Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 3/The vineyards of La Belle France
THE VINEYARDS OF LA BELLE FRANCE.
Now that deputations from the British wine merchants, or rather manufacturers, are no longer waiting upon Mr. Gladstone, and the makers and vendors of “publican’s port” have done getting up sympathy meetings with the afflicted teetotallers—we will, if you please, good reader, take a trip to the vineyards of La Belle France.
Commencing with the most northernly, it will be necessary to take our tickets to Épernay. This is on the line of railway—constructed, I believe, with English money, as most of the continental railways are—from Paris to Strasbourg, which answers to our Eastern Counties. Starting from the splendid terminus Place de Strasbourg, we pass from the north side of Paris, and soon arrive at the orchards and gardens of Lagny, on the left bank of the Marne. Twice crossing this river, we arrive at Meaux, a large city with eight or nine thousand people, and catch a glimpse of the stately cathedral of St. Stephen, and whirl past the avenue of yews where the learned Bossuet was accustomed to meditate undisturbed by the shrill whistle and whirr of the railway-train. The water-mills on the Marne are always going, to supply Paris with flour, and the land around is productive. The dairymaids make a very delicious cheese, called fromage de Brie. Rattling through the tunnel of Armentière, we pass La Ferté-sans-Jouarre, celebrated for the best millstones in the world, cut out of a silicious rock known as Burr stone, forming the uppermost stratum of the fresh-water basin in which Paris is situated. Blocks are extracted in cylinders, but the millstones are usually composed of pieces, bound together by iron, and presenting somewhat the appearance of mosaic work. Some twelve hundred pairs are produced annually: a good stone, six feet and a half in diameter, costs about 48l. The river here is varied by islands, one supporting the half-ruined castle of La Barre. All along to the Château Thierry station the banks of the Marne are very pretty, and the surrounding country shows evidence of a recent awakening and progress amongst the farmers. This old town wears a shattered look—it has been hacked and scarred; and seeking to recollect the cause, we revert to the campaign of 1814, when the plain of Brie was occupied by hordes of Calmucs and Cossacks. We have just time to notice the picturesque castle built by Charles Martel for young King Thierry IV. upon the summit of a pleasing slope, before the railway-train crosses the Marne for the eighth and last time, and we break away into the prettiest part of the ancient province of Champagne—the country of the Champagne wines—a district from whence it is said the kings of France were supplied with Fools—a fact considerably in favour of the intelligence of the people.
Passing Dormans, the birth-place of Pope Urban II., and Port à Binson, where is visible the Gothic castle built by Madame Cliquot (“the mother of wines”), we come to the head-quarters of Vins de Champagne, namely, Epernay, and are now about eighty miles from Paris. Making a pleasant trip to Rheims, a little to the north (where we are reminded of the prophesying rustics and the wonderful Maid of Orleans), and observing the vineyards which cover the slopes that surround and arise from the banks of the Vesle, and then visiting the hill of Aï on the Marne, and Hautvilliers, and Dizy, and Avernay, and prosecuting all imaginable inquiries in rather feeble French wherever it is possible to do so, we obtain certain disjointed facts, which, digested, group themselves into something like the following order.
These Champagne wines are divided into Vins de la Rivière and Vins de la Montagne; the former, or those produced from the lands in the valley, being the richest. They occupy a tract of country about five leagues in extent.
It must here be remarked, that position and aspect make prodigious difference in the yield of the vine. In the slope of a hill, from the top to the bottom, there will often be three different sorts of wine. The best and most favourable aspect for a vineyard is upon a rising ground facing the south-east; and thus we generally find them situated. The vine grows in every soil, but only very few are adapted to its economic cultivation. It luxuriates in the débris of granite rocks; and beds bearing marks of volcanic action are peculiarly favourable to its growth. There we find a thin calcareous soil, where very little else would flourish but the vine.
The vineyards upon these slopes remind us of Kent, because the vines, like the hops, are supported by means of poles. In the south they are allowed to trail along the ground for the purpose of preventing evaporation of moisture from the soil; but, in consequence of the cold and wet weather often prevalent in the north, they are here artificially supported.
The vintage commences when the leaves begin to fall, and the juice is sweet, bland, thick, and clammy. The fruit is usually gathered before the sun has risen, by which means a briskness is given to the wine, and its quantity is increased by one ton in twenty-four. A sufficient quantity of fruit is gathered to fill one or two vats, to insure an equal fermentation; and this gathering is performed by women with scissors, cutting the ripest bunches, and mixing with them a small proportion of the slightly unripe berries. For the red Vins de Champagne (the colour of the wine depending upon the length of time the husks are allowed to ferment with the must or wort) the fruit is gathered dry, after the sun has risen.
