1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines.

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bottles are stacked in their tens of thousands, and lads furnished with barrows, known as diables, hurry to and fro, conveying these to the washers, or removing the clean bottles to the adjacent. courtyard, where they are allowed to drain, prior to being taken to the salle de tirage or bottling room. · Before, however, the washing of bottles on this gigantic scale commences, the "marrying" or blending of the wine is accom– plished in a vast apartment, 250 feet in length and 100 feet broad, during the early spring. The casks of newly-vintaged wine which have been stowed away during the winter months, in tha extensive range of cellars hewn out of the chalk under– lying Epernay, where they have slowly fermented, are mixed together in due proportions in huge vats, each holding upwards of 12,000 gallons. Some of this wine is the growth of Messrs. Moet and Chandon's own vineyards, ofwhich they possess,as many as 900 acres (giving constant employment to 800 labourers and vinedressers) at Ay, Avenay, Bouzy, Cramant, Champillon, Chouilly, Dizy, Epernay, Grauves, H autvillers, Le Mesnil, Mom;sy, Pierry, Saran, St. Martin, Verzy, and Verzenay, and the average annual cost of cultivating which is about £40 per acre. At Ay the firm own 210 acres of vineyards; at Cramant and Chouilly, nearly 180 acres; at Verzy and Verzenay, 120 acres; at Pierry and Grauves, upwards of 100 acres; at Hautvillers, 90 acres ; at Le Mesnil, 80 acres; at Epernay, nearly 60 acres; and at Bouzy, 55 acres. Messrs. Moet and Chandon, moreover, possess vendangeoirs, or pressing-houses, at Ay, Bouzy, Cramant, Epernay, Hautvillers, Le Mesnil, Pierry, Saran, and Verzenay, in which the lar ge n mber of 40 presses are installed. At these vendangeoirs no less than 5,450 pieces of fine white wine, suffi– cient for 1 360 OOO bottles of champagne, are annually made- ' ' that is, 1,200 pieces at Ay, 1,100 at Cramant and Saran, 800 at Verzy and Verzenay, and smaller quantities at the remaining establishments. All these establishments have their celliers and their cellars, together with cottages for the accommodation of the numerous vinedressers in the employment of the firm. Extensive as are the vineyards owned by Messrs. Moet and