PART III.

I.

/Sparkling Saumur and Sparkling Sauternes./

The sparkling wines of the Loire often palmed off as

Champagne--The finer qualities improve with age--Anjou the

cradle of the Plantagenet kings--Saumur and its dominating

feudal Château and antique Hôtel de Ville--Its sinister Rue

des Payens and steep tortuous Grande Rue--The vineyards of

the Coteau of Saumur--Abandoned stone-quarries converted into

dwellings--The vintage in progress--Old-fashioned pressoirs--The

making of the wine--Touraine the favourite residence of the

earlier French monarchs--After a night's carouse at the epoch

of the Renaissance--The Vouvray vineyards--Balzac's picture

of La Vallée Coquette--The village of Vouvray and the Château

of Moncontour--Vernou, with its reminiscences of Sully and

Pépin-le-Bref--The vineyards around Saumur--Remarkable ancient

Dolmens--Ackerman-Laurance's establishment at Saint-Florent--Their

extensive cellars, ancient and modern--Treatment of the

newly-vintaged wine--The cuvée--Proportions of wine from black

and white grapes--The bottling and disgorging of the wine

and finishing operations--The Château of Varrains and the

establishment of M. Louis Duvau aîné--His cellars a succession

of gloomy galleries--The disgorging of the wine accomplished in

a melodramatic-looking cave--M. Duvau's vineyard--His sparkling

Saumur of various ages--Marked superiority of the more matured

samples--M. E. Normandin's sparkling Sauternes manufactory at

Châteauneuf--Angoulême and its ancient fortifications--Vin de

Colombar--M. Normandin's sparkling Sauternes cuvée--His cellars

near Châteauneuf--Recognition accorded to the wine at the Concours

Régional d'Angoulême.

[Illustration]

After the Champagne, Anjou is the French province which ranks next

in importance for its production of sparkling wines. Vintaged on the

banks of the Loire, these are largely consigned to the English and

other markets, labelled Crême de Bouzy, Sillery and Ay Mousseux, Cartes

Noires and Blanches, and the like; while their corks are branded

with the names of phantom firms, supposed to be located at Reims and

Epernay. As a rule, these wines come from around Saumur; but they are

not necessarily the worse on that account, for the district produces

capital sparkling wines, the finer qualities of which improve greatly

by being kept for a few years. One curious thing shown to us at Saumur

was the album of a manufacturer of sparkling wines containing examples

of the many hundred labels ticketed with which his produce had for

years past been sold. Not one of these labels assigned to the wines the

name of their real maker or their true birthplace, but introduced them

under the auspices of mythical dukes and counts, as being manufactured

at châteaux which are so many 'castles in Spain,' and as coming from

Ay, Bouzy, Châlons, Epernay, Reims, and Verzenay, but never by any

chance from Saumur.

Being produced from robuster growths than the sparkling wines of

the Department of the Marne, sparkling Saumur will always lack that

excessive lightness which is the crowning grace of fine Champagne;

still, it has only to be kept for a few years, instead of being drunk

shortly after its arrival from the wine-merchant, for its quality to

become greatly improved and its intrinsic value to be considerably

enhanced. We have drunk sparkling Saumur that had been in bottle for

nearly twenty years, and found the wine not only remarkably delicate,

but, singular to say, with plenty of effervescence.

[Illustration: STATUE OF RICHARD C[OE]UR DE LION AT FONTEVRAULT.]

To an Englishman Anjou is one of the most interesting of the ancient

provinces of France. It was the cradle of the Plantagenet kings, and

only ten miles from Saumur still repose the bones of Henry, the first

Plantagenet, and Richard of the Lion Heart, beneath their elaborate

coloured and gilt effigies, in the so-called Cimetière des Rois of the

historic Abbey of Fontevrault. The famous vineyards of the Coteau de

Saumur, eastward of the town and bordering the Loire, extend as far as

here, and include the communes of Dampierre, Souzay, Varrains, Chacé,

Parnay, Turquant, and Montsoreau, the last-named within three miles of

Fontevrault, and chiefly remarkable through its seigneur of ill-fame,

Jean de Chambes, who instigated his wife to lure Bussy d'Amboise to an

assignation in order that he might the more surely poignard him. Saumur

is picturesquely placed at the foot of this bold range of heights, near

where the little river Thouet runs into the broad and rapid Loire.

A massive-looking old château, perched on the summit of an isolated

crag, stands out grandly against the clear sky and dominates the town,

the older houses of which crouch at the foot of the lofty hill and

climb its steepest sides. The restored antique Hôtel de Ville, in the

Pointed style, with its elegant windows, graceful belfry, and florid

wrought-iron balconies, stands back from the quay bordering the Loire.

In the rear is the Rue des Payens, whither the last of the Huguenots of

this 'metropolis of Protestantism,' as it was formerly styled, retired,

converting their houses into so many fortresses to guard against being

surprised by their Catholic adversaries. Adjacent is the steep tortuous

Grande Rue, of which Balzac--himself a Tourangeau--has given such a

graphic picture in his _Eugénie Grandet_, the scene of which is laid

at Saumur. To-day, however, only a few of its ancient carved-timber

houses, quaint overhanging corner turrets, and fantastically studded

massive oak doors, have escaped demolition.

The vineyards of the Coteau de Saumur, yielding the finest wines, are

reached by the road skirting the river, the opposite low banks of which

are fringed with willows and endless rows of poplars, which at the

time of our visit were already golden with the fading tints of autumn.

Numerous fantastic windmills crown the heights, the summit of which

is covered with vines, varied by dense patches of woodland. Here, as

elsewhere along the banks of the Loire, the many abandoned quarries

along the face of the hill have been turned by the peasants into cosy

dwellings by simply walling-up the entrances, while leaving, of course,

the necessary apertures for doors and windows. Dampierre, the first

village reached, has many of these cave-dwellings, and numbers of its

houses are picturesquely perched up the sides of the slope. The holiday

costumes of the peasant women encountered in the neighbourhood of

Saumur are exceedingly quaint, their elaborate and varied headdresses

being counterparts of _coiffures_ in vogue so far back as three and

four centuries ago.

[Illustration: PEASANT WOMEN OF THE ENVIRONS OF SAUMUR.]

Quitting the banks of the river, we ascend a steep tortuous road, shut

in on either side by high stone walls--for hereabouts all the best

vineyards are scrupulously enclosed--and finally reach the summit of

the heights, whence a view is gained over what the Saumurois proudly

style the grand valley of the Loire. Everywhere around the vintage is

going on. The vines are planted rather more than a yard apart, and

those yielding black grapes are trained, as a rule, up tall stakes,

although some few are trained espalier fashion. Women dexterously

detach the bunches with pruning-knives and throw them into the

_seilles_--small squat buckets with wooden handles--the contents of

which are emptied from time to time into baskets--the counterpart of

the chiffonnier's _hotte_, and coated with pitch inside so as to close

all the crevices of the wickerwork--which the _portes-bastes_ carry

slung to their backs. When white wine is being made from black grapes

for sparkling Saumur, the grapes are conveyed in these baskets to the

underground pressoirs in the neighbouring villages before their skins

get at all broken, in order that the wine may be as pale as possible in

colour.

The black grape yielding the best wine in the Saumur district is the

breton, said to be the same as the carbinet-sauvignon, the leading

variety in the grand vineyards of the Médoc. Other species of black

grapes cultivated around Saumur are the varennes, yielding a soft and

insipid wine of no kind of value, and the liverdun, or large gamay,

the prevalent grape in the Mâconnais, and the same which in the days

of Philippe-le-Hardi the _parlements_ of Metz and Dijon interdicted

the planting and cultivation of. The prevalent white grapes are the

large and small pineau blanc, the bunches of the former being of an

intermediate size, broad and pyramidal in shape, and with the berries

close together. These have fine skins, are oblong in shape, and of a

transparent yellowish-green hue tinged with red, are very sweet and

juicy, and as a rule ripen late. As for the small pineau, the bunches

are less compact, the berries are round and of a golden tint, are finer

as well as sweeter in flavour, and ripen somewhat earlier than the

fruit of the larger variety.

We noticed as we drove through the villages of Champigny and

Varrains--the former celebrated for its fine red wines, and more

especially its cru of the Clos des Cordeliers--that hardly any of the

houses had windows looking on to the narrow street, but that all were

provided with low openings for shooting the grapes into the cellar,

where, when making red wine, they are trodden, but when making white

wine, whether from black or white grapes, they are invariably pressed.

Each of the houses had its ponderous porte-cochère and low narrow

portal leading into the large enclosed yard at its side, and over the

high blank walls vines were frequently trained, pleasantly varying

their dull gray monotony.

The grapes on being shot into the openings just mentioned fall through

a kind of tunnel into a reservoir adjacent to the heavy press, which

is invariably of wood and of the old-fashioned cumbersome type. They

are forthwith placed beneath the press and usually subjected to five

separate squeezes, the must from the first three being reserved for

sparkling wine, while that from the two latter, owing to its being more

or less deeply tinted, only serves for table-wine. The must is at once

run off into casks, in order that it may not ferment on the grape-skins

and imbibe any portion of their colouring matter. Active fermentation

speedily sets in, and lasts for a fortnight or three weeks, according

to whether the temperature chances to be high or low.

The vintaging of the white grapes takes place about a fortnight

later than the black grapes, and is commonly a compound operation,

the best and ripest bunches being first of all gathered just as the

berries begin to get shrivelled and show symptoms of approaching

rottenness. It is these selected grapes that yield the best wine. The

second gathering, which follows shortly after the first, includes

all the grapes remaining on the vines, and yields a wine perceptibly

inferior in quality. The grapes on their arrival at the press-house

are generally pressed immediately, and the must is run off into tuns

to ferment. At the commencement these tuns are filled up every three

or four days to replace the fermenting must which has flowed over;

afterwards any waste is made good at the interval of a week, and then

once a fortnight, the bungholes of the casks being securely closed

towards the end of the year, by which time the first fermentation is

over.

It should be noted that the Saumur sparkling wine manufacturers draw

considerable supplies of the white wine, required to impart lightness

and effervescence to their _vin préparé_, from the Vouvray vineyards.

Vouvray borders the Loire a few miles from the pleasant city of Tours,

which awakens sinister recollections of truculent Louis XI., shut

up in his fortified castle of Plessis-lez-Tours, around which Scott

has thrown the halo of his genius in his novel of _Quentin Durward_.

A succession of vineyard slopes stretch from one to another of the

many historic châteaux along this portion of the Loire, the romantic

associations of which render the Touraine one of the most interesting

provinces of France. Near Tours, besides the vineyards of Saint-Cyr

are those of Joué and Saint-Avertin; the two last situate on the

opposite bank of the Cher, where the little town of Joué, perched on

the summit of a hill in the midst of vineyards, looks over a vast

plain known by the country-people as the Landes de Charlemagne, the

scene, according to local tradition, of Charles Martel's great victory

over the Saracens. The Saint-Avertin vineyards extend towards the

east, stretching almost to the forest of Larçay, on the borders of the

Cher, where Paul Louis Courier, the famous vigneron pamphleteer of

the Restoration, noted alike for his raillery, wit, and satire, fell

beneath the balls of an assassin. A noticeable cru in the neighbourhood

of Tours is that of Cinq Mars, the ruined château of which survives as

a memorial of the vengeance of Cardinal Richelieu, who, after having

sent its owner to the scaffold, commanded its massive walls and towers

to be razed '_à hauteur d'infamie_,' as we see them now.

