1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

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Champagne and Othe1· Sparlcling Wines.

casks of wine from various vineyards, with a due proportion of high-class vintages, is made in a vat holding 4,400 gallons. The tirage or bottling is effected by means of two large tuns placed side by side, and holding twelve hogsheads of wine each. Pipes from these tuns communicate with a couple of small reservoirs, each of them provided with half-a-dozen self-_acting syphon taps, °9Y means of which a like number of bottles are simultaneously filled. Only one set of these taps are set running at a time, as while the wine is being drawn off from one tun the other is being refilled from the casks containing the cuvee hy means of a pump and leathern hose, which empties a cask in little more than a couple of minutes. Three gangs of eight men each can fill, cork, and secure with agrafes from 35,000 to 40,000 bottles during the day. The labour is performed partly by men regularly employed by the house and partly by hands . engaged for the purpose, who work, however, under the constant inspection of overseers appointed by the firm. At Messrs. G. H. Mumm's the chan1pagne . destined for shipment has the heads of the corks submerged in a kind of varnish, with the object of protecting them from the ravages of insects, and preventing tbe string and wire from becoming mouldy for several years. In damp weather, when this varnish takes a long time to dry, after the bottles have been placed in a rack with their heads downwards to allow of any supeTfluous varnish draining from the corks, tli.; latter are subjected to a moderate heat in a machine pierced with sufficient holes to con– tain 500 bottles, and provided with a warming apparatus in the centre. Here the bottles remain / or about twenty minutes. Messrs. G. H. Mumm and Co. have a capacious vendangeoir at Verzenay, near the entrance to the village when approachin,g it from Reims. The building contains four presses, three of which are worked with large fly-wheels requiring several men to turn them, while the fourth acts with a screw applied by means of a long pole. At the vintage 3,600 kilogrammes, or nearly 8,000lbs., of grapes are put under each press, a quantity s ufficient to yield eight to ten hogsheads of wine of forty-four