1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

The R eims Champagne Establishments.

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developing the finer qualities of champagne. At the time of our visit, in the spring of 1877, when the English ma.rket was being glutted with the crude, full-bodied wine of 1874, Messrs. Heidsieck were continuing to ship wines of 1870 and· 1872, beautifully rounded by keepmg and of fine flavour and great delicacy of perfume, and of which the firm estimated they had fully a year's consumption still on hand. Messrs. H eidsieck and Co. have a handsome modern estab– lishment i~ the Rue Coquebert-a comparatively new quarter of the city where champagne establishments are the rule-the courtyard of which, alive with workmen at the time of our visit, is broad and spacious, while the smrounding buildings are light and airy, and the cellars lofty, regular, and well ventilated. In a large cellier here, where the tuns are ranged side by side between the rows of iron columns supporting the roof, the firm make their_ c1wee; here too the bottling of their wine takes place, and considerable stocks of high-class reserve wines and more youthful growths are stored ready for removal when required by the central establishment. The bulk of Messrs. Heidsieck's r eserve wines, however, r epose in the outskirts of Reims, near the Porte Dieu-Lumiere, in one of the numerous abandoned chalk quarries, which of late years the champagne manufacturers have discovered are capable of being transformed into admirable cellars. · In addition to shipping a rich and a dry variety of the Mono– pole brand, of which they are sole proprietors, Messrs. Heidsieck export to this country a rich and a dry Grand Vin Royal. It is, however, to their famous Monopole wine, and especially to the dry variety, which must necessarily comprise the finest growths, that the firm owe their principal celebrity.

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