Touraine, from its central position, its pleasant air, and its fertile

soil, was ever a favourite residence of the earlier French monarchs,

and down to the days of the Bourbons the seat of government continually

vacillated between the banks of the Seine and those of the Loire. The

vintages that ripen along the river have had their day of court favour

too; for if Henri of Andelys sneeringly describes the wine of Tours

as turning sour, in his famous poem of the _Bataille des Vins_, the

sweet white wines of Anjou were greatly esteemed throughout the Middle

Ages, and, with those of Orleans, were highly appreciated in Paris down

to the seventeenth century. The cult of the 'dive Bouteille' and the

fashion of Pantagruelic repasts have always found favour in the fat and

fertile 'garden of France;' and the spectacle of citizens, courtiers,

and monks staggering fraternally along, 'waggling their heads,' as

Rabelais describes them, after a night of it at the tavern, was no

uncommon one in the streets of its old historic towns during the period

of the Renaissance.

[Illustration: TAVERN ROYSTERERS AT EARLY MORNING IN THE TOURAINE.]

On proceeding to Vouvray from Tours, we skirt a succession of

poplar-fringed meadows, stretching eastward in the direction of

Amboise along the right bank of the Loire; and after a time a curve in

the river discloses to view a range of vine-clad heights, extending

some distance beyond the village of Vouvray. Our route lies past

the picturesque ruins of the abbey of Marmoûtier, immortalised in

the piquant pages of the _Contes Drôlatiques_, and the Château des

Roches--one of the most celebrated castles of the Loire--the numerous

excavations in the soft limestone ridge on which they are perched being

converted as usual into houses, magazines, and wine-cellars. We proceed

through the village of Rochecorbon, and along a road winding among the

spurs of the Vouvray range, past hamlets, half of whose inhabitants

live in these primitive dwellings hollowed out of the cliff, and

finally enter the charming Vallé Coquette, hemmed in on all sides with

vine-clad slopes. Here a picturesque old house, half château, half

homestead, was pointed out to us as a favourite place of sojourn of

Balzac, who held the wine of Vouvray in high esteem, and who speaks

of this rocky ridge as 'inhabited by a population of vine-dressers,

their houses of several stories being hollowed out in the face of the

cliff, and connected by dangerous staircases hewn in the soft stone.

Smoke curls from most of the chimneys which peep above the green crest

of vines, while the blows of the cooper's hammer resound in several of

the cellars. A young girl trips to her garden over the roofs of these

primitive dwellings, and an old woman, tranquilly seated on a ledge of

projecting rock, supported solely by straggling roots of ivy spreading

itself over the disjointed stones, leisurely turns her spinning-wheel,

regardless of her dangerous position.' The foregoing picture, sketched

by the author of _La Comédie Humaine_ forty years ago, has scarcely

changed at the present day.

At the point where the village of Vouvray climbs half-way up the

vine-crested ridge the rapid-winding Cise throws itself into the

Loire, and on crossing the bridge that spans the tributary stream

we discern on the western horizon, far beyond the verdant islets

studding the swollen Loire, the tall campaniles of Tours Cathedral,

which seem to rise out of the water like a couple of Venetian towers.

Vouvray is a trim little place, clustered round about with numerous

pleasant villas in the midst of charming gardens. The modern château

of Moncontour here dominates the slope, and its terraced gardens, with

their fantastically-clipped trees and geometric parterres, rise tier

above tier up the face of the picturesque height that overlooks the

broad fertile valley, with its gardens, cultivated fields, patches

of woodland, and wide stretches of green pasture which, fringed with

willows and poplars, border the swollen waters of the Loire. Where

the river Brenne empties itself into the Cise the Coteau de Vouvray

slopes off towards the north, and there rise up the vine-clad heights

of Vernou, yielding a similar but inferior wine to that of Vouvray.

The village of Vernou is nestled under the hill, and near the porch of

its quaint little church a venerable elm-tree is pointed out as having

been planted by Sully, Henry IV.'s able Minister. Here, too, an ancient

wall, pierced with curious arched windows, and forming part of a modern

building, is regarded by popular tradition as belonging to the palace

in which Pépin-le-Bref, father of Charlemagne, lived at Vernou.

The communes of Dampierre, Souzay, and Parnay, in the neighbourhood

of Saumur, produce still red wines rivalling those of Champigny,

besides which all the finest white wines are vintaged hereabouts--in

the Perrière, the Poilleux, and the Clos Morain vineyards, and in

the Rotissans vineyard at Turquant. Wines of very fair quality are

also grown on the more favourable slopes extending southwards along

the valley of the Thouet, and comprised in the communes of Varrains,

Chacé, St. Cyr-en-Bourg, and Brézé. The whole of this district,

by the way, abounds with interesting archæological remains. While

visiting the vineyards of Varrains and Chacé we came upon a couple

of dolmens--vestiges of the ancient Celtic population of the valley

of the Loire singularly abundant hereabouts. Brézé, the marquisate

of which formerly belonged to Louis XVI.'s famous grand master

of the ceremonies--immortalised by the rebuff he received from

Mirabeau--boasts a noble château on the site of an ancient fortress,

in connection with which there are contemporary excavations in the

neighbouring limestone, designed for a garrison of 500 or 600 men.

Beyond the vineyards of Saint-Florent, westward of Saumur and on the

banks of the Thouet, is an extensive plateau, partially overgrown with

vines, where may be traced the remains of a Roman camp. Moreover, in

the southern environs of Saumur, in the midst of vineyards producing

exclusively white wines, is one of the most remarkable dolmens known.

This imposing structure, perfect in all respects save that one of

the four enormous stones which roof it in has been split in two, and

requires to be supported, is no less than 65 feet in length, 23 feet in

width, and 10 feet high.

[Illustration: DOLMEN AT BAGNEUX, NEAR SAUMUR.]

At Saint-Florent, the pleasant little suburb of Saumur, skirting the

river Thouet, and sheltered by steep hills formed of soft limestone,

which offers great facilities for the excavation of extensive

cellars, the largest manufacturer of Saumur sparkling wines has his

establishment. Externally this offers but little to strike the eye. A

couple of pleasant country houses, half hidden by spreading foliage,

stand at the two extremities of a spacious and well-kept garden, beyond

which one catches a glimpse of some outbuildings sheltered by the

vine-crowned cliff, in which a labyrinth of gloomy galleries has been

hollowed out. Here M. Ackerman-Laurance, the extent of whose business

ranks him as second among the sparkling wine manufacturers of the

world, stores something like 10,000 casks and several million bottles

of wine.

At the commencement of the present century, in the days when, as

Balzac relates in his _Eugénie Grandet_, the Belgians bought up

entire vintages of Saumur wine, then largely in demand with them for

sacramental purposes, the founder of the Saint-Florent house commenced

to deal in the ordinary still wines of the district. Nearly half a

century ago he was led to attempt the manufacture of sparkling wines,

but his efforts to bring them into notice failed; and he was on the

point of abandoning his enterprise, when an order for one hundred

cases revived his hopes, and led to the foundation of the present vast

establishment. As already mentioned, for many miles all the heights

along the Loire have been more or less excavated for stone for building

purposes, so that every one hereabouts who grows wine or deals in

it has any amount of cellar accommodation ready to hand. It was the

vast extent of the galleries which M. Ackerman _père_ discovered

already excavated at Saint-Florent that induced him to settle there in

preference to Saumur. Extensive, however, as the original vaults were,

considerable additional excavations have from time to time been found

necessary; and to-day the firm is still further increasing the area of

its cellars, which already comprise three principal avenues, each the

third of a mile long, and no fewer than sixty transverse galleries, the

total length of which is several miles. One great advantage is that the

whole are on the ordinary level.

Ranged against the black uneven walls of the more tortuous ancient

vaults which give access to these labyrinthine corridors are thousands

of casks of wine--some in single rows, others in triple tiers--forming

the reserve stock of the establishment. As may be supposed, a powerful

vinous odour permeates these vaults, in which the fumes of wine have

been accumulating for the best part of a century. After passing

beneath a massive stone arch which separates the old cellars from

the new, a series of broad and regularly proportioned galleries are

reached, having bottles stacked in their tens of thousands on either

side. Overhead the roof is perforated at regular intervals with

circular shafts, affording both light and ventilation, and enabling

the temperature to be regulated to a nicety. In these lateral and

transverse galleries millions of bottles of wine in various stages of

preparation are stacked.

[Illustration: THE CELLARS OF M. ACKERMAN-LAURANCE AT SAINT-FLORENT.

LABELLING AND PACKING SPARKLING SAUMUR.]

We have explained that in the Champagne it is the custom for the

manufacturers of sparkling wine to purchase considerable quantities of

grapes from the surrounding growers, and to press these themselves,

or have them pressed under their own superintendence. At Saumur only

those firms possessing vineyards make their own _vin brut_, the bulk

of the wine used for conversion into sparkling wine being purchased

from the neighbouring growers. On the newly-expressed must arriving

at M. Ackerman-Laurance's cellars it is allowed to rest until the

commencement of the ensuing year, when half of it is mixed with wine

in stock belonging to last year's vintage, and the remaining half

is reserved for mingling with the must of the ensuing vintage. The

blending is accomplished in a couple of colossal vats hewn out of the

rock, and coated on the inside with cement. Each of these vats is

provided with 200 paddles for thoroughly mixing the wine, and with five

pipes for drawing it off when the amalgamation is complete. Usually

the cuvée will embrace 1600 hogsheads, or 80,000 gallons of wine,

almost sufficient for half a million bottles. A fourth of this quantity

can be mixed in each vat at a single operation, and this mixing is

repeated again and again until the last gallon run off is of precisely

the same type as the first. For the finer qualities of sparkling

Saumur the proportion of wine from the black grapes to that from white

is generally at the rate of three or four to one. For the inferior

qualities more wine from white than from black grapes is invariably

used. Only in the wine from white grapes is the effervescent principle

retained to any particular extent; but, on the other hand, the wine

from black grapes imparts both quality and vinous character to the

blend.

The blending having been satisfactorily accomplished, the wine is

stored in casks, never perfectly filled, yet with their bungholes

tightly closed, and slowly continues its fermentation, eating up its

sugar, purging itself, and letting fall its lees. Three months later it

is fined. It is rarely kept in the wood for more than a year, though

sometimes the superior qualities remain for a couple of years in cask.

Occasionally it is even bottled in the spring following the vintage;

still, as a rule, the bottling of sparkling Saumur takes place during

the ensuing summer months, when the temperature is at the highest,

as this insures to it a greater degree of effervescence. At the time

of bottling its saccharine strength is raised to a given degree by

the addition of the finest sugar-candy, and henceforward the wine is

subjected to precisely the same treatment as is pursued with regard to

Champagne.

