarters when invading Champagne in 1544, and
where the deputies of the Leaguers of Reims and of the Royalists of
Châlons met in October 1592 to settle the terms of the 'Traité des
Vendanges,' securing to both parties liberty to gather in the vintage
unmolested.[386] The villagers still point out the house where Henri
Quatre slept, and the window from which he harangued the populace
during the visit paid by him to Madame Françoise de la Marck, the
Abbess of Avenay,[387] in August of the same year. This, by the
way, does not seem to have been the only occasion when the spot was
honoured by the presence of Royalty; for a tradition, which, although
unsupported by any documentary evidence, appears to be worthy of
credence, is current to the effect that Marie Antoinette paid a visit
to the Abbey of Avenay during her sojourn at Louvois as the guest of
Madame Adelaïde in 1786. The spring which, according to the legend,
gushed forth when St. Bertha, in imitation of Moses, struck the rock
with her distaff, is still shown to travellers; and scandal has gone
so far as to say that recourse is sometimes had to it to eke out the
native vintage.
On leaving Avenay we ascended the hills to Mutigny, and wound
round thence to Cumières, on the banks of the Marne, finding the
vintage in full operation all throughout the route. The vineyards
of Cumières--classed as a second cru--yield a wine which, though
celebrated in the verses of Eustache Deschamps, a famous and prolific
Champenois poet of the fourteenth century, varies to-day considerably
in quality, the best coming from the 'Côtes-à-bras,' the property of
the Abbey of Hautvillers in Dom Perignon's day. The Cumières vineyards
join those of Hautvillers on the one side and Damery on the other, the
latter a cosy little river-side village, where the _bon Roi Henri_
sought relaxation from the turmoils of war in the society of the fair
Anne du Pay, _sa belle hôtesse_, as the gallant Béarnais was wont
to style her. Damery also claims to be the birthplace of Adrienne
Lecouvreur, the celebrated actress of the Regency, and mistress of the
Maréchal de Saxe, who coaxed her out of her 30,000_l._ of savings to
enable him to prosecute his suit with the obese Anna Iwanowna, niece of
Peter the Great, which, had he only been successful, would have secured
the future hero of Fontenoy the coveted dukedom of Courland. From
Cumières can be distinguished far away on the horizon the ruined tower
of the _bourg_ of Châtillon, the birthplace of Pope Urban II., preacher
of the first Crusade, and a devotee of the wine of Ay.[388]
It was during the budding spring-time when we made our formal
pilgrimage to Hautvillers across the swollen waters of the Marne at
Epernay. Our way lay for a time along a straight level poplar-bordered
road, with verdant meadows on either hand; then diverged sharply to
the left, and we commenced ascending the vine-clad hills, on a narrow
plateau of which the church and abbey remains are picturesquely
perched. The closely-planted vines extend along the undulating slopes
to the summit of the plateau, and wooded heights rise up beyond,
affording shelter from the bleak winds that sweep over here from the
north. Spite of the reputation which the wine of Hautvillers enjoyed a
couple of centuries ago, and its association with the origin of _vin
mousseux_, the vineyards to-day appear to have been relegated to the
rank of a second cru, their produce ordinarily commanding less than
two-thirds of the price obtained for the Ay and Verzenay growths.[389]
The church of Hautvillers and the remains of the abbey are situated
at the farther extremity of the village, at the end of its one long
street, named, pertinently enough, the Rue de Bacchus. Time, the
iconoclasts of the great Revolution, and the quieter, yet far more
destructive, labours of the Bande Noire, have spared but little of the
royal abbey of St. Peter, where Dom Perignon lighted upon his happy
discovery of the effervescent quality of Champagne. The quaint old
church, scraps of which date back to the twelfth century, the remnants
of the cloisters, and one of the abbey's ancient gateways, are all that
remain to testify to the grandeur of its past, when it was the proud
boast of the brotherhood that it had given nine archbishops to the see
of Reims, and two-and-twenty abbots to various celebrated monasteries.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN AT A CAFÉ IN THE RUE DE BACCHUS, HAUTVILLERS.]
Passing through an unpretentious gateway, we find ourselves in a
spacious courtyard, bounded by buildings somewhat complex in character.
On our right rises the tower of the church with the remains of the
old cloisters, now walled-in and lighted by small square windows, and
propped up by heavy buttresses. To the left stands the residence of the
bailiff, and beyond it an eighteenth-century château on the site of
the abbot's house. Formerly the abbey precincts were bounded on this
side by a picturesque gateway-tower leading to the vineyards, and known
as the 'Porte des Pressoirs,' from its contiguity to the winepresses.
The court is enclosed on its remaining sides by huge barn-like
buildings, stables, and cart-sheds; while roaming about are numerous
live stock, indicating that what remains of the once-famous royal
abbey of St. Peter has degenerated into an ordinary farm. To-day the
abbey buildings and certain of its lands are the property of M. Paul
Chandon de Brialles, of the firm of Moët & Chandon, the great Champagne
manufacturers of Epernay, who maintains them as a farm, keeping some
six-and-thirty cows there, with the object of securing the necessary
manure for the numerous vineyards which the firm own hereabouts.
[Illustration: THE PORTE DES PRESSOIRS, ABBEY OF HAUTVILLERS
(Destroyed by fire in 1879).]
[Illustration: REMAINS OF CLOISTERS, ABBEY OF HAUTVILLERS.]
The dilapidated cloisters, littered with old casks, farm implements,
and the like, preserve ample traces of their former architectural
character, changed as they are since the days when the sandalled feet
of the worthy cellarer resounded through the echoing arches as he paced
to and fro, meditating upon coming vintages and future marryings of
wines. Vine-leaves and bunches of grapes decorate some of the more
ancient columns inside the church, and grotesque mediæval monsters,
such as monkish architects habitually delighted in, entwine themselves
around the capitals of others. The stalls of the choir are elaborately
carved with cherubs' heads, medallions and figures of saints, cupids
supporting shields, and free and graceful arabesques of the epoch of
the Renaissance. In the chancel, close by the altar-steps, are a couple
of black-marble slabs, with Latin inscriptions of dubious orthography,
the one to Johannes Royer, who died in 1527, and the other, which has
been already cited in detail, setting forth the virtues and merits of
Dom Petrus Perignon, the discoverer of the effervescing qualities of
Champagne. In the central aisle a similar slab marks the resting-place
of Dom Thedoricus Ruynart--obit 1709--an ancestor of the Reims
Ruinarts; and little square stones interspersed among the tiles with
which the side aisles of the church are paved record the deaths of
other members of the Benedictine brotherhood during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Several large pictures grace the walls of
the church, the most interesting one representing St. Nivard, Bishop
of Reims, and his friend, St. Berchier, designating to some mediæval
architect the site which the contemplated Abbey of St. Peter is to
occupy, as set forth in the legend already related.
[Illustration: FROM THE ABBEY CHURCH, HAUTVILLERS.]
[Illustration: FROM THE ABBEY CHURCH, HAUTVILLERS.]
At a short distance from the abbey farm, Messrs. Moët & Chandon have
erected a tower, whence a splendid view, extending over the vineyards
of Cumières, Hautvillers, Dizy, and Ay, with those lying on the
opposite bank of the river, is to be obtained. Gazing from here, it is
easy to imagine the scene presented in the days when the Abbey of St.
Peter still reared its stately walls, when Louis Chaumejan de Tourille
wore the abbatial insignia, and Dom Perignon displayed with equal
pride as the badge of his office the key of the abbey cellars. Over
these slopes on a dewy autumn morning the latter's eyes, ere sealed
in blindness, must have often wandered, and an unctuous chuckle must
have welled up from between his lips as he marked the grapes steadily
advancing towards maturity. We can fancy him pausing from time to time
'To breathe an ejaculatory prayer
And a benediction on the vines,'
although in those halcyon days there was neither oïdium nor phylloxera
to be dreaded, and an extra taper or so to St. Vincent, the patron of
vine-dressers, sufficed to secure the crop from ordinary accidents of
flood and field.
When the epoch of the vintage arrived, and the slopes were all alive
with bands of vintagers engaged in stripping the ripened purple bunches
from the vines, and carefully transporting them to the winepress,
one can picture Dom Perignon smiling contentedly at the report of
the gray-haired bailiff that no such crop had been garnered for
years before. And when the must began to gush forth as the stalwart
bare-armed peasants tugged at the levers of the huge press on which M.
de Tourille had placed the glorifying inscription elsewhere cited, with
what satisfaction must Perignon have recognised a foreshadowing of that
divine aroma which lends so exquisite a charm to the choice vintages of
the Champagne! Later on we can imagine him entering the abbey cellar,
stored with the results of his careful labours, as a
'sacred place,
With a thoughtful, solemn, and reverent pace,'
and softly chanting to himself, as he draws off a flagon of the best
and choicest vintage which the gloomy vaults contain:
'Ah, how the streamlet laughs and sings!
What a delicious fragrance springs
From the deep flagon as it fills,
As of hyacinths and daffodils!'
The vineyards of the Côte d'Epernay, on the southern bank of the
Marne, extend eastward from beyond Boursault, on whose wooded height
stands the fine château built by Madame Clicquot, and in which her
granddaughter, the Comtesse de Mortemart, to-day resides. They then
follow the course of the river, and, after winding round behind
Epernay, diverge towards the south-west. Amongst them are the slopes
of Pierry, Mardeuil, Moussy, Vinay, Ablois, and Chouilly, the last
named situate somewhat apart from the rest to the east of Epernay,
and yielding a light wine, qualified as slightly purgative. The vines
of the Côte d'Epernay produce only black grapes, and many of the
vineyards are of great antiquity, the one known as the Closet, near
Epernay, having been bequeathed under that name by a canon of Laon
named Parchasius to the neighbouring Abbey of St. Martin six and a half
centuries ago.
[Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF PIERRY.]
[Illustration: VINEYARD WINE-CELLARS AT PIERRY.]
