1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

The Spwrkling Wines oj Ge:nnany. .

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VINEYARDS IN TIIE AIIR VALLEY.

-Champagne, only a moderate proportion of wine from black ·I 1 grapes enters into the blend. Next comes the fining, and four weeks afterwards the wine is newly racked. The bottling takes place during May or June, when :any deficiency of natural saccharine in the wine is supplied by the addition of pure sugar-candy. At Messrs. Deinhard's the wine is bottled at a t emperature of 72° Fahr., and the bottles remain restins- on large stone tables until the fermentation is completed, .and the saccharine is converted into alcohol and carbonic acid gas. This r esult is commonly obtained in ordinary hot weather in eight days' time, most of the breakage taking place during this interval. If on being t ested with a manometer the wine should· indicate too high a pressure, it is at once removed to a cool cellar, consequently the average total. breakage rarely exceeds 2t