1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

Tlie Origin of Champagne.

strong head and a discriminating palate. The wine exacted from the neighbouring cultivators was of all qualities-good, bad, and indifferent; and with the spirit of a true Benedictine, Dom P erignon hit upon the idea of "marrying" the produce of one vineyard with that of another. He had noted that one kind of soil imparted fragrance and another generosity, and discovered that a white wine could be made from the blackest grapes, which would keep good, instead of turning yellow and degenerating like the wine obtained from white ones. Moreover, the happy thought occurred to him that a piece of c01·k was a much more suitable stopper for a bottle than the flax dipped in oil which had heretofore served that purpose. The white, or, as it was sometimes styled, the grey wine of the Champagne grew famous, and, the manufacture spread throughout the province, but that of Hautvillers held the pre– dominance. To Dom P erignon the abbey' s well-stocked cellar was · a far cheerfuller place than the cell. Nothing delighted him more than ·

" To come down among this brotherhood Dwelling for ever underground,

Silent, contemplritive, round a.ud sound, Each one old and brown with mould, But filled to the lips with the arclom· of youth, '\V'ith the latent power and love of truth, Auel with virtues fervent and manifold."

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Ever busy among his vats and presses, barrels and bottles, P erignon alighted upon a discovery destined to be most im– portant in its results. H e found out the way of making an effervescent wine~a wine that burst out of the bottle and over– flowed the glass, that was twice as dainty to the t aste, and twi ce as exhilarating in its effects. It was at the close of the seven– teenth century that this discovery was made- when the glory of the Roi Soleil was on the wane, and with it the splendour of the Court of Versailles. Louis XTV., for whose especial benefit liqueurs bad been invented, recovered a gleam of bis youthful ener gy as he sipped the creamy foaming vintage that enlivened his dreary ·tetes-c/A etes with the widow of Scarron. It found its chief patrons