A short drive along the high-road leading from Epernay to Orleans
brings us to the village of Pierry, cosily nestling amongst groves of
poplars in the valley of the Cubry, with some half-score of châteaux
of the last century, belonging to well-to-do wine-growers of the
neighbourhood, screened from the road by umbrageous gardens. Vines
mount the slopes that rise around, the higher summits being crowned
with forest, while here and there some pleasant village shelters
itself under the brow of a lofty hill. Near Pierry many cellars have
been excavated in the chalky soil, to the flints so prevalent in which
the village is said to owe its name. The entrances to these cellars
are closed by iron gateways, and on the skirts of the vineyards we
come upon whole rows of them picturesquely overgrown with ivy, and
suggestive in appearance of catacombs. Early in the last century the
wine vintaged here in the Clos St. Pierre, belonging to an abbey of
this name at Châlons, acquired a high reputation through the care
bestowed upon it by Brother Jean Oudart, whose renown almost rivalled
that of Dom Perignon himself; and to-day the Pierry vineyards,
producing exclusively black grapes, hold a high rank among the
second-class crus of the Marne.[390]
Crossing the Sourdon, a little stream which, after bubbling up in the
midst of huge rocks in the forest of Epernay, rushes down the hills,
and then changes its name to the Cubry, we soon reach Moussy, where
vineyards have been in existence for something like eight centuries;
for we find enumerated in the list of bequests made to the hospital of
St. Mary at Reims in the eleventh and twelfth centuries sundry 'vineas
in Moiseio' devised by such long-forgotten notabilities as Pontius,
priest and canon, Tebaldus Papilenticus, Johannes de Germania, and
Macela, wife of Pepinus. Spite, however, of their long pedigree and
advantageous southern aspect, the Moussy vineyards rank to-day merely
as a second cru. Continuing to skirt the vine-clad slopes we come to
Vinay, noted for an ancient grotto[391]--the former comfortless abode
of some rheumatic anchorite--and a pretended miraculous spring to
which fever-stricken pilgrims to-day credulously resort. The water may
possibly merit its renown; but the wine here produced is very inferior,
due no doubt to the class of vines, the meunier being the leading
variety cultivated. At Ablois St. Martin, once a fief of Mary Queen
of Scots, and picturesquely perched partway up a slope in the midst
of hills covered with vines and crowned with forest trees, the Côte
d'Epernay ends, and the produce becomes of a choicer character.
As the Côte d'Avize lies to the south-east, to reach it we have to
retrace our steps to Pierry, and follow the road which there branches
off, leaving on our right hand the vineyards of Chavot, Monthelon, and
Grauves, now of no particular note, although of undoubted antiquity,
Blanche of Castille, Countess of Champagne, having endowed the Abbey of
Argensolles, on its foundation in 1224, with sundry strips of vineland,
including one at Grauves, possibly the vineyard of Les Roualles,
which yields a wine not unlike certain growths of the Mountain of
Reims. After passing through Cuis, where the slopes, planted with
both black and white varieties of vines, are extremely abrupt, and
where Simon la Bole, man-at-arms of Epernay, and his wife Basile
gave, in 1210, 'four hogsheads of _vinage_ to be taken annually' to
Hugo, Abbot of St. Martin at Epernay, we eventually reach Cramant,
one of the grand _premiers crus_ of the Champagne. From the vineyards
around this picturesque little village, and extending along the
somewhat precipitous Côte de Saran--a prominent object, on which is M.
Moët's handsome château--there is vintaged a wine from white grapes,
especially remarkable for lightness and delicacy and the richness
of its bouquet, and an admixture of which is essential to every
first-class Champagne _cuvée_.
From Cramant the road runs direct to Avize, a large thriving village,
lying at the foot of vineyard slopes, where numerous Champagne firms
have established themselves. Its prosperity dates from the commencement
of the last century (1715), when the Count de Lhery, its feudal lord,
cleared away the remains of its ancient ramparts, filled up the
moat, and planted the ground with vines, the produce of which proved
admirably suited for the sparkling wines then coming into vogue.
Prior to this the Avize wine, made almost entirely from white grapes,
fetched only from 25 to 30 francs the queue; but being found well
adapted for the manufacture of the strongly-effervescent wine known
as _saute-bouchon_, it soon commanded as much as 300 francs, and the
arpent of vineyard rose in value from 250 to 2000 francs.[392] To-day
the light delicate wine of Avize is classed, like that of Cramant, as
a _premier cru_, and it is the same with the wine of Oger,[393] lying
a little to the south, while the neighbouring growths of Le Mesnil
hold a slightly inferior rank. The latter village and its gray Gothic
church lie under the hill in the midst of vines that almost climb the
forest-crowned summit. The stony soil hereabouts is said to be better
adapted to the cultivation of white than of black grapes; besides
which, the wines of Le Mesnil are remarkable for their effervescent
properties.
[Illustration: LE MESNIL AND ITS VINEYARDS.]
[Illustration: VIEW OF VERTUS.]
Vertus forms the southern limit of the Côte d'Avize, and the vineyard
slopes subsiding at their base into a broad expanse of fertile
fields, and crested as usual with dense forest, rise up behind the
picturesque old town, which is mentioned in a letter of the Emperor
Louis and a charter of Charles the Bald in the ninth century. It was
once strongly fortified, though a dilapidated gateway is all that
to-day remains of the ancient ramparts, which failed to secure it in
1380, when the English, under the 'Comte de Bouquingouan,' presumably
Buckingham, burnt the whole of the town except the Abbey of St.
Martin, and elicited from the native poet, Eustache Deschamps, _dit_
Morel, 'huissier d'armes' to Charles VI. and castellan of Fismes, a
lamentation, wherein he fails not to mention the high renown of the
local vintage.[394]
[Illustration: OLD HOUSES AT VERTUS.]
Vertus can still boast a curious old church of the eleventh century,
with solid Romanesque towers, elaborate mouldings, and richly
ornamented capitals; also a picturesque promenade, shaded with
centenarian trees, together with several quaint old houses, including
one with a florid Gothic window surrounded by a border of grapes and
vine-leaves, and another with a quaintly projecting corner turret,
dominated by a conical roof. The Vertus vineyards are mentioned in a
charter of the Abbey of Ste. Marie, dated 1151. They were originally
planted with vines from Beaune in Burgundy, and in the fourteenth
century yielded a red wine held in high repute, of pleasant flavour,
and rich in perfume,[395] but which would appear to have been imbued
with those purgative properties[396] traceable in other growths of the
Champagne. The red wine of Vertus formed the favourite beverage of
William III. of England, and was long in high repute. To-day, however,
the growers find it more profitable to make white instead of red wine
from their crops of black grapes, the former commanding a good price
for conversion into _vin mousseux_, from being in the opinion of some
manufacturers especially valuable for binding a _cuvée_ together. The
Vertus growths rank among the second-class Champagne crus.[397]
[Illustration: SILLERY AND ITS VINEYARDS.]
II.
/The Champagne Vinelands--The Vineyards of the Mountain./
The wine of Sillery--Origin of its renown--The Maréchale
d'Estrées a successful Marchande de Vin--The Marquis de Sillery
the greatest wine-farmer in the Champagne--Cossack appreciation
of the Sillery produce--The route from Reims to Sillery--Henri
Quatre and the Taissy wines--Failure of the Jacquesson
system of vine cultivation--Château of Sillery--Wine-making
at M. Fortel's--Sillery sec--The vintage at Verzenay and
the vendangeoirs--Renown of the Verzenay wine--The Verzy
vineyards--Edward III. at the Abbey of St. Basle--Excursion
from Reims to Bouzy--The herring procession at St. Remi--Rilly,
Chigny, and Ludes--The Knights Templars' 'pot' of wine--Mailly and
the view over the Champagne plains--Wine-making at Mailly--The
village in the wood--Château and park of Louvois, Louis le
Grand's War Minister--The vineyards of Bouzy--Its church-steeple,
and the lottery of the great gold ingot--Pressing grapes at
the Werlé vendangeoir--Still red Bouzy--Ambonnay--A pattern
peasant vine-proprietor--The Ambonnay vintage--The vineyards of
Ville-Dommange and Sacy, Hermonville and St. Thierry--The still red
wine of the latter.
[Illustration: TOWER AND GATEWAY OF THE CHÂTEAU DE SILLERY.]
The vineyards of the Mountain of Reims may be divided into two zones,
one of which, known as the Basse Montagne, is situate north-west
of Reims, and comprises the vineyards of St. Thierry, Marsilly,
Hermonville, and others; whilst the more important zone lies to the
south of the old cathedral city, and includes the better-known crus
of Sillery, Verzy, Verzenay, Mailly, Ludes, Chigny, and Rilly. The
vinelands of Bouzy and Ambonnay are also reckoned within it, though
situate somewhat apart on a southern slope of the Mountain some few
miles from the Marne.
The smallest of the Champagne vineyards are those of Sillery, and yet
no wine of the Marne enjoys a greater renown, due originally to the
intelligence and energy of the family of the Brularts, Marquises of
Sillery and Puisieux, to whom the estate originally belonged, and who
seem to have devoted great attention to viticulture from certainly the
middle of the seventeenth century. The reputation of the still wine of
Sillery, 'the highest manifestation of the divinity of Bacchus in all
France,' was firmly established at this epoch. 'As to M. de Puyzieux,'
writes St. Evremond to his friend Lord Galloway in August 1701, 'he
acts wisely to fall in with the bad taste now in fashion concerning
Champagne in order to sell his own the better;' but at the same time
he counsels his correspondent to get the marquis to make him 'a little
barrel after the fashion in which it was made forty years before, prior
to the existing depravation of taste.'[398] The marquis here referred
to was Roger Brulart, Governor of Epernay, who was himself a joyous
_bon vivant_, and died from over-indulgence in the good things provided
at a dinner given by the Chartreux in 1719.[399] He was succeeded by
his nephew, Louis Philogène Brulart, Marquis de Sillery et de Puisieux,
to whom, in 1727, on the occasion of his marriage with Mademoiselle de
Souvré, granddaughter of Louvois, the Sieurs Quatresous and Chertemps
presented at his château of Sillery, on behalf of the town of Epernay,
a basket of one hundred flasks of wine.[400] He died in 1771, leaving
an only daughter, Adelaïde Félicité Brulart de Sillery, married, in
1744, to Louis César le Tellier, Maréchal Duc d'Estrées.
The wine attained its apogee under the fostering care of the Maréchale
d'Estrées, to whom not only this cru, but those of Mailly, Verzy, and
Verzenay belonged, and who concentrated their joint produce in the
capacious cellars of her château, afterwards sending it forth with her
own guarantee, under the general name of Sillery, which, like Aaron's
serpent, thus swallowed up the others. The Maréchale's social position
enabled her to secure for her wines the recognition they really
merited, being made with the utmost care and a rare intelligence, shown
by the removal of every unripe, rotten, or imperfect grape from the
bunches before pressing, so that the _Vin de la Maréchale_, as it was
styled, became famous throughout Europe.[401] This lady is not to be
confounded with that other Maréchale d'Estrées mentioned by St. Simon,
noted for her exquisite and magnificent although rare entertainments,
and so sordid that when her daughter, who was covered with jewels, fell
down at a ball, her first cry was, not like Shylock's, 'My daughter!'
but 'My diamonds!' as, rushing forward, she strove to pick up, not the
fallen dancer, but her scattered gems.
