1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

The Vineyards of the Mountain.

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summit, and a small stone bridge crosses the deep ravine formed by the swift descending winter torrents. The principal vineyard proprietors at Bouzy, which ranks, of course, as a premim· r.nt, are M. Werle, M. Irroy, and Messrs. Moet and, Ohandon, the first and last of whom have capacious vendangeoirs here, M. Irroy's pressing-house being in the nei~hbouring village of Ambonnay. M. Werle possesses at Bouzy from forty to fifty acres of the finest vines, forming a considerable proportion of the entire vineyard area. At the Olicquot-Werle vendangeoir, containing as many as eight presses, about 1,000 pieces of wine are made annually. At the time of our visit, grapes gathered that morning were in course of delivery, the big basketfuls being measured off in caques-wooden receptacles, holding two-and-twenty gallons-while the fl.orid– faced foreman ticked them off with a piece of chalk on the head of an adjace:q.t cask. As soon as the contents of some half-hundred or so of these baskets had been emptied on to the floor of the press, the grapes undetached from their stalks were smoothed compactly down, and a moderate pressure was applied to them by turning a huge wheel, which caused the screw of the press to act-a gradual squeeze rather than a powerful one, and given all at once, coaxing out, .it was said, the finer qualities of the fruit. The operation was repeated as many as six times; the yield from the tliree first pressures being reserved for conversion into champagne, while the result of the fourth squeeze would be applied to replenishing the loss, averaging 7i per cent., sustained by the must during fermentation. Whatever comes from the fifth pressure is sold to make an inferior champagne. The grapes are subse– quently well raked about, and then subjected to a couple of final squeezes, known as the ribeche, and yielding a sort of piquette, given to the workmen employed at the pressoir to drink. The small quantity of still red Bouzy wine made by M. Werle at the same vendangeoir only claims to be regarded as a wine of especial mark in good years. The grap~s before being placed beneath the press are allowed to remain in a vat for as many as