1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

125

Cha?npagne Establishments at .Ay and Mareuil.

-vine-the source of a.11 the prosperity of the little town– was held both by the medireval .,and later architects of the ecli– fice. Nigh to the church stands rthe old house with its oblite– r at edcarved escutcheons, known .traditionally as the Vendan– geoir of H enri Quatre. This monarch loved the wine of the /II _place almost as well as his fa- ,;– vourite vintage of Arbois, and ;.;,1·11 . i -dubbed himself, as we have i,1~ 11: /I .·already mentioned, Seigneur of ~" \. 1 Ay, whose inhabitants he ~-; 1 ~/ .sought to gratify by confirm- · ., , ina the charter which centuries 0 b efore had been granted to the "town. Within half-an-hour's walk

..of Ay, in an easterly direction, is the village of . Mareuil, a, long straight street of straggling houses, bounded by trees -and garden-plats, with vine-clad hills rising abruptly behind -on the one side, and the Marne canal flowing placidly by on ·-the other. The archaic church, a mixture of the Romanesque .and Early Gothic, stands at the farther end of the village, cand some little distanoe on this side of it is a massive– ,looking eighteenth-centUl'y building, spacious enough to accom– modate a regiment of horse, but conventual rather than barrack– like in aspect, from the paucity of windows looking on to ·the road. A broad gateway leads into a spacious courtya.rd -to the left of which stands a grand chateau, while on the right ·there rises an ornate round tower of three stories, from the gallery on the summit of which a, fine view over the valley of the 'I\farne is obtained. The buildings inclosing the court on three sides comprise press-houses, celliers, and packing-rooms, I I