Later owners of the famous Sillery cru did their best to sustain its
reputation, and Arthur Young, who stopped here in 1787, speaks of the
Marquis de Sillery as 'the greatest wine-farmer in the Champagne,'
having on his own hands 180 arpents of vines, and cellar-room for a
couple of hundred pièces of wine.[402] Among more recent appreciation
of the merits of Sillery sec may be mentioned the Cossacks, who
pillaged the district in 1814, and who, not being able to carry off all
the wine from the cellar of the Count de Valence at Sillery, stove in
some thirty pièces of the best, and set the place afloat.[403]
The drive from Reims to Sillery has nothing attractive about it. A
long, straight, level road bordered by trees intersects a broad tract
of open country, skirted on the right by the Petite Montagne of Reims,
with antiquated villages nestled among the dense woodland. After
crossing the Châlons line of railway--near where one of the new forts
constructed for the defence of Reims rises up behind the villages and
vineyards of Cernay and Nogent l'Abbesse--the country becomes more
undulating. Poplars border the broad Marne canal, and a low fringe of
foliage marks the course of the languid river Vesle, on the banks of
which is Taissy, famous in the old days for its wines, great favourites
with Sully, and which almost lured Henri Quatre from his allegiance to
the vintages of Ay and Arbois that he loved so well.[404]
To the left rises Mont de la Pompelle, where the first Christians of
Reims suffered martyrdom, and where, in 1658, the Spaniards under
Montal, when attempting to ravage the vineyards of the district,
were repulsed with terrible slaughter by the Rémois militia, led on
by Grandpré. A quarter of a century ago the low ground on our right
near Sillery was planted with vines by the late M. Jacquesson, the
then owner of the Sillery estate, and a large Champagne manufacturer
at Châlons, who was anxious to resuscitate the ancient reputation
of the domain. Under the advice of Dr. Guyot, the well-known writer
on viticulture, he planted the vines in deep trenches, which led to
the vineyards being punningly termed Jacquesson's _celery_ beds. To
shield the vines from hailstorms prevalent in the district, and the
more dangerous spring frosts, so fatal to vines planted in low-lying
situations, long rolls of straw-matting were stored close at hand with
which to roof them over when needful. These precautions were scarcely
needed, however; the vines languished through moisture at the roots,
and eventually were mostly rooted up.
[Illustration: HENRI QUATRE.]
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE SILLERY.]
After again crossing the railway we pass the trim restored turrets
of the famous château of Sillery, with its gateways, moats, and
drawbridges, flanked by trees and floral _parterres_. It was here that
the stout squire Laurent Pichiet kept watch and ward over the 'forte
maison de Sillery' on behalf of the Archbishop of Reims at the close
of the fourteenth century, that the Maréchale d'Estrées carried on her
successful business as a _marchande de vins_, and that the pragmatic
and pedantic Comtesse de Genlis, governess of the Orleans princes,
spent, as she tells us, the happiest days of her life. The few thriving
vineyards of Sillery cover a gentle eminence which rises out of the
plain, and present on the one side an eastern and on the other a
western aspect. They have fallen somewhat from their high estate since
the days when old Coffin of Beauvais University sang their praises in
Latin:
'Let Horace the charms of old Massica own,
And the praise of Falernian sound;
Such wines, although famous, must bow to that grown
On Sillery's fortunate ground.'[405]
To-day the Vicomte de Brimont and M. Fortel of Reims, the latter
of whom cultivates some forty acres of vines, yielding ordinarily
about 300 hogsheads, are the only wine-growers at Sillery. Before
pressing his grapes--of course for sparkling wine--M. Fortel has them
thrown into a trough, at the bottom of which are a couple of grooved
cylinders, each about eight inches in diameter, and revolving in
contrary directions, the effect of which, when set in motion, is to
disengage the grapes partially from their stalks. Grapes and stalks are
then placed under the press, which is on the old cider-press principle,
and the must runs into a reservoir beneath, whence it is pumped into
large vats, each holding from 250 to 500 gallons. Here it remains
from six to eight hours, and is then run off into casks, the spigots
of which are merely laid lightly over the holes, and in the course of
twelve days the wine begins to ferment. It now rests until the end of
the year, when it is drawn off into new casks and delivered to the
buyer, invariably one or other of the great Champagne houses, who
willingly pay an exceptionally high price for it. The second and third
pressures of the grapes yield an inferior wine, and from the husks and
stalks _eau-de-vie_, worth about five shillings a gallon, is distilled.
The wine known as Sillery sec is a full, dry, pleasant-flavoured,
and somewhat spirituous amber-coloured wine. Very little of it is
made nowadays, and most that is comes from the adjacent vineyards of
Verzenay and Mailly, and is principally reserved by the growers for
their own consumption. One of these candidly admitted that the old
reputation of the wine had exploded, and that better white Bordeaux
and Burgundy wines were to be obtained for less money. In making dry
Sillery, which locally is esteemed as a valuable tonic, it is essential
that the grapes should be subjected to only slight pressure; while to
have it in perfection it is equally essential that the wine should be
kept for ten years in the wood according to some, and eight years in
bottle according to others, to which circumstance its high price is in
all probability to be attributed. In course of time it forms a deposit,
and has the disadvantage common to all the finer still wines of the
Champagne district of not travelling well.
Beyond Sillery the vineyards of Verzenay unfold themselves, spreading
over the extensive slopes and stretching to the summit of the steep
height to the right, where a windmill or two are perched. Everywhere
the vintagers are busy detaching the grapes with their little
hook-shaped _serpettes_, the women all wearing projecting close-fitting
bonnets, as though needlessly careful of their anything but blonde
complexions. Long carts laden with baskets of grapes block the narrow
roads, and donkeys, duly muzzled, with panniers slung across their
backs, toil up and down the steeper slopes. Half-way up the principal
hill, backed by a dense wood and furrowed with deep trenches, whence
soil has been removed for manuring the vineyards, is the village of
Verzenay--where in the Middle Ages the Archbishop of Reims had a
fief--overlooking a veritable sea of vines. Rising up in front of the
old gray cottages, encompassed by orchards or gardens, are the white
walls and long red roofs of the vendangeoirs belonging to the great
Champagne houses--Moët & Chandon, Clicquot, G. H. Mumm, Roederer, Deutz
& Geldermann, and others--all teeming with bustle and excitement, and
with the vines almost reaching to their very doors. Messrs. Moët &
Chandon have as many as eight presses in full work, and own no less
than 120 acres of vines on the neighbouring slopes, besides the Clos de
Romont--in the direction of Sillery, and yielding a wine of the Sillery
type--belonging to M. Raoul Chandon. Verzenay ranks as a _premier cru_,
and for three years in succession--1872, 3, and 4--its wines fetched a
higher price than either those of Ay or Bouzy. In 1873 the _vin brut_
commanded the exceptionally large sum of 1050 francs the hogshead of
44 gallons. All the inhabitants of Verzenay are vine-proprietors, and
several million francs are annually received by them for the produce
of their vineyards from the manufacturers of Champagne. The wine of
Verzenay, remarkable for its body and vinosity, has always been held
in high repute,[406] which is apparently more than can be said of the
probity of the inhabitants, for, according to an old Champagne saying,
'Whenever at Verzenay "Stop thief" is cried every one takes to his
heels.'
[Illustration: THE VINEYARDS OF VERZENAY.]
[Illustration: DEVICE ABOVE ENTRANCE TO VENDANGEOIR AT VERZENAY.]
Just over the Mountain of Reims is the village of Verzy, the
vine-growers of which distinguished themselves in the fifteenth century
by their resistance to the officials sent to levy the 'aide en gros'
of two sols per queue, imposed by Louis XI. on all wine made within a
radius of four miles of Reims. The Verzy vineyards--ranked to-day as a
second cru--date at least from the days of the Knights Templars, when
the Commanderie of Reims had 'two vineyards near the abbey' here. They
adjoin those of Verzenay, and are almost exclusively planted with white
grapes, the only instance of the kind to be met with in the district.
In the Clos St. Basse, however--taking its name from the Abbey of St.
Basle, of which the village was a dependency, and where Edward III. of
England had his head-quarters during the siege of Reims--black grapes
alone are grown, and its produce is almost on a par with the wines of
Verzenay.
Immediately prior to the Revolution, one-fourth of the inhabitants of
Verzy were landholders, each cultivating about five arpents of vines,
and obtaining therefrom, on an average, twenty poinçons, out of which
the abbey exacted one and three-quarters for 'droits de dimes et de
banalité de pressoir.' Southwards of Verzy are the third-class crus of
Villers-Marmery and Trépail, the former of which was of some repute in
the Middle Ages.
[Illustration: PORTION OF FRIEZE OF OLD HOUSE, RUE DU BARBATRE, REIMS.]
We made several excursions to the vineyards of Bouzy, driving out of
Reims along the ancient Rue du Barbâtre and past the quaint old church
of St. Remi, one of the sights of the Champagne capital, and notable,
among other things, for its magnificent ancient stained-glass windows,
and the handsome modern tomb of the popular Rémois saint. It was here
in the Middle Ages that that piece of priestly mummery, the procession
of the herrings, used to take place at dusk on the Wednesday before
Easter. Preceded by a cross, the canons of the church marched in double
file up the aisles, each trailing a cord after him, with a herring
attached. Every one's object was to tread on the herring in front of
him, and prevent his own herring from being trodden upon by the canon
who followed behind--a difficult enough proceeding, which, if it did
not edify, certainly afforded much amusement to the lookers-on.
[Illustration: ANCIENT WELL, RUE DU BARBATRE, REIMS.]
