The upper range of cellars comprises two large arched galleries of considerable breadth, one of which contains wine in wood and wine sur pointe, while the other is stocked with bottles of wine heads downward, ready to be delivered into the hands of the dgorgeur.

MM. de St. Marceaux and Co. have the honour of supplying the King of the Belgians, the President of the French Republic, and several German potentates, with an exceedingly delicate champagne known as the Royal St. Marceaux. The same wine is popular in Russia and other parts of Europe, just as the Dry Royal of the firm is much esteemed in the United States. The brand of the house most appreciated in this country is its Carte d'Or, a very dry wine which, in conjunction with the firm's Extra Quality, secured the first place at a recent champagne competition in England.

In the neighbourhood of the Pommery and de St. Marceaux establishments numerous other champagne manufacturers have their cellars formed from the abandoned quarries so numerous on this side of the city. Of some of these firms we have already spoken, but there remain to be mentioned Messrs. Kunklemann and Co., Ruinart pre et fils, George Goulet, Jules Champion, Thophile Roederer, &c. The cellars of the three last-named are immediately outside the Porte Dieu-Lumire, near which is a house with a curious bas-relief on its face, the subject of which has been a source of much perplexity to local antiquaries.







X.—EPERNAY CHAMPAGNE ESTABLISHMENTS.

Early Records of the Mot Family at Reims and Epernay— Jean Remi Mot Founder of the Commerce in Champagne Wines— Extracts from the Old Account-Books of the Mots— First Sales of Sparkling Wines— Sales to England in 1788— "Milords" Farnham and Findlater— Jean Remi Mot receives the Emperor Napoleon, Josephine, and the King of Westphalia— The Firm of Mot 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 Cuve 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. Mot and Chandon's Large and Complete Staff— Provision for Illness and Old Age— Annual Fte Given by the Firm— Their Famous "Star" Brand— M. Perrier-Jout, 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. Mot 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 chteau—in that street of chteaux 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 Mot—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 Mots 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 Mot were chevins of the city. A Mot 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 Mots were subsequently ennobled by the same monarch. A mural tablet in the church of St. Remi records the death of D. G. Mot, Grand Prior, in 1554, and nine years later we find Nicol Mot 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 Mot, who owned considerable vineyard property in the vicinity of Epernay, decided upon embarking in the wine trade. It is his son, however, Jean Remi Mot, 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. Mot 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 Mot 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'Orlans, 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, Knigsberg, 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 Mots 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.



In this same year M. Mot 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 Mot 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 Mot 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. Mot 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 Mot and Co., was remodelled under the style of Mot and Chandon, the two partners being M. Victor Mot, son of the outgoing partner, and M. P. G. Chandon, the descendant of an old ennobled family of the Mconnais, who had married M. Jean Remi Mot'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 Mot-Romont and M. C. J. V. Auban Mot-Romont; and on the other, MM. Paul and Raoul Chandon de Briailles.

Facing Messrs. Mot and Chandon's offices at Epernay is a range of comparatively new buildings, with its white faade 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 rinage, 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. Mot 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. Mot 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 pices of fine white wine, sufficient for 1,360,000 bottles of champagne, are annually made—that is, 1,200 pices 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.





Extensive as are the vineyards owned by Messrs. Mot 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.



Upwards of 200 workpeople are employed in the salle de tirage at Messrs. Mot 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. Mot 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 rinage, 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. Mot 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.



The usual entrance to Messrs. Mot 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 Rmi Mot, 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. Mot 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.



Some idea of the complex character of so vast an establishment as that of Messrs. Mot 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. Mot 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. Mot 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 soires, 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. Mot and Chandon's spacious cellars.

A little beyond Messrs. Mot and Chandon's, in the broad Rue du Commerce, we encounter a heavy, ornate, pretentious-looking chteau, the residence of M. Perrier-Jout, which presents a striking contrast to the almost mean-looking premises opposite, where the business of the firm is carried on. M. Perrier-Jout 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 Mot 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-Jout 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 cuve vat, holding no more than 2,200 gallons. In making their cuve 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 2 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-Jout'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. Prinet et fils, and inferior even to a wine of De Venoge's, the great Epernay manufacturer of common class champagnes.



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 chteaux, commencing with one belonging to M. Auban Mot, whose terraced gardens overlook the valley of the Marne, and command views of the vine-clad heights of Cumires, 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. Mot and Chandon and Perrier-Jout the ornate monumental faade 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 chteau 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 crs, 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 Franois 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 Marchal Biron at the moment Henri's hand was resting familiarly on the marchal's shoulder. Strange to say, the king himself escaped unhurt.







XI.—CHAMPAGNE ESTABLISHMENTS AT AY AND MAREUIL.

