1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

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Ch(JITnpagne and Other Spa1·lcling Wines. I

however, amongst the bands of gay young roysterers, the future roues of the Regency, whom the Due d'Orleans and the Due de Vendome had gathered round them at the Palais Royal and at Anet. It was at one of the famous soupers d'Anet that the Marquis de Sillery-who had turned his sword into a pruning– knife, and applied himself to the cultivation of his paternal vine– yards. on the principles inculcated by the celerer of St. Peter's– ·first introduced the sparklingwine bearing his name. The flower– wreathed bottles, which, at a given signal, a dozen of blooming young damsels scantily draped in the guis~ of Bacchanals placed upon the table,were hailed with rapture, and thenceforth sparkling wine was an indispensable adjunct at all the p etits soupers of the period. In the highest circles the popping of champagne-corks seemed to ring the knell 0£ sadness, and the victo~·ies of Marl– borough were in a measure compensated for by this happy discovery. ' 1 Why the wine foamed and sparkled was a mystery even to the very makers themselves; for as yet Baume's aerometer was unknown, and the connection between sugar and carbonic acid undreamt of. The general belief was that the llegree of effer– vescence depended upon the time of ye~r at which the wine was bottled, and that the rising of the sap in the vine had everything to do with it. Certain wiseacres held that it was influenced by the age of the moon at the time of bottling; whilst others thought the effervescence could be best secured by the addition of spirit, alum, and various nastinesses. It was this belief in the use and efficacy of drugs that led to a temporary reaction against the wine about 171 , in which year Dom Perignon de– parted this life. In his latter days he had grown blind, but his discriminating taste enabled him to discharge .his duties with URabated efficiency to the end. Many ~f the tall tapering glasses invented by him have been emptied to the memory of the old Benedictine, whose remains repose beneath a black marble slab in the chancel of the archaic abbey church of Hautvillers. Time and the iconoclasts of the great Revolution have spared but little of the royal abbey of St. Peter where Dom