It is in a broad but sombre gallery of the more ancient vaults--the

roughly-hewn walls of which are black from the combined action of

alcohol and carbonic acid gas--that the processes of disgorging the

wine of its sediment, adding the syrup, filling up the bottles with

wine to replace that which gushes out when the disgorging operation is

performed, together with the re-corking, stringing, and wiring of the

bottles, are carried on. The one or two adjacent shafts impart very

little light, but a couple of resplendent metal reflectors, which at

a distance one might fancy to be some dragon's flaming eyes, combined

with the lamps placed near the people at work, effectually illuminate

the spot.

[Illustration: THE CELLARS OF M. LOUIS DUVAU AÎNÉ AT THE CHÂTEAU OF

VARRAINS.]

Another considerable manufacturer of sparkling Saumur is M. Louis

Duvau aîné, owner of the château of Varrains, in the village of the

same name, at no great distance from the Coteau de Saumur. His cellars

adjoin the château, a picturesque but somewhat neglected structure

of the last century, with sculptured medallions in high relief above

the lower windows, and florid vases surmounting the mansards in the

roof. In front is a large rambling court shaded with acacia and lime

trees, and surrounded by outbuildings, prominent among which is a

picturesque dovecot, massive at the base as a martello tower, and

having an elegant open stone lantern springing from its bell-shaped

roof. The cellars are entered down a steep incline under a low stone

arch, the masonry above which is overgrown with ivy in large clusters

and straggling creeping plants. We soon come upon a deep recess to the

right, wherein stands a unique cumbersome screw-press, needing ten or

a dozen men to work the unwieldy capstan which sets the juice flowing

from the crushed grapes into the adjacent shallow trough. On our left

hand are a couple of ancient reservoirs, formed out of huge blocks of

stone, with the entrance to a long vaulted cellar filled with wine in

cask. We advance slowly in the uncertain light along a succession of

gloomy galleries, with moisture oozing from their blackened walls and

roofs, picking our way between bottles of wine stacked in huge square

piles and rows of casks raised in tiers. Suddenly a broad flood of

light shooting down a lofty shaft throws a Rembrandtish effect across

a spacious and most melodramatic-looking cave, roughly hewn out of the

rock, and towards which seven dimly-lighted galleries converge. On all

sides a scene of bustling animation presents itself. From one gallery

men keep arriving with baskets of wine ready for the disgorger; while

along another bottles of wine duly dosed with syrup are being borne off

to be decorated with metal foil and their distinctive labels. Groups

of workmen are busily engaged disgorging, dosing, and re-corking the

newly-arrived bottles of wine; corks fly out with a succession of loud

reports, suggestive of the irregular fire of a party of skirmishers;

a fizzing, spurting, and spluttering of the wine next ensues, and is

followed by the incessant clicking of the various apparatus employed in

the corking and wiring of the bottles.

Gradual inclines conduct to the two lower tiers of galleries, for the

cellars of M. Duvau consist of as many as three stories. Down below

there is naturally less light, and the temperature, too, is sensibly

colder. Advantage is taken of this latter circumstance to remove

the newly-bottled wine to these lower vaults whenever an excessive

development of carbonic acid threatens the bursting of an undue

proportion of bottles, a casualty which among the Saumur sparkling

wine manufacturers ranges far higher than with the manufacturers of

Champagne. For the economy of time and labour, a lift, raised and

lowered by means of a capstan worked by horses, is employed to transfer

the bottles of wine from one tier of cellars to another.

[Illustration]

The demand for sparkling Saumur is evidently on the increase, for M.

Duvau, at the time of our visit, was excavating extensive additional

cellarage. The subsoil at Varrains being largely composed of marl,

which is much softer than the tufa of the Saint-Florent coteau,

necessitated the roofs of the new galleries being worked in a

particular form in order to avoid having recourse to either brickwork

or masonry. Tons of this excavated marl were being spread over the soil

of M. Duvau's vineyard in the rear of the château, greatly, it was

said, to the benefit of the vines, whose grapes were all of the black

variety; indeed, scarcely any wine is vintaged from white grapes in the

commune of Varrains.

At M. Duvau's we went through a complete scale of sparkling Saumurs,

commencing with the younger and less matured samples, and ascending

step by step to wines a dozen and more years old. Every year seemed to

produce an improvement in the wine, the older varieties gaining greatly

in delicacy and softening very perceptibly in flavour.

Finding that sparkling wines were being made in most of the

wine-producing districts of France, where the growths were

sufficiently light and of the requisite quality, Messrs. E. Normandin

& Co. conceived the idea of laying the famous Bordeaux district

under contribution for a similar purpose, and, aided by a staff of

experienced workmen from Epernay, they have succeeded in producing

a sparkling Sauternes. Sauternes, as is well known, is one of the

finest of white wines, soft, delicate, and of beautiful flavour, and

its transformation into a sparkling wine has been very successfully

accomplished. Messrs. Normandin's head-quarters are in the thriving

little town of Châteauneuf, in the pleasant valley of the Charente,

and within fifteen miles of Angoulême, a famous old French town,

encompassed by ancient ramparts and crumbling corner-towers; and which,

dominated by the lofty belfry of its restored semi-Byzantine cathedral,

rising in a series of open arcades, spreads itself picturesquely out

along a precipitous height, watered at its base by the rivers Anguienne

and Charente. Between Angoulême and Châteauneuf vineyard plots dotted

over with walnut-trees, or simple rows of vines divided by strips of

ripening maize, and broken up at intervals by bright green pastures,

line both banks of the river Charente. The surrounding country is

undulating and picturesque. Poplars and elms fringe the roadsides,

divide the larger fields and vineyards, and screen the cosy-looking

red-roofed farmhouses, which present to the eyes of the passing tourist

a succession of pictures of quiet rural prosperity.

Châteauneuf communicates with the Sauternes district by rail, so

that supplies of wine from there are readily obtainable. Vin de

Colombar--a famous white growth which English and Dutch cruisers used

to ascend the Charente to obtain cargoes of when the Jerez wines were

shut out from England by the Spanish War of Succession--vintaged

principally at Montignac-le-Coq, also enters largely into Messrs.

Normandin & Co.'s sparkling Sauternes cuvée. This colombar grape is

simply the semillon--one of the leading varieties of the Sauternes

district--transported to the Charente. The remarkably cool cellars

where the firm store their wine, whether in wood or bottle, have been

formed from some vast subterranean galleries whence centuries ago stone

was quarried, and which are situated about a quarter of an hour's drive

from Châteauneuf, in the midst of vineyards and cornfields. The wine is

invariably bottled in a cellier at the head establishment, but it is

in these cellars where it goes through the course of careful treatment

similar to that pursued with regard to Champagne.

[Illustration]

In order that the delicate flavour of the wine may be preserved, the

liqueur is prepared with the finest old Sauternes, without any addition

of spirit, and the dose is administered with the most improved modern

appliance, constructed of silver, and provided with crystal taps. At

the Concours Régional d'Angoulême of 1877, the jury, after recording

that they had satisfied themselves by the aid of a chemical analysis

that the samples of sparkling Sauternes submitted to their judgment

were free from any foreign ingredient, awarded to Messrs. Normandin &

Co. the only gold medal given in the Group of Alimentary Products.

Encouraged, no doubt, by the success obtained by Messrs. Normandin &

Co. with their sparkling Sauternes, the house of Lermat-Robert & Co.,

of Bordeaux, introduced a few years ago a sparkling Barsac, samples of

which were submitted to the jury at the Paris Exhibition of 1878.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: VINTAGER OF THE CÔTE D'OR.]

[Illustration: VINTAGER OF THE JURA.]

II.

/The Sparkling Wines of Burgundy, the Jura, and the South of

France./

Sparkling wines of the Côte d'Or at the Paris Exhibition of

1878--Chambertin, Romanée, and Vougeot--Burgundy wines and

vines formerly presents from princes--Vintaging sparkling

Burgundies--Their after-treatment in the cellars--Excess

of breakage--Similarity of proceeding to that followed

in the Champagne--Principal manufacturers of sparkling

Burgundies--Sparkling wines of Tonnerre, the birthplace of the

Chevalier d'Eon--The Vin d'Arbanne of Bar-sur-Aube--Death there

of the Bastard de Bourbon--Madame de la Motte's ostentatious

display and arrest there--Sparkling wines of the Beaujolais--The

Mont-Brouilly vineyards--Ancient reputation of the wines of the

Jura--The Vin Jaune of Arbois beloved of Henri Quatre--Rhymes

by him in its honour--Lons-le-Saulnier--Vineyards yielding

the sparkling Jura wines--Their vintaging and subsequent

treatment--Their high alcoholic strength and general

drawbacks--Sparkling wines of Auvergne, Guienne, Dauphiné,

and Languedoc--Sparkling Saint-Péray the Champagne of the

South--Valence, with its reminiscences of Pius VI. and Napoleon

I.--The 'Horns of Crussol' on the banks of the Rhône--Vintage

scene at Saint-Péray--The vines and vineyards producing

sparkling wine--Manipulation of sparkling Saint-Péray--Its

abundance of natural sugar--The cellars of M. de Saint-Prix,

and samples of his wines--Sparkling Côte-Rotie, Château-Grillé,

and Hermitage--Annual production and principal markets of

sparkling Saint-Péray--Clairette de Die--The Porte Rouge of Die

Cathedral--How the Die wine is made--The sparkling white and

rose-coloured muscatels of Die--Sparkling wines of Vercheny and

Lagrasse--Barnave and the royal flight to Varennes--Narbonne

formerly a miniature Rome, now noted merely for its wine and

honey--Fête of the Black Virgin at Limoux--Preference given to the

new wine over the miraculous water--Blanquette of Limoux, and how

it is made--Characteristics of this overrated wine.

[Illustration]

Sparkling wines are made to a considerable extent in Burgundy,

notably at Beaune, Nuits, and Dijon; and though as a rule heavier

and more potent than the subtile and delicate-flavoured wines of the

Marne, still some of the higher qualities, both of the red and white

varieties, exhibit a degree of refinement which those familiar only

with the commoner kinds can scarcely form an idea of. At the Paris

Exhibition of 1878 we tasted, among a large collection of the sparkling

wines of the Côte d'Or, samples of Chambertin, Romanée, and Vougeot,

of the highest order. Although red wines, they had the merit of being

deficient in that body which forms such an objectionable feature in

sparkling wines of a deep shade of colour. M. Regnier, the exhibitor

of sparkling red Vougeot, sent, moreover, a white sparkling wine, from

the species of grape known locally as the clos blanc de Vougeot. These

wines, as well as the Chambertin, came from the Côte de Nuits, the

growths of which are generally considered of too vigorous a type for

successful conversion into sparkling wine, preference being usually

given to the produce of the Côte de Beaune. Among the sparkling

Burgundies from the last-named district were samples from Savigny,

Chassagne, and Meursault, all famous for their fine white wines.

