1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

189

The Sparl.:ling Wines of Germany.

which Lauteren Sohn have their offices, cooperage, and cellars for still wines, we notice on our left hand a tablet commemorat– ing the birth of the inventor of printing in these terms :- " Gensfleisch House. F amily residence of the inventor of the art of printing, J ohn Gensfleisch of Gutenberg,.who in the year 1398 was here born. Christian Lauteren hns cleclicated on the site of the ancient house this memorial to the immortal inventor, J au. 29, 1825.'' Messrs. Lauteren's cellars for ~parkling wines extend mainly under an old monastery, and comprise a succession of lar ge vaulted galleries connected by narrow passages with arched entrances. H ere are stacked some 800,000 bottles of wine in varying conditions of maturity. Messrs. Lauteren bottle their wines in August, instead of fully two months earlier according to the usual practice, in the belief that t he system they pursue is more conducive t.o perfect effervescence, besides being att ended with less breakage, owing to the newly-bottled wine escaping the heat of the summer. All the arrangements at this establish– ment are very complete. Ther e is a place for everything, and €verything is to be found in its place. Adjoining the courtyard, wh'3re new bottles are stacked beneath open ornamental isheds, are the tasting-room and the apartment where the operations of disgorging, dosing, and re-corking are performed. The liqueur added by the firm to their sparkling wines is kept in bottle from three to five years before being used. In the tasting-room ·we were shown a variety of sparkling hocks and moselles, the former with all the distinguishing characteristics of fine Rhine wine, the older samples having gained considerably in softness. .A dry Cabinet specimen submitted to us exhibited a fine bouquet .and much delicacy of flavour. The . moselles we found par– ticularly internsting, made as they were of genuine wines from .some of the best vineyards of the Moselle district. The b.rgest Germim sparkling wine establishment is at .Rochheim, which, n.lthough situated on the banks of the Main, and several miles distant from its confiuence with the Rhine, bas curiously enough supplied us with a generic name under '\vhich we inconsistently class the entire produce of t he Rhme