Early Records of the Moët Family at Reims and Epernay-- Jean Remi
Moët Founder of the Commerce in Champagne Wines-- Extracts from the
Old Account-Books of the Moëts-- First Sales of Sparkling Wines--
Sales to England in 1788-- "Milords" Farnham and Findlater-- Jean
Remi Moët receives the Emperor Napoleon, Josephine, and the King of
Westphalia-- The Firm of Moët and Chandon Constituted-- Their
Establishment in the Rue du Commerce-- Delivering and Washing the
New Bottles-- The Numerous Vineyards and Vendangeoirs of the Firm--
Making the Cuvée in Vats of 12,000 Gallons-- The Bottling of the
Wine by 200 Hands-- A Hundred Thousand Bottles Completed Daily--
20,000 Francs' worth of Broken Glass in Two Years-- A Subterranean
City, with miles of Streets, Cross Roads, Open Spaces, Tramways, and
Stations-- The Ancient Entrance to these Vaults-- Tablet
Commemorative of the Visit of Napoleon I.-- Millions of Bottles of
Champagne in Piles and Racks-- The Original Vaults known as
Siberia-- Scene in the Packing Hall-- Messrs. Moët and Chandon's
Large and Complete Staff-- Provision for Illness and Old Age--
Annual Fête Given by the Firm-- Their Famous "Star" Brand--
M. Perrier-Jouët, the lucky Grandson of a little Epernay Grocer--
His Offices and Cellars-- His Wine Classed according to its
Deserts-- Messrs. Roussillon and Co.'s Establishment-- The
Recognition accorded to their Wines-- Their Stock of Old Vintages--
The Extensive Establishment of Messrs. Pol Roger and Co.-- Their
Large Stock of the Fine 1874 Vintage-- Preparations for the Tirage--
Their Vast Fireproof Cellier and its Admirable Temperature-- Their
Lofty and Capacious Cellars of Two Stories.
Those magnates of the champagne trade, Messrs. Moët and Chandon, whose
famous "star" brand is familiar in every part of the civilised globe,
and whose half-score miles of cellars contain as many million bottles of
champagne as there are millions of inhabitants in most of the secondary
European states, have their head-quarters at Epernay in a spacious
château--in that street of châteaux named the Rue du Commerce, but
commonly known as the Faubourg de la Folie--which is approached through
handsome iron gates, and has beautiful gardens in the rear extending in
the direction of the River Marne. The existing firm dates from the year
1833, but the family of Moët--conjectured to have originally come from
the Low Countries--had already been associated with the champagne wine
trade for well-nigh a century previously. If the Moëts came from Holland
they must have established themselves in the Champagne at a very early
date, for the annals of Reims record that in the fifteenth century Jean
and Nicolas Moët were _échevins_ of the city. A Moët was present in that
capacity at the coronation of Charles VII. in 1429, when Joan of Arc
stood erect by the principal altar of the cathedral with her sacred
banner in her hand, and for having contributed to repulse an attempt on
the part of the English to prevent the entrance of the Royal party into
the city, the Moëts were subsequently ennobled by the same monarch.
A mural tablet in the church of St. Remi records the death of D. G.
Moët, Grand Prior, in 1554, and nine years later we find Nicol Moët
claiming exemption at Epernay from the payment of _tailles_ on the
ground of his being a noble. An old commercial book preserved in the
family archives shows that in the year 1743--at the epoch when the
rashness of the Duc de Grammont saved the English army under George II.
from being cut to pieces at Dettingen--a descendant of the foregoing,
one Claude Louis Nicolas Moët, who owned considerable vineyard property
in the vicinity of Epernay, decided upon embarking in the wine trade.
It is his son, however, Jean Remi Moët, born in 1758, who may be looked
upon as the veritable founder of the present commerce in Champagne
wines, which, thanks to his efforts, received a wonderful impulse, so
that instead of the consumption of the vintages of the Marne being
limited as heretofore to the privileged few, it spread all over the
civilised world.
