1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

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Tlie Vineyards of the Mountain.

THE smallest of the Champagne vineyards are those of Sillery, and yet no wine of t he J\farne enjoys a greater r enown, due origi– nally to the intelligence and ener gy of the Marechale d'Estrces, the clever daughter of a J ew financier, who brought t he wine of Sillery prominentJy into notice during the latter half of the seventeenth century. She had vineyards at Mailly, Verzy, and Verzenay, as well as at Sillery, and concentrated thell: produce in the capacious cellars of her chfi.teau , afterwards sending it forth with her own guarantee, under the general name of Sillery, which, like Aaron's serpent, thus swallowed up the other s. The Marechale's social position enabled her to secure for her wines the recognition they really merited, added t o which she was a keen woman of business. She also possessed much taste, and whenever she gave one of her rare enter tainments nothing could be more exquisite or more magnificent. . At the same time, she was so sordid that when her daughter, who was cover ed with jewels, fell down at a ball, her first cry was, not like Shylock's, "my daughter," but "my diamonds,'.' as rushing forward she strove to pick up, not the fallen dancer, but her scattered gems. The drive from Reims to Sillery bas nothing attractive about it. A long, straight, level road bordered by trees intersects a broad tract of open country, skirted on the right by the P etite Montagne of Reims, with antiquated villages nestled among the dense woodland. After crossing the ChfLlons line of railway– near where one of the new forts const.ructed for t he defence of • Reims rises up behind ~he villages and vineyards of Cernay and Nogent l'.A.bbesse-thecountry becomes more undulating. Poplars border the broad Marne canal, and a low fringe of foliage marks the course of the languid river Vesle, on the banks of which is Taissy, famous in the old clays for its wines, great favourites with Sully, and which almost lured Henri Quatre from bis allegiance to the vintages of .A.y and .A.rbois that he loved so well. To the left rises Mont de la P ompelle,wher e the.first Christians of Reims suffered martyrdom, and where in 1658 the Spaniards · 1 under Montal, when attempting to ravage the vineyards of the ,district, were repulsed with terrible slaughter by the Remoi&