Burgundy ranks as one of the oldest viticultural regions of Central

Europe, and for centuries its wines have been held in the highest

renown. In the Middle Ages both the wines and vines of this favoured

province passed as presents from one royal personage to another, just

as grand _cordons_ are exchanged between them nowadays. The fabrication

of sparkling wine, however, dates no further back than some sixty years

or so. The system of procedure is much the same as in the Champagne,

and, as there, the wine is mainly the produce of the pineau noir and

pineau blanc varieties of grape. At the vintage, in order to avoid

bruising the ripened fruit and to guard against premature fermentation,

the grapes are conveyed to the pressoirs in baskets, instead of the

large oval vats termed _balonges_, common to the district. They

are placed beneath the press as soon as possible, and for superior

sparkling wines only the juice resulting from the first pressure,

and known as the _mère goutte_, or mother drop, is employed. For the

ordinary wines, that expressed at the second squeezing of the fruit is

mingled with the other. The must is at once run off into casks, which

have been previously sulphured, to check, in a measure, the ardour

of the first fermentation, and lighten the colour of the newly-made

wine. Towards the end of October, when this first fermentation is

over, the wine is removed to the cellars, or to some other cool place,

and in December it is racked into other casks. In the April following

it is again racked, to insure its being perfectly clear at the epoch

of bottling in the month of May. The sulphuring of the original

casks having had the effect of slightly checking the fermentation

and retaining a certain amount of saccharine in the wine, it is only

on exceptional occasions that the latter is artificially sweetened

previous to being bottled.

A fortnight after the tirage the wine commonly attains the stage known

as _grand mousseux_, and by the end of September the breakage will

have amounted to between 5 and 8 per cent, which necessitates the

taking down the stacks of bottles and piling them up anew. The wine

as a rule remains in the cellars for fully a couple of years from the

time of bottling until it is shipped. Posing the bottles _sur pointe_,

agitating them daily, together with the disgorging and liqueuring of

the wine, are accomplished precisely as in the Champagne.

Among the principal manufacturers of sparkling Burgundies are Messrs.

André & Voillot, of Beaune, whose sparkling white Romanée, Nuits, and

Volnay are well and favourably known in England; M. Louis Latour, also

of Beaune, and equally noted for his sparkling red Volnay, Nuits, and

Chambertin, as for his sparkling white varieties; Messrs. Maire et

Fils, likewise of Beaune; M. Labouré-Goutard and Messrs. Geisweiller et

Fils, of Nuits; Messrs. Marey & Liger-Belair, of Nuits and Vosne; and

M. Regnier, of Dijon.

In the department of the Yonne--that is, in Lower Burgundy--sparkling

wines somewhat alcoholic in character have been made for the last half

century at Tonnerre, where the Chevalier d'Eon, that enigma of his

epoch, was born. The Tonnerre vineyards are of high antiquity, and

for sparkling wines the produce of the black and white pineau and the

white morillon varieties of grape is had recourse to. The vintaging is

accomplished with great care, and only the juice which flows from the

first pressure is employed. This is run off immediately into casks,

which are hermetically closed when the fermentation has subsided. The

after-treatment of the wine is the same as in the Champagne. Sparkling

wines are likewise made at Epineuil, a village in the neighbourhood

of Tonnerre, and at Chablis, so famous for its white wines, about ten

miles distant.

An effervescing wine known as the Vin d'Arbanne is made at

Bar-sur-Aube, some fifty miles north-east of Tonnerre, on the borders

of Burgundy, but actually in the province of Champagne, although far

beyond the limits to which the famed viticultural district extends.

It was at Bar-sur-Aube where the Bastard de Bourbon, chief of the

sanguinary gang of _écorcheurs_ (flayers), was sewn up in a sack and

flung over the parapet of the old stone bridge into the river beneath,

by order of Charles VII.; and here, too, Madame de la Motte, of Diamond

Necklace notoriety, was married, and in after years made a parade

of the ill-gotten wealth she had acquired by successfully fooling

that infatuated libertine the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, until her

ostentatious display was cut short by her arrest. This Vin d'Arbanne

is produced from pineaux and white gamay grapes, which, after being

gathered with care at the moment the dew falls, are forthwith pressed.

The wine is left on its lees until the following February, when it is

racked and fined, the bottling taking place when the moon is at the

full in March.

Red and white sparkling wines are made to a small extent at

Saint-Lager, in the Beaujolais, from wine vintaged in the Mont-Brouilly

vineyards, one of the best known of the Beaujolais crus. Mont-Brouilly

is a lofty hill near the village of Cercie, and is covered from base to

summit on all its sides with vines of the gamay species, rarely trained

at all, but left to trail along the ground at their own sweet will. At

the vintage, as we witnessed it, men and women--young, middle-aged,

and old--accompanied by troops of children, were roaming all over

the slopes dexterously nipping off the bunches of grapes with their

thumb and finger nails, and flinging them into the little wooden tubs

with which they were provided. The pressing of the grapes and the

after-treatment of the wine destined to become sparkling are the same

in the Beaujolais as in Upper and Lower Burgundy.

The red, straw, and yellow wines of the Jura have long had a high

reputation in the East of France, and the _Vin Jaune_ of Arbois, an

ancient fortified town on the banks of the Cuisance, besieged and

sacked in turn by Charles of Amboise, Henri IV., and Louis XIV., was

one of the favourite beverages of the tippling Béarnais who styled

himself Seigneur of Ay and Gonesse, and who acquired his liking for

it while sojourning during the siege of Arbois at the old Château des

Arsures. In one of Henri Quatre's letters to his minister Sully we find

him observing, 'I send you two bottles of Vin d'Arbois, for I know you

do not detest it.' A couple of other bottles of the same wine are said

to have cemented the king's reconciliation with Mayenne, the leader of

the League; and the lover of La Belle Gabrielle is moreover credited

with having composed at his mistress's table some doggrel rhymes in

honour of the famous Jura cru:

'Come, little page, serve us aright,

The crown is often heavy to bear;

So fill up my goblet large and light

Whenever you find a vacancy there.

This wine is surely no Christian wight,

And yet you never complaint will hear

That it's not baptised with water clear.

Down my throat I pour

The old Arbois;

And now, my lords, let us our voices raise,

And sing of Silenus and Bacchus the praise!'

In more modern times the Jura, not content with the fame of the

historic yellow wines of Arbois and the deservedly-esteemed straw wines

of Château-Châlon, has produced large quantities of sparkling wine,

the original manufacture of which commenced as far back as a century

ago. To-day the principal seats of the manufacture are at Arbois and

Lons-le-Saulnier, the latter town the capital of the department, and

one of the most ancient towns of France. Originally founded by the

Gauls on the banks of the Vallière, in a little valley bordered by

lofty hills, which are to-day covered with vines, it was girded round

with fortifications by the Romans. Subsequently the Huns and the

Vandals pillaged it; then the French and the Burgundians repeatedly

contested its possession, and it was only definitively acquired by

France during the reign of Louis XIV. Rouget de l'Isle, the famous

author of the 'Marseillaise,' was born at Lons-le-Saulnier, and here

also Marshal Ney assembled and harangued his troops before marching to

join Napoleon, whom he had promised Louis XVIII. to bring back to Paris

in an iron cage.

The vineyards whence the principal supplies for these sparkling wines

are derived are grouped at varying distances around Lons-le-Saulnier

at L'Etoile, Quintigny, Salins, Arbois, St. Laurent-la-Roche, and

Pupillin, with the Jura chain of mountains rising up grandly on the

east. The best vineyards at L'Etoile--which lies some couple of miles

from Lons-le-Saulnier, surrounded by hills, planted from base to

summit with vines--are La Vigne Blanche, Montmorin, and Montgenest. At

Quintigny, the wines of which are less potent than those of Arbois, and

only retain their effervescent properties for a couple of years, the

Paridis, Prémelan, and Montmorin vineyards are held in most repute,

while at Pupillin, where a soft agreeable wine is vintaged, the

principal vineyards are the Faille and the Clos. The vines cultivated

for the production of sparkling wines are chiefly the savagnin, or

white pineau, the melon of Poligny, and the poulsard, a black variety

of grape held locally in much esteem.

At the vintage, which commences towards the end of October and lasts

until the middle of the following month, all the rotten or unripe

grapes are carefully set aside, and the sound ones only submitted to

the action of a screw-press. After the must has flowed for about half

an hour, the grapes are newly collected under the press and the screw

again applied. The produce of this double operation is poured into a

vat termed a _sapine_, where it remains until bubbles are seen escaping

through the _chapeau_ that forms on the surface of the liquid. The

must is then drawn off--sometimes after being fined--into casks, which

the majority of wine-growers previously impregnate with the fumes of

sulphur. When in cask the wine is treated in one of two ways; either

the casks are kept constantly filled to the bunghole, causing the foam

which rises to the surface during the fermentation to flow over, and

thereby leave the wine comparatively clear, or else the casks are not

completely filled, in which case the wine requires to be racked several

times before it is in a condition for fining. This latter operation

is effected about the commencement of February, and a second fining

follows if the first one fails to render the wine perfectly clear. At

the bottling, which invariably takes place in April, the Jura wines

rarely require any addition of sugar to insure an ample effervescence.

Subsequently they are treated in exactly the same manner as the

vintages of the Marne are treated by the great Champagne manufacturers.

In addition to white sparkling wine, a pink variety, with natural

effervescent properties, is made by mixing with the savagnin and melon

grapes a certain proportion of the poulsard species, from which the

best red wines of the Jura are produced.

One of the principal sparkling wine establishments at Lons-le-Saulnier

is that of M. Auguste Devaux, founded in the year 1860. He manufactures

both sweet and dry wines, which are sold largely in France and

elsewhere on the Continent, and have lately been introduced into

England. Their alcoholic strength is equivalent to from 25° to 26°

of proof spirit, being largely above the dry sparkling wines of the

Champagne, which the Jura manufacturers regard as a positive advantage

rather than a decided drawback, which it most undoubtedly is.

Besides being too spirituous, the sparkling wines of the Jura are

deficient in refinement and delicacy. The commoner kinds, indeed,

frequently have a pronounced unpleasant flavour, due to the nature

of the soil, to careless vinification, or to the inferior quality of

liqueur with which the wines have been dosed. Out of some fifty samples

of all ages and varieties which in my capacity of juror I tasted at

the Paris Exhibition of 1878, I cannot call to mind one that a real

connoisseur of sparkling wines would care to admit to his table.

Sparkling wines are made after a fashion in several of the southern

provinces of France--in Auvergne, at Clermont-Ferrand, under the shadow

of the lofty Puy de Dôme; in Guienne, at Astaffort, the scene of a

bloody engagement during the Wars of Religion, in which the Protestant

army was cut to pieces when about to cross the Garonne; at Nérac, where

frail Marguerite de Valois kept her dissolute Court, and Catherine de

Médicis brought her flying squadron of fascinating maids-of-honour to

gain over the Huguenot leaders to the Catholic cause; and at Cahors,

the Divina, or divine fountain of the Celts, and the birthplace of

Pope John XXII., of Clement Marot, the early French poet, and of

Léon Gambetta; in Dauphiné, at Die, Saint-Chef, Saint-Péray, and

Largentière--so named after some abandoned silver mines--and where the

vines are cultivated against low walls rising in a series of terraces

from the base to the summit of the lofty hills; and in Languedoc, at

Brioude, where St. Vincent, the patron saint of the vine-dressers,

suffered martyrdom, and where it is the practice to expose the must of

the future sparkling wine for several nights to the dew in order to rid

it of its reddish colour; also at Linardie, and, more southward still,

at Limoux, whence comes the well-known effervescing Blanquette.

