1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

The Vines of the Champagne and the System of Cultivation. 4:3

t he former, but yielding a less generous wine, and the berries of which are dark and oval, very thin skinned and remarkably sweet and juicy. The third variety is t.he plant gris, or burot, as it is styled in the Cote d'Or, a somewhat delicate vine, whose fruit has a brownish tinge, and yields a light and perfumed wine. The remaining species is a white grape known as the epinett e; a variety of the pineau blanc, and supposed by some to be identical with the chardonnet of Burgundy, which yields the famous wine of Montrachet. It is met with all along the Cote d'.A.vize, notably atCramant, the delica,te and elegant wine of which ranks immediately after that of .A.y and Verzenay. The epinett e is a prolific bearer, and its round transparent golden berries, which hang in no very compact clusters, are both juicy and sweet. It ripens, however, much later than either of the black varieties. There are several other species of vines cultivated in the Champagne vineyards, notably the common meuuier, or miller, bearing black grapes , and prevalent in the valley qf Epernay, and which takes its name from the circumstance of the young leaves appearing to have been sprinkled with flour. There are also the black and white gouais, the meslier, a prolific white variety yielding a wine of fair quality, the black and white gamais, the leading grape in the'MAconnais, and chiefly found in the Vertus vineyards, together with the tourlon, the marmot, and half a score of others. The soil of the Champagne vineyards is chalk, with a mixture of silica and light clay, combined with a varying proportion of oxide of iron. The vines are almost invariably planted on rising ground, the lower slopes which usually escape the spring frosts producing the best wines. The new vines are placed ·very close together, there often being as many as six within a square yard. When two or three years old they are ready for the operation of provinage universally practised iu thfl Champagne, and which con– sists in burying in a trench from 6 t,o 8 inches deep, dug on oue side of the plant, the two lowest buds of the two principal shoots, left when the vine was pruned for this especial purpose. The shoots thus laid under ground are dressed with a light