Ay, the Vineyard of Golden Plants-- Summoning the Vintagers by Beat
of Drum-- Excitement in the Surrounding Villages-- The Pickers at
Work-- Sorting the Grapes-- Grapes Gathered at Sunrise the Best--
Varieties of Vines in the Ay Vineyards-- Few of the Growers in the
Champagne Crush their own Grapes-- Squeezing the Grapes in the
"Pressoir" and Drawing off the Must-- Cheerful Glasses Round-- The
Vintage at Mareuil-- Bringing in the Grapes on Mules and Donkeys--
The Vineyards of Avenay, Mutigny, and Cumières-- Damery and Adrienne
Lecouvreur, Maréchal de Saxe, and the obese Anna Iwanowna-- The
Vineyards of the Côte d'Epernay-- Boursault and its Château-- Pierry
and its Vineyard Cellars-- The Clos St. Pierre-- Moussy and Vinay--
A Hermit's Cave and a Miraculous Fountain-- Ablois St. Martin-- The
Côte d'Avize-- The Grand Premier Crû of Cramant-- Avize and its
Wines-- The Vineyards of Oger and Le Mesnil-- The Old Town of Vertus
and its Vine-clad Slopes-- Their Red Wine formerly celebrated.
With the exception of certain famous vineyards of the Rhône, the
vinelands of the Champagne may, perhaps, be classed among the most
picturesque of the more notable vine districts of France. Between Paris
and Epernay even, the banks of the Marne present a series of scenes of
quiet beauty. The undulating ground is everywhere cultivated like a
garden. Handsome châteaux and charming country houses peep out from amid
luxuriant foliage. Picturesque antiquated villages line the river's bank
or climb the hill sides, and after leaving La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, the
cradle of the Condés, all the more favoured situations commence to be
covered with vines.
This is especially the case in the vicinity of Château-Thierry--the
birthplace of La Fontaine--where the view is shut in on all sides by
vine-clad slopes, which the spring frosts seldom spare. Hence merely one
good vintage out of four gladdens the hearts of the peasant proprietors,
who find eager purchasers for their produce among the lower-class
manufacturers of champagne. In the same way the _petit vin de Chierry_,
dexterously prepared and judiciously mingled with other growths, often
figures as "Fleur de Sillery" or "Ay Mousseux." In reality it is not
until we have passed the ornate modern Gothic château of Boursault,
erected in her declining years by the wealthy Veuve Clicquot, by far the
shrewdest manipulator of the sparkling products of Ay and Bouzy of her
day, and the many towers and turrets of which, rising above umbrageous
trees, crown the loftiest height within eyeshot of Epernay, that we find
ourselves within that charmed circle of vineyards whence champagne--the
wine, not merely of princes, as it has been somewhat obsequiously
termed, but essentially the _vin de société_--is derived.
The vinelands in the vicinity of Epernay, and consequently near the
Marne, are commonly known as the "Vineyards of the River," whilst those
covering the slopes in the neighbourhood of Reims are termed the
"Vineyards of the Mountain." The Vineyards of the River comprise three
distinct divisions--first, those lining the right bank of the Marne and
enjoying a southern and south-eastern aspect, among which are Ay,
Hautvillers, Cumières, Dizy, and Mareuil; secondly, the Côte d'Epernay
on the left bank of the river, of which Pierry, Moussy, and Vinay form
part; and thirdly, the Côte d'Avize (the region _par excellence_ of
white grapes), which stretches towards the south-east, and includes the
vinelands of Cramant, Avize, Oger, Le Mesnil, and Vertus. The entire
vineyard area is upwards of 40,000 acres.
The Champagne vineyards most widely celebrated abroad are those of Ay
and Sillery, although the last-named are really the smallest in the
Champagne district. Ay, distant only a few minutes by rail from Epernay,
is in the immediate centre of the vinelands of the river, having Mareuil
and Avenay on the east, and Dizy, Hautvillers, and Cumières on the west.
Sillery, on the other hand, lies at the foot of the so-called Mountain
of Reims, and within an hour's drive of the old cathedral city.
