1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

Sparkling S aumur anil Spwrkling Saidemes. 143 grapes for sparkling saumur the grapes are conveyed in these baskets forthwith to the underground pressoirs in the neigh– bouring villages before their skins get at all broken in order that the wine may be as pale as possible in colour. The black grape yielding the best wine in the Saumur dis– trict is the breton, said to be the same as the carbinet-sauvignon, the leading variety in the grand vineyards of the Medoc. Other species of black grapes cultivated around Saumur are the varennes, yielding a soft and insipid wine of no kind of value, and the liverdun, or, large gamay·,~the prevalent grape iµ the MU.connais, and the sa.me which iii the days of Philippe-le-Hardi the parlements of Metz and Dijon interdicted the planting and cultivation of. The prevalent white grapes are the large and small pineau blanc, the bunches of the former being of an inter– mediate size, broad and pyramidal in shape, and with the berries close together . These have fine skins, are oblong in shape, and of a transparent yellowish-green hue tinged with reel, are very sweet and juicy, and as a rule ripen lat e. As for the small pineau, t he bunches are less compa.ct, the berries are round and of a golden tint, are finer as well as sweeter in flavour, and ripen somewhat earlier than the fruit of the larger variety. We noticed as we drove through the villages of Champigny and Varrains-the former celebrated for its fine red wines, anq more especially its cru of the Clos des Cordeliers-that hardly any of the houses had windows looking on to the narrow street, but that all were provided with low openings for shooting the grapes into the cellar where, when making red wine, they are trodden, but when making white wine, whether from black or white grapes, they are invariably pressed. Each of t he houses had its ponderous porte-cochere and low narrow portal leading into the large inclosed yard at its side, and over the high blank walls vines were frequently trained and pleasantly varied their dull grey monotony. The grapes on being shot into the openings just men– tioned fall through a kind of tunnel into a r eservoir adjacent ·to the heavy press, which is invariably of wood and of the old-