1933 Jack's Manual by J A Grohusko

INTRODUCTORY

By this system it is possible for the shipper to keep up a uni form excellence in his wines and to duplicate each shipment despite a succession of bad vintages. There are other districts surrounding where good wines are grown. The pale, delicate Manzanilla is grown around the litde town of Sanliicar de Bar- rameda, about fifteen miles from Jerez; and Puerto de Santa Maria yields somewhat inferior wines to the neighboring dis tricts mentioned. Champagne, as everybody knows, takes its name from the French province in which it is produced, but everybody does not know that sparkling champagne was the discovery of a monk belonging to the royal monastery of St. Pierre at Haut- villers. His name was Father Perignon, and he died in 1715. The chief depots of champagne are at Ay,fipernay,and Reims, where the quantity kept in stock is exceedingly large. The sparkle, or"mousse," as the French term it, which character izes champagne is produced by the development of carbonic acid gas from the saccharine constituents of the grape juice, and is sometimes assisted in bad years by the addition of sugar to the fermenting wine. Afterwards,when the wine has fermented in the cask until the spring, it is bottled. In the bottle slight fermentation continues, and a sediment is formed, which is adroitly thrown out shortly before the wine is required for the market. This process is termed"disgorging." The wine then receives a certain quantity of liqueur, composed of the finest cane sugar dissolved in old still wine. Champagne-merchants have each his own views as to the quantity of liqueur which ought to be used. The London champagne-buyers whenever there is a choice vintage, buy it and take it to London,so that the greatest quan tity of good champagne is only to be found there. Heretofore the wines shipped to America have been much sweeter than those used in London, but now"extra dry"or "brut" wines are becoming more popular here every day. Champagnes on the English market, generally called"brut," contain from one to two per cent liqueur. These wines are