The pleasantest season of the year to visit the Champagne is certainly
during the vintage. When this is about to commence, the vintagers--some
of whom come from Sainte Menehould, forty miles distant, while others
hail from as far as Lorraine--are summoned at daybreak by beat of drum
in the market-places of the villages adjacent to the vineyards, and then
and there a price is made for the day's labour. This is generally either
a franc and a half, with food consisting of three meals, or two francs
and a half without food, children being paid a franc and a half. The
rate of wage satisfactorily arranged, the gangs start off to the
vineyards, headed by their overseers.
It was on one of those occasional sunshiny days in the early part of
October (1871) when I first visited Ay, the vineyard of golden plants,
the unique _premier crû_ of the Wines of the River. The road lay between
two rows of closely-planted poplar-trees reaching almost to the village
of Dizy, whose quaint grey church tower, with its gabled roof, is
dominated by the neighbouring vine-clad slopes, which extend from Avenay
to Venteuil, some few miles beyond Hautvillers, the cradle, so to speak,
of the _vin mousseux_ of the Champagne.
Everywhere was bustle and excitement; every one was big with the
business in hand. In these ordinarily quiet little villages the majority
of the inhabitants were afoot, the feeble feminine half with the
juveniles threading their way through the rows of vines half-way up the
mountain, basket on arm, while the sturdy masculine portion were mostly
passing to and fro between the press-houses and the wine-shops. Carts
piled up with baskets, or crowded with peasants from a distance on their
way to the vineyards, jostled the low railway trucks laden with bran-new
casks, and the somewhat rickety cabriolets of the agents of the big
champagne houses, reduced to clinch their final bargain for a hundred or
more _pièces_ of the peerless wine of Ay, beside the reeking wine-press.
There was a pleasant air of jollity over all, for in the wine-producing
districts every one participates in the interest excited by the vintage,
which influences the takings of all the artificers and all the
tradespeople, bringing grist to the mill of the baker and the bootmaker,
as well as to the café and the cabaret. The various contending interests
were singularly satisfied, the vintagers getting their two francs and a
half a day, and the men at the pressoirs their three francs and their
food. The plethoric _commissionaires-en-vins_ wiped their perspiring
foreheads with satisfaction at having at last secured the full number of
hogsheads they had been instructed to buy--at a high figure it was true,
still this was no disadvantage to them, as their commission mounted up
all the higher. And, as regarded the small vine proprietors, even the
thickest-skulled among them, who make all their calculations on their
fingers, could see at a glance that they were gainers, for, although the
crop was no more than half an average one, yet, thanks to the
ill-disguised anxiety of the agents to secure all the wine they
required, prices had gradually crept up until they doubled those of
ordinary years, and this with only half the work in the vineyard and at
the wine-press to be done.
On leaving Dizy the road runs immediately at the base of the vine-clad
slopes, broken up by an occasional conical peak detaching itself from
the mass, and tinted from base to summit with richly-variegated hues,
in which deep purple, yellow, green, grey, and crimson by turns
predominate. Dotting these slopes like a swarm of huge ants are a crowd
of men, women, and children, intent on stripping the vines of their
luscious-looking fruit. The men are mostly in blue blouses, and the
women in closely-fitting neat white caps, or wearing old-fashioned
unbleached straw-bonnets of the contemned coal-scuttle type. They detach
the grapes with scissors or hooked knives, technically termed
"serpettes," and in some vineyards proceed to remove all damaged,
decayed, or unripe fruit from the bunches before placing them in the
baskets hanging on their arms, the contents of which are from time to
time emptied into a larger basket resembling a deep clothes-basket in
shape, numbers of these being dispersed about the vineyard for the
purpose, and invariably in the shade. When filled they are carried by a
couple of men to the roadside, along which dwarf stones carved with
initials, and indicating the boundaries of the respective properties,
are encountered every eight or ten yards, into such narrow strips are
the vineyards divided. Large carts with railed open sides are
continually passing backwards and forwards to pick these baskets up, and
when one of them has secured its load it is driven slowly--in order that
the grapes may not be shaken--to the neighbouring pressoir, so extreme
is the care observed throughout every stage of the process of champagne
manufacture.
