Sparkling Wines of the Côte d'Or at the Paris Exhibition--
Chambertin, Romanée, and Vougeot-- Burgundy Wines and Vines formerly
the Presents of 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 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 now-a-days. 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.
[Illustration]
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, is
accomplished precisely as in the Champagne.
Among the principal manufacturers of sparkling burgundies are Messrs.
André and 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 and Liger-Belair, of Nuits and Vôsne; 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 crûs. 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 crû:--
"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 vine 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.
[Illustration]
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 tirage, which
invariably takes place in April, the Jura wines rarely require any
addition of sugar to insure an ample effervescence. After bottling 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 an obvious
drawback. M. Devaux's principal brand is the Fleur de l'Etoile, of
which, he has white, pink, and amber-coloured varieties, quoted by him
at merely three francs the bottle for the grand years.
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 I cannot call to mind one that a real connoisseur of
sparkling wines would care to admit to his table.
[Illustration:
CONVEYING GRAPES TO THE PRESS AT SAINT-PÉRAY.]