1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

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Champagne and Oth ff Sparl.-ling Wines.

and packing hundreds of thousands of bottles of champagne destined for all parts of the civilised world. The house of Clicquot, established in the year 1798 by the husband of La Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, who died in 1866, in · h~r 89th year, was indebted for much of the celebrity of its wine t o the lucky accident of the Russians occupying R eims in 1814 and 1815, and freely requisitioning the sweet champagne stored iit the widow's capacious cellars . Madame Clicquot's wines were slightly known in Russia prior to this date, but the officers of the invading army: on their return home, proclaimed their merits throughout the length and breadth of the Muscovite Empire, and the fortune of the house was made. Madame Clicquot, as every one knows, amassed enormous wealth, and succeeded in marrying both her daughter and granddaughter to counts of the ancien regime. The present head of the firm is M. Werle, who comes of a.n old Lorraine family although born in the ancient free im– perial t own of Wetzlar on the Lahn, where Goethe lays the scene of his " Sorrow.a of W erther," the leading incidents of which really occurred here. M . Werle entered the establish– ment, which he has done_i;o much to raise to its existing position, so far back as the year 1821. His care and skill, exer cised over more than half a century, have largely contributed to obtain for the Clicquot brand that high r{3pute which it enjoys to-day all over the world. M. Werle, who has long been naturalised in France, .was for many years Mayor of R eims and President of its Chamber of Commerce, as well as one of the deputies of the Marne to the Corps Legislatif. He enjoys the reputation of being the richest man in Reims, and, like his late partner, Madame Clicquot, he has also succeeded in securing brilliant alliances for his children, his son, M. Alfred Werle, having married the daughter of the Due de Montebello, while his daughter espoused t he son of M. Magne, Minister of Finance under the Second Empire.. Half-way down the narrow tortuous Rue du Temple is an ancient gateway, on which may be traced the half-effaced sculp– tured heads of Phrebus and Bacchus. Immediately in front is a