After crossing the canal and the river Vesle, and leaving the gray
antiquated-looking village of Cormontreuil on our left, we traversed a
wide stretch of cultivated country streaked with patches of woodland,
with occasional windmills dotting the distant heights, and villages
nestling among the trees up the mountain-sides and in the quiet
hollows. Soon a few vineyards occupying the lower slopes, and thronged
by bands of vintagers, came in sight, and the country too grew more
picturesque. We passed successively on our right hand Rilly, a former
fief of the Archbishop of Reims, and noted for its capital red wine;
then Chigny, where the Abbot of St. Remi had a vineyard as early as
the commencement of the thirteenth century; and afterwards Ludes,--all
three of them situated more or less up the mountain, with vines in
every direction, relieved by a dark background of forest-trees. In
the old days, the Knights Templars of the Commanderie of Reims had
the right of _vinage_ at Ludes, and exacted their modest 'pot' (about
half a gallon) per pièce on all the wine the village produced. On our
left hand is Mailly, the vineyards of which join those of Verzenay,
and, though classed only as a second cru, yielding a wine noted for
_finesse_ and bouquet, identified by some as the vintage which was
recommended in the ninth century to Bishop Hincmar of Reims by his
_confrère_, Pardulus of Laon. From the wooded knolls hereabouts a view
is gained of the broad plains of the Champagne, dotted with white
villages and scattered homesteads among the poplars and the limes, the
winding Vesle glittering in the sunlight, and the dark towers of Notre
Dame de Reims, with all their rich Gothic fretwork, rising majestically
above the distant city.
At one vendangeoir we visited, at Mailly, between 350 and 400 pièces
of wine were being made at the rate of some thirty pièces during
the long day of twenty hours, five men being engaged in working the
old-fashioned press, closely resembling a cider-press, and applying
its pressure longitudinally. This ancient press doubtless differs but
little from the one which the chapter of Reims Cathedral possessed
at Mailly in 1384. As soon as the must was expressed it was emptied
into large vats, holding about 450 gallons, and in these it remained
for several days before being drawn off into casks. Of the above
thirty pièces, twenty resulting from the first pressure were of the
finest quality, while four produced by the second pressure were partly
reserved to replace what the first might lose during fermentation, the
residue serving for second-class Champagne. The six pièces which came
from the final pressure, after being mixed with common wine of the
district, were converted into Champagne of an inferior quality.
[Illustration: THE VINEYARDS OF BOUZY.]
We now crossed the mountain, sighting Ville-en-Selve--the village in
the wood--among the distant trees, and eventually reached Louvois,
whence the Grand Monarque's domineering war minister derived his
marquisate, and where his château, a plain but capacious edifice,
may still be seen nestled in a picturesque and fertile valley, and
surrounded by lordly pleasure-grounds. Château and park are to-day the
property of M. Frédéric Chandon, who has bestowed much care on the
restoration of the former. Soon after we left Louvois the vineyards of
Bouzy appeared in sight, with the prosperous-looking little village
rising out of the plain at the foot of the vine-clad slopes stretching
to Ambonnay, and the glittering Marne streaking the hazy distance. The
commodious new church is said to have been indebted for its spire to
the lucky gainer--who chanced to be a native of Bouzy--of the great
gold ingot lottery prize, value 16,000_l._, drawn in Paris some years
ago. The Bouzy vineyards occupy a series of gentle inclines, and have
the advantage of a full southern aspect. The soil, which is of the
customary calcareous formation, has a marked ruddy tinge, indicative of
the presence of iron, to which the wine is in some degree indebted for
its distinguishing characteristics--its delicacy, spirituousness, and
pleasant bouquet. Vintagers were passing slowly in between the vines,
and carts laden with grapes came rolling over the dusty roads. The
mountain which rises behind the vineyards is scored up its sides and
fringed with foliage at its summit, and a small stone bridge crosses
the deep ravine formed by the swift-descending winter torrents.
[Illustration: THE VENDANGEOIR OF M. WERLÉ AT BOUZY.]
The principal vineyard proprietors at Bouzy, which ranks, of course, as
a _premier cru_, are M. Werlé, M. Irroy, and Messrs. Moët & Chandon,
the first and last of whom have capacious vendangeoirs here, M. Irroy's
pressing-house being in the neighbouring village of Ambonnay. M. Werlé
possesses at Bouzy from forty to fifty acres of the finest vines,
forming a considerable proportion of the entire vineyard area. At the
Clicquot-Werlé vendangeoir, containing as many as eight presses, about
1000 pièces of wine are made annually. At the time of our visit, grapes
gathered that morning were in course of delivery, the big basketfuls
being measured off in caques--wooden receptacles holding two-and-twenty
gallons--while the florid-faced foreman ticked them off with a piece of
chalk on the head of an adjacent cask.
As soon as the contents of some half-hundred or so of these baskets
had been emptied on to the floor of the press, the grapes undetached
from their stalks were smoothed compactly down, and a moderate pressure
was applied to them by turning a huge wheel, which caused the screw of
the press to act--a gradual squeeze rather than a powerful one, and
given all at once, coaxing out, it was said, the finer qualities of the
fruit. The operation was repeated as many as six times; the yield from
the three first pressures being reserved for conversion into Champagne,
while the result of the fourth squeeze would be applied to replenishing
the loss, averaging 7-1/2 per cent, sustained by the must during
fermentation. Whatever comes from the fifth pressure is sold to make an
inferior Champagne. The grapes are subsequently well raked about, and
then subjected to a couple of final squeezes, known as the _rébêche_,
and yielding a sort of _piquette_, given to the workmen employed at the
pressoir to drink.
The small quantity of still red Bouzy wine made by M. Werlé at the
same vendangeoir only claims to be regarded as a wine of especial mark
in good years. The grapes, before being placed beneath the press,
are allowed to remain in a vat for as many as eight days. The must
undergoes a long fermentation, and after being drawn off into casks is
left undisturbed for a couple of years. In bottle--where, by the way,
it invariably deposits a sediment, which is indeed the case with all
the wines of the Champagne, still or sparkling--it will outlive, we
were told, any Burgundy.
Still red Bouzy has a marked and agreeable bouquet and a most delicate
flavour, is deliciously smooth to the palate, and to all appearances is
as light as a wine of Bordeaux, while in reality it is quite as strong
as Burgundy, to the finer crus of which it bears a slight resemblance.
It was, we learnt, very susceptible to travelling, a mere journey to
Paris being, it was said, sufficient to sicken it, and impart such a
shock to its delicate constitution that it was unlikely to recover from
it. To attain perfection, this wine, which is what the French term a
_vin vif_, penetrating into the remotest corners of the organ of taste,
requires to be kept a couple of years in wood and half a dozen or more
years in bottle.
[Illustration: THE AMBONNAY VINEYARDS.]
From Bouzy it was only a short distance along the base of the
vine-slopes to Ambonnay, where there are merely two or three hundred
acres of vines, and where we found the vintage almost over. The village
is girt with fir-trees, and surrounded with rising ground fringed
either with solid belts or slender strips of foliage. An occasional
windmill cuts against the horizon, which is bounded here and there by
scattered trees. Inquiring for the largest vine-proprietor, we were
directed to an open porte-cochère, and on entering the large court
encountered half a dozen labouring men engaged in various farming
occupations. Addressing one whom we took to be the foreman, he referred
us to a wiry little old man, in shirt-sleeves and sabots, absorbed
in the refreshing pursuit of turning over a big heap of rich manure
with a fork. He proved to be M. Oury, the owner of we forget how many
acres of vines, and a remarkably intelligent peasant, considering
what dunderheads the French peasants as a rule are, who had raised
himself to the position of a large vine-proprietor. Doffing his sabots
and donning a clean blouse, he conducted us into his little salon, a
freshly-painted apartment about eight feet square, of which the huge
fireplace occupied fully one-third, and submitted patiently to our
catechising.
At Ambonnay, as at Bouzy, they had that year, M. Oury said, only half
an average crop; the caque of grapes had, moreover, sold for exactly
the same price at both places, and the wine had realised about 800
francs the pièce. Each hectare (2-1/2 acres) of vines had yielded
45 caques of grapes, weighing some 2-3/4 tons, which produced 6-1/2
pièces, equal to 286 gallons of wine, or at the rate of 110 gallons
per acre. Here the grapes were pressed four times, the yield from the
second pressure being used principally to make good the loss which the
first sustained during its fermentation. As the squeezes given were
powerful ones, all the best qualities of the grapes were by this time
extracted, and the yield from the third and fourth pressures would not
command more than eighty francs the pièce. The vintagers who came from
a distance received either a franc and a half per day and their food,
consisting of three meals, or two francs and a half without food, the
children being paid thirty sous. M. Oury further informed us that every
year vineyards came into the market, and found ready purchasers at from
fifteen to twenty thousand francs the hectare, equal to an average
price of 300_l._ the acre, which, although Ambonnay is classed merely
as a second cru, has since risen in particular instances to upwards
of 600_l._ per acre. Owing to the properties being divided into such
infinitesimal portions, they were not always bought up by the large
Champagne houses, who objected to be embarrassed with the cultivation
of such tiny plots, preferring rather to buy the produce from their
owners.
There are other vineyards of lesser note in the neighbourhood of
Reims producing very fair wines, which enter more or less into the
composition of Champagne, and almost all of which can boast of a
pedigree extending back at least to the Middle Ages. Noticeable among
these are Ville-Dommange and Sacy, south-west of Reims. At Sacy the
Abbey of St. Remi had a vineyard in 1218; and in the return of church
property made in 1384, the doyen of the Cathedral is credited with
'rentes de vin' and about six _jours_ of vineland here, the Convent of
Clermares at Reims owning a piece of 'vigne gonesse.' North-west of
the city the best-known vineyards are those of Hermonville--mentioned
likewise at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and in the return
which we have just quoted--and St. Thierry, where the Black Prince
took up his quarters during the siege of Reims, and where Gerard de la
Roche wrought such havoc amongst the vines in the twelfth century, to
the great indignation of their monkish owners. The still red wine of
St. Thierry, which recalls the growths of the Médoc by its tannin, and
those of the Côte d'Or by its vinosity, is to-day almost a thing of the
past, it being found here, as elsewhere, more profitable to press the
grapes for sparkling in preference to still wine.
[Illustration: LABOURERS AT WORK IN THE EARLY SPRING IN M. ERNEST
IRROY'S BOUZY VINEYARDS.]
III.
/The Vines of the Champagne and the System of Cultivation./
A combination of circumstances essential to the production of
good Champagne--Varieties of vines cultivated in the Champagne
vineyards--Different classes of vine-proprietors--Cost of
cultivation--The soil of the vineyards--Period and system of
planting the vines--The operation of 'provenage'--The 'taille' or
pruning, the 'bêchage' or digging--Fixing the vine-stakes--Great
cost of the latter--Manuring and shortening back the vines--The
summer hoeing around the plants--Removal of the stakes after the
vintage--Precautions adopted against spring frosts--The Guyot
system of roofing the vines with matting--Forms a shelter from
rain, hail, and frost, and aids the ripening of the grapes--Various
pests that prey upon the Champagne vines--Destruction caused
by the Eumolpe, the Chabot, the Bêche, the Cochylus, and the
Pyrale--Attempts made to check the ravages of the latter with the
electric light.