Principal among the foregoing is the excellent wine of Saint-Péray,

commonly characterised as the Champagne of the South of France. The

Saint-Péray vineyards border the Rhone some ten miles below the

Hermitage coteau--the vines of which are to-day well-nigh destroyed by

the phylloxera--but are on the opposite bank of the river. Our visit to

Saint-Péray was made from Valence, in which dull southern city we had

loitered in order to glance at the vast Hôtel du Gouvernement--where

octogenarian Pius VI., after being spirited away a prisoner from Rome

and hurried over the Alps in a litter by order of the French Directory,

drew his last breath while silently gazing across the rushing river at

the view he so much admired--and to discover the house in the Grande

Rue, numbered 4, in an attic of which history records that Napoleon I.,

when a sub-lieutenant of artillery in garrison at Valence, resided, and

which he quitted owing three and a half francs to his pastrycook.

We crossed the Rhone over one of its hundred flimsy suspension-bridges,

on the majority of which a notice warns you neither to smoke nor run,

and were soon skirting the base of a lofty, bare, precipitous rock,

with the 'horns of Crussol,' as the peasants term two tall pointed

gables of a ruined feudal château, perched at the dizzy edge, and

having a perpendicular fall of some five or six hundred feet below. The

château, which formerly belonged to the Dukes of Uzès, recognised by

virtue of the extent of their domains as _premiers pairs de France_,

was not originally erected in close proximity to any such formidable

precipice. The crag on which it stands had, it seems, been blasted from

time to time for the sake of the stone, until on one unlucky occasion,

when too heavy a charge of powder was employed, the entire side of the

rock, together with a considerable portion of the château itself, were

sent flying into the air. The authorities, professing to regard what

remained of the edifice as an historical monument of the Middle Ages,

hereupon stepped in and prohibited the quarry being worked for the

future.

[Illustration: CONVEYING GRAPES TO THE PRESS AT SAINT-PÉRAY.]

Passing beneath the cliff, one wound round to the left and dived into

a picturesque wooded dell at the entrance to a mountain pass, then

crossed the rocky bed of a dried-up stream, and drove along an avenue

of mulberry-trees, which in a few minutes conducted us to Saint-Péray,

where one found the vintage in full operation. Carts laden with tubs

filled with white and purple grapes, around which wasps without number

swarmed, were arriving from all points of the environs and crowding the

narrow streets. Any quantity of grapes were seemingly to be had for the

asking, for all the pretty girls in the place were gorging themselves

with the luscious-looking fruit. In the coopers' yards brand-new casks

were ranged in rows in readiness for the newly-made wine, and through

open doorways, and in all manner of dim recesses, one caught sight of

sturdy men energetically trampling the gushing grapes under their bare

feet, and of huge creaking winepresses reeking with the purple juice.

It was chiefly common red wine, of an excellent flavour, however, that

was being made in these nooks and corners, the sparkling white wine

known as Saint-Péray being manufactured in larger establishments, and

on more scientific principles. It is from a white species of grape

known as the petite and grosse rousette--the same which yields the

white Hermitage--that the Champagne of the south is produced; and the

vineyards where they are cultivated occupy all the more favourable

slopes immediately outside the village, the most noted being the

Coteau-Gaillard, Solignacs, Thioulet, and Hungary.

Although there is a close similarity between the manufacture of

Champagne and the effervescing wine of Saint-Péray, there are still

one or two noteworthy variations. For a wine to be sparkling it is

requisite that it should ferment in the bottle, a result obtained by

bottling it while it contains a certain undeveloped proportion of

alcohol and carbonic acid, represented by so much sugar, of which

they are the component parts. This ingredient has frequently to be

added to the Champagne wines to render them sparkling, but the wine

of Saint-Péray in its natural state contains so much sugar that any

addition would be deleterious. This excess of saccharine enables the

manufacturer to dispense with some of the operations necessary to the

fabrication of Champagne, which, after fermenting in the cask, requires

a second fermentation to be provoked in the bottle, whereas the

Saint-Péray wine ferments only once, being bottled immediately it comes

from the wine-press.

The deposit in the wine after being impelled towards the neck of the

bottle is got rid of by following the same system as is pursued in the

Champagne, but no liqueur whatever is subsequently added to the wine.

On the other hand, it is a common practice to reduce the over-sweetness

of sparkling Saint-Péray in years when the grapes are more than usually

ripe by mixing with it some old dry white wine.

At Saint-Péray we visited the cellars of M. de Saint-Prix, one of the

principal wine-growers of the district. The samples of effervescing

wine which he produced for us to taste were of a pale golden colour,

of a slightly nutty flavour, and with a decided suggestion of the

spirituous essence known to be concentrated in the wine, one glass of

which will go quite as far towards elevating a person as three glasses

of Champagne. Keeping the wine for a few years is said materially to

improve its quality, to the sacrifice, however, of its effervescing

properties. M. de Saint-Prix informed us that he manufactured every

year a certain quantity of sparkling Côte-Rotie, Château-Grillé,

and Hermitage. The principal markets for the Saint-Péray sparkling

wines--the production of which falls considerably short of a million

bottles per annum--are England, Germany, Russia, Holland, and Belgium.

[Illustration]

The other side of the Rhone is fruitful in minor sparkling wines,

chief among which is the so-called Clairette de Die, made at the town

of that name, a place of some splendour, as existing antiquities

show, in the days of the Roman dominion in Gaul. Later on, Die was

the scene of constant struggles for supremacy between its counts and

bishops, one of the latter being massacred by the populace in front of

the cathedral doorway--ever since known by the sinister appellation

of the Porte Rouge--and Catholics and Huguenots alike devastated the

town in the troublesome times of the Reformation. Clairette de Die is

made principally from the blanquette or malvoisie variety of grape,

which, after the stalks have been removed, is both trodden with the

feet and pressed. The must is run off immediately into casks, and

four-and-twenty hours later it is racked into other casks, a similar

operation being performed every two or three days for the period

of a couple of months, when, the fermentation having subsided, the

wine is fined and usually bottled in the following March. Newly-made

Clairette de Die is a sweet sparkling wine, but it loses its natural

effervescence after a couple of years, unless it has been treated in

the same manner as Champagne, which is rarely the case. The wine enjoys

a reputation altogether beyond its merits.

In addition to the well-known Clairette, some of the wine-growers

of Die make sparkling white and rose-coloured muscatels of superior

quality, which retain their effervescing properties for several years.

A sparkling wine is also made some ten miles from Die, on the road to

Saillans, in a district bounded on the one side by the waters of the

Drôme, and on the other by strange mountains with helmet-shaped crests.

The centre of production is a locality called Vercheny, composed of

several hamlets, one of which, named Le Temple, was the original

home of the family of Barnave. The impressionable young deputy to

the National Assembly formed one of the trio sent to bring back the

French royal family from Varennes after their flight from Paris. It

will be remembered how, under the influence of Marie Antoinette and

Madame Elizabeth, Barnave became transformed during the journey into a

faithful partisan of their unhappy cause, and that he eventually paid

the penalty of his devotion with his life.

In the extreme south of France, and almost under the shadow of the

Pyrenees, a sparkling wine of some repute is made at a place called

Lagrasse, about five-and-twenty miles westward of Narbonne, the

once-famous Mediterranean city, the maritime rival of Marseilles, and

in its palmy days, prior to the Christian era, a miniature Rome, with

its capitol, its curia, its decemvirs, its consuls, its prætors, its

questors, its censors, and its ediles, and which boasted of being the

birthplace of three Roman Emperors. To-day Narbonne has to content

itself with the humble renown derived from its delicious honey and

its characterless full-bodied wines. Limoux, so celebrated for its

Blanquette, lies a long way farther to the west, behind the Corbières

range of mountains that join on to the Pyrenees, and the jagged peaks,

deep barren gorges, and scarred sides of which have been witness of

many a desperate struggle during the century and a half when they

formed the boundary between France and Spain.

We arrived at Limoux just too late for the famous _fête_ of the Black

Virgin, which lasts three weeks, and attracts crowds of southern

pilgrims to the chapel of Our Lady of Marseilles, perched on a little

hill some short distance from the town, with a fountain half-way up,

whose water issues drop by drop, and has the credit of possessing

unheard-of virtues. The majority of pilgrims, however, exhibit a

decided preference for the new-made wine over the miraculous water, and

for one-and-twenty days something like a carnival of inebriety prevails

at Limoux.

Blanquette de Limoux derives its name from the species of grape it is

produced from, and which we believe to be identical with the malvoisie,

or malmsey. Its long-shaped berries grow in huge bunches, and dry

readily on the stalks. The fruit is gathered as tenderly as possible,

care being taken that it shall not be in the slightest degree bruised,

and is then spread out upon a floor to admit of whatever sugar it

contains becoming perfect. The bad grapes having been carefully picked

out, and the seeds extracted from the remaining fruit, the latter is

now trodden, and the must, after being filtered through a strainer, is

placed in casks, where it remains fermenting for about a week, during

which time any overflow is daily replenished by other must reserved for

the purpose. The wine is again clarified, and placed in fresh casks

with the bungholes only lightly closed until all sensible fermentation

has ceased, when they are securely fastened up. The bottling takes

place in the month of March, and the wine is subsequently treated much

after the same fashion as sparkling Saint-Péray, excepting that it is

generally found necessary to repeat the operation of _dégorgement_

three, if not as many as four, times.

Blanquette de Limoux is a pale white wine, the saccharine properties

of which have become completely transformed into carbonic acid gas

and alcohol. It is consequently both dry and spirituous, deficient in

delicacy, and altogether proves a great disappointment. At its best it

may, perhaps, rank with sparkling Saint-Péray, but unquestionably not

with an average Champagne.

[Illustration: PREPARING THE CHAMPAGNE LIQUEUR.]

III.

/Facts and Notes respecting Sparkling Wines./

Dry and sweet Champagnes--Their sparkling properties--Form

of Champagne glasses--Style of sparkling wines consumed in

different countries--The colour and alcoholic strength of

Champagne--Champagne approved of by the faculty--Its use in

nervous derangements--The icing of Champagne--Scarcity of grand

vintages in the Champagne--The quality of the wine has little

influence on the price--Prices realised by the Ay and Verzenay

crus in grand years--Suggestions for laying down Champagnes of

grand vintages--The improvement they develop after a few years--The

wine of 1874--The proper kind of cellar in which to lay down

Champagne--Advantages of Burrow's patent slider wine-bins--Increase

in the consumption of Champagne--Tabular statement of stocks,

exports, and home consumption from 1844-5 to 1877-8--When to serve

Champagne at a dinner-party--Charles Dickens's dictum that its

proper place is at a ball--Advantageous effect of Champagne at an

ordinary British dinner-party.

