1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

Champagne and Othm· Sparlcling Wines.

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::1Ud America as a shipper of high-class champagnes, and whose P arisian connection is extensive. On the right-hand side of the courtyard is the packing-room, and through the ·cellars, which h ave an entrance h ere, one can reach the celliers in an adjoining stretlt, where the cuvee is made and the bottling of the wine accomplished. :M:. Duminy's cellars are remarkably old, and consequently of somewhat irregular construction, l)eing at times rather low and narrow, as well as on different levels. In addition, however, to these venerable vaults, packed with wines of 1869, '70, '72'; and '74, M. Duminy h as various subterranean adjuncts in other parts of Ay, and is at present engag·ed in constructing, at the foot of his vineyards up the mountain slope, a noble establish– m ent which includes a vast court, upwards of a thousand square yards in extent, wherein are installed capacious bottle-racks and bottle-wasping machines of the latest improved manufacture. H ere are also h andsome and extensive celliers, together with immense underground cellar s, comprising broad and lofty gal– leries of regular design, the whole being constructed with a completeness and studied r egard for convenience which bid fair to render this establishment when finished the model one of the Champagne district. The house was originally founded so far bq.ck as 1814 by M . Taverne-R ichard, who was. intimately connected with the principal vineyard proprietors of the district. In 1842 this gentleman took his son-in-law, M. Duminy, father of the pre– sent proprietor of the establishment, into partnership, and after the retirement of M. Taverne he gave a great impetus to the business, and succeeded in- 'ntroducing his light and delicate wines into t he principal P aris hotels and restaurants. During its two-t hirds of a centuty of existence the house bas in– variably confined itself to first-class wines, taking particular pride in shipping fully-matured growths. Besides its own large rnserve of these, it holds considerable stocks long since dis– posed of, and n ow merely await ing the purchasers' orders to be shipped .