In many of the vineyards the grapes are inspected in bulk instead of in
detail before being sent to the wine-press. The hand-baskets, when
filled, are all brought to a particular spot, where their contents are
minutely examined by some half-dozen men and women, who pluck off all
the bruised, rotten, and unripe berries, and fling them aside into a
separate basket. In one vineyard we came upon a party of girls,
congregated round a wicker sieve perched on the top of a large tub by
the roadside, who were busy sorting the grapes, pruning away the
diseased stalks, and picking off all the doubtful berries, and letting
the latter fall through the interstices of the sieve, the sound fruit
being deposited in large baskets standing by their side, which, as soon
as filled, were conveyed to the pressoir.
[Illustration:
A VINTAGE SCENE IN THE CHAMPAGNE. (p. 24)]
The picking ordinarily commences with daylight, and the vintagers assert
that the grapes gathered at sunrise always produce the lightest and most
limpid wine. Moreover by plucking the grapes when the early morning sun
is upon them they are believed to yield a fourth more juice. Later on in
the day, too, spite of all precautions, it is impossible to prevent some
of the detached grapes from partially fermenting, which frequently
suffices to give a slight excess of colour to the must, a thing
especially to be avoided--no matter how rich and ripe the fruit may
be--in a high-class champagne. When the grapes have to be transported in
open baskets for some distance to the press-house, jolting along the
road either in carts or on the backs of mules, and exposed to the torrid
rays of a bright autumnal sun, the juice expressed from the fruit,
however gently the latter may be squeezed, is occasionally of a positive
purple tinge, and consequently useless for conversion into champagne.
On the right of the road leading from Dizy to Ay we pass a vineyard
called Le Léon, which tradition asserts to be the one whence Pope Leo
the Magnificent, the patron of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci,
drew his supply of Ay wine. The village of Ay lies right before us at
the foot of the vine-clad slopes, with the tapering spire of its ancient
church rising above the neighbouring hills and cutting sharply against
the bright blue sky. The vineyards, which spread themselves over a
calcareous declivity, have mostly a full southern aspect, and the
predominating vines are those known as golden plants, the fruit of which
is of a deep purple colour. After these comes the _plant vert doré_, and
then a moderate proportion of the _plant gris_, the latter a white
variety, as its name implies. A limited quantity of wine from white
grapes is likewise made in the neighbouring vineyards of Dizy.
We visited the pressoir of the principal producer of _vin brut_ at Ay,
who, although the owner of merely five hectares, or about twelve and a
half acres of vines, expected to make as many as 1,500 pièces of wine
that year, mainly of course from grapes purchased from other growers.
One peculiarity of the Champagne district is that, contrary to the
prevailing practice in the other wine-producing regions of France, where
the owner of even a single acre of vines will crush his grapes himself,
only a limited number of vine-proprietors press their own grapes. The
large champagne houses, possessing vineyards, always have their
pressoirs in the neighbourhood, and other large vine-proprietors will
press the grapes they grow, but the multitude of small cultivators
invariably sell the produce of their vineyards to one or other of the
former at a certain rate, either by weight or else per caque, a measure
estimated to hold sixty kilogrammes (equal to 132lbs.) of grapes. The
price which the fruit fetches varies of course according to the quality
of the vintage and the requirements of the manufacturers. In 1873, in
all the higher-class vineyards, as much as two francs and a quarter per
kilogramme (10d. per lb.) were paid, or between treble and quadruple the
average price. And yet the vintage was a most unsatisfactory one owing
to the deficiency of sun and abundance of wet throughout the summer. The
market, however, was in great need of wine, and the fruit while still
ungathered was bought up at most exorbitant prices by the _spéculateurs_
who supply the _vin brut_ to the champagne manufacturers.
Carts laden with grapes were continually arriving at the pressoir, and
after discharging their loads, and having them weighed, kept driving off
for fresh ones. Four powerful presses of recent invention, each worked
by a large fly-wheel requiring four sturdy men to turn it, were in
operation. The grapes were spread over the floor of the press in a
compact mass, and on being subjected to pressure--again and again
repeated, the first squeeze only giving a high-class wine--the must
filtered through a wicker basket into the reservoir beneath, whence,
after remaining a certain time to allow of its ridding itself of the
grosser lees, it is pumped through a gutta-percha tube into the casks.