[Illustration]

In selecting a sparkling wine, one fact should be borne in mind--that

just as, according to Sam Weller, it is the seasoning which makes the

pie mutton, beef, or veal, so it is the liqueur which renders the

wine dry or sweet, light or strong. A really palatable dry Champagne,

emitting the fragrant bouquet which distinguishes all wines of fine

quality, free from added spirit, is obliged to be made of the very

best _vin brut_, to which necessarily an exceedingly small percentage

of liqueur will be added. On the other hand, a sweet Champagne can be

produced from the most ordinary raw wine--the Yankees even claim to

have evolved it from petroleum--as the amount of liqueur it receives

completely masks its original character and flavour. This excess of

syrup, it should be remarked, contributes materially to the wine's

explosive force and temporary effervescence; but shortly after the

bottle has been uncorked the wine becomes disagreeably flat. A fine dry

wine, indebted as it is for its sparkling properties to the natural

sweetness of the grape, does not exhibit the same sudden turbulent

effervescence. It continues to sparkle, however, for a long time after

being poured into the glass, owing to the carbonic acid having been

absorbed by the wine itself instead of being accumulated in the vacant

space between the liquid and the cork, as is the case with wines

that have been highly liqueured. Even when its carbonic acid gas is

exhausted, a good Champagne will preserve its fine flavour, which the

effervescence will have assisted to conceal. Champagne, it should be

noted, sparkles best in tall tapering glasses; still these have their

disadvantages, promoting, as they do, an excess of froth when the wine

is poured into them, and almost preventing any bouquet which the wine

possesses from being recognised.

Manufacturers of Champagne and other sparkling wines prepare them

dry or sweet, light or strong, according to the markets for which

they are designed. The sweet wines go to Russia and Germany--the

sweet-toothed Muscovite regarding M. Louis Roederer's syrupy product

as the _beau-idéal_ of Champagne, and the Germans demanding wines with

twenty or more per cent of liqueur, or nearly quadruple the quantity

that is contained in the average Champagnes shipped to England. France

consumes light and moderately sweet wines; the United States gives a

preference to the intermediate qualities; China, India, and other hot

countries stipulate for light dry wines; while the very strong ones

go to Australia, the Cape, and other places where gold and diamonds

and suchlike trifles are from time to time 'prospected.' Not merely

the driest, but the very best, wines of the best manufacturers, and

commanding of course the highest prices, are invariably reserved for

the English market. Foreigners cannot understand the marked preference

shown in England for exceedingly dry sparkling wines. They do not

consider that as a rule they are drunk during dinner with the _plats_,

and not at dessert, with all kinds of sweets, fruits, and ices, as is

almost invariably the case abroad.

Good Champagne is usually of a pale straw colour, but with nothing

of a yellow tinge about it. When its tint is pinkish, this is owing

to a portion of the colouring matter having been extracted from the

skins of the grapes--a contingency which every pains are taken to

avoid, although, since the success achieved by the wine of 1874,

slightly pink wines are likely to be the fashion. The positive pink or

rose-coloured Champagnes, such as were in fashion some thirty years

ago, are simply tinted with a small quantity of deep-red wine. The

alcoholic strength of the drier wines ranges from eighteen degrees of

proof spirit upwards, or slightly above the ordinary Bordeaux, and

under all the better-class Rhine wines. Champagnes, when loaded with

a highly alcoholised liqueur, will, however, at times mark as many as

thirty degrees of proof spirit. The lighter and drier the sparkling

wine, the more wholesome it is, the saccharine element in conjunction

with alcohol being not only difficult of digestion, but generally

detrimental to health.

The faculty are agreed that fine dry Champagnes, consumed in

moderation, are among the safest wines that can be partaken of. Any

intoxicating effects are rapid but exceedingly transient, and arise

from the alcohol suspended in the carbonic acid being applied rapidly

and extensively to the surface of the stomach. 'Champagne,' said

Curran, 'simply gives a runaway rap at a man's head.' Dr. Druitt,

equally distinguished by his studies upon wine and his standing as

a physician, pronounces good Champagne to be 'a true stimulant to

body and mind alike--rapid, volatile, transitory, and harmless.

Amongst the maladies that are benefited by it,' remarks he, 'is the

true neuralgia--intermitting fits of excruciating pain running along

certain nerves, without inflammation of the affected part, often a

consequence of malaria, or of some other low and exhausting causes.

To enumerate the cases in which Champagne is of service would be to

give a whole nosology. Who does not know the misery, the helplessness

of that abominable ailment influenza, whether a severe cold or the

genuine epidemic? Let the faculty dispute about the best remedy if they

please; but a sensible man with a bottle of Champagne will beat them

all. Moreover, whenever there is pain, with exhaustion and lowness,

then Dr. Champagne should be had up. There is something excitant in the

wine--doubly so in the sparkling wine, which, the moment it touches

the lips, sends an electric telegram of comfort to every remote nerve.

Nothing comforts and rests the stomach better, or is a greater antidote

to nausea.'

Champagne of fine quality should never be mixed with ice or iced water;

neither should it be iced to the extent Champagnes ordinarily are; for,

in the first place, the natural lightness of the wine is such as not

to admit of its being diluted without utterly spoiling it, and in the

next, excessive cold destroys alike the fragrant bouquet of the wine

and its delicate vinous flavour. Really good Champagne should not be

iced below a temperature of fifty degrees Fahr.; whereas exceedingly

sweet wines will bear icing down almost to freezing point, and be

rendered more palatable by the process. The above remarks apply to all

sorts of sparkling wine.

In the Champagne, what may be termed a really grand vintage commonly

occurs only once, and never more than twice, in ten years. During

the same period, however, there will generally be one or two other

tolerably good vintages. In grand years the crop, besides being of

superior quality, is usually abundant, and as a consequence the price

of the raw wine is scarcely higher than usual. Apparently from this

circumstance the sparkling wine of grand vintages does not command an

enhanced value, as is the case with other fine wines. It is only when

speculators recklessly outbid each other for the grapes or the _vin

brut_, or when stocks are low and the _vin brut_ is really scarce, that

the price of Champagne appears to rise.

That superior quality does not involve enhanced price is proved by the

amounts paid for the Ay and Verzenay crus in years of grand vintages.

During the present century these appear to have been 1802, '06, '11,

'18, '22, '25, '34, '42, '46, '57, '65, '68, and '74--that is, thirteen

grand vintages in eighty years. Other good vintages, although not

equal to the foregoing, occurred in the years 1815, '32, '39, '52,

'54, '58, '62, '64, and '70. Confining ourselves to the grand years,

we find that the Ay wine of 1834, owing to the crop being plentiful

as well as good, only realised from 110 to 140 francs the pièce of 44

gallons, although for two years previously this had fetched them 150 to

200 francs. In 1842 the price ranged from 120 to 150 francs, whereas

the vastly inferior wine of the year before had commanded from 210 to

275 francs. In 1846, the crop being a small one, the price of the wine

rose, and in 1857 the pièce fetched as much as from 480 to 500 francs;

still this was merely a trifle higher than it had realised the two

preceding years. In 1865 the price was 380 to 400 francs, and in 1868

about the same, whereas the indifferent vintages of 1871, '72, and

'73--the latter eventually proved to be of execrable quality--realised

from 500 to 1000 francs the pièce. It was very similar with the wine of

Verzenay. In 1834 the price of the pièce ranged from 280 to 325 francs,

or about the average of the three preceding years. In 1846, the crop

being scarce, the price rose considerably; while in 1857, when the crop

was plentiful, it fell to 500 francs, or from 5 to 20 per cent below

that of the two previous years, when the yield was both inferior and

less abundant. In 1865 the price rose 33 per cent above that of the

year before; still, although Verzenay wine of 1865 and 1868 fetched

from 420 to 450 francs the pièce, and that of 1874 as much as 900

francs, the greatly inferior vintages of 1872-73 commanded 900 and 1030

francs the pièce. Subsequently the price of the wine fell to 350 and

450 francs the pièce, to rise again, however, in 1878 to 900 francs,

which was followed by a fall the following year to 250 francs. In 1880,

when the yield was no more than the quarter of an average one, and the

quality was as yet undetermined, the Ay and Verzenay wines commanded

the high price of 1500 francs and upwards the pièce. Exceptionally high

prices were also realised for the wines of the neighbouring localities.

Consumers of Champagne, if wise, would profit by the circumstance that

quality has not the effect of causing a rise in prices, and if they

were bent upon drinking their favourite wine in perfection, as one

meets with it at the dinner-tables of the principal manufacturers,

who only put old wine of grand vintages before their guests, they

would lay down Champagnes of good years in the same way as the choicer

vintages of port, burgundy, and bordeaux are laid down. The Champagne

of 1874 was a wine of this description, with all its finer vinous

qualities well developed, and consequently needing age to attain not

merely the roundness, but the refinement, of flavour pertaining to a

high-class sparkling wine. Instead of being drunk a few months after

it was shipped in the spring and summer of 1877, as was the fate of

much of the wine in question, it needed being kept for three years at

the very least to become even moderately round and perfect. In the

Champagne one had many opportunities of tasting the grander vintages

that had arrived at ten, twelve, or fifteen years of age, and had

thereby attained supreme excellence. It is true their effervescence had

moderated materially, but their bouquet and flavour were perfect, and

their softness and delicacy something marvellous.

A great wine like that of 1874 will go on improving for ten years,

providing it is only laid down under proper conditions. These are,

first, an exceedingly cool but perfectly dry cellar, the temperature

of which should be as low as from 50° to 55° Fahr., or even lower if

this is practicable. The cellar, too, should be neither over dark nor

light, scrupulously clean, and sufficiently well ventilated for the

air to be continuously pure. It is requisite that the bottles should

rest on their sides, to prevent the corks shrinking, and thus allowing

both the carbonic acid and the wine itself to escape. For laying down

Champagne or any kind of sparkling wine, an iron wine-bin is by far

the best; and the patent 'slider' bins made by Messrs. W. & J. Burrow,

of Malvern, are better adapted to the purpose than any other. In these

the bottles rest on horizontal parallel bars of wrought-iron, securely

riveted into strong wrought-iron uprights, both at the back and in

front. They are especially adapted for laying down Champagne, as they

admit of the air circulating freely around the bottles, thus conducing

to the preservation of the metal foil round their necks, and keeping

the temperature of the wine both cool and equable.

From the subjoined table it will be seen that the consumption of

Champagne has more than quadrupled since the year 1844-5, a period

of six-and-thirty years. A curious fact to note is the immense

increase in the exports of the wine during the three years following

the Franco-German war, during which contest both the exports and

home consumption of Champagne naturally fell off very considerably.

No reliable information is available as to the actual quantity of

Champagne consumed yearly in England, but this may be taken in round

numbers at about four millions of bottles. The consumption of the wine

in the United States varies from rather more than a million and a half

to nearly two million bottles annually.

OFFICIAL RETURN BY THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AT REIMS OF THE TRADE IN

CHAMPAGNE WINES FROM APRIL 1844 TO APRIL 1881.

