1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

Oha?np agne ancl Other Sparlcling Wines.

154

bank of the Cher, where the little town of Joue, perched on the· summit .of a hill in the midst of vineyards, looks over a vast plain known by the country people as the Landes de Charlemagne, the scene, according to local tradition, of Charles Martel's great. victory over the Saracens. The Saint-Avertin vineyards extencl towards the east, stretching almost to the forest of Lar~ay, on the borders of the Cher, where Paul Louis~Courier, the famous vig– n eron pamphleteer of the R estoration, noted alike for his raillery, wit, and satirn, fell beneath the balls of an assassin. A notice– able en'\ ·in. the neighbourhood of Tours is that of Cinq :Mars, the ruined chttt ea u of which survives as a memorial of the ven– geance of Cardinal Richelieu, who, after having sent its owner to. the scaffold, commanded its massive walls an.cl towers to be razed " cl haiiteiw d'inf amie" as we see t hem now. Finding that sparkling wines were being made in most of the wine-producing districts of F rance, where the growths were sufficiently light and of the r equisite quality, Messrs. E. Nor– m an d.in and Co. conceived the idea of laying the famou s Bor– d eaux district under contribution for a similar purpose, and, aided by a staff of experienced workmen from Epernay, t hey have succeeded in producing :=t sparkling sauternes. Sauternes, as is well known, is one of the finest of white wines, sof t, delicat e, and of beautiful flavour, and its transformation into a sparkling wine bas been very successfully accomplished. Messrs. Normandin' s head-quarters are in the thriving little town of Chateauneuf, in the pleasant valley of the Charente, and within :fifteen miles of Angoult:me, a famous old French town, encom– p assed by ancient ramparts and crumbling corner towers, and which, dominated by the lofty belfry M'. its restored semi– Byzantine cathedral, rising in a series of open arcades, spreads itself picturesquely out along a precipitous height, watered at its base by the river s Anguienn.e and Charen.te. Between Anaoul&me and Chttteauneuf vineyard plots clotted over with b walnut trees, or simple rows of vines divided by strips of ripening maize, and broken up at intervals by bright green pastures, line b oth banks of the river Charente. The surrounding country is