The wooden stoppers of the bungholes, instead of being fixed tightly in
the apertures, are simply laid over them, and after the lapse of ten or
twelve days fermentation usually commences, and during its progress the
must, which is originally of a pale pink tint, fades to a light straw
colour. The wine usually remains undisturbed until Christmas, when it is
drawn off into fresh casks, and delivered to the purchaser.
On our way from Ay to Mareuil, along the lengthy Rue de Châlons, we
looked in at the little auberge at the corner of the Boulevard du Sud,
where we found a crowd of coopers and others connected in some way with
the vintage taking their cheerful glasses round. The walls of the room
were appropriately enough decorated with capering bacchanals squeezing
bunches of purple grapes and flourishing their thyrsi about in a very
tipsy fashion. All the talk--and there was an abundance of it--had
reference to the yield of this particular vintage and the high rate the
Ay wine had realised. Eight hundred francs the pièce of two hundred
litres, equal to forty-four gallons, appeared to be the price fixed by
the agents of the great champagne houses, and at this figure the bulk of
the vintage was disposed of before a single grape passed through the
wine-press.
At Mareuil, which is scarcely more than a mile from Ay, owing to the
steepness of the slopes and to the roads through the vineyards being
impracticable for carts, the grapes were being conveyed to the
press-houses in baskets slung across the backs of mules and donkeys,
who, on account of their known partiality for the ripe fruit, were most
of them muzzled while thus employed. The _vin brut_ here, inferior of
course to that of Ay, found a ready market at from five to six hundred
francs the pièce.
[Illustration]
From Mareuil we proceeded to Avenay, a tumbledown little village in the
direction of Reims, and the vineyards of which were of greater repute in
the 13th century than they are to-day. Its best wine, extolled by Saint
Evremond, the epicurean Frenchman, who emigrated to the gay court of
Charles II. at Whitehall to escape a gloomy cell in the Bastille, is
vintaged up the slopes of Mont Hurlé. At Avenay we found the yield had
been little more than the third of an average one, and that the wine
from the first pressure of the grapes had been sold for five hundred
francs the pièce. Here we tasted some very fair still red wine, made
from the same grapes as champagne, remarkably deep in colour, full of
body, and with that slight sweet bitterish flavour characteristic of
certain of the better-class growths of the south of France. On leaving
Avenay we ascended the hills to Mutigny, and wound round thence to
Cumières, on the banks of the Marne, finding the vintage in full
operation all throughout the route. The vineyards of Cumières--classed
as a second crû--join those of Hautvillers on the one side and Damery on
the other--the latter a cosy little river-side village, where the "_bon
Roi Henri_" sought relaxation from the turmoils of war in the society of
the fair Anne du Puy--"_sa belle hôtesse_," as the gallant Béarnais was
wont to style her. Damery too claims to be the birthplace of Adrienne
Lecouvreur, the celebrated actress of the Regency, and mistress of the
Maréchal de Saxe who coaxed her out of her £30,000 of savings to enable
him to prosecute his suit with the obese Anna Iwanowna, niece of Peter
the Great, which, had he only been successful in, would have secured the
future hero of Fontenoy the coveted dukedom of Courland.
The vineyards of the Côte d'Epernay, south of the Marne, extend eastward
from beyond Boursault, on whose wooded height Madame Clicquot built her
fine château, in which her granddaughter, the Comtesse de Mortemart,
to-day resides. They then follow the course of the river, and after
winding round behind Epernay diverge towards the south-west. The vines
produce only black grapes, and many of the vineyards are of great
antiquity, one at Epernay, known as the Closet, having been bequeathed
under that name six and a half centuries ago to a neighbouring Abbey of
St. Martin. A short drive along the high road leading from Epernay to
Troyes brings us to the village of Pierry cosily nestling amongst groves
of poplars in the valley of the Cubry, with some half-score of châteaux
of the last century belonging to well-to-do wine-growers of the
neighbourhood, screened from the road by umbrageous gardens. Vines mount
the slopes that rise around, the higher summits being crowned with
forest, while here and there some pleasant village shelters itself under
the brow of a lofty hill. Near Pierry many cellars have been excavated
in the chalky soil, to the flints prevalent in which the village is said
to owe its name.