[Illustration: CARRYING MANURE TO THE VINEYARDS.]
Good Champagne does not rain down from the clouds, or gush out from the
rocks, but is the result of incessant labour, patient skill, minute
precaution, and careful observation. In the first place, the soil
imparts to the natural wine a special quality which it has been found
impossible to imitate in any other quarter of the globe. To the wine
of Ay it lends a flavour of peaches, and to that of Avenay the savour
of strawberries; the vintage of Hautvillers, though somewhat fallen
from its former high estate, is yet marked by an unmistakably nutty
taste; while that of Pierry smacks of the locally-abounding flint, the
well-known _pierre à fusil_ flavour. So, on the principle that a little
leaven leavens the whole lump, the produce of grapes grown in the
more favoured vineyards is added in definite proportions, in order to
secure certain special characteristics, as well as to maintain a fixed
standard of excellence.
While it is admitted that climate is not without its influence in
imparting a delicate sweetness and aroma, combined with finesse and
lightness, to the wine, some authorities maintain that to the careful
selection of the vines best suited to the soil and temperature of the
district the excellence of genuine Champagne is mainly to be ascribed.
Four descriptions of vines are chiefly cultivated in the Champagne,
three of them yielding black grapes, and all belonging to the pineau
variety, from which the grand Burgundy wines are produced, and so
styled from the clusters taking the conical form of the pine. The first
is the franc pineau, the plant doré of Ay, with its closely-jointed
shoots and small leaves, producing squat bunches of small round
grapes, with thickish skins of a bluish-black tint, and sweet and
refined in flavour. The next is the plant vert doré, with its leaves
of vivid green, more robust and more productive than the former, but
yielding a less generous wine, and the berries of which, growing in
compact pyramidal bunches, are dark and oval, very thin-skinned, and
remarkably sweet and juicy. The third variety, extensively planted in
the vineyards of Verzy and Verzenay, is the plant gris, or burot, as it
is styled in the Côte d'Or, a somewhat delicate vine, whose fruit has
a brownish tinge, and yields a light and perfumed wine. The remaining
species is a white grape known as the épinette, a variety of the
pineau blanc, and supposed by some to be identical with the chardonnet
of Burgundy, which yields the famous wine of Montrachet. It is met
with all along the Côte d'Avize, notably at Cramant, the delicate and
elegant wine of which ranks immediately after that of Ay and Verzenay.
The épinette is a prolific bearer, and its round transparent golden
berries, which hang in somewhat straggling clusters amongst its
dark-green leaves, are both juicy and sweet. It ripens, however, much
later than either of the black varieties.
[Illustration: TYPES OF THE CHAMPAGNE VINES IN BEARING.]
There are several other species of vines cultivated in the Champagne
vineyards, notably the common meunier, or miller, prevalent in the
valley of Epernay, which bears black grapes, and takes its name from
the young leaves appearing to have been sprinkled with flour. This
variety being more hardy than the franc pineau is replacing the
latter on the lower parts of the slopes, which are the most exposed
to frosts--a regrettable circumstance, as it impairs the quality of
the wine. There are also the black and white gouais; the meslier, a
prolific white variety yielding a wine of fair quality; the black and
white gamais, the leading grape in the Mâconnais, and chiefly found in
some of the Vertus vineyards; together with the tourlon, the marmot,
the cohéras, the plant doux, and half a score of others.
The land in the Champagne, as in other parts of France, is minutely
subdivided, and it has been estimated that the 40,000 acres of
vines are divided amongst no less than 16,000 proprietors. A few of
the principal Champagne firms are large owners of vineyards; and
as the value of the soil has more than quadrupled within the last
thirty years, even the smallest peasant proprietors have cause for
congratulation.[407] These latter cultivate their vineyards themselves;
while the larger landowners employ labourers, termed _forains_ when
coming from a distance and working by the week for their lodging, food,
and from 20 to 30 francs wages, or _tâcherons_ when paid by the job.
The last-mentioned class usually contract to cultivate and dress an
arpent of vines, exclusive of the vintage, at from 8_l._ to 12_l._ per
annum.
In the Champagne the old rule holds good--poor soil, rich product,
grand wine in moderate quantity. The soil of the vineyards is chalk,
with a mixture of silica and light clay, combined with a varying
proportion of oxide of iron. Many of the best have a substratum
of stones and sand, and a thin superstratum of vegetable earth.
The ruddier the soil, and consequently the more impregnated with
ferruginous earth, the better suited it is found to the cultivation of
black grapes; whilst the gray or yellowish soils, such as abound in the
Côte d'Avize, are preferable for the white varieties.
[Illustration: MANURING THE NEWLY-PLANTED YOUNG VINES.]
The vines are almost invariably planted on rising ground, the lower
slopes, which seldom escape the spring frosts, producing the best
wines. The vines are placed very close together, there often being
as many as six within a square yard, and the result is that they
reciprocally impoverish each other. Planting takes place between
November and April, the vine-growers of the River being usually in
advance of those of the Mountain in this operation. Plants two or
three years old and raised in nurseries are usually made use of. These
are placed either in holes or trenches. The roots have a little earth
sprinkled over them, to which a liberal supply of manure or compost is
added, and the holes having been filled up and trodden, the vines are
pruned down to a couple of buds above the ground.
[Illustration: VINE PREPARED FOR 'PROVINAGE.']
In the course of two or three years they are ready for the operation
of 'provinage,' or layering, a method of multiplication universally
practised in the Champagne. This consists in burying in a trench, from
six to eight inches deep dug on one side of the plant, two or more of
the principal shoots, left when the vine was pruned for this especial
purpose. The whole of the two-years'-old wood is thus buried, and
the ends of the shoots of one-year-old, which are left above ground,
are cut down to the second bud. The shoots thus laid underground are
dressed with a light manure, and in course of time take root and form
new vines, which bear during their second year. This operation is
performed simultaneously with the 'bêchage' in the early spring, and
is annually repeated until the vine is five years old, the plants thus
being in a state of continual progression; a system which accounts for
the juvenescent aspect of the Champagne vineyards, where none of the
wood of the vines showing above ground is more than three years old.
[Illustration: PLAN OF 'PROVINAGE À L'ÉCART' IN A NEWLY-PLANTED
VINEYARD.]
The two principal plans adopted in provining are styled the 'écart' and
the 'avance.' In the first, which is usually followed in newly-planted
vineyards, the two shoots are carried forward to the right and left--so
as to form the two base points of an equilateral triangle, of which the
point of departure is the summit--and are maintained in this position
by the aid of wooden or iron pegs. In the 'provinage à l'avance' both
shoots are carried forward in the same direction, and sometimes a
variation embodying the two systems is employed.
[Illustration: PROVINAGE À L'ÉCART.]
[Illustration: PROVINAGE À L'AVANCE.]
When the vine has attained its fifth year it is allowed to rest for a
couple of years, and then the provining is resumed, the shoots being
dispersed in any direction throughout the vineyard, so as to fill up
vacancies. The plants remain in this condition henceforward, merely
requiring to be renewed from time to time by judicious provining. For
instance, it is sometimes found necessary to bend one of the shoots
round into a circle, so that its end may issue from the ground at
the point occupied by the parent stock. The system of provinage is
sometimes carried to excess in the Champagne, with a view of increasing
the yield of wine, which suffers, however, in quality. The network of
roots, too, renders the various operations of cultivation difficult and
dangerous, as they are liable to be injured by the short-handled hoe in
universal use among the Champenois vine-dressers.
[Illustration: TRIPLE 'PROVINAGE' TO REPLACE THE PARENT STOCK.]
Viticulturists inclined to make experiments have tried the system of
arranging the vines in transverse and longitudinal lines, quincunxes,
&c., or have replaced their vine-stakes with iron wires supported by
wooden pickets. Some of these experiments have proved successful,
although none of them are as yet in general use.
[Illustration: VINE DRESSER'S HOE.]
[Illustration: VINE PRIOR TO THE FEBRUARY PRUNING, SHOWING THE EXTENT
OF ROOT.]
The first operation of importance carried out during the year in the
vineyards is the 'taille,' or pruning, which takes place in February,
and consists in cutting away the superfluous shoots, simply leaving
one--or, if it is intended to multiply by provinage, two--on each
stock. This is followed about March or April by the 'bêchage,' or
'hoyerie'--that is, the digging round the roots of the vine--with which
is combined the provinage. A trench being opened, as already noted, and
the vine laid bare to the roots, it is bent down so that, on filling
up the trench with earth and manure, the stock is entirely covered and
only the new wood appears above ground. This new wood is then shortened
back, and the stakes intended for the support of the vines are fixed in
the ground. These stakes are set up in the spring of the year by men
or women, the former of whom force them into the ground by pressing
against them with their chest, which is protected with a shield of
wood. The women use a mallet, or have recourse to a special appliance,
in working which the foot plays the principal part. The latter method
is the least fatiguing, and in some localities is practised by the men.
An expert labourer will set up as many as 5000 stakes in the course of
the day. When of oak these stakes cost sixty francs the thousand; and
as the close system of plantation followed in the Champagne renders the
employment of no less than 24,000 stakes necessary on every acre of
land, the cost per acre of propping up the vines amounts to upwards of
57_l._, or more than treble what it is in the Médoc and quadruple what
it is in Burgundy. The stakes last only some fifteen years, and their
renewal forms a serious item in the vine-grower's budget.
[Illustration: VINES IN FEBRUARY AFTER THE 'TAILLE.']
[Illustration: THE 'BÊCHAGE' OF THE VINES.]
[Illustration: PUTTING STAKES TO THE VINES IN THE SPRING.]
[Illustration: APPARATUS FOR FIXING VINE-STAKES.]
[Illustration: UNSTACKING THE VINE-STAKES.]
[Illustration: NEWLY-STAKED VINES AFTER THE 'BÊCHAGE.']
[Illustration: VINES IN AUTUMN AFTER THE VINTAGE.]