At Messrs. Moët and Chandon's we had the opportunity of inspecting some
of the old account-books of the firm, and more particularly those
recording the transactions of Jean Remi Moët and his father. The first
sales of sparkling wine, on May 23rd, 1743, comprised 301 bottles of the
vintage of 1741 to Pierre Joly, wine-merchant, _bon des douze chez le
Roi_, whatever that may mean, at Paris; 120 bottles to Pierre Gabriel
Baudoin, also _bon des douze_, at Paris; and a similar quantity to the
Sieur Compoin, keeping the "hotellerie ditte la pestitte Escurie," Rue
du Port Maillart, at Nantes in Brittany. The entry specifies that the
wine for Nantes is to be left at Choisy-le-Roi, and taken by land to
Orleans by the carters of that town, who are to be found at the Ecu
d'Orléans, Porte St. Michel, Paris, the carriage as far as Choisy being
4 livres 10 deniers (about 4 francs) for the two half-baskets, and to
Paris 3 livres 15 deniers the basket.
Between 1750 and '60, parcels of wine were despatched to Warsaw, Vienna,
Berlin, Königsberg, Dantzig, Stettin, Brussels, and Amsterdam; but one
found no mention of any sales to England till the year 1788, when the
customers of the firm included "Milord" Farnham, of London, and Messrs.
Felix Calvert and Sylvin, who had a couple of sample bottles sent to
them, for which they were charged five shillings. In the same year
Messrs. Carbonnell, Moody, and Walker (predecessors of the well-known
existing firm of Carbonnell and Co.) wrote in French for two baskets,
of ten dozens each, of _vin de champagne_ "of good body, not too charged
with liqueur, but of excellent taste, and _not at all sparkling_!" while
the Chevalier Colebrook, writing from Bath, requests that 72 bottles of
champagne may be sent to his friend the Hon. John Butler, Molesworth
Street, Dublin, "who if contented with the wine will become a good
customer, he being rich, keeping a good house, and receiving many
amateurs of _vin de champagne_." Shortly afterwards the chevalier
himself receives 50 bottles of still wine, vintage 1783. In 1789 120
bottles of champagne, vintage 1788, are supplied to "Milord" Findlater,
of London--an ancestor, no doubt, of the wine-merchants of the same name
carrying on business to-day, and whom the Moëts in their simplicity
dubbed a "Milord"--and in 1790 the customers of the house include Power
and Michel, of 44, Lamb Street, London, and Manning, of the St. Alban
Tavern, the latter of whom is supplied on March 30th with 130 bottles of
champagne at three livres, or two "schillings," per bottle; while a
month later Mr. Lockart, banker, of 36, Pall Mall, is debited with 360
bottles, vintage 1788, at three shillings.
[Illustration:
WASHING BOTTLES AT MESSRS. MOËT & CHANDON'S, EPERNAY. (p. 105)]
In this same year M. Moët despatches a traveller to England named
Jeanson, and his letters, some two hundred in number, are all preserved
in the archives of the house. On the 17th May, 1790, he writes from
London as follows:--"As yet I have only gone on preparatory and often
useless errands. I have distributed samples of which I have no news.
Patience is necessary, and I endeavour to provide myself with it. How
the taste of this country has changed since ten years ago! Almost
everywhere they ask for dry wine, but at the same time require it so
vinous and so strong that there is scarcely any other than the wine of
Sillery which can satisfy them.... To-morrow I dine five miles from
here, at M. Macnamara's. We shall uncork four bottles of our wine, which
will probably be all right." In May, 1792, Jean Remi Moët is married,
and thenceforward assumes the full management of the house. On December
20 of the year following, when the Reign of Terror was fairly
inaugurated, we find the accounts in the ledger opened to this or the
other "citoyen." The orthodox Republican formula, however, did not long
continue, and "sieur" and "monsieur" resumed their accustomed places,
showing that Jean Remi Moët had no sympathy with the Jacobin faction of
the day. In 1805 he became Mayor of Epernay, and between this time and
the fall of the Empire received Napoleon several times at his residence,
as well as the Empress Josephine and the King of Westphalia. The
Emperor, after recapturing Reims from the Allies, came on to Epernay,
on which occasion he presented M. Moët with the cross of the Legion of
Honour. In 1830 the latter was arbitrarily dismissed from his mayoralty
by Charles X., but was speedily reinstated by Louis Philippe, though he
did not retain his office for long, his advanced age compelling him to
retire from active life in the course of 1833. At this epoch the firm,
which, since 1807 had been known as Moët and Co., was remodelled under
the style of Moët and Chandon, the two partners being M. Victor Moët,
son of the outgoing partner, and M. P. G. Chandon, the descendant of an
old ennobled family of the Mâconnais, who had married M. Jean Remi
Moët's eldest daughter. The descendants of these gentlemen are to-day at
the head of the business, the partners being on the one hand M. Victor
Moët-Romont and M. C. J. V. Auban Moët-Romont; and on the other, MM.
