1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

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Champagne and Other Sparlcl!ing Wines.

-Their Stock of Old Vintages-The Extensive Establishment of-Messrs. Pol Roger and Co.-Their Large Stock of the Fine 1874 Vintage-Pre– parations for the Tirage-Their Vast Fireproof Celli~r and its Admirable Temperature-Their Lofty and Capacious Cellars of Two Stories. THOSE magnates of the champagne trade, Mesrs. Moet and Chandon, whose famous " star" brand is familiar in every part of the civilised globe, and whose half-score miles of cellars con– tain 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 chateau-in that street of ch:l.teaux 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 Mame. The existing firm dates from the year 1833, but the family of Moet-conjec– _tured to have originally comefrom theLowCountries-had aheady been associated with the champagne wine trade for well-nigh a century previously. If the Moets 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 J ean and Nicolas ,Moet were echevins of the city. A Moet 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 Moets were subsequently ennobled by the same monarch. A ~ural tablet in the church of , t. Remi records the death of D. G. Moet, Grand Prior, in 1554, and nine years later we find Nicol Moet claiming exemption at Epernay from the pay– ment 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 Due 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 Moet, who owned considerable vineyard