The Establishment of Deutz and Geldermann— Drawing off the Cuve— Mode of Excavating Cellars in the Champagne— The Firm's New Cellars, Vineyards, and Vendangeoir— The old Chteau of Ay and its Terraced Garden— The Gambling Propensities of Balthazar Constance Dang-Doray, a former Owner of the Chteau— The Picturesque Situation and Aspect of Messrs. Ayala's Establishment— A Promenade through their Cellars— M. Duminy's Cellars and Wines— His new Model Construction— The House Founded in 1814— Messrs. Bollinger's Establishment— Their Vineyard of La Grange— The Tirage in Progress— The Fine Cellars of the Firm— Messrs. Pfungst's frres and Co.'s Cellars— Their Dry Champagnes of 1868, '70, '72, and '74— The Old Church of Ay and its Decorations of Grapes and Vineleaves— The Vendangeoir of Henri Quatre— The Montebello Establishment at Mareuil— The Chteau formerly the Property of the Dukes of Orleans— A Titled Champagne Firm— The Brilliant Career of Marshal Lannes— A Promenade through the Montebello Establishment— The Press House, the Cuve Vat, the Packing-Room, the Offices, and the Cellars— Portraits and Relics at the Chteau— The Establishment of Bruch-Foucher and Co.— The handsome Carved Gigantic Cuve Tun— The Cellars and their Lofty Shafts— The Wines of the Firm.

The historic bourgade of Ay is within a short walk of the station on the line of railway connecting Epernay with Reims. The road lies across the light bridge spanning the Marne canal, the tall trees fringing which hide for a time the clustering houses; still we catch sight of the tapering steeple of the antique church rising sharply against the green vine-covered slopes and the fleecy-clouded summer sky. We soon reach the Place de l'Htel de Ville, and continuing onward in the direction of the steep hills which shelter the town on the north, come to a massive-looking corner house in front of the broad porte-cochre of which some railway carts laden with cases of champagne are standing. Passing through the gateway we find ourselves in an open court, with a dwelling-house to the right and a range of buildings in front where the offices of Messrs. Deutz and Geldermann are installed. This is the central establishment of the firm, whose Extra Dry "Gold Lack" and "Cabinet" champagnes have long been favourably known in England. Here are spacious celliers for disgorging and finishing off the wine, a large packing-hall, and rooms where bales of corks and other accessories of the trade are stored, the operations of making the cuves and bottling being accomplished in an establishment some little distance off.





Proceeding thither, we find an elegant chteau with a charming terraced garden, lying at the very foot of the vine-clad slopes, and on the opposite side of the road some large celliers where wine in wood is stored, and where the cuves of the firm, consisting usually of upwards of 50,000 gallons each, are made in a vat of gigantic proportions, furnished with a raised platform at one end for the accommodation of the workman who agitates the customary paddles. When the wine is completely blended it is drawn off into casks disposed for the purpose in the cellar below, as shown in the accompanying engraving, and after being fined it rests for about a month to clear itself. To each of these casks of newly-blended wine a portion of old wine is added separately, and at the moment of bottling the whole is newly amalgamated.

Adjoining M. Deutz's chteau is the principal entrance to the extensive cellars of the firm, to which, at the time of our visit, considerable additions were being made. In excavating a gallery the workmen commence by rounding off the roof, and then proceed to work gradually downwards, extracting the chalk, whenever practicable, in blocks suitable for building purposes, which being worth from three to four shillings the square yard help to reduce the cost of the excavation. When any serious flaws present themselves in the sides or roof of the galleries, they are invariably made good with masonry.

This range of cellars now comprises eight long and lofty galleries no less than 17 feet wide, and the same number of feet in height, and of the aggregate length of 2,200 yards. These spacious vaults, which run parallel with each other, and communicate by means of cross passages, underlie the street, the chteau, the garden, and the vineyard slopes beyond, and possess the great advantage of being always dry. They are capable, we were informed, of containing several million bottles of champagne in addition to a large quantity of wine in cask.

Messrs. Deutz and Geldermann possess vineyards at Ay, and own a large vendangeoir at Verzenay, where in good years they usually press 500 pices of wine. They, moreover, make large purchases of grapes at Bouzy, Cramant, Le Mesnil, Pierry, &c, and invariably have these pressed under their own superintendence. Beyond large shipments to England, Messrs. Deutz and Geldermann transact a considerable business with other countries, and more especially with Germany, where their brand has been for years one of the most popular, and is to-day the favourite at numerous regimental messes and the principal hotels.

The old chteau of Ay, which dates from the early part of the last century, belongs to-day to the Count de Mareuil, a member of the firm of Ayala and Co., one of the leading establishments of the famous Marne-side cr. Perched half-way up the slope, covered with "golden plants," which rises in the rear of the village, the chteau, with its long faade of windows, commands the valley of the Marne for miles, and from the stately terraced walk, planted with ancient lime-trees, geometrically clipped in the fashion of the last century, a splendid view of the distant vineyards of Avize, Cramant, Epernay, and Chouilly is obtained. The chteau formed one of a quartette of seignorial residences which at the commencement of the present century belonged to Balthazar Constance Dang-Doray, whose ancestors had been lords of Chouilly under the ancien rgime. Doray had inherited from an aunt the chteaux of Ay, Mareuil, Boursault, and Chouilly, together with a large patrimony in land and money; but a mania for gambling brought him to utter ruin, and he dispossessed himself of money, lands, and chteaux in succession, and was reduced, in his old age, to earn a meagre pittance as a violin-player at the Paris Opera House. The old chteau of Boursault, which still exists contiguous to the stately edifice raised by Mme. Clicquot on the summit of the hill, was risked and lost on a single game at cards by this pertinacious gamester, whose pressing pecuniary difficulties compelled him to sell the remaining chteaux one by one. That of Ay was purchased by M. Froc de la Boulaye, and by him bequeathed to his cousin the Count de Mareuil, whose granddaughter became the wife of one of the Messrs. Ayala, and whose son is to-day their partner.



