de Champagne (the colour of the wine depending upon the length of time the husks are allowed to ferment with the must or wort) the fruit is gathered dry, after the sun has risen.
And now commences the labour and risk which raise the price of these wines so high, irrespective of duty. The fermentation of those intended to be brisk is very tedious. It will be well to defer the chemical description of the process until we have seen the difference with which it is conducted in manufacturing the various wines. It is only necessary now to say, that the liquid, or must, is soon passed from the vat into the cask. And while in cask, those wines obtained from the first, second, and third, or final pressure of the fruit, and known relatively as vins gris, œil de perdrix, and vins de taille, which are most coloured, are mixed together. Thus, when vins gris have fermented in casks ten or twelve days, the bungholes are closed, and spigot holes are left, through which the casks are filled up from time to time with the other varieties, upon a systematic plan. Wines bottled any time between the vintage and the following May will be sparkling. They begin to sparkle after being six weeks in bottle, and the mountain sorts earlier. Bottled in June they will sparkle but little; and bottled so late as October, they will acquire the condition termed still.
Being in bottle, a third fermentation is induced by putting into each bottle a small glass of what is called liqueur—sugar-candy dissolved in wine, and fined to brightness. “This fermentation produces a fresh deposit of sediment. In this process the greatest attention is requisite, and the bottles are closely watched, the temperature of the air carefully regulated to promote or check the fermentation; yet thousands of bottles explode; so many, that 10 per cent. is always charged as a cost of manufacture.” This is particularly the case in seasons of great and sudden heat. In April, 1843, Madame Cliquot, the largest grower in France, lost 25 per cent., or 400,000 bottles, before fermentation could be reduced by large supplies of ice.
“After clouding with fermentation in the bottles, the wine begins to deposit a sediment, and the bottles are placed with their necks downwards in long shelves, having holes obliquely cut in them, so that the bottoms are scarcely raised. Every day the attendant lifts the end of each bottle, and after a slight vibration replaces it a little more upright in the bed, thus detaching the sediment from the side, and letting it pass toward the neck of the bottle.” This process is now continued until all the sediment has gravitated to the neck. Then a man takes the bottle to a recess prepared for the operation, holds its mouth downwards, cuts the wire, and away goes the cork, sediment, and, I was about to add, the wine too, which would be the case, were not a lad in attendance with some old corks, one of which is immediately taken to supply the place of the one just ejected. The quantity of wine lost by this operation depends very much upon the cleverness of those who conduct it, and nimble fingers are therefore in great request. The bottle is filled up with purified wine, and again stacked, to be submitted to a second disgorgement, and sometimes a third. It is finally fitted, by another dose of candy, prepared with white wine, which imparts a pleasant sweetness, and aids its sparkling condition when opened, for the particular market to which it is going.
Thus, before the wine is perfectly cleared, it is calculated that every bottle passes through the hands of the workmen at least two hundred times.
The demand for this class of wine has so much increased latterly (Russia alone consuming 8,000,000 of bottles from France, and three times that quantity from other sources), that we now are introduced to various imitations in sparkling Hock, Burgundy, and Moselle. We might have expected it to be free from adulteration in this quarter, but it is not so; for at Paris and Cette are established manufactories where poor light wines are fined with candy, and passed through an apparatus that charges them with carbonic acid gas, and fits them for sale in ten minutes.
Respecting the quantity that is made, it is understood that the genuine production of the Champagne districts exceeds 50,000,000 of bottles, and the price at Épernay being from two to three francs, or 1s. 8d. to 2s. 6d. per bottle, supposing the duty here to be 3s. per gallon, or 6d. per bottle, and the carriage and wine merchant’s profits amount to 1s. per bottle, which is surely an extreme calculation, we shall find the genuine article upon our tables at something like 4s. per bottle. It is, however, proposed to vary the duty according to the strength of the spirit of any given wine, and as Champagne has but a small proportion of alcohol, it will probably be introduced into this country after the 1st of April, 1861, at a charge of 1s. per gallon, instead of 3s., as it now stands in Mr. Gladstone's improved tariff.
The chief lion of importance in connection with this trade is to be found at Chalons-sur-Marne, a town of 14,000 inhabitants, higher up the river than Essemay, and near M. Jaqueson’s Champagne Cellars. They are plainly visible from the station, and a little on the right. The statement that the French Government hired his cask and packing sheds for six months to barrack 4000 men, gives some idea as to their extent. There are generally to be found 4,000,000 of bottles, ready for sale. They are deposited in galleries, excavated in the chalk rock, about six miles long, intersected by tramways communicating with the railway, and perfectly lighted by metal reflectors, placed at the bottom of the air-shafts.
Our good teetotal friends—people with excellent intentions and large appetites, will be somewhat scared by this vision, more scared, may be, than the extinct disciples of that school who some years back beheld blessing in sterility, and ruin in fertility, and who accustomed themselves to lament over “the superabundance of production.” Let their fears be calmed by the fact, that the peasants in and about these vineyards dance and sing all day long but are never drunk. Cheap wines will surely be more effective than Total Abstinence Pledges, and, Christian though I am, I very much incline to the idea of a heathen poet, who has