In May or June, after the vines have been hoed around their roots,
they are secured to the stakes, and their tops are broken off at a
shoot to prevent them from growing above the regulation height, which
is ordinarily from 30 to 33 inches. They are liberally manured with a
kind of compost formed of the loose friable soil termed 'cendre'--dug
out from the sides of the hills, and of supposed volcanic origin--mixed
with animal and vegetable refuse. The vines are shortened back while in
flower, and in the course of the summer the ground is hoed a second and
a third time, the object being, first, to destroy the superficial roots
of the vines and force the plants to live solely on their deep roots;
and secondly, to remove all pernicious weeds from round about them.
After the third hoeing, which takes place in the middle of August,
the vines are left to themselves until the period of the vintage,
excepting that some growers remove a portion of the leaves in order
that the grapes may receive the full benefit of the sun, and raise up
those bunches that rest upon the ground. The vintage over, the stakes
supporting the vines are pulled up later in the autumn and stacked in
compact masses, styled 'moyères,' with their ends out of the ground,
or else 'en chevalet,' the vine, which is left curled up in a heap,
remaining undisturbed until the winter, when the earth around it is
loosened. In the month of February following the vine is pruned and
subsequently sunk into the earth, as already described, so as to leave
only the new wood above ground. Owing to the vines being planted so
closely together they naturally starve one another, and numbers of them
perish. Whenever this is the case, or the stems chance to get broken
during the vintage, their places are filled up by provining.
[Illustration: STACKING STAKES 'EN CHEVALET.']
[Illustration: STACKING STAKES IN A 'MOYÈRE.']
The vignerons of the Champagne regard the numerous stakes which support
the vines as affording some protection against the white frosts of the
spring. To guard against the dreaded effects of these frosts, which
invariably occur between early dawn and sunrise, and the loss arising
from which is estimated to amount annually to 25 per cent, some of
the cultivators place heaps of hay, fagots, dead leaves, &c., about
twenty yards apart, taking care to keep them moderately damp. When a
frost is feared the heaps on the side of a vineyard whence the wind
blows are set light to, whereupon the dense smoke which rises spreads
horizontally over the vines, producing the same result as an actual
cloud, intercepting the rays of the sun, warming the atmosphere, and
converting the frost into dew. Among other methods adopted to shield
the vines from frosts is the joining of branches of broom together in
the form of a fan, and afterwards fastening them to the end of a pole,
which is placed obliquely in the ground, so that the fan may incline
over the vine and protect it from the sun's rays. A single labourer
can plant, it is said, as many as eight thousand of these fans in the
ground during a long day.
[Illustration: UNROLLING MATTING FOR ROOFING THE VINES WITH.]
Dr. Guyot's system of roofing the vines with straw matting, to protect
them alike against frosts and hailstorms, is very generally followed
in low situations in the Champagne, the value of the wine admitting
of so considerable an expense being incurred. This matting, which is
made about a foot and a half in width, and in rolls of great length,
is fastened either with twine or wire to the vine-stakes; and it is
estimated that half a dozen men can fix nearly 11,000 yards of it, or
sufficient to roof over 2-1/2 acres of vines, during an ordinary day.
To carry out the system properly, a double row of tall and short stakes
connected with iron wires has to be provided. The matting can then be
used as a shelter to the young vines in spring, as a south wall to aid
the ripening of the grapes in summer, and as a protection against rain
and autumn frosts.
[Illustration: MATTING ARRANGED TO AID THE RIPENING OF THE GRAPES.]
[Illustration: MATTING ARRANGED TO PROTECT THE VINES AGAINST AUTUMN
FROSTS.]
Owing to the system of cultivation by rejuvenescence, and the constant
replenishing of the soil by well-compounded manures, the Champenois
wine-growers entertain great hopes that their vineyards will escape
the ravages of the phylloxera vastatrix. They certainly deserve such
an immunity, for, according to Dr. Plonquet of Ay, they are already
the prey of no less than fifteen varieties of insects, which feed
upon the leaves, stalks, roots, or fruit of the vines. One of the
most destructive of these is the eumolpe, gribouri, or écrivain as it
is popularly styled, from the traces it leaves upon the vine-leaves
bearing some resemblance to lines of writing. It is a species of
beetle, the larvæ of which pass the winter amongst the roots of the
vine, and in the spring attack the young leaves and buds, their ravages
often proving fatal to the plant. Then there is the chabot, which
has caused great destruction at Verzy and Verzenay; the attelabe,
cunche, or bêche, which rolls up the leaves of the vine like cigars,
and seems to be identical with the hurebet or urbec of the Middle
Ages; and the cochylis, teigne, or vintage-worm, which develops into
a white-and-black butterfly, producing in the course of the year two
generations of larvæ, having the form of small red caterpillars, one
of which attacks the blossoms of the vine, while the second pierces
and destroys the grapes themselves. The list of foes further comprises
the altise, a kind of beetle allied to the gribouri; the liset or
coupe-bourgeon, a tiny worm assailing the first sprouting shoots; and
the hanneton or cockchafer.
[Illustration: MATTING ARRANGED TO KEEP OFF RAIN OR HAIL.]
[Illustration: THE PYRALE.]
The greatest havoc, however, appears to be wrought by the pyrale, a
species of caterpillar, which feeds on the young leaves, flowers,
and shoots until the vine is left completely bare. The larva of this
insect, after passing the winter either in the crevices of the stakes
or in the cracks in the bark of the vine, emerges in the spring,
devours leaves, buds, and shoots indifferently, and eventually becomes
transformed into a small yellow-and-brown butterfly, which deposits
its eggs amongst the bunches of grapes in July. Between 1850 and 1860
the vineyards of Ay were devastated by the pyrale, which, like the
locusts of Scripture, spared no green thing; and all the efforts made
to rid them of this scourge proved ineffectual until the wet and cold
weather of 1860 put a stop to the insect's ravages.[408] More recently
it was discovered that its attacks could be checked by sulphurous
acid, or by scalding the stakes and the vine-stocks with boiling water
during the winter. Nevertheless, it appeared impossible to check its
destructiveness at Ay, where it made its reappearance in 1879, and
caused an immense amount of damage. On this occasion an ingenious
gentleman, M. Testulat Gaspar, was seized with the idea of combating
the pyrale by means of the electric light. His theory was, that on
a powerful light being exhibited in a central position at midnight
amongst the vineyards, with a number of tin reflectors distributed in
every direction around, the butterflies, roused from slumber, would
wing their way in myriads towards the latter, when their flight could
be arrested by sheets of muslin stretched between poles, smeared with
honey and baited with a dash of Champagne liqueur. The theory was put
to the test in August 1879, amongst the vineyards between Dizy and Ay,
where the pyrale was committing the greatest ravages. The light was
turned on, and the butterflies rose 'in millions;' but they failed to
flock to the reflectors, and the honey-smeared muslin proved quite
useless to secure the few which came in contact with it.
[Illustration: A VINTAGE SCENE IN THE CHAMPAGNE.]
IV.
/The Vintage in the Champagne./
Period of the Champagne vintage--Vintagers summoned by
beat of drum--Early morning the best time for plucking
the grapes--Excitement in the neighbouring villages at
vintage-time--Vintagers at work--Mules employed to convey the
gathered grapes down the steeper slopes--The fruit carefully
examined before being taken to the wine-press--Arrival of the
grapes at the vendangeoir--They are subjected to three squeezes,
and then to the 'rébêche'--The must is pumped into casks and left
to ferment--Only a few of the vine-proprietors in the Champagne
press their own grapes--The prices the grapes command--Air of
jollity throughout the district during the vintage--Every one
is interested in it, and profits by it--Vintagers' fête on St.
Vincent's-day--Endless philandering between the sturdy sons of toil
and the sunburnt daughters of labour.
[Illustration: WINE-PRESS IN THE CHAMPAGNE.]
When the weather has been exceedingly propitious, the vintage in the
Champagne commences as early as the third week in September, and in
good average years the pickers set to work during the first week of
October. If, however, the summer has been an indifferent one, and only
an inferior vintage is looked forward to, it is scarcely before the
latter half of October that the gathering of the grapes is proceeded
with. There is no vintage-ban in the Champagne, as in Burgundy and
other parts of France; but, as a rule, the growers of Ay and of the
neighbouring slopes commence operations a week or more earlier than
those of the Mountain of Reims, whilst around Cramant and Avize, the
white-grape region, the vintagers usually set to work when in the other
districts they have nearly finished.
[Illustration: THE CHAMPAGNE VINTAGE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EPERNAY.]
The pleasantest season of the year to visit the Champagne is certainly
during the vintage. When this is about to commence, the vintagers--some
of whom come from Sainte Menehould, forty miles distant, while others
hail from as far as Lorraine--are summoned at daybreak by beat of
drum in the market-places of the villages adjacent to the vineyards,
and then and there a price is made for the day's labour. This, as we
have already explained, is generally either a franc and a half, with
food consisting of three meals, or two francs and a half, rising on
exceptional occasions to three francs, without food, children being
paid a franc and a half. The rate of wage satisfactorily arranged, the
gangs start off to the vineyards, headed by their overseers.
The picking ordinarily commences with daylight, and the vintagers
assert that the grapes gathered at sunrise always produce the lightest
and most limpid wine. Moreover by plucking the grapes when the early
morning sun is upon them, they are believed to yield a fourth more
juice. Later on in the day, too, spite of all precautions, it is
impossible to prevent some of the detached grapes from partially
fermenting, which frequently suffices to give a slight excess of
colour to the must, a thing especially to be avoided in a high-class
Champagne. When the grapes have to be transported in open baskets
for some distance to the press-house, jolting along the road either
in carts or on the backs of mules, and exposed to the torrid rays of
a bright autumnal sun, the juice expressed from the fruit, however
dexterously the latter may be squeezed in the press, is occasionally of
a positive purple tinge, and consequently useless for conversion into
Champagne.
[Illustration]
At vintage-time everywhere is bustle and excitement; every one is big
with the business in hand. In these ordinarily quiet little villages
nestling amidst vine clad hollows, or perched half-way up a slope
tinted from base to summit with richly-variegated hues, there is a
perpetual pattering of sabots and a rattling and bumping of wheels over
the roughly-paved streets. The majority of the inhabitants are afoot:
the feeble feminine half, baskets on arm, thread their way with the
juveniles through the rows of vines planted half-way up the mountain,
and all aglow with their autumnal glories of green and purple, crimson
and yellow; while the sturdy masculine portion are mostly passing to
and fro between the press-houses and the wine-shops. Carts piled up
with baskets, or crowded with peasants from a distance on their way
to the vineyards, jostle the low railway-trucks laden with brand-new
casks, and the somewhat rickety cabriolets of the agents of the big
Champagne houses, who are reduced to clinch their final bargain for a
hundred or more pièces of the peerless wine of Ay or Bouzy, Verzy or
Verzenay, beside the reeking wine-press.