The offices of the firm adjoin the chteau, and rather higher up the hill is their very complete establishment, picturesquely situated in a hollow formed by some excavations, with the thickly-planted vine-slopes rising above its red-tiled roof. The boldly-designed basement, the ascending sweep conducting to the extensive celliers and the little centre belfry give a character of originality to the building. Carts laden with cases of champagne are leaving for the railway station, casks of wine are being transferred from one part of the establishment to another, bottles are being got ready for the approaching tirage, and in the packing department, installed in one of the three celliers into which the story aboveground is divided, quite an animated scene presents itself. Iron columns support the roofs of this and its companion celliers, where the firm make their cuve, and the bottling of the wine takes place. On descending into the basement beneath, the popping of corks and the continual clatter of machinery intimate that the disgorging and re-corking of the wine are being accomplished, and in the dim light we discern groups of workmen engaged in the final manipulation which champagne has to undergo, while fresh relays of wine are arriving from the cellars by the aid of endless chains. There are two stories of these cellars which, excavated in the chalk, extend under the road and wind round beneath the chteau, the more modern galleries being broad, lofty, and admirably ventilated, and provided with supports of masonry wherever the instability of the chalk rendered this requisite. After a lengthened promenade through them we come to the ancient vaults extending immediately under the grounds of the chteau, where every particle of available space is utilised, and some difficulty is found in passing between the serried piles of bottles of vin brut—mostly the fine wine of 1874—which rise continuously on either side.



Within a hundred yards of the open space, surrounded by houses of different epochs and considerable diversity of design, where the Ay market is weekly held, and in one of the narrow winding streets common to the town, an escutcheon, with a bunch of grapes for device, surmounting a lofty gateway, attracts attention. Within, a trim courtyard, girt round with orange-trees in bright green boxes, and clipped in orthodox fashion, affords access to the handsome residence and offices of M. Duminy, well-known in England and America as a shipper of high-class champagnes, and whose Parisian connection is extensive. On the right-hand side of the courtyard is the packing-room, and through the cellars, which have an entrance here, one can reach the celliers in an adjoining street, where the cuve is made and the bottling of the wine accomplished.

M. Duminy's cellars are remarkably old, and consequently of somewhat irregular construction, being at times rather low and narrow, as well as on different levels. In addition, however, to these venerable vaults, packed with wines of 1869, '70, '72, and '74, M. Duminy has various subterranean adjuncts in other parts of Ay, and is at present engaged in constructing, at the foot of his vineyards up the mountain slope, a noble establishment which includes a vast court, upwards of a thousand square yards in extent, wherein are installed capacious bottle-racks and bottle-washing machines of the latest improved manufacture. Here are also handsome and extensive celliers, together with immense underground cellars, comprising broad and lofty galleries of regular design, the whole being constructed with a completeness and studied regard for convenience which bid fair to render this establishment when finished the model one of the Champagne district.

The house was originally founded so far back as 1814 by M. Taverne-Richard, who was intimately connected with the principal vineyard proprietors of the district. In 1842 this gentleman took his son-in-law, M. Duminy, father of the present proprietor of the establishment, into partnership, and after the retirement of M. Taverne he gave a great impetus to the business, and succeeded in introducing his light and delicate wines into the principal Paris hotels and restaurants. During its two-thirds of a century of existence the house has invariably confined itself to first-class wines, taking particular pride in shipping fully-matured growths. Besides its own large reserve of these, it holds considerable stocks long since disposed of, and now merely awaiting the purchasers' orders to be shipped.

A few paces beyond M. Duminy's we come upon an antiquated, decrepit-looking timber house, with its ancient gable bulging over as though the tough oak brackets on which it rests were at last grown weary of supporting their unwieldy burthen. Judging from the quaint carved devices, this house was doubtless the residence of an individual of some importance in the days when the principal European potentates had their commissioners installed at Ay to secure them the finest vintages. Continuing our walk along the same narrow winding street, we soon reach the establishment of Messrs. Bollinger, whose house, founded in the year 1829, claims to be the first among the Ay firms who shipped wines to foreign countries generally, including England, where the brand has long been held in high repute. Messrs. Bollinger, besides being shippers of champagne, are extensive vineyard proprietors, owning vinelands at Bouzy, Verzenay, and Dizy. A vineyard of theirs at the latter place, known as "La Grange," is said to have formerly belonged to the monks who founded the abbey of St. Peter at Hautvillers, the legend connected with which we have already related.

A couple of large gateways offer access to the spacious courtyard of Messrs. Bollinger's establishment; a handsome dwelling-house standing on the right, and a small pavilion, in which the offices are installed, while on the left hand and in the rear of the courtyard rises a range of buildings of characteristic aspect, appropriated to the business of the firm. In one of the celliers, which has its open-raftered roof supported by slim metal columns, we found the tirage going on, the gang of workmen engaged in it filling, corking, and lowering into the cellars some 20,000 bottles a day. In one corner of the apartment stood the large cuve tun—capable of holding some 50 hogsheads—in which the blending of the wine is effected, and in an adjoining cellier women were briskly labelling and wrapping up the completed bottles of champagne. The cellars, constructed some fifty years ago at a cost of nearly 12 the superficial yard, are faced entirely with stone, and are alike wide and lofty; this is especially the case with four of the more modern galleries excavated in 1848, and each 160 feet in length. Besides the foregoing, Messrs. Bollinger possess other cellars in Ay, where they store their reserve wines both in bottle and in the wood.

