1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

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Champagne ancl Othm· Sparl.:ling Wines.

vineyards. Behind the Hochheim railway station there rises a long low slope, planted from base to summit with vines, a portion of which are screened on the north by a plain-looking church and a weather-stained deanery. The vines thus sheltel·ed yield the famous Dom Dechanei, the finest Hochheimer known. Some short distance off in a westerly direction are the extensive premises of the Hochheim Sparkling Wine Association, whose brands are well known in England. The firm of Burgeff and Co., whose business the association acquired in 1858 and sub– sequently considerably extended, was founded in 1837. At this establishment all the arrangements are of the most perfect character. The bottles are cleaned by a machine employing ten persons, and turning out several thousand bottles a day. All the bottles moreover, before being used, have their strength t ested by an ingenious apparatus which subjects them to three or four times the pressure they are likely to under go when filled with wine. Pumps, bottle-washing machine, and the revolving casks in which the sugar is dissolved for the liqueur, are all moved by steam, and the association even manufactures the gas used for lighting up the establishment. We tasted here several sparkling hocks distinguished by their high flavour and refine– ment, with sparkling moselles vintaged in the best localities and equally excellent in quality. Sparkling hocks and moselles are made by Messrs. Stock and Sons at Creuzuach, a favourite watering- place in the romantic Nahe valley, noted :fdi: the picturesque porphyry cliffs which occasionally rise precipitously at the river's edge. Creuz– nach, where a capital wine is vintaged, on the southern slopes of the Schlossberg, is at no great distance from Bingen. Messrs. Stock and Sons' establishment dates from 1862, and their sparkling wines are mainly made from white grapes, only about one-eighth of white wine from black grapes entering into their composition. The latter is vintaged at Ingelheim, the grapes being pressed under the firm's own superintendence, and only the must resulting from the first squeeze of the press being used. The wine from riesling grapes is usually from the