1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

"THE BOY" 131 May I confess to the belief that I should never make a good, reliable, valuable disgorger ? Of course there is art, or knack, in it. The degager takes a bottle, cuts the string of the cork, expels the sediment —occasionally without spilling more than a drop or two—and passes the bottle to his neighbour, who fills it up with a liqueur, composed of sugar-candy dissolved in cognac, and flavoured, and with some bright, clarified wine. The bottle is then recorked, by machinery, wired, labelled, and sent about its business. The fermentation being incomplete at the first bottling of the wine, the carbonic acid gas generated in a confined space—this part comes unadorned, out of a book—exerts pressure on itself, and it thus remains as a liquid in the wine. When this pressure is removed it expands into gas, and thus communicates the sparkling property to champagne. Hence the bombardments. How do I know all this ? I once paid a visit to the cellars of Pommery et C'^- ; and my dearest friend asked subsequently what sort of writ of ejectment had to be drawn up to rid them of my presence and thirst. But all joking apart the time was well spent, and the industry is deserving of all the encouragement which it receives. The head cellarman is, literally a host in himself, an old gentleman of aristocratic mien, and portly—or, rather, champagne-ly—presence 3 and oneof the. formulae to be gone through before quitting the premises is to drink a glass of the very best with that charming old gentleman, who I hope still flourishes amid his bottles and his