+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+-------------+

|Years--from| | Number of | Number of | Total |

| April |Manufacturers'| Bottles |Bottles sold | Number of |

| to April. | Stocks. | exported. | in France. |Bottles sold.|

+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+-------------+

| 1844-45 | 23,285,218 | 4,380,214 | 2,255,438 | 6,635,652 |

| 1845-46 | 22,847,971 | 4,505,308 | 2,510,605 | 7,015,913 |

| 1846-47 | 18,815,367 | 4,711,915 | 2,355,366 | 7,067,281 |

| 1847-48 | 23,122,994 | 4,859,625 | 2,092,571 | 6,952,196 |

| 1848-49 | 21,290,185 | 5,686,484 | 1,473,966 | 7,160,450 |

| 1849-50 | 20,499,192 | 5,001,044 | 1,705,735 | 6,706,779 |

| 1850-51 | 20,444,915 | 5,866,971 | 2,122,569 | 7,989,540 |

| 1851-52 | 21,905,479 | 5,957,552 | 2,162,880 | 8,120,432 |

| 1852-53 | 19,376,967 | 6,355,574 | 2,385,217 | 8,740,790 |

| 1853-54 | 17,757,769 | 7,878,320 | 2,528,719 | 10,407,039 |

| 1854-55 | 20,922,959 | 5,895,773 | 2,452,743 | 9,348,516 |

| 1855-56 | 15,957,141 | 7,137,001 | 2,562,039 | 9,699,040 |

| 1856-57 | 15,228,294 | 8,490,198 | 2,468,818 | 10,959,016 |

| 1857-58 | 21,628,778 | 7,368,310 | 2,421,454 | 9,789,764 |

| 1858-59 | 28,328,251 | 7,666,633 | 2,805,416 | 10,472,049 |

| 1859-60 | 35,648,124 | 8,265,395 | 3,039,621 | 11,305,016 |

| 1860-61 | 30,235,260 | 8,488,223 | 2,697,508 | 11,185,731 |

| 1861-62 | 30,254,291 | 6,904,915 | 2,592,875 | 9,497,790 |

| 1862-63 | 28,013,189 | 7,937,836 | 2,767,371 | 10,705,207 |

| 1863-64 | 28,466,975 | 9,851,138 | 2,934,996 | 12,786,134 |

| 1864-65 | 33,298,672 | 9,101,441 | 2,801,626 | 11,903,067 |

| 1865-66 | 34,175,429 | 10,413,455 | 2,782,777 | 13,196,132 |

| 1866-67 | 37,608,716 | 10,283,886 | 3,218,343 | 13,502,229 |

| 1867-68 | 37,969,219 | 10,876,585 | 2,924,268 | 13,800,853 |

| 1868-69 | 32,490,881 | 12,810,194 | 3,104,496 | 15,914,690 |

| 1869-70 | 39,272,562 | 13,858,839 | 3,628,461 | 17,487,300 |

| 1870-71 | 39,984,003 | 7,544,323 | 1,633,941 | 9,178,264 |

| 1871-72 | 40,099,243 | 17,001,124 | 3,367,537 | 20,368,661 |

| 1872-73 | 45,329,490 | 18,917,779 | 3,464,059 | 22,381,838 |

| 1873-74 | 46,573,974 | 18,106,310 | 2,491,759 | 20,598,069 |

| 1874-75 | 52,733,674 | 15,318,345 | 3,517,182 | 18,835,527 |

| 1875-76 | 64,658,767 | 16,705,719 | 2,439,762 | 19,145,481 |

| 1876-77 | 71,398,726 | 15,882,964 | 3,127,991 | 19,010,955 |

| 1877-78 | 70,183,863 | 15,711,651 | 2,450,983 | 18,162,634 |

| 1878-79 | 65,813,194 | 14,844,181 | 2,596,356 | 17,440,537 |

| 1879-80 | 68,540,668 | 16,524,593 | 2,665,561 | 19,190,154 |

| 1880-81 | 54,505,964 | 18,220,980 | 2,330,924 | 20,551,904 |

+-----------+--------------+------------+-------------+-------------+

Distinguished gourmets are scarcely agreed as to the proper moment

when Champagne should be introduced at the dinner-table. Dyspeptic Mr.

Walker, of 'The Original,' laid it down that Champagne ought to be

introduced very early at the banquet, without any regard whatever to

the viands it may chance to accompany. 'Give Champagne,' he says, 'at

the beginning of dinner, as its exhilarating qualities serve to start

the guests, after which they will seldom flag. No other wine produces

an equal effect in increasing the success of a party--it invariably

turns the balance to the favourable side. When Champagne goes rightly,

nothing can well go wrong.' These precepts are sound enough; still

all dinner-parties are not necessarily glacial, and the guests are

not invariably mutes. Before Champagne can be properly introduced at

a formal dinner, the conventional glass of sherry or madeira should

supplement the soup, a white French or a Rhine wine accompany the fish,

and a single glass of bordeaux prepare the way with the first _entrée_

for the sparkling wine, which, for the first round or two, should be

served briskly and liberally. A wine introduced thus early at the

repast should of course be dry, or, at any rate, moderately so.

We certainly do not approve of Mr. Charles Dickens's dictum that

Champagne's proper place is not at the dinner-table, but solely

at a ball. 'A cavalier,' he said, 'may appropriately offer at

propitious intervals a glass now and then to his danceress. There

it takes its fitting rank and position amongst feathers, gauzes,

lace, embroidery, ribbons, white-satin shoes, and eau-de-Cologne,

for Champagne is simply one of the elegant extras of life.' This

is all very well; still the advantageous effect of sparkling wine

at an ordinary British dinner-party, composed as it frequently is

of people brought indiscriminately together in accordance with the

exigencies of the hostess's visiting-list, cannot be gainsaid. After

the preliminary glowering at each other, _more Britannico_, in the

drawing-room, everybody regards it as a relief to be summoned to the

repast, which, however, commences as chillily as the soup and as

stolidly as the salmon. The soul of the hostess is heavy with the

anxiety of prospective dishes, the brow of the host is clouded with

the reflection that our rulers are bent upon adding an extra penny to

the income-tax. Placed between a young lady just out and a dowager of

grimly Gorgonesque aspect, you hesitate how to open a conversation.

Your first attempts are singularly ineffectual, only eliciting a

dropping fire of monosyllables. You envy the placidly languid young

gentleman opposite, limp as his fast-fading camellia, and seated next

to Belle Breloques, who is certain, in racing parlance, to make the

running for him. But even that damsel seems preoccupied with her fan,

and, despite her _aplomb_, hesitates to break the icy silence. The two

City friends of the host are lost in mute speculation as to the future

price of indigo or Ionian Bank shares, while their wives seem to be

mentally summarising the exact cost of each other's toilettes. Their

daughters, or somebody else's daughters, are desperately jerking out

monosyllabic responses to feeble remarks concerning the weather, the

theatres, operatic _débutantes_, the people in the Row, æstheticism,

and kindred topics from a couple of F.O. men. Little Snapshot, the wit,

on the other side of the Gorgon, has tried to lead up to a story, but

has found himself, as it were, frozen in the bud. When lo! the butler

softly sibillates in your ear the magic word 'Champagne,' and as it

flows, creaming and frothing, into your glass, a change comes over the

spirit of your vision.

The hostess brightens, the host coruscates. The young lady on

your right suddenly develops into a charming girl, with becoming

appreciation of your pet topics and an astounding aptness for repartee.

The Gorgon thaws, and implores Mr. Snapshot, whose jests are popping

as briskly as the corks, not to be so dreadfully funny, or he will

positively kill her. Belle Breloques can always talk, and now her

tongue rattles faster then ever, till the languid one arouses himself

like a giant refreshed, and gives her as good as he gets. The City

men expatiate in cabalistic language on the merits of some mysterious

speculation, the prospective returns from which increase with each

fresh bottle. One of their wives is discussing church decoration

with a hitherto silent curate, and the other is jabbering botany to

a red-faced warrior. The juniors are in full swing, and ripples of

silvery laughter rise in accompaniment to the beaded bubbles all round

the table.

Gradually, as people drift off from generalities to their own

particular line--gastronomy, politics, art, sport, fashion, literature,

church matters, theatricals, speculation, scandal, dress, and the

like--the scraps of sentences that the ear catches flying about the

table present a mosaic somewhat resembling the following: 'Forster

should have sent him to Kilmainham--to see that dear delightful Mr.

Irving in--ten-inch armour-plating, but could not steer in a sea-way,

so--sat down in the saddle and rammed his spurs into--Petsy Prettitoes

and half a dozen girls from the Cruralia, who were--ordained last week

by the Bishop of London, when his lordship--said there was no doubt

who best deserved the vacant Garter, and declared--a dividend of seven

per cent for the--comet year with a bouquet--of sunflowers and lilies

on satin, which you should--cover with a light crust--of stiff clay,

with a rasper on the further side as--the third story of the hotel

overlooking--the Euphrates Valley Railway, which would lead to--the

loveliest bit of landscape in the Academy--with the finest hair in the

world, and eyes like--a boiled cod's head and shoulders--cut low at the

neck, with a gold shoulder-strap, and--nothing else to speak of before

the House except the Bill for--her photographs, which are in all the

shop-windows, beside Mrs. Langtry's--who never ought to have allowed

Bismarck to--assist at the consecration of--the Henley course--so the

Duke started at once for Aldershot, and reviewed--the two best novels

of the season--cut up with tomatoes and a dash of garlic--and was

positive he saw them dining together at Richmond on--fourteen brace of

birds and five hares in--the loveliest set of embroidered vestments

and an altar-cloth worked for--a Conservative majority, which will

drive the Government to--take a couple of stalls at Her Majesty's to

hear _Carmen_--who gave him the last galop, but he--blundered at his

first fence and fell--to seventy-two and a half, whilst the preference

shares were--all ordered on foreign service and--heard nothing from

the Irish members but--Oscar Wilde's poems bound in red morocco--with

a white-satin train and--plenty of body and a good colour--all through

riding every morning in--a private box on the upper tier--and that is

why Gladstone at once gave orders--for them to be actually shut up

together--in the strong room of the Bank of England, with a reserve

fund of bullion--from the music in the first act of _Patience_--equal

to that of Job when he said--well, only half a glass, then, since

you are so pressing.' And all this is due to Champagne, that great

unloosener not merely of tongues, but, better still, of purse-strings,

as is well known to the secretaries of those charitable institutions

which set the exhilarating wine flowing earliest at their anniversary

dinners.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

APPENDIX.

THE PRINCIPAL CHAMPAGNE AND OTHER FRENCH SPARKLING WINE BRANDS.

[asterism] In this list, whenever a manufacturer has various qualities,

the higher qualities are always placed first.

The lowest qualities are omitted altogether.

CHAMPAGNES.

Firms and Wholesale Brands. Qualities. On side of Corks.

Agents.

AYALA & Co., [Illustration] Extra (Dry) Extra.

/Ay/ First (Dry) Première.

Ayala & Co., 59 & [Illustration] Second.

