1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

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ClW11npagne aud Othe'' Spru·kling Wines.

where the business of the firm is carried on. M. Penier– J ouet is the fortunate grandson ofthe Sieur Perrier Fissier, a little Epernay grocer, who some eighty years or so ago used to supply corks, candles, and string to the firm of Moet and Co., and who, when the profits arising from this connection warranted his doing so, discarded his grocer's sleeves and apron and blossomed forth as a competitor in the champagne trade. P errier-Jouet and Co.'s offices are situated on the left-hand side of a .court– yard surrounded by low buildings, which serve as celliers, store– houses, packing-rooms, and the like. From an inner courtyard where piles of bottles are stacked under open sheds, the cellars themselves are reached. Previous to descending into these we passed through the various buildings, in one of which a party ·of men were engaged in disgorging and preparing wine for shipment. In another we noticed one of those heavy beam presses for pressing the grapes which the more intelligent manufacturers regard as obsolete, while in a third was the cuvee vat, holding no more than 2,200 gallons. In making their ciivee the firm -commonly mix one part of old wine to three pa:rts of new. An indifferent vintage, however, necessitates the admixture of a l arger proportion of the older growth. 'l'he cellar.t!, like all the m.ore ancient ones at Epernay, are somewhat straggling and irregular, still they are r emarkably cool, and on the lower floor remarkably damp as well. This, however, would appear to be no disa.dvantage, as the breakage in them is calculated never to exceed 2i per cent. The firm have no less than five qualities of champagne, and at one of the recent champa&ne competitions at' London, where the experts engaged had no mei;i,ns of identifying the brands sub– mitted to their judgment , Messrs. Perrier-Jouet's First Quality got classed below a cheaper wine of their neighbours Messrs. Pol Roger and Co., and very considerably below the Extra Sec of Messrs. P erinet et fils, and inferior even to a wine of De Venoge's, the great Epernay manufacturer of common class champagnes. Champagne establishments, combined with the handsome residences of the manufacturers, line both sides of the long,