Paul and Raoul Chandon de Briailles.
Facing Messrs. Moët and Chandon's offices at Epernay is a range of
comparatively new buildings, with its white façade ornamented with the
well-known monogram M. and C., surmounted by the familiar star. It is
here that the business of blending and bottling the wine is carried on.
Passing through the arched gateway access is obtained to a spacious
courtyard, where carts laden with bottles are being expeditiously
lightened of their fragile contents by the busy hands of numerous
workmen. Another gateway on the left leads into the spacious
bottle-washing room, which from the middle of May until the middle of
July presents a scene of extraordinary animation. Bottle-washing
apparatus, supplied by a steam-engine with 20,000 gallons of water per
diem, are ranged in fifteen rows down the entire length of this hall,
and nearly 200 women strive to excel each other in diligence and
celerity in their management, a practised hand washing from 900 to 1,000
bottles in the course of the day. To the right of this _salle de
rinçage_, as it is styled, bottles are stacked in their tens of
thousands, and lads furnished with barrows, known as _diables_, hurry to
and fro, conveying these to the washers, or removing the clean bottles
to the adjacent courtyard, where they are allowed to drain, prior to
being taken to the _salle de tirage_ or bottling room.
Before, however, the washing of bottles on this gigantic scale
commences, the "marrying" or blending of the wine is accomplished in a
vast apartment, 250 feet in length and 100 feet broad, during the early
spring. The casks of newly-vintaged wine which have been stowed away
during the winter months, in the extensive range of cellars hewn out of
the chalk underlying Epernay, where they have slowly fermented, are
mixed together in due proportions in huge vats, each holding upwards of
12,000 gallons. Some of this wine is the growth of Messrs. Moët and
Chandon's own vineyards, of which they possess as many as 900 acres
(giving constant employment to 800 labourers and vinedressers) at Ay,
Avenay, Bouzy, Cramant, Champillon, Chouilly, Dizy, Epernay, Grauves,
Hautvillers, Le Mesnil, Moussy, Pierry, Saran, St. Martin, Verzy, and
Verzenay, and the average annual cost of cultivating which is about £40
per acre. At Ay the firm own 210 acres of vineyards; at Cramant and
Chouilly, nearly 180 acres; at Verzy and Verzenay, 120 acres; at Pierry
and Grauves, upwards of 100 acres; at Hautvillers, 90 acres; at Le
Mesnil, 80 acres; at Epernay, nearly 60 acres; and at Bouzy, 55 acres.
Messrs. Moët and Chandon, moreover, possess vendangeoirs, or
pressing-houses, at Ay, Bouzy, Cramant, Epernay, Hautvillers, Le Mesnil,
Pierry, Saran, and Verzenay, in which the large number of 40 presses are
installed. At these vendangeoirs no less than 5,450 pièces of fine white
wine, sufficient for 1,360,000 bottles of champagne, are annually
made--that is, 1,200 pièces at Ay, 1,100 at Cramant and Saran, 800 at
Verzy and Verzenay, and smaller quantities at the remaining
establishments. All these establishments have their celliers and their
cellars, together with cottages for the accommodation of the numerous
vinedressers in the employment of the firm.
[Illustration:
MESSRS. MOËT & CHANDON'S VENDANGEOIR AT BOUZY. (p. 106)]
[Illustration:
BOTTLING CHAMPAGNE AT MESSRS. MOËT & CHANDON'S, EPERNAY. (p. 107)]
Extensive as are the vineyards owned by Messrs. Moët and Chandon, the
yield from them is utterly inadequate to the enormous demand which the
great Epernay firm are annually called upon to supply, and large
purchases have to be made by their agents from the growers throughout
the Champagne. The wine thus secured, as well as that grown by the firm,
is duly mixed together in such proportions as will ensure lightness with
the requisite vinosity, and fragrance combined with effervescence,
a thorough amalgamation being effected by stirring up the wine with long
poles provided with fan-shaped ends. If the vintage be indifferent in
quality the firm have scores of huge tuns filled with the yield of more
favoured seasons to fall back upon to ensure any deficiencies of
character and flavour being supplied.