60 Great

Tower-street,

London

Runk & Unger, 50

Park-place,

New York

BINET FILS & Co., [Illustration] Dry Elite Dry Elite.

/Reims/ First First quality.

Rutherford & Browne,

5 Water-lane,

London

BOLLINGER, J., [Illustration] Very Dry Extra Very Dry Extra

/Ay/ quality.

L. Mentzendorf, 6 Dry Extra Dry Extra

Idol-lane, quality.

London

E. & J. Burke,

40 Beaver-street,

New York

BRUCH-FOUCHER & Co., [Illustration] Carte d'Or.

/Mareuil/ First.

L. Ehrmann, 34 Great Second.

Tower-street,

London

CLICQUOT-PONSARDIN, [Illustration] Dry England.

/Vve., Reims/ Rich "

(WERLE & Co.)

Fenwick, Parrot, &

Co., 124

Fenchurch-street,

London

Schmidt Bros., New

York

DE CAZANOVE, C., [Illustration] Vin Monarque Extra.

/Avise/ First.

J. R. Hunter & Co., Second.

46 Fenchurch-street,

London

DEUTZ & GELDERMANN, [Illustration] Gold Lack Gold Lack.

/Ay/ (Extra Dry

J. R. Parkington & and Dry)

Co., Crutched Cabinet (Extra Cabinet.

Friars, London Dry and Dry)

DUCHATEL-OHAUS, [Illustration] Carte Blanche

/Reims/ (Dry and

Woellworth & Co., Rich).

70 Mark-lane, Verzenay (do.).

London Sillery (do.).

DUMINY & Co., [Illustration] Extra Maison fondée en

/Ay/ 1814.

Fickus, Courtenay, & [Illustration] First "

Co., St.

Dunstan's-buildings,

St. Dunstan's-hill,

London

Anthony Oechs, 51

Warren-street, New

York

ERNEST IRROY, [Illustration] Carte d'Or, Carte d'Or, Sec.

/Reims/ Dry

Cuddeford & Smith, Carte d'Or Carte d'Or.

66 Mark-lane,

London

F. O. de Luze & Co.,

18 South

William-street,

New York

FARRE, CHARLES, [Illustration] Cabinet (Grand Cabinet (Grand

/Reims/. Vin) Vin).

Hornblower & Co., [Illustration] Carte Blanche Carte Blanche.

50 Mark-lane, Carte Noire Carte Noire.

London

Gilmor & Gibson,

Baltimore

Mel & Sons, San

Francisco

Hogg, Robinson,

& Co., Melbourne

FISSE, THIRION, & [Illustration] Cachet d'Or Cachet d'Or.

Co., /Reims/ (Extra Dry

Stallard & Smith, and Medium

25 Philpot-lane, Dry)

London Carte Blanche Carte Blanche.

(Dry,

Medium Dry,

and Rich)

Carte Noire Carte Noire.

(Dry and

Medium Dry)

GÉ-DUFAUT & Co., [Illustration] Vin de Réserve.

/Pierry/ Vin de Cabinet.

L. Rosenheim & Sons, Bouzy, 1^{er}

7 Union-court, Cru.

Old Broad-street, Fleur de

London Sillery.

GIBERT, GUSTAVE, [Illustration] Vin du Roi

/Reims/ (Extra Dry,

Cock, Russell, & Co., Dry, or

23 Rood-lane, Rich).

London

Hays & Co., 40 [Illustration] Extra (Extra

Day-street, Dry, Dry,

New York or Rich).

GIESLER & Co., [Illustration] Extra Extra.

/Avize/ Superior

F. Giesler & Co., India India.

32 Fenchurch-street, First.

London

Purdy & Nicholas, [Illustration]

43 Beaver-street Second.

New York

HEIDSIECK & Co., [Illustration] Dry Monopole.

/Reims/. Monopole (Rich).

Theodor Satow & Co., Dry Vin

141 Fenchurch-street, Royal.

London Grand Vin

Schmidt & Peters, Royal (Rich).

20 Beaver-street,

New York

KRUG & Co., [Illustration] Carte Carte Blanche,

/Reims/ Blanche England.

Inglis & Cunningham, Private Private Cuvée,

60 Mark-lane, Cuvée England.

London

A. Rocherau & Co.,

New York

MAX. SUTAINE & Co., [Illustration] Creaming Sillery

/Reims/ (Extra Dry).

(VEUVE MORELLE & Co.)

H. Schultz, 71 Great Creaming Sillery.

Tower-st., London

Knoepfel & Co., 60 Bouzy (Dry).

Liberty-street, Sparkling Sillery.

New York

MOËT & CHANDON, [Illustration] Brut Imperial, England.

/Epernay/ Impérial

Simon & Dale, Creaming Creaming, "

Old Trinity House,

5 Water-lane, Extra Extra

London, Agents for Superior Superior, "

Gt. Britain and Extra Dry White Dry, "

the Colonies Sillery

Renauld, François, White Dry " " , "

& Co., 23 Sillery

Beaver-street, First England.

New York

J. Hope & Co., [Illustration] Second.

Montreal

MONTEBELLO, DUC DE, [Illustration] Cuvée Extra Cuvée Extra.

/Mareuil/ Carte Reserve.

John Hopkins & Co., Blanche

26 Crutched

Friars, London

Coyle & Turner,

31 Lower Ormond

Quay, Dublin

MUMM (G. H.) & Co., [Illustration] Vin Brut

/Reims/ Extra.

W. J. & T. Welch, Carte Carte Blanche.

10 Corn Exchange Blanche

Chambers, Extra Dry Extra Dry.

Seething-lane, Extra Extra Quality.

London

F. de Bary & Co.,

41 Warren-street,

New York

MUMM, JULES, & Co., [Illustration] Extra Dry.

/Reims/ Dry.

J. Mumm & Co., 3

Mark-lane, London

PÉRINET & FILS, [Illustration] Cuvée Réservée Cuvée

/Reims/ (Extra Dry) Réservée.

J. Barnett & Son, White Dry White Dry

36 Mark-lane, Sillery Sillery.

London

Wood, Pollard,

& Co., Boston,

U.S.

Hooper & Donaldson,

San Francisco

PERRIER-JOUËT & Co., [Illustration] Cuvée de Réserve Extra.

/Epernay/. Pale Dry

A. Boursot & Co., Creaming.

9 Hart-st., First.

Crutched Friars,

London

PFUNGST FRÈRES [Illustration] Carte d'Or Carte d'Or.

& Cie., /Ay/, (Dry, Extra

/Epernay/ Dry, & Brut).

J. L. Pfungst & Co., Sillery Crêmant Sillery

23 Crutched (Extra Dry and Crêmant

Friars, London Brut)

Carte Noire Carte Noire.

(Dry,

Extra Dry,

and Brut)

Cordon Blanc Cordon Blanc.

(Full, Dry, &

Extra Dry)

PIPER (H.) & Co., [Illustration] Très-Sec Kunkelmann

/Reims/ (Extra Dry) & Co.

(KUNKELMANN & Co.) Sec (Very " "

Newton & Rivière, Dry)

33 Great Carte Blanche " "

Tower-street, (Rich)

London

John Osborn, Son,

& Co.,

New York

POL ROGER & Co., [Illustration] Vin Réservé.

/Epernay/

Reuss, Lauteren

& Co.,

39 Crutched

Friars, London

POMMERY, VEUVE, [Illustration] Extra Sec Veuve Pommery.

/Reims/ (Vin Brut)

(POMMERY & GRENO)

A. Hubinet,

24 Mark-lane,

London

Charles Graef, [Illustration] Sec.

65 Broad-street,

New York

ROEDERER, LOUIS, [Illustration] Carte Blanche Reims, Carte

/Reims/ Blanche, Gt.

Grainger & Son, 108 Britain.

Fenchurch-street,

London

ROEDERER, THÉOPHILE, [Illustration] Crystal Special

& Co. (Maison Champagne, Cuvée.

fondée en 1864), Special Cuvée

/Reims/ Extra Reserve Reserve Cuvée.

J. Ashburner, Cuvée

Biart, & Co., 150 Carte Blanche, Carte Blanche.

Fenchurch-street, Ex.

London Carte Noire, Carte Noire.

First Verzenay Verzenay.

ROPER FRÈRES & Co., [Illustration] Vin Brut, Vin Brut.

/Rilly-la-Montagne/ or Natural

24 Crutched Champagne

Friars, London First (Extra Dry) Extra Dry.

Do. (Medium Dry) Medium Dry.

Second.

Crême de Bouzy.

RUINART, PÈRE [Illustration] Carte Anglaise.

ET FILS, Dry Pale Crêmant.

/Reims/ Ex. Dry

Ruinart, Père Sparkling.

et Fils, 22 St. Carte Blanche,

Swithin's-lane, First.

London

DE SAINT-MARCEAUX [Illustration] Vin Brut Vin Brut.

& Co., /Reims/ Carte d'Or Very Dry.

(C. ARNOULD (Extra Dry)

& HEIDELBERGER) Bouzy Nonpareil Vin Sec.

Groves & Co., (Dry)

5 Mark-lane, Carte Blanche

London (Medium).

Hermann Bätjer & _For America

Bro., only_.

New York [Illustration] Dry Royal Dry.

Extra Dry Extra Dry.

Second (Medium)

SAUMUR AND SAUTERNES.

_Firms and Wholesale _Brands._ _Qualities._ _On side of Corks._

Agents._

ACKERMAN-LAURANCE, [Illustration] Carte d'Or Carte d'Or.

/St. Florent, Carte Rose Carte Rose.

Saumur/ Carte Bleue Carte Bleue.

J. N. Bishop, Carte Noire Carte Noire.

41 Crutched

Friars,

London

D. McDougall

jun. & Co.,

St. George's-place,

Glasgow

DUVAU, LOUIS, [Illustration] Carte d'Or,

/Aîné, Château Ex. Sup.

de Varrains,/ Carte d'Argent,

near /Saumur/ Ex.

Jolivet & Canney, Carte Blanche,

3 Idol-lane, Sup.

London Carte Rose, Ord.

LORRAIN, JULES, [Illustration] Carte d'Or.

/Château Carte Blanche.

de la Côte, Carte Rose.

Varrains/, Carte Bleue.

near /Saumur/

J. Lorrain,

73 Great Tower-st.,

London

ROUSTEAUX, A., [Illustration] Extra.

/St. Florent,

Saumur/

Cock, Russell,

& Co., 63 Great

Tower-street,

London

I. H. Smith's Sons, [Illustration] First.

Peck Slip,

New York

NORMANDIN (E.) [Illustration] Sparkling Sauternes

& Co., (Extra Dry and Dry).

/Châteauneuf-sur-Charente/

P. A. Maignen, 22 Great Tower-street,

London

BURGUNDIES.

_Firms and Wholesale _Brands._ _Qualities._ _On side of Corks._

Agents._

ANDRÉ & VOILLOT, [Illustration] Romanée (White).

/Beaune/ Nuits (do.).

Cock, Russell, Volnay (do.).

& Co., Saint-Péray.

63 Great Pink and

Tower-street, Red Wines.

London

P. W. Engs &

Sons, 131

Front-street,

New York