1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

' The E pernay Establishments.

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total of two and a half million bottles during that month alone. The bottles on being lowered into the cellars, either bymeans of the incline or the lifts, are J?laced in a horizont al p osition, and with their uppermost side daubed with white chalk, are stacked in layers from two to half-a-dozen bottles deep with Jlarrow oak laths between. The stacks are usually about six or seven feet hio-h and 100 feet and upwards in leng th. Whilst the wine is thus t> . reposing in a temperature of about 55° Fahrenheit, fermentation sets in, and the ensuing month is one of much anxiety. Thanks, however, to the care bestowed, Messrs. Mo~t and Chandon's annual loss from bottles bursting rarely exceeds three per cent., though fifteen was once regarded ~s .a respect able and sat isfactory average. The broken glass is a perquisite of the workmen, the money arising . from its sale, which at the last distribution amounted to no less than 20,000 fr~ncs, being divided amongst them every couple of years. The u sual entrance to Messrs. Moet and Chandon's Epernay cellars-which, burrowed out in all directions, •are of the aggre– gate length of nearly seven miles, and h ave u sually between 11,000,000 and 12,000,000 bottles and 25,000 casks of wine stored therein-is through a wide and imposing por,tal, and down a long and broad flight of steps. It is, however, by the ancient and less imposing entrance, through which more than one crowned h ead has condescended to pass, that we set forth on our leng then.eel tour through these intricat e underground gal– leries-this subterranean city with its miles of street s, cross– roads, open spaces, tramways, and st ations devoted solely to champagne. A gilt inscription on a black marble t ablet testifies +.hat "' on the 26th July, 1807, Napoleon the Great, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, honoured commerce by visiting the celln.rs of J ean Remi Moet, Mayor of Eper:Uay, President of the Canton, ancl Member of the General Council of the Department ," within three weeks of the signature of the treaty of Tilsit . P assing down t he fli ght of steep slippery st eps t raversed by t be vit:tor of