On the northern side of Ay, some little distance from the vineyard owned by them, the firm of Pfungst frres & Cie. have their cellars, the entrance to which lies just under the lofty vine-clad ridge. Messrs. Pfungst frres lay themselves out exclusively for the shipment of high-class champagnes, and the excellent growths of the Ay district necessarily form an important element in their carefully-composed cuves. A considerable portion of their stock consists of reserves of old wine, and we tasted here a variety of samples of finely-matured champagnes of 1868 and '70, as well as the vintages of 1872 and '74. All of these wines were of superior quality, combining delicacy and fragrance with dryness, the latter being their especial feature. In addition to their business with England, Messrs. Pfungst frres ship largely to India and the United States.



It is on this side of the town that the fine old Gothic church, dating as far back as the twelfth century, is situated. Many of the mouldings and the capitals of the columns both inside and outside the building are covered over with grape-laden vine-branches, and the sculptured figure of a boy bearing a basket of grapes upon his head surmounts the handsome Renaissance doorway, seemingly to indicate the honour in which the vine—the source of all the prosperity of the little town—was held both by the medival and later architects of the edifice. Nigh to the church stands the old house with its obliterated carved escutcheons, known traditionally as the Vendangeoir of Henri Quatre. This monarch loved the wine of the place almost as well as his favourite vintage of Arbois, and dubbed himself, as we have already mentioned, Seigneur of Ay, whose inhabitants he sought to gratify by confirming the charter which centuries before had been granted to the town.



Within half-an-hour's walk of Ay, in an easterly direction, is the village of Mareuil, a long straight street of straggling houses, bounded by trees and garden-plats, with vine-clad hills rising abruptly behind on the one side, and the Marne canal flowing placidly by on the other. The archaic church, a mixture of the Romanesque and Early Gothic, stands at the farther end of the village, and some little distance on this side of it is a massive-looking eighteenth-century building, spacious enough to accommodate a regiment of horse, but conventual rather than barrack-like in aspect, from the paucity of windows looking on to the road. A broad gateway leads into a spacious courtyard to the left of which stands a grand chteau, while on the right there rises an ornate round tower of three stories, from the gallery on the summit of which a fine view over the valley of the Marne is obtained. The buildings inclosing the court on three sides comprise press-houses, celliers, and packing-rooms, an antiquated sundial marking the hour on the blank space above the vines that climb beside the entrance gateway. The more ancient of these tenements formed the vendangeoir of the Dukes of Orleans at the time they owned the chteau of Mareuil, purchased in 1830 by the Duke de Montebello, son of the famous Marshal Lannes, and minister and ambassador of Louis Philippe and Napoleon III.

The acquisition of this property, to which were attached some important vineyards, led, several years later, to the duke's founding, in conjunction with his brothers, the Marquis and General Count de Montebello, a champagne firm, whose brand speedily acquired a notable popularity. To-day the business is carried on by their sons and heirs, for all the original partners in the house have followed their valiant father to the grave. Struck down by an Austrian cannon-ball in the zenith of his fame, the career of Marshal Lannes, brief as it was, furnishes one of the most brilliant pages in French military annals. Joining the army of Italy as a volunteer in 1796, he was made a colonel on the battle-field in the gorges of Millesimo, when Augereau's bold advance opened Piedmont to the French. He fought at Bassano and Lodi, took part in the assault of Pavia and the siege of Mantua, and at Arcola, when Napoleon dashed flag in hand upon the bridge, Lannes was seriously wounded whilst shielding his general from danger. He afterwards distinguished himself in Egypt, and led the van of the French army across the Alps, displaying his accustomed bravery both at Montebello and Marengo. At Austerlitz, where he commanded the right wing of the army, he greatly contributed to the victory, and at Jena, Friedland, and Eylau his valour was again conspicuous. Sent to Spain, he defeated the Spaniards at Tudela, and took part in the operations against Saragossa. Wounded at the battle of Essling, when the Archduke Charles inflicted upon Napoleon I. the first serious repulse he had met with on the field of battle, the valiant Lannes expired a few days afterwards in the Emperor's arms.





We were met at Mareuil, on the occasion of our visit, by Count Alfred Ferdinand de Montebello, the present manager of the house, and conducted by him over the establishment. In the press-house, to the left of the courtyard, were two of the ponderous presses used in the Champagne, for, like all other large firms, the house makes its own wine. Grapes grown in the Mareuil vineyards arrive here in baskets slung across the backs of mules, muzzled so that while awaiting their loads they may not devour the fruit within reach. In a cellier adjoining the press-house stands a large vat, capable of holding 50 pices of wine, with a crane beside it for hauling up the casks when the cuve is made. Here the tirage likewise takes place, and in the range of buildings, roofed with glass, in the rear of the tower, the bottled wine is labelled, capped with foil, and packed in cases for transmission to Paris, England, and other places abroad.