Dotting the steep slopes like a swarm of huge ants are a crowd of men,
women, and children, the men, in blue blouses or stripped to their
shirt-sleeves, being for the most part engaged in carrying the baskets
to and fro and loading the carts; whilst the women, in closely-fitting
neat white caps, or wearing old-fashioned unbleached straw-bonnets of
the contemned coalscuttle type, resembling the 'sun-bonnet' of the
Midland counties, together with the children, are intent on stripping
the vines of their luscious-looking fruit. They detach the grapes with
scissors or hooked knives, technically termed 'serpettes,' and in some
vineyards proceed to remove all damaged, decayed, or unripe fruit from
the bunches before placing them in the baskets which they carry on
their arms, and the contents of which they empty from time to time into
a larger basket resembling an ass's pannier in shape, numbers of these
being dispersed about the vineyard for the purpose, and invariably
in the shade. When filled the baskets are carried by a couple of men
to the roadside, along which dwarf stones carved with initials, and
indicating the boundaries of the respective properties, are encountered
every eight or ten yards, into such narrow strips are the vineyards
divided. Large carts with railed open sides are continually passing
backwards and forwards to pick these baskets up; and when one has
secured its load it is driven slowly to the neighbouring pressoir,
so that the grapes may not be in the least degree shaken, such is
the care observed throughout every stage of the process of Champagne
manufacture. When the vineyard slopes are very steep--as, for instance,
at Mareuil--and the paths do not admit of the approach of carts, mules,
equipped with panniers and duly muzzled, are employed to convey the
gathered fruit to the press-house.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
In many vineyards the grapes are inspected in bulk instead of in detail
before being sent to the wine-press. The hand-baskets, when filled,
are brought to a particular spot, where their contents are minutely
examined by some half-dozen men and women, who pluck off the bruised,
rotten, and unripe berries, and fling them aside into a separate
basket. In other vineyards we came upon parties of girls, congregated
round a wicker sieve perched on the top of a large tub by the roadside,
engaged in sorting the grapes, pruning away the diseased stalks, and
picking off all the doubtful berries. The latter were let fall through
the interstices of the sieve, while the sound fruit was deposited
in large baskets standing beside the sorters, and which, as soon as
they were filled, were conveyed to the pressoir. When the proprietor
is of an economic turn he usually has the refuse grapes pressed for
wine for home consumption. Spite of the minute examination to which
the grapes are subjected, a sharp eye will frequently discover in the
heart of what looks like a regular and well-grown bunch a grape that
is absolutely rotten, and capable of infecting its companions when the
whole are heaped up together in the wine-press.
[Illustration: ARRIVAL OF THE GRAPES AT THE PRESS-HOUSE.]
[Illustration: THE VINTAGE IN THE CHAMPAGNE: A WINE-PRESS AT WORK.]
Carts laden with grapes are continually arriving at the pressoirs,
discharging their loads and driving off for fresh ones. The piled-up
baskets, marked with the names of the vineyard-owners whose grapes
they contain, are temporarily stored under a shed in a cool place,
and are brought into the pressoir from time to time as required. In
the district of the River the grapes are weighed, while in that of
the Mountain they are measured, before being emptied on to the floor
of the press. In some places the latter is of the old-fashioned type,
resembling the ordinary cider-press; but usually powerful presses of
modern invention, worked by a large fly-wheel requiring four sturdy men
to turn it, are employed. The grapes are spread over the floor of the
press in a compact mass, and in some rare cases are lightly trodden
by a couple of men with their naked feet before being subjected to
mechanical pressure, which is again and again repeated, only the first
squeeze giving a high-class wine, and the second and third a relatively
inferior one. After three pressures the grapes are usually worked about
with peels, and subjected to a final squeeze known as the 'rébêche,'
which produces a sort of _piquette_, given to the workmen to drink, but
in many instances forming the habitual, and indeed only, beverage of
the economically-inclined peasant proprietor.
The must filters through a wicker basket into the reservoir beneath,
whence, after remaining a certain time to allow of its ridding itself
of the grosser lees, it is pumped through a gutta-percha tube into the
casks. The wooden stoppers of the bungholes, instead of being fixed
tightly in the apertures, are simply laid over them, and after the
lapse of ten or twelve days fermentation usually commences, and during
its progress the must, which is originally of a pale-pink tint, fades
to a light-straw colour. The wine usually remains undisturbed until
Christmas, when it is drawn off into fresh casks and delivered to the
purchaser.
One peculiarity of the Champagne district is that, contrary to the
prevailing practice in the other wine-producing regions of France,
where the owner of even a single acre of vines will crush his grapes
himself, only a limited number of vine-proprietors press their own
grapes. The large Champagne houses, possessing vineyards, always have
their pressoirs in the neighbourhood, and other large vine-proprietors
press the grapes they grow; but the multitude of small cultivators
invariably sell the produce of their vineyards to one or other of the
former at a certain rate, either by weight or else by caque, a measure
estimated to hold sixty kilogrammes (equal to 132 lb. avoirdupois) of
grapes. The price which the fruit fetches varies of course according to
the quality of the vintage and the requirements of the manufacturers;
but the average may be taken at about 80 centimes per kilogramme,
equivalent to rather more than 3-1/2_d._ per lb.[409]
[Illustration]
If in the Champagne the picturesque rejoicings immortalised in the
Italian vintage scenes of Léopold Robert are lacking, and if the
grapes, instead of being trodden to the blithe accompaniment of flute
and fiddle, as in some parts of France, are pressed in more quiet
fashion, a pleasant air of jollity nevertheless pervades the district
at the season of the vintage. Every one participates in the interest
which this excites. It influences the takings of all the artificers
and all the tradespeople, and brings grist to the mill of the baker
and the bootmaker, as well as to the café and cabaret. The contending
interests of capital and labour are, moreover, singularly satisfied,
the vintagers being content at getting their two francs and a half a
day, and the men at the pressoirs their three francs and their food;
the vineyard proprietor reaping the return of the time, care, and
money expended upon his patch of vines, and the Champagne manufacturer
acquiring raw material on sufficiently satisfactory terms, the which,
when duly guaranteed by his name and brand, will bring to him both fame
and fortune.
Should the vintage be a scanty one, the plethoric
_commissionnaires-en-vins_ will wipe their perspiring foreheads with
satisfaction when they have at last secured the full number of hogsheads
they had been instructed to buy--at a high figure maybe; still this is
no disadvantage to them, as their commission mounts up the higher. And
even the thickest-skulled among the small vine-proprietors, who make
all their calculations on their fingers, see at a glance that, although
the crop may be no more than half an average one, they are gainers,
thanks to the ill-disguised anxiety of the agents to secure all the
wine they require, which has the effect of sending prices up to nearly
double those of ordinary years, and this with only half the work in the
vineyard and at the winepress to be done.
[Illustration]
The vintage in the Champagne comes to a close without any of those
festivals which still linger in the department of the Gironde. On
the 22d of January, the fête of St. Vincent, the patron saint of
vine-growers, it is customary, however, for one of the proprietors in
each village to pay for a mass and give a breakfast to his relatives
and friends, at which he presents a bouquet to one of the guests, who,
in his turn, is expected to pay for the mass and give the breakfast
the year following. On the same day the proprietors entertain their
workpeople, who, after having eaten and drunk their fill, wind up the
day with song and dance, leading to no end of innocent philandering
between the sturdy sons of toil and the sunburnt daughters of labour.
On these occasions the famous vintage song is sometimes heard:
'Vendangeons et vive la France,
Le monde un jour avec nous trinquera.'
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE DISGORGING, LIQUEURING, CORKING, STRINGING, AND
WIRING OF CHAMPAGNE.]
V.
/The Preparation of Champagne./
The treatment of Champagne after it comes from the wine-press--The
racking and blending of the wine--The proportions of red and
white vintages composing the 'cuvée'--Deficiency and excess
of effervescence--Strength and form of Champagne bottles--The
'tirage' or bottling of the wine--The process of gas-making
commences--Details of the origin and development of the
effervescent properties of Champagne--The inevitable breakage
of bottles which ensues--This remedied by transferring the wine
to a lower temperature--The wine stacked in piles--Formation of
sediment--Bottles placed 'sur pointe' and daily shaken to detach
the deposit--Effect of this occupation on those incessantly
engaged in it--The present system originated by a workman of
Madame Clicquot's--'Claws' and 'masks'--Champagne cellars--Their
construction and aspect--Raw recruits for the 'Regiment de
Champagne'--Transforming the 'vin brut' into Champagne--Disgorging
and liqueuring the wine--The composition of the liqueur--Variation
in the quantity added to suit diverse national tastes--The corking,
stringing, wiring, and amalgamating--The wine's agitated existence
comes to an end--The bottles have their toilettes made--Champagne
sets out on its beneficial pilgrimage round the world.
[Illustration]
The special characteristic of Champagne is that its manufacture only
commences where that of other wines ordinarily ends. No one would
recognise in the still brut fluid--which, after being duly racked and
fined, has somewhat the taste and colour of an acrid Rhine wine, with a
more or less pronounced bitter flavour--that exhilarating essence which
is capable of raising the most depressed spirits, and imparting gaiety
to the dismallest gatherings. Much as Champagne may stand indebted to
Nature, soil, climate, and species of vine, the sparkling fluid has
contracted a far greater debt towards man, to whose incessant labour,
patient skill, and minute precautions it owes that combination of
qualities which causes it to be so highly prized.
In the preceding chapter we left the newly-expressed must flowing
direct from the press into capacious reservoirs, whence it is drawn
off into large vats, where it clears itself by depositing its mucous
lees, usually within twenty-four hours. It is then transferred to new
or perfectly clean casks, holding some forty gallons each, in which a
sulphur match has been previously burnt. These casks are not filled
quite up to the bunghole, which is generally covered with a vine-leaf
kept in its place by a piece of tile. The bulk of the newly-made wine
is left to repose at the vendangeoirs until the commencement of the
following year; still, when the vintage is over, numbers of long narrow
carts laden with casks of newly-expressed must may be seen rolling
along the dusty highways, bound for those towns and villages in the
department of the Marne where the manufacture of Champagne is carried
on, and where the leading firms have their establishments. Chief
amongst these is the cathedral city of Reims, after which comes the
rising town of Epernay, stretching to the very verge of the river; then
Ay, nestling between the vine-clad slopes and the Marne canal, with the
neighbouring village of Mareuil; next Pierry; and finally Avize, in
the centre of the white-grape district southwards of Epernay. Châlons,
owing to its distance from the vineyards, does not usually draw its
supply of wine until the new year.
