1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

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Sparkling Saitniiw and Sparkling Saiitemes.

the right bank of the Loire ; and after a time a curve in the river discloses to view a range of vine-clad heights extending some dis– tance beyond the village of Vouvray. Our route lies past the pic– turesque ruins of the abbey of Marmoutier and the Chateau des Roches-one of the most celebrated castles of the Loire-the· numerous excavations in the soft limestone ridge on which they are perched being converted as usual into houses, magazines, and wine-cellars. We proceed through the village ofRochecorbon, ancl along a road winding among the spurs of the Vouvray range,.. past hamlets, P,alf of whose inhabitants live in these primitive dwellings hollowed out of the cliff, and finally enter the charming · Vallee Coquette, hemmed in on all sides with vine-clad slopes. Here a picturesque old house, half chateau half homestead, was. pointed out to us as a favourite place of sojourn of Balzac, who speaks of this rocky ridge as "inhabited by a population of vine– dressers, their houses of several ~tories being hollowed out in the face of the cliff, and connected by dangerous staircases hewn in the soft stone. Smoke curls from most of the chimneys which. peep above the green crest of vines, while the blows of the cooper's hammer resound in several of the cellars. .A. young– girl trips to her garden over the roofs of these primitive dwell-– ings, and an old woman, tranquilly seated on a ledge of pro– jecting rock, supported solely by the thick straggling roots of the ivy which spreads itself over the disjointed stones, le~urely turns her spinning-wheel regardless of her dangerous position.'" The picture sketched by the, author of La Oomidie Hitmaine,. some forty years ago, has scarcely changed at the present day. At the point where the village of Vouvray climbs half-way up the vine-crested ridge the rapid-winding Cise throws itself' into the Loire, and on crossing the bridge that spans the tribu– tary stream we cliscern on the western horizon, far beyond the verdant islets studding the swollen Loire, the tall campaniles of· Tours Cathedral, which seem to rise out of the water like a. couple of Venetian towers. Vouvray is a trim little place, clus– tered round about with numerous pleasant villas in the midst of· charming gardens. The modern chateau of Moncontour here·