The casks of wine to be blended are raised from the cellars, half a
dozen at a time, by means of a lift provided with an endless chain, and
worked by the steam-engine of which we have already spoken. They are
emptied, through traps in the floor of the room above, into the huge
vats which, standing upon a raised platform, reach almost to the
ceiling. From these vats the fluid is allowed to flow through hose into
rows of casks stationed below. Before being bottled the wine reposes for
a certain time, is next duly racked and again blended, and is eventually
conveyed through silver-plated pipes into oblong reservoirs, each fitted
with a dozen syphon-taps, so arranged that directly the bottle slipped
on to one of them becomes full the wine ceases to flow.
[Illustration]
Upwards of 200 workpeople are employed in the _salle de tirage_ at
Messrs. Moët and Chandon's, which, while the operation of bottling is
going on, presents a scene of bewildering activity. Men and lads are
gathered round the syphon-taps briskly removing the bottles as they
become filled, and supplanting them by empty ones. Other lads hasten to
transport the filled bottles on trucks to the corkers, whose so-called
"guillotine" machines send the corks home with a sudden thud. The corks
being secured with _agrafes_ the bottles are placed in large flat
baskets called _manettes_, and wheeled away on tracks, the quarts being
deposited in the cellars by means of lifts, while the pints slide down
an inclined plane by the aid of an endless chain, which raises the
trucks with the empty baskets at the same time the full ones make their
descent into the cellars. What with the incessant thud of the corking
machines, the continual rolling of iron-wheeled trucks over the concrete
floor, the rattling and creaking of the machinery working the lifts, the
occasional sharp report of a bursting bottle, and the loudly-shouted
orders of the foremen, who display the national partiality for making a
noise to perfection, the din becomes at times all but unbearable. The
number of bottles filled in the course of the day naturally varies,
still Messrs. Moët and Chandon reckon that during the month of June a
daily average of 100,000 are taken in the morning from the stacks in the
_salle de rinçage_, washed, dried, filled, corked, wired, lowered into
the cellars and carefully arranged in symmetrical order. This represents
a total of two and a half million bottles during that month alone.
The bottles on being lowered into the cellars, either by means of the
incline or the lifts, are placed in a horizontal position, and with
their uppermost side daubed with white chalk, are stacked in layers from
two to half-a-dozen bottles deep with narrow oak laths between. The
stacks are usually about six or seven feet high and 100 feet and upwards
in length. Whilst the wine is thus reposing in a temperature of about
55° Fahrenheit, fermentation sets in, and the ensuing month is one of
much anxiety. Thanks, however, to the care bestowed, Messrs. Moët and
Chandon's annual loss from bottles bursting rarely exceeds three per
cent., though fifteen was once regarded as a respectable and
satisfactory average. The broken glass is a perquisite of the workmen,
the money arising from its sale, which at the last distribution amounted
to no less than 20,000 francs, being divided amongst them every couple
of years.
[Illustration]
The usual entrance to Messrs. Moët and Chandon's Epernay cellars--which,
burrowed out in all directions, are of the aggregate length of nearly
seven miles, and have usually between 11,000,000 and 12,000,000 bottles
and 25,000 casks of wine stored therein--is through a wide and imposing
portal, and down a long and broad flight of steps. It is, however, by
the ancient and less imposing entrance, through which more than one
crowned head has condescended to pass, that we set forth on our
lengthened tour through these intricate underground galleries--this
subterranean city with its miles of streets, crossroads, open spaces,
tramways, and stations devoted solely to champagne. A gilt inscription
on a black marble tablet testifies that "on the 26th July, 1807,
Napoleon the Great, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, and Protector
of the Confederation of the Rhine, honoured commerce by visiting the
cellars of Jean Rémi Moët, Mayor of Epernay, President of the Canton,
and Member of the General Council of the Department," within three weeks
of the signature of the treaty of Tilsit. Passing down the flight of
steep slippery steps traversed by the victor of Eylau and Jena, access
is gained to the upper range of vaults, brilliantly illuminated by the
glare of gas, or dimly lighted by the flickering flame of
tallow-candles, upwards of 60,000lbs. of which are annually consumed.