A double flight of steps, decorated with lamps and vases, leads to the handsome offices of the firm, situated on the first floor of the tower, while above is an apartment with a panelled ceiling, gracefully decorated with groups of Cupids engaged in the vintage and the various operations which the famous wines of the Mountain and the River undergo during their conversion into champagne. On the ground floor of the tower a low doorway conducts to the spacious cellars, which, owing to the proximity of the Marne, are all on the same level as well as constructed in masonry. The older vaults, where the Marquis de Pange, a former owner of the chteau, stored the wine which he used to sell to the champagne manufacturers, are somewhat low and tortuous compared with the broad and lofty galleries of more recent date, which have been constructed as the growing connection of the firm obliged them to increase their stocks. Spite, however, of numerous additions, portions of their reserves have to be stored in other cellars in Mareuil. Considerable stocks of each of the four qualities of wine supplied by the firm are being got ready for disgorgement, including Cartes Noires and Bleues, with the refined Carte Blanche and the delicate Crmant, which challenge comparison with brands of the highest repute.

In the adjacent chteau, the gardens of which slope down to the Marne canal, there are various interesting portraits, with one or two relics of the distinguished founder of the Montebello family, notably Marshal Lannes's gold-embroidered velvet saddle trappings, his portrait and that of Marshal Gerard, as well as one of Napoleon I., by David, with a handsome clock and candelabra of Egyptian design, a bust of Augustus Csar, and a portrait of the Regent d'Orlans.

Another champagne house of standing at Mareuil is that of Bruch-Foucher and Co., whose establishment is situated near the village mairie. Entering by a lofty porte-cochre, we notice on the left hand a spacious packing-room, where men and women are expeditiously completing some shipping order, while beyond are the offices, looking on to a terraced garden whence a pleasant view is gained of the verdant valley of the Marne. From the packing-room a broad staircase leads to the cellars beneath, which can also be reached from a venerable range of buildings on the opposite side of the road, where young wines and old cognac spirit, used in the preparation of the liqueur, are stored in the wood.

In one of these ancient celliers is a vast tun, capable of containing nearly 5,000 gallons, carved over with an elaborate device of vineleaves and bunches of grapes entwined around overflowing cornucopia and bottles of champagne. This handsome cask, in which the firm make their cuve, is a worthy rival of the sole antique ornamental tun that still reposes in the Royal cellars at Wurzburg. In Messrs. Bruch-Foucher and Co.'s capacious cellars, faced and vaulted with stone, from eight to nine hundred thousand bottles of wine are stored. The cellars form a single story, and extend partly under the adjacent vineyard slopes, deriving light and ventilation from numerous shafts which are occasionally no less than 150 feet in height. Messrs. Bruch-Foucher and Co., who are owners of vineyards at Mareuil, ship three qualities of champagne, the finest being their Carte d'Or and their Monogram Carte Blanche. Their chief business is with England, Germany, and the United States, where their brands enjoy considerable repute.





XII.—CHAMPAGNE ESTABLISHMENTS AT AVIZE AND RILLY.

Avize the Centre of the White Grape District— Its Situation and Aspect— The Establishment of Giesler and Co.— The Tirage and the Cuve— Vin Brut in Racks and on Tables— The Packing-Hall, the Extensive Cellars, and the Disgorging Cellier— Bottle Stores and Bottle-Washing Machines— Messrs. Giesler's Wine-Presses at Avize and Vendangeoir at Bouzy— Their Vineyards and their Purchases of Grapes— Reputation of the Giesler Brand— The Establishment of M. Charles de Cazanove— A Tame Young Boar— Boar-Hunting in the Champagne— M. de Cazanove's Commodious Cellars and Carefully-Selected Wines— Vineyards Owned by Him and His Family— Reputation of his Wines in Paris and their Growing Popularity in England— Interesting View from M. de Cazanove's Terraced Garden— The Vintaging of the White Grapes in the Champagne— Roper frres' Establishment at Rilly-la-Montagne— Their Cellars Penetrated by Roots of Trees— Some Samples of Fine Old Champagnes— The Principal Chlons Establishments— Poem on Champagne by M. Amaury de Cazanove.

Avize, situated in the heart of the Champagne white grape district, may be reached from Epernay by road through Pierry and Cramant or by the Chlons Railway to Oiry Junction, between which station and Romilly there runs a local line, jocularly termed the chemin de fer de famille, from the general disregard displayed by the officials for anything approaching to punctuality. Avize can scarcely be styled a town, and yet its growing proportions are beyond those of an ordinary village. It lies pleasantly nestled among the vines, sheltered by bold ridges on the north-west, with the monotonous plains of La Champagne pouilleuse, unsuited to the cultivation of the vine, stretching away eastward in the direction of Chlons. Avize cannot pretend to the same antiquity as its neighbour Vertus, and lacks the many picturesque vestiges of which the latter can boast. Its church dates back only to the 15th century, although the principal doorway in the Romanesque style evidently belongs to a much earlier epoch. There is a general air of trim prosperity about the place, and the villagers have that well-to-do appearance common to the inhabitants of the French wine districts. Only at vintage time, however, are there any particular outdoor signs of activity, although half a score of champagne firms have their establishments here, giving employment to the bulk of the population, and sending forth their two or three million bottles of the sparkling wine of the Marne annually.