In the vast celliers of the manufacturers' establishments, where a
temperature of about 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit usually prevails,
the wine undergoes its first fermentation, entailing a loss of about
7-1/2 per cent, and lasting from a fortnight to a month, according as
to whether the wine be _mou_--that is, rich in sugar--or the reverse.
In the former case fermentation naturally lasts much longer than when
the wine is _vert_ or green. This active fermentation is converted
into latent fermentation by transferring the wine to a cooler cellar,
as it is essential it should retain a certain proportion of its
natural saccharine to insure its future effervescence. The casks have
previously been completely filled, and their bungholes tightly stopped,
a necessary precaution to guard the wine from absorbing oxygen, the
effect of which would be to turn it yellow, and cause it to lose
some of its lightness and perfume. After being racked and fined--an
operation generally performed about the third week in December--the
produce of the different vineyards is ready for mixing together in
accordance with the traditional theories of the various manufacturers;
and should the vintage have been an indifferent one, a certain
proportion of old reserved wine of a good year enters into the blend.
The mixing is usually effected in gigantic vats holding at times as
many as 12,000 gallons each, and having fan-shaped appliances inside,
which, on being worked by handles, insure a complete amalgamation
of the wine. This process of marrying wine on a gigantic scale is
technically known as making the _cuvée_. Usually four-fifths of
wine obtained from black grapes, and now of a pale-pink hue, are
tempered by one-fifth of the juice of white ones. It is necessary
that the first should comprise a more or less powerful dash of
the finer growths both of the Mountain of Reims and of the River;
while, as regards the latter, one or other of the delicate vintages
of the Côte d'Avize is essential to the perfect _cuvée_. The aim
is to combine and develop the special qualities of the respective
crus, body and vinosity being secured by the red vintages of Bouzy
and Verzenay, softness and roundness by those of Ay and Dizy, and
lightness, delicacy, and effervescence by the white growths of Avize
and Cramant. The proportions are never absolute, but vary according to
the manufacturer's style of wine and the taste of the countries which
form his principal markets. In the opinion of some clever amalgamators,
a blend comprising one-third of the vintages of Sillery, Verzenay,
and Bouzy, one-third of those of Mareuil, Ay, and Dizy, and the
remaining third composed of the produce of Pierry, Cramant, and Avize,
constitutes the wine of Champagne _par excellence_. Others not less
expert declare that a simple mixture of the Ay, Pierry, and Cramant
vintages furnishes a perfect wine. As when this blending takes place
the wine is only imperfectly fermented and exceedingly crude, the
reader may imagine the delicacy and discrimination of palate requisite
to judge of the flavour, finesse, and bouquet which the _cuvée_ is
likely eventually to develop.
These, however, are not the only matters to be considered. There is,
above everything, the effervescence, which depends upon the quantity of
carbonic acid gas the wine already contains, and the further quantity
it is likely to develop, which depends upon the amount of its natural
saccharine. After the bottling, if the gas be present in excess, there
will be a shattering of bottles and a flooding of cellars; while, on
the other hand, if there be a paucity, the corks will refuse to pop,
and the wine to sparkle aright in the glass. The amount of saccharine
in the _cuvée_ has therefore to be accurately ascertained by means of
a glucometer; and should it fail to reach the required standard, as is
the case at times when the season has been wet and cold and the vintage
a poor one, the deficiency is made up by the addition of the purest
sugar-candy. If, on the other hand, there be an excess of saccharine,
the only thing to be done is to defer the final blending and bottling
of the wine until the superfluous saccharine matter has been absorbed
by fermentation in the cask.
[Illustration]
The _cuvée_ completed, the blended wine, which in its present condition
gives to the uninitiated palate no promise of the exquisite delicacy
and aroma it is destined to develop, is drawn off again into casks
for further treatment. This comprises fining with some gelatinous
substance, usually isinglass, made into a jelly and strained through a
'tammy;' while, as a precaution against ropiness and other maladies,
liquid tannin, derived from nut-galls, catechu, or grape husks and
pips, is at the same time frequently added to supply the place of the
natural tannin, which has departed from the wine with its reddish hue
at the epoch of its first fermentation. If at the expiration of a month
the wine has not become perfectly clear and limpid, it is racked off
the lees, and the operation of fining is repeated.
[Illustration]
The operation of bottling the wine next ensues, when the scriptural
advice not to put new wine into old bottles is rigorously followed. For
the tremendous pressure of the gas engendered during the subsequent
fermentation of the wine is such that the bottle becomes weakened, and
can never be safely trusted again.[410] It is because of this pressure
that the Champagne bottle is one of the strongest made, as indicated by
its weight, which is almost a couple of pounds. To insure this unusual
strength, it is necessary that the sides should be of equal thickness
and the bottom of a uniform solidity throughout, in order that no
particular expansion may ensue from sudden changes of temperature. The
neck must, moreover, be perfectly round and widen gradually towards
the shoulder. In addition--and this is of the utmost consequence--the
inside ought to be perfectly smooth, as a rough interior causes the gas
to make efforts to escape, and thus renders an explosion imminent. The
composition of the glass, too, is not without its importance, as on one
occasion a manufactory established for the production of glass by a new
process turned out Champagne bottles charged with alkaline sulphurets,
and the consequence was that an entire _cuvée_ was ruined by their
use, through the reciprocal action of the wine and these sulphurets.
The acids of the former disengaged hydrosulphuric acid, and instead of
Champagne the result was a new species of mineral water.
Most of the bottles used for Champagne come from the factories of
Loivre (which supplies the largest quantity), Folembray, Vauxrot, and
Quiquengrogne, and they cost on the average from 28 to 33 francs the
hundred.[411] They are generally tested by a practised hand, who, by
knocking them sharply together, professes to be able to tell, from the
sound that they give, the substance of the glass and its temper, though
occasionally a special machine, subjecting them to hydraulic pressure,
is had recourse to.
[Illustration]
The operation of washing, which takes place immediately preceding
the bottling of the wine, is invariably performed by women, who at
the larger establishments accomplish it with the aid of machines,
provided at times with a revolving brush, although small glass beads
are generally used by preference. Each bottle after being washed is
minutely examined, to make certain of its perfect purity, and is then
placed neck downwards in a tall basket to drain.
[Illustration: MACHINE FOR FIXING THE AGRAFES.]
With the different Champagne houses the mode of bottling the wine,
which may take place any time between April and August, varies in some
measure, still the _tirage_, as this operation is called, is ordinarily
effected as follows: The wine, after a preliminary test as to its
fitness for bottling, is emptied from the casks into vats or tuns of
varying capacity in the _salle du tirage_. From these it flows through
pipes into oblong reservoirs, each provided with a row of syphon-taps,
on to which the bottles are slipped, and from which the wine ceases to
flow directly the bottles become filled. Men or lads remove the full
bottles, replacing them by empty ones, while other hands convey them to
the corkers, whose guillotine machines are incessantly in motion. Speed
in the process is of much importance, as during a single day the wine
may undergo a notable change. From the corkers the bottles are passed
on to the _agrafeurs_, who secure the corks by means of an iron clip
termed an agrafe; and they are afterwards conveyed either to a spacious
room above-ground known as a cellier or to a cool vault underground,
according to the number of atmospheres which the wine may indicate.
[Illustration]
With reference to these atmospheres, it should be explained that air
compressed to half its volume acquires twice its ordinary force, and
to a quarter of its volume quadruple this force--hence the phrase
of two, four, or more atmospheres. The exact degree of pressure is
readily ascertained by means of a manometer, an instrument resembling
a pressure-gauge, with a hollow screw at the base, which is driven
through the cork of the bottle. A pressure of 5-3/4 atmospheres
constitutes what is styled a 'grand mousseux,' and the wine exhibiting
it may be safely conveyed to the coolest subterranean depths, for no
doubt need be entertained as to its future effervescent properties.
Should the pressure, however, scarcely exceed four atmospheres, it is
advisable to keep the wine in a cellier above-ground, that it may more
rapidly acquire the requisite sparkling qualities. If fewer than four
atmospheres are indicated, it would be necessary to pour the wine back
into the casks again, and add a certain amount of cane-sugar to it;
but such an eventuality very rarely happens, thanks to the scientific
formulas and apparatus, which enable the degree of pressure the wine
will show to be determined beforehand to a nicety. Still mistakes are
sometimes made, and there are instances where charcoal fires have had
to be lighted in the cellars to encourage the latent effervescence to
develop itself.[412]
[Illustration: THE TIRAGE OR BOTTLING OF CHAMPAGNE.]
The bottles are first placed in a horizontal position, the side to be
kept uppermost being indicated by a daub of whitewash, and are stacked
in rows of varying length and depth, one above the other, to about
the height of a man, with narrow laths between them. Thus they will
spend the summer, providing all goes well; but in about three weeks'
time the process of gas-making inside the bottles is at its height,
and a period of considerable anxiety to the Champagne manufacturer
ensues, through his dread lest an undue number of them should burst
from the expansion of the carbonic acid gas generated in the wine. The
glucometer notwithstanding, it is impossible to check a certain amount
of breakage, especially when a hot season has caused the grapes, and
consequently the raw wine, to be sweeter than usual. Moreover, when
once _casse_ or breakage sets in on a large scale, the temperature of
the cellar is raised by the volume of carbonic acid gas let loose,
which is not without its effect on the remaining bottles. Not only does
the increased temperature unduly accelerate fermentation, but the mere
shock of one bottle exploding often starts such of its neighbours as
are predisposed that way, in addition to the direct havoc wrought by
the heavier fragments of flying glass. The only remedy is the instant
removal of the wine to a lower temperature whenever this is practicable.
[Illustration]
A manufacturer of the pre-scientific days of the last century relates
how one year, when the wine was rich and strong, he only preserved
120 out of 6000 bottles; and it is not long since that 120,000 out of
200,000 were destroyed in the cellars of a well-known Champagne firm.
M. Mauméné, moreover, relates that in 1850 he was called in to consult
about the checking of a _casse_, which had already reached 96 per
cent.[413] Over-knowing purchasers affect to select a wine which has
exploded in the largest proportion in the cellars, as being well up to
the mark as regards its effervescence, and are in the habit of making
inquiries as to its performances in this direction.
[Illustration]