Here group after group of the small army of 350 workmen employed in
these subterranean galleries are encountered engaged in the process of
transforming the _vin brut_ into champagne. At Messrs. Moët and
Chandon's the all-important operation of liqueuring the wine is effected
by aid of machines of the latest construction, which regulate the
quantity administered to the utmost nicety. The corks are branded by
being pressed against steel dies heated by gas, by women who can turn
out 3,000 per day apiece, the quantity of string used to secure them
amounting to nearly ten tons in the course of the year.
There is another and a lower depth of cellars to be explored to which
access is gained by trapholes in the floor--through which the barrels
and baskets of wine are raised and lowered--and by flights of steps.
From the foot of the latter there extends an endless vista of lofty and
spacious passages hewn out of the chalk, the walls of which, smooth as
finished masonry, are lined with thousands of casks of raw wine, varied
at intervals by gigantic vats. Miles of long, dark-brown,
dampish-looking galleries stretch away to the right and left, and though
devoid of the picturesque festoons of fungi which decorate the London
Dock vaults, exhibit a sufficient degree of mouldiness to give them an
air of respectable antiquity. These multitudinous galleries, lit up by
petroleum-lamps, are mostly lined with wine in bottles stacked in
compact masses to a height of six or seven feet, only room enough for a
single person to pass being left. Millions of bottles are thus arranged,
the majority on their sides, in huge piles, with tablets hung up against
each stack to note its age and quality; and the rest, which are
undergoing daily evolutions at the hands of the twister, at various
angles of inclination. In these cellars there are nearly 11,000 racks in
which the bottles of _vin brut_ rest _sur pointe_, as many as 600,000
bottles being commonly twisted daily.
The way runs on between regiments of bottles of the same size and shape,
save where at intervals pints take the place of quarts; and the visitor,
gazing into the black depths of the transverse passages to the right and
left, becomes conscious of a feeling that if his guide were suddenly to
desert him he would feel as hopelessly lost as in the catacombs of Rome.
There are two galleries, each 650 feet in length, containing about
650,000 bottles, and connected by 32 transverse galleries, with an
aggregate length of 4,000 feet, in which nearly 1,500,000 bottles are
stored. There are, further, eight galleries, each 500 feet in length,
and proportionably stocked; also the extensive new vaults, excavated
some five or six years back, in the rear of the then-existing cellarage,
and a considerable number of smaller vaults. The different depths and
varying degrees of moisture afford a choice of temperature of which the
experienced owners know how to take advantage. The original vaults,
wherein more than a century ago the first bottles of champagne made by
the infant firm were stowed away, bear the name of Siberia, on account
of their exceeding coldness. This section consists of several
roughly-excavated low winding galleries, resembling natural caverns, and
affording a striking contrast to the broad, lofty, and regular-shaped
corridors of more recent date.
When the proper period arrives for the bottles to emerge once more into
the upper air they are conveyed to the packing-room, a spacious hall 180
feet long and 60 feet broad. In front of its three large double doors
waggons are drawn up ready to receive their loads. The seventy men and
women employed here easily foil, label, wrap, and pack up some 10,000
bottles a day. Cases and baskets are stacked in different parts of this
vast hall, at one end of which numerous trusses of straw used in the
packing are piled. Seated at tables ranged along one side of the
apartment women are busily occupied in pasting on labels or encasing the
necks of bottles in gold or silver foil, whilst elsewhere men, seated on
three-legged stools in front of smoking caldrons of molten sealing-wax
of a deep green hue, are coating the necks of other bottles by plunging
them into the boiling fluid. When labelled and decorated with either wax
or foil the bottles pass on to other women, who swathe them in pink
tissue-paper and set them aside for the packers, by whom, after being
deftly wrapped round with straw, they are consigned to baskets or cases,
to secure which last no less than 10,000lbs. of nails are annually used.