Proceeding along the straight level road leading from the station to the village we encounter on our right hand the premises of Messrs. Giesler and Co., the reputation of whose brand is universal. When M. Giesler quitted the firm of P. A. Mumm, Giesler, and Co., at Reims, in 1838, he removed to Avize and founded the present extensive establishment. Entering through a large open gateway we find ourselves within a spacious courtyard with a handsome dwelling-house in the rear, and all the signs of a champagne business of magnitude apparent. A spiral staircase conducts to the counting-house on the first story of a range of buildings on the left hand, the ground floor of which is divided into celliers. Passing through a door by the side of this staircase we enter a large hall where the operation of bottling the wine is going on. Four tuns, each holding five ordinary pices of wine, and raised upon large blocks of wood, are standing here, and communicating with them are bottling syphons of the type commonly employed in the Champagne. Messrs. Giesler do not usually consign the newly-bottled wine at once to the cellars, but retain it aboveground for about a fortnight in order that it may develop its effervescent qualities more perfectly. We find many thousands of these bottles stacked horizontally in the adjoining celliers, in one of which stands the great cuve tun wherein some fifty hogsheads of the finest Champagne growths are blended together at one time, two hundred hogsheads being thus mingled daily while the cuves are in progress. The casks of wine having been hoisted from the cellars to the first floor by a crane, and run on to a trough, their bungs are removed, and the wine flows through an aperture in the floor into the huge tun beneath, its amalgamation being accomplished by the customary fan-shaped appliances, set in motion by the turning of a wheel. In an adjacent room is the machine used for mixing the liqueur which Messrs. Giesler add so sparingly to their light and fragrant wines.

There are a couple of floors above these celliers, the uppermost of which is used as a general store, while in the one beneath many thousands of bottles of vin brut repose sur pointe, either in racks or on tables as at the Clicquot-Werl establishment. This latter system requires ample space, for as the remueur, or workman who shakes the bottles, is only able to use one hand, the operation of dislodging the sediment necessarily occupies a much longer time than is requisite when the bottles rest in racks.



The buildings on the opposite side of the courtyard comprise a large packing-hall, celliers where the wine is finished off, and rooms where corks and such-like things are stored. Here, too, is the entrance to the cellars, of which there are three tiers, all lofty and well-ventilated galleries, very regular in their construction, and faced with either stone or brick. In these extensive vaults are casks of fine reserved wines for blending with youthful vintages, and bottles of vin brut, built up in solid stacks, that may be reckoned by their hundreds of thousands. At Messrs. Giesler's the disgorging of the wine is accomplished in a small cellier partially underground, and the temperature of which is very cool and equable. The dgorgeurs, isolated from the rest of the workpeople, are carrying on their operations here by candlelight. So soon as the sediment is removed the bottles are raised in baskets to the cellier above, where the liqueuring, re-corking, stringing, and wiring are successively accomplished. By pursuing this plan the loss sustained by the disgorgement is believed to be reduced to a minimum.

Extensive as these premises are they are still insufficient for the requirements of the firm, and across the road is a spacious building where new bottles are stored and the washing of the bottles in preparation for the tirage takes place. By the aid of the machinery provided, sixteen women, assisted by a couple of men, commonly wash some fifteen or sixteen thousand bottles in the course of a day. Here, too, stands one of the two large presses with which at the epoch of the vintage a hundred pices of wine are pressed every four-and-twenty hours. The remaining press is installed in a cellier at the farther end of the garden on the other side of the road. Messrs. Giesler possess additional presses at their vendangeoir at Bouzy, and during the vintage have the command of presses at Ay, Verzenay, Vertus, Le Mesnil, &c., it being a rule of theirs always to press the grapes within a few hours after they are gathered to obviate their becoming bruised by their own weight and imparting a dark colour to the wine, a contingency difficult to guard against in seasons when the fruit is over-ripe. The firm own vineyards at Avize, and have agreements with vine-proprietors at Ay, Bouzy, Verzenay, and elsewhere, to purchase their crops regularly every year. Messrs. Giesler's brand has secured its existing high repute solely through the fine quality of the wines shipped by the house—wines which are known and appreciated by all real connoisseurs of champagne.

From Messrs. Giesler's it is merely a short walk to the establishment of M. Charles de Cazanove, situated in the principal street of Avize. On entering the court we encountered a tame young boar engaged in the lively pursuit of chasing some terrified hens, while a trio of boarhounds, basking on the sunny flagstones, contemplated his proceedings with lazy indifference. Boars abound in the woods hereabouts, and hunting them is a favourite pastime with the residents, and the young boar we had noticed proved to be one of the recent captures of the sons of M. de Cazanove, who are among the warmest partisans of the exciting sport. Many of the boars found in the woods around Reims journey thither, it is said, by night from the famous forest of the Ardennes—the scene of Rosalind's wanderings and Touchstone's eccentricities as set forth in As You Like It, and whose gloomy depths and tangled glens shelter to-day not merely boars but wolves as well.

