1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

Chamvpagne and Other Spwrkling Wines.

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and the produce of whose vineyards usually enjoyed a higher reputation than that of their lay neighbours, were clever enough to seize upon the most eligible sites, and quick to spread abroad the fame of their wines. St. Remi, baptiser of Clovis, the first Christian king in France, at the end of the :fifth century l eft by will, to various churches, the vineyards which he owned at R eims and Laon, together with the "vilains" employed in their cultiva– tion. Some three and a half centuries later we find worthy Bishop Pardulus of Laon imitating Paul's advice t o Timothy, and urging Archbishop Hincmar to drink of t he wines of Epernay and Reims for his stomach's. sake. The crusade– preaching Pope, Urban II., who was born among the vineyards of the Champagne, dearly loved the wine of Ay; and his en ergetic appeals to the princes of Europe to take up arms for the deliver– ance of the Holy Sepulchre may have owed some of their elo– quence to his favourite beverage. The red wine of the Champagne sparkled on the boards of monarchs in the Middle Ages when they sat at meat amidst their mailclad chivalry, and quaffed mighty beakers to the confusion of the Paynim. Henry of Andely bas sung in his f abliau of the " Bataille des Vins," how, when stout Philip August us and his chaplain constituted themselves the earliest known wine-jury, the eras of Espernai, Auviler, Chaalons, and Reims were amongst those which found most favour in their eyes, though n early a couple of centuries elapsed before Eustace Desch amps r ecorded in verse the rival merits of those of Cumieres and Ay. King W enceslaus of Bohemia, a mighty toper, got so royally drunk day after day upon the v..inta.ges of the Champagne, that h e forgot all about the treaty with Charles VI., tha t had formed the pretext of bis visit to France, and would probably have lingered, goblet in hand, in the old cathedral city till the day of his death, but for the presentation of a little account for wine consumed, which sobered him to repentance and led to his abrupt departure. Dunois, L ahire, Xaintrailles, and their fellows, when they rode with J oan of Arc to the corona.tion of Charles VII., di-ank the same generous fluid, through h elmet s