[Illustration]
The entrances to these cellars are closed by iron gateways, and on the
skirts of the vineyards we come upon whole rows of them picturesquely
overgrown with ivy. Early in the last century the wine vintaged in the
Clos St. Pierre, belonging to an abbey of this name at Châlons, acquired
a high reputation through the care bestowed upon it by Brother Jean
Oudart, whose renown almost rivalled that of Dom Perignon himself, and
to-day the Pierry vineyards, producing exclusively black grapes, hold a
high rank among the second-class crûs of the Marne.
Crossing the Sourdon, a little stream which, bubbling up in the midst of
huge rocks in the forest of Epernay, rushes down the hills and mingles
its waters with that of the Cubry, we soon reach Moussy, where the
vineyards, spite of their long pedigree and southern aspect, also rank
as a second crû. Still skirting the vine-clad slopes we come to Vinay,
noted for an ancient grotto--the comfortless abode of some rheumatic
anchorite--and a pretended miraculous spring to which fever-stricken
pilgrims to-day credulously resort. The water may possibly merit its
renown, but the wine here produced is very inferior, due no doubt to the
class of vines, the meunier being the leading variety cultivated. At
Ablois St. Martin, picturesquely perched partway up a slope in the midst
of hills covered with vines and crowned with forest trees, the Côte
d'Epernay ends, and the produce becomes of a choicer character.
The Côte d'Avize lies to the south-east, so that we have to retrace our
steps to Pierry and follow the road which there branches off, leaving
the vineyards of Chavot, Monthelon, and Grauves, of no particular note,
on our right hand. We pass through Cuis, where the slopes, planted with
both black and white varieties of vines, are extremely abrupt, and
eventually reach Cramant, one of the grand _premiers crûs_ of the
Champagne. From the vineyards around this picturesque little village,
and extending along the somewhat precipitous Côte de Saran--a prominent
object on which is M. Moët's handsome château--there is vintaged a wine
from white grapes especially remarkable for lightness and delicacy and
the richness of its bouquet, and an admixture of which is essential to
every first-class champagne _cuvée_.
From Cramant the road runs direct to Avize, a large thriving village,
lying at the foot of vineyard slopes, where numerous champagne firms
have established themselves. Its prosperity dates from the commencement
of the last century, when the Count de Lhery cleared away the remains of
its ancient ramparts, filled up the moat, and planted the ground with
vines, the produce of which was found admirably suited for the sparkling
wines then coming into vogue. To-day the light delicate wine of Avize is
classed, like that of Cramant, as a _premier crû_. It is the same with
the wine of Oger, lying a little to the south, while the neighbouring
growths of Le Mesnil hold a slightly inferior rank. The latter village
and its grey Gothic church lie under the hill in the midst of vines that
almost climb the forest-crowned summit. The stony soil hereabouts is
said to be better adapted to the cultivation of white than of black
grapes, besides which the wines of Le Mesnil are remarkable for their
effervescent properties.
Vertus forms the southern limit of the Côte d'Avize, and the vineyard
slopes subsiding at their base into a broad expanse of fertile fields,
and crested as usual with dense forest, rise up behind the picturesque
old town which the English assailed and partly burnt five centuries ago,
spite of its fortifications, of which to-day a dilapidated gateway alone
remains. The church is ancient and curious, and a few quaint old houses
are here and there met with, notably one with a florid Gothic window
enriched with a moulding of grapes and vine-leaves. The vineyards of
Vertus were originally planted with vines from Burgundy, and in the 14th
century yielded a red wine held in high repute, while later on the
Vertus growths formed the favourite beverage of William III. of England.
To-day the growers find it more profitable to make white instead of red
wine from their crops of black grapes, the former commanding a good
price for conversion into _vin mousseux_, it being in the opinion of
some manufacturers especially valuable for binding a _cuvée_ together.
The wine of Vertus ranks among the second-class champagne crûs.
[Illustration:
CHATEAU OF SILLERY.]