In the Champagne it is no longer the fashion

"With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,"

nor to hunt the boar on horseback, as is still the case in Burgundy. When the presence of one or more of these animals is signalled in the neighbourhood, a party starts off accompanied by dogs and armed with double-barrelled rifles. A circle having been formed round the boar's lair the dogs are set to draw him out, while the chasseurs keep on the alert so as not to allow him to escape through their circle alive. In this manner a few score of boars are killed every year in the woods round about Reims and Epernay.



The house of M. Charles de Cazanove was established in 1843 by its present proprietor on the foundation of a business which had been in existence since 1811. Compared with the monumental grandeur of some of the great Reims and Epernay establishments the premises present a simple and modest aspect, nevertheless they are capacious and commodious, besides which the growing business of the house has led to the acquisition of additional cellarage in other parts of Avize. More important than all, however, is the quality of the wine with which these cellars are stocked, and following the rule observed by champagne firms of the highest repute, it has been a leading principle with M. de Cazanove always to rely upon the choicer growths—those light, delicate, and fragrant wines of the Marne which throw out the true aroma of the flower of the vine. M. de Cazanove, who is distinguished for his knowledge of viticulture, occupies an influential position at Avize, being Vice-President of the Horticultural Society of the Marne, and a member of the committee charged with guarding the Champagne vineyards against the invasion of the phylloxera. His own vines include only those fine varieties to which the crs of the Marne owe their great renown. He possesses an excellent vineyard at Grauves, near Avize, and his mother-in-law, Madame Poultier, of Pierry, is one of the principal vine-growers of the district.

M. de Cazanove's wines are much appreciated in Paris, where his business is very extensive. His shipments to England are also considerable, but from the circumstance of some of his principal customers importing the wine under special brands of their own, the brand of the house is not so widely known as we should have expected.

From M. de Cazanove's terraced garden in the rear of his establishment a fine view is obtained of one of the most famous viticultural districts of the Champagne, yielding wines of remarkable delicacy and exquisite bouquet. On the left hand rises up the mountain of Avize, its summit fringed with dense woods, where in winter the wild boar has his lair. In front stretch the long vine-clad slopes of Cramant, with orchards at their base, and the housetops of the village and the spire of the quaint old church just peeping over the brow of the hill. To the right towers the bold forest-crowned height of Saran with M. Mot's chteau perched half-way up its north-eastern slope, and fading away in the hazy distance are the monotonous plains of the Champagne.

We have already explained that the wines of Avize and Cramant rank as premiers crs of the white grape district, and that every champagne manufacturer of repute mingles one or the other in his cuve. The white grapes are usually gathered a fortnight or three weeks later than the black varieties, but in other respects the vintaging of them is the same. The grapes undergo the customary minute examination by the plucheuses, and all unripe, damaged, and rotten berries being thrown aside, the fruit is conveyed with due care to the press-houses in the large baskets known as paniers mannequins. The pressing takes place under exactly the same conditions as the pressing of the black grapes; the must, too, is drawn off into hogsheads to ferment, and by the end of the year, when the active fermentation has terminated, the wine is usually clear and limpid.

At Rilly-la-Montagne, on the line of railway between Reims and Epernay, Roper frres & Cie., late of Epernay, now have their establishment. Starting from the latter place we pass Ay and Avenay, and then the little village of Germaine in the midst of the forest, and nigh the summit of the mountain of Reims, with its "Rendezvous des Chasseurs" in immediate proximity to the station. Finally we arrive at Rilly, which, spite of its isolated situation, has about it that aspect of prosperity common to the more favourable wine districts of France. This is scarcely surprising when the quality of its wines is taken into consideration. The still red wine of Rilly has long enjoyed a high local reputation, and to-day the Rilly growths are much sought after for conversion into champagne. White wine of 1874 from black grapes fetched, we were informed, as much as from 600 to 700 francs the pice, while the finer qualities from white grapes realised from 300 to 400 francs. Messrs. Roper frres & Cie. are the owners of some productive vineyards situated on the high road to Chigny and Ludes.

The establishment of Roper frres is adjacent to a handsome modern house standing back from the road in a large and pleasant garden, bounded by vineyards on two of its sides. In the celliers all the conveniences pertaining to a modern champagne establishment are to be found, while extending beneath the garden are the extensive cellars of the firm, comprising two stories of long and spacious galleries excavated in the chalk, their walls and roofs being supported whenever necessary by masonry. A curious feature about these cellars is that the roots of the larger trees in the garden above have penetrated through the roof of the upper story and hang pendent overhead like innumerable stalactites. Here after the comparatively new wine of 1874 had been shown to us—including samples of the Vin Brut or natural champagne of which the firm make a speciality at a moderate price—some choice old champagnes were brought forth, including the fine vintages of 1865, 1857, and 1846. The latter wine had of course preserved very little of its effervescence, still its flavour was exceedingly fine, being soft and delicate to a degree. At the Vienna Exhibition of 1873 and the London Exhibition of 1874 the collection of champagnes exhibited by Roper frres met with favourable recognition from the international juries.