And now commences the labour and risk which raise the price of these wines so high, irrespective of duty. The fermentation of those intended to be brisk is very tedious. It will be well to defer the chemical description of the process until we have seen the difference with which it is conducted in manufacturing the various wines. It is only necessary now to say, that the liquid, or must, is soon passed from the vat into the cask. And while in cask, those wines obtained from the first, second, and third, or final pressure of the fruit, and known relatively as vins gris, œil de perdrix, and vins de taille, which are most coloured, are mixed together. Thus, when vins gris have fermented in casks ten or twelve days, the bungholes are closed, and spigot holes are left, through which the casks are filled up from time to time with the other varieties, upon a systematic plan. Wines bottled any time between the vintage and the following May will be sparkling. They begin to sparkle after being six weeks in bottle, and the mountain sorts earlier. Bottled in June they will sparkle but little; and bottled so late as October, they will acquire the condition termed still.
Being in bottle, a third fermentation is induced by putting into each bottle a small glass of what is called liqueur—sugar-candy dissolved in wine, and fined to brightness. “This fermentation produces a fresh deposit of sediment. In this process the greatest attention is requisite, and the bottles are closely watched, the temperature of the air carefully regulated to promote or check the fermentation; yet thousands of bottles explode; so many, that 10 per cent. is always charged as a cost of manufacture.” This is particularly the case in seasons of great and sudden heat. In April, 1843, Madame Cliquot, the largest grower in France, lost 25 per cent., or 400,000 bottles, before fermentation could be reduced by large supplies of ice.
“After clouding with fermentation in the bottles, the wine begins to deposit a sediment, and the bottles are placed with their necks downwards in long shelves, having holes obliquely cut in them, so that the bottoms are scarcely raised. Every day the attendant lifts the end of each bottle, and after a slight vibration replaces it a little more upright in the bed, thus detaching the sediment from the side, and letting it pass toward the neck of the bottle.” This process is now continued until all the sediment has gravitated to the neck. Then a man takes the bottle to a recess prepared for the operation, holds its mouth downwards, cuts the wire, and away goes the cork, sediment, and, I was about to add, the wine too, which would be the case, were not a lad in attendance with some old corks, one of which is immediately taken to supply the place of the one just ejected. The quantity of wine lost by this operation depends very much upon the cleverness of those who conduct it, and nimble fingers are therefore in great request. The bottle is filled up with purified wine, and again stacked, to be submitted to a second disgorgement, and sometimes a third. It is finally fitted, by another dose of candy, prepared with white wine, which imparts a pleasant sweetness, and aids its sparkling condition when opened, for the particular market to which it is going.
Thus, before the wine is perfectly cleared, it is calculated that every bottle passes through the hands of the workmen at least two hundred times.
The demand for this class of wine has so much increased latterly (Russia alone consuming 8,000,000 of bottles from France, and three times that quantity from other sources), that we now are introduced to various imitations in sparkling Hock, Burgundy, and Moselle. We might have expected it to be free from adulteration in this quarter, but it is not so; for at Paris and Cette are established manufactories where poor light wines are fined with candy, and passed through an apparatus that charges them with carbonic acid gas, and fits them for sale in ten minutes.
Respecting the quantity that is made, it is understood that the genuine production of the Champagne districts exceeds 50,000,000 of bottles, and the price at Épernay being from two to three francs, or 1s. 8d. to 2s. 6d. per bottle, supposing the duty here to be 3s. per gallon, or 6d. per bottle, and the carriage and wine merchant’s profits amount to 1s. per bottle, which is surely an extreme calculation, we shall find the genuine article upon our tables at something like 4s. per bottle. It is, however, proposed to vary the duty according to the strength of the spirit of any given wine, and as Champagne has but a small proportion of alcohol, it will probably be introduced into this country after the 1st of April, 1861, at a charge of 1s. per gallon, instead of 3s., as it now stands in Mr. Gladstone's improved tariff.
The chief lion of importance in connection with this trade is to be found at Chalons-sur-Marne, a town of 14,000 inhabitants, higher up the river than Essemay, and near M. Jaqueson’s Champagne Cellars. They are plainly visible from the station, and a little on the right. The statement that the French Government hired his cask and packing sheds for six months to barrack 4000 men, gives some idea as to their extent. There are generally to be found 4,000,000 of bottles, ready for sale. They are deposited in galleries, excavated in the chalk rock, about six miles long, intersected by tramways communicating with the railway, and perfectly lighted by metal reflectors, placed at the bottom of the air-shafts.
Our good teetotal friends—people with excellent intentions and large appetites, will be somewhat scared by this vision, more scared, may be, than the extinct disciples of that school who some years back beheld blessing in sterility, and ruin in fertility, and who accustomed themselves to lament over “the superabundance of production.” Let their fears be calmed by the fact, that the peasants in and about these vineyards dance and sing all day long but are never drunk. Cheap wines will surely be more effective than Total Abstinence Pledges, and, Christian though I am, I very much incline to the idea of a heathen poet, who has elegantly represented wine as a recompense given by the deities for the misery brought upon mankind by the general deluge. Fill, then, a bumper from the taper-necked bottle, and let us drink to the future vintage of the Marne.