England and Russia are partial to gold foil, pink paper, and wooden
cases holding a dozen or a couple of dozen bottles of the exhilarating
fluid, whereas other nations prefer waxed necks, disdain pink paper, and
insist on being supplied in wicker baskets containing fifty bottles
each.
[Illustration:
THE PACKING HALL AT MESSRS. MOËT AND CHANDON'S, EPERNAY. (p. 112)]
Some idea of the complex character of so vast an establishment as that
of Messrs. Moët and Chandon may be gathered from a mere enumeration of
their staff, which, in addition to twenty clerks and 350 cellarmen
proper, includes numerous agrafe-makers and corkcutters, packers and
carters, wheelwrights and saddlers, carpenters, masons, slaters and
tilers, tinmen, firemen, needlewomen, &c., while the inventory of
objects used by this formidable array of workpeople comprises no fewer
than 1,500 distinct heads. A medical man attached to the establishment
gives gratuitous advice to all those employed, and a chemist dispenses
drugs and medicines without charge. While suffering from illness the men
receive half-pay, but should they be laid up by an accident met with in
the course of their work full salary is invariably awarded to them. As
may be supposed, so vast an establishment as this is not without a
provision for those past work, and all the old hands receive liberal
pensions from the firm upon retiring. Every year Messrs. Moët and
Chandon give a banquet or a ball to the people in their employ--usually
after the bottling of the wine is completed--when the hall in which the
entertainment takes place is handsomely decorated and illuminated with
myriads of coloured lamps.
It is needless to particularise Messrs. Moët and Chandon's wines, which
are familiar to all drinkers of champagne. Their famous "star" brand is
known in all societies, figures equally at clubs and mess-tables, at
garden parties and picnics, dinners and _soirées_, and has its place in
hotel _cartes_ all over the world. One of the best proofs of the wine's
universal popularity is found in the circumstance that as many as 1,000
visitors from all parts of the world come annually to Epernay and make
the tour of Messrs. Moët and Chandon's spacious cellars.
A little beyond Messrs. Moët and Chandon's, in the broad Rue du
Commerce, we encounter a heavy, ornate, pretentious-looking château, the
residence of M. Perrier-Jouët, which presents a striking contrast to the
almost mean-looking premises opposite, where the business of the firm is
carried on. M. Perrier-Jouët is the fortunate grandson of the Sieur
Perrier Fissier, a little Epernay grocer, who some eighty years or so
ago used to supply corks, candles, and string to the firm of Moët and
Co., and who, when the profits arising from this connection warranted
his doing so, discarded his grocer's sleeves and apron and blossomed
forth as a competitor in the champagne trade. Perrier-Jouët and Co.'s
offices are situated on the left-hand side of a courtyard surrounded by
low buildings, which serve as celliers, store-houses, packing-rooms, and
the like. From an inner courtyard where piles of bottles are stacked
under open sheds, the cellars themselves are reached. Previous to
descending into these we passed through the various buildings, in one of
which a party of men were engaged in disgorging and preparing wine for
shipment. In another we noticed one of those heavy beam presses for
pressing the grapes which the more intelligent manufacturers regard as
obsolete, while in a third was the _cuvée_ vat, holding no more than
2,200 gallons. In making their _cuvée_ the firm commonly mix one part of
old wine to three parts of new. An indifferent vintage, however,
necessitates the admixture of a larger proportion of the older growth.
The cellars, like all the more ancient ones at Epernay, are somewhat
straggling and irregular, still they are remarkably cool, and on the
lower floor remarkably damp as well. This, however, would appear to be
no disadvantage, as the breakage in them is calculated never to exceed
2½ per cent.
The firm have no less than five qualities of champagne, and at one of
the recent champagne competitions at London, where the experts engaged
had no means of identifying the brands submitted to their judgment,
Messrs. Perrier-Jouët's First Quality got classed below a cheaper wine
of their neighbours Messrs. Pol Roger and Co., and very considerably
below the Extra Sec of Messrs. Périnet et fils, and inferior even to a
wine of De Venoge's, the great Epernay manufacturer of common class
champagnes.
