1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

97

The Reims Establ1'shments.

pagne. The temperature of this hall is carefully regulated; the windows are high up near the roof, the sun's rays are rigidly excluded, so that a pleasant coolness pervades the apart– ment. On the left-hand side stands the huge tun, capable of containing 5,500 gallons of wine, in which the firm make their cuvee, with the monogram P and G, surmounting the arms of Reims, carved on its head. A platform, access to which is

gained by a staircase in a side aisle, runs round this ton'neau ; and boys stand here when the wine is being blended, and by means of a han– dle protruding above the cask work the pad– dle-wheels placed in– side, thereby securing the complete amalga– m."ation of the wine, which has been hoisted up in casks and poured through a metal trough into the tonneau. Ad– joining are the chains and lifts worked by steambymeans of which wine•is raised and low– ered from and to the 11 b h .

HEAD OVERSEER AT l'Oll!llIERY A.ND GRENO'S. ce ars eneat , one lift raising or lowering eight casks, ~hether full or empty, in the space of a minute. At the farther end of the hall a Gothic door, decorated with ornamental ironwork, leads to the long broad flight of steps 116 in number and nearly twelve feet in width, conductihg to the suite of lofty subterranean chambers where bottles of 'l'in brnt repose in their hundreds of thousands in slanting racks or solid