Our tour through the Champagne vineyards and wine-cellars here comes to an end. It is true there are important establishments at Chlons, notably those of Jacquesson et fils, the Perriers, Freminet et fils, and Jacquard frres, the cellars of the first-named being, perhaps, unrivalled in the Champagne. As, however, any description of these establishments would be little else than a recapitulation of something we have already said, we content ourselves with merely notifying their existence, and bring our Facts about Champagne to a close with the translation of a poem from the pen of M. Amaury de Cazanove of Avize:—

CHAMPAGNE.

Less for thy grace and glory, land of ours, Than for thy dolour, dear; Let the grief go, and here— Here's to thy skies, thy women and thy flowers! France! take the toast, thy women and thy roses, France! to thy wine, more wealth unto thy store! And let the lips a grievous memory closes Smile their proud smile once more!

Swarthy Falernian, Massica the Red, Were ye the nectars poured At the great gods' broad board? No, poor old wines, all but in name long dead, Nectar's Champagne, the sparkling soul of mirth, That bubbling o'er with laughing gas, Flashes gay sunbeams in the glass, And like our flag goes proudly round the earth.

"I am the blood Burgundian sunshine makes; A fine old feudal knight Of bluff and boisterous might, Whose casque feels—ah, so heavy when one wakes!" "And I, the dainty Bordeaux, violets' Perfume, and whose rare rubies gourmets prize. My subtile savour gets In partridge wings its daintiest allies."

Ah, potent chiefs, Bordeaux and Burgundy. If we must answer make, This sober counsel take: Messeigneurs, sing your worth less haughtily, For 'tis Champagne, the sparkling soul of mirth, That bubbling o'er with laughing gas, Flashes gay sunbeams in the glass, And like our flag goes proudly round the earth.

Aye, 'tis the true, the typic wine of France; Aye, 'tis our heart that sparkles in our eyes, And higher beats for every dire mischance; It was the wit that made our fathers wise, That made their valour gallant, gay, When plumes were stirr'd by winds of waving swords, And chivalry's defiance spoke the words: " vous, Messieurs les Anglais, les premiers!"

Let the dull beer-apostle till he's hoarse Vent his small spleen and spite, Fate fill his sleepless night With nightmares of invincible remorse! We sing Champagne, the sparkling soul of mirth, That bubbling o'er with laughing gas, Flashes gay sunbeams in the glass, And like our flag goes proudly round the earth.







XIII.—SPARKLING SAUMUR AND SPARKLING SAUTERNES.

The Sparkling Wines of the Loire often palmed off as Champagnes— The Finer qualities Improve with Age— Anjou the Cradle of the Plantagenet Kings— Saumur and its Dominating Feudal Chteau and Antique Htel 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— The Vouvray Vineyards— Balzac's Picture of La Valle Coquette— The Village of Vouvray and the Chteau of Moncontour— Vernou with its Reminiscences of Sully and Ppin-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 Cuve— Proportions of Wine from Black and White Grapes— The Bottling and Disgorging of the Wine and Finishing Operations— The Chteau of Varrains and the Establishment of M. Louis Duvau an— 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. Alfred Rousteaux's Establishments at Saint-Florent and Saint-Cyr— His convenient Celliers and extensive Cellars— Mingling of Wine from the Champagne with the finer Sparkling Saumur— His Vineyard at La Perrire— M. E. Normandin's Sparkling Sauternes Manufactory at Chteauneuf— Angoulme and its Ancient Fortifications— Vin de Colombar— M. Normandin's Sparkling Sauternes Cuve— His Cellars near Chteauneuf— High recognition accorded to the Wine at the Concours Rgional d'Angoulme.

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 Crme 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 chteaux which are so many "castles in Spain," and as coming from Ay, Bouzy, Chlons, 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.

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, in the so-called Cimetire 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, Chac, 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 Boissy d'Amboise to an assignation in order that he might 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 chteau 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 Htel 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 Eugnie 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 head-dresses being counterparts of coiffures in vogue so far back as three and four centuries ago.

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 inclosed—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 forthwith 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 Mdoc. 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 Mconnais, 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 cr 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-cochre and low narrow portal leading into the large inclosed yard at its side, and over the high blank walls vines were frequently trained and pleasantly varied their dull grey 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 prpar 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. 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 Marmotier and the Chteau 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 Valle Coquette, hemmed in on all sides with vine-clad slopes. Here a picturesque old house, half chteau half homestead, was pointed out to us as a favourite place of sojourn of Balzac, 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 the thick straggling roots of the ivy which spreads itself over the disjointed stones, leisurely turns her spinning-wheel regardless of her dangerous position." The picture sketched by the author of La Comdie Humaine, some 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 chteau 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 Ppin-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 Perrire, 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, Chac, St. Cyr-en-Bourg, and Brz. The whole of this district, by the way, abounds with interesting archological remains. While visiting the vineyards of Varrains and Chac we came upon a couple of dolmens—vestiges of the ancient Celtic population of the valley of the Loire singularly abundant hereabouts. Brz, the marquisate of which formerly belonged to Louis XVI.'s famous grand master of the ceremonies—immortalized by the rebuff he received from Mirabeau—boasts a noble chteau 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.



At Saint-Florent, the pleasant little suburb of Saumur, skirting the river Thouet, and sheltered by steep hills formed of soft limestone, offering 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 Eugnie 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 pre 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.

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 cuve will embrace 1,600 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.