[Illustration:
COURTYARD OF MESSRS. POL ROGER'S ESTABLISHMENT AT EPERNAY. (p. 115)]
Champagne establishments, combined with the handsome residences of the
manufacturers, line both sides of the long, imposing Rue du Commerce at
Epernay. On the left hand is a succession of fine châteaux, commencing
with one belonging to M. Auban Moët, whose terraced gardens overlook the
valley of the Marne, and command views of the vine-clad heights of
Cumières, Hautvillers, Ay, and Mareuil, and the more distant slopes of
Ambonnay and Bouzy, while on the other side of the famous Epernay
thoroughfare we encounter beyond the establishments of Messrs. Moët and
Chandon and Perrier-Jouët the ornate monumental façade which the firm of
Piper and Co.--of whom Messrs. Kunkelmann and Co. are to-day the
successors--raised some years since above their extensive cellars.
A little in the rear of the Rue du Commerce is the well-ordered
establishment of Messrs. Roussillon and Co., the extension of whose
business of late has necessitated their removal to these capacious
premises. The wines of the firm enjoy a high reputation in England,
France, and Russia, and have secured favourable recognition at the
Paris, Philadelphia, and other Exhibitions. Their stock includes
considerable quantities of the older vintages, it being a rule of the
house never to ship crude young wines. It is on their dry varieties that
Messrs. Roussillon and Co. especially pride themselves, and some of the
fine wine of 1874 that was here shown to us was as remarkable for its
delicacy as for its fragrance.
In a side street at the farther end of the Rue du Commerce stands a
château of red brick, overlooking on the one side an extensive
pleasure-garden, and on the other a spacious courtyard, bounded by
celliers, stables, and bottle-sheds, all of modern construction and on a
most extensive scale. These form the establishment of Messrs. Pol Roger
and Co., settled for many years at Epernay, and known throughout the
Champagne for their large purchases at the epoch of the vintage. From
the knowledge they possess of the best crûs, and their relations with
the leading vineyard proprietors, they are enabled whenever the wine is
good to acquire large stocks of it. Having bottled a considerable
quantity of the fine wine of 1874, they resolved to profit by the
exceptional quality of this vintage to commence shipping champagne to
England, where their agents, Messrs. Reuss, Lauteren, and Co., have
successfully introduced the new brand.
Passing through a large open gateway we enter the vast courtyard of the
establishment, which, with arriving and departing carts--the first
loaded with wine in cask or with new bottles, and the others with cases
of champagne--presents rather an animated scene. Under a roof projecting
from the wall of the vast cellier on the right hand a tribe of
"Sparnaciennes"--as the feminine inhabitants of Epernay are termed--are
occupied in washing bottles in readiness for the coming tirage. The
surrounding buildings, most substantially constructed, are not destitute
of architectural pretensions.
The extensive cellier, the area of which is 23,589 square feet, is
understood to be the largest single construction of the kind in the
Champagne district. Built entirely of iron, stone and brick, its
framework is a perfect marvel of lightness. The roof, consisting of rows
of brick arches, is covered above with a layer of Portland cement, in
order to keep it cool in summer and protect it against the winter cold,
two most desirable objects in connection with the manipulation of
champagne. Here an endless chain of a new pattern enables wine in bottle
to be lowered and raised with great rapidity to or from the cellars
beneath--lofty and capacious excavations of two stories, the lowest of
which is reached by a flight of no less than 170 steps.
Epernay, unlike Reims, has little of general interest to attract the
stranger. Frequently besieged and pillaged during the Middle Ages, and
burnt to the ground by the dauphin, son of François I., the town,
although of some note as far back as the time of Clovis, exhibits to-day
no evidence whatever of its great antiquity. The thoroughfare termed the
Rempart de la Tour Biron recalls a memorable incident which transpired
during the siege of the town by Henri IV. While the king was
reconnoitring the defences a cannon-ball aimed at his waving white plume
took off the head of the Maréchal Biron at the moment Henri's hand was
resting familiarly on the maréchal's shoulder. Strange to say, the king
himself escaped unhurt.
[Illustration:
VIEW OF AY FROM THE BANKS OF THE MARNE CANAL. (p. 117.)]
[Illustration:
THE VENDANGEOIR OF HENRI QUATRE.]