A History of Champagne, with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of FranceVizetelly, Henry
History
A History of Champagne, with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of France
Vizetelly, Henry
Champagne (Wine) -- History; Wine and wine making -- France
On leaving Messrs. Pommery's we retrace our steps down the Avenue
Gerbert, bordered on either side with rows of plane-trees, until we
reach the treeless Avenue de Sillery, where Messrs. de St. Marceaux &
Co.'s new and capacious establishment is installed. Simple and without
pretension, the establishment, which covers an area of upwards of
18,000 feet, is distinguished for its perfect appropriateness to the
industry for which it was designed. The principal block of building
is flanked by two advanced wings enclosing a garden-court, set off
with flowers and shrubs, and from the centre of which rises a circular
shaft, covered in with glass, and admitting light and air to the
cellars below. In the building to the left the wine is received on
its arrival from the vineyard, and here are ranged large quantities
of casks replete with the choice crus of Verzenay, Ay, Cramant, and
Bouzy, while thousands of bottles ready for labelling are stacked in
massive piles at the end of the packing-hall in the corresponding wing
of the establishment. Here, too, a tribe of workpeople are arraying
the bottles with gold and silver headdresses, and robing them in pink
paper, while others are filling, securing, marking, and addressing
the cases or baskets destined to Hong-Kong, San Francisco, Yokohama,
Bombay, London, New York, St. Petersburg, Berlin, or Paris.
[Illustration: THE PACKING-HALL OF MESSRS. DE ST. MARCEAUX AT REIMS.]
The wine in cask, stored in the left-hand wing, after having been
duly blended in an enormous vat, is drawn off into bottles, which
are then lowered down a shaft to the second tier of cellars by means
of an endless chain, on to which the baskets of bottles are swiftly
hooked. The workman engaged in this duty, in order to guard against
his falling down the shaft, has a leather belt strapped round his
waist, by means of which he is secured to an adjoining iron column.
We descended into the lower cellars down a flight of ninety-three
broad steps--a depth equal to the height of an ordinary six-storied
house--and found no less than four-and-twenty galleries excavated in
the chalk, devoid of masonry supports, and containing upwards of a
million bottles of Champagne. These galleries vary in length, but are
of uniform breadth, and allow either for a couple of racks with wine
_sur pointe_, or stacks of bottles, in four row's on either side, with
ample passage-room down the centre.
The upper range of cellars comprises two large arched galleries of
considerable breadth, one of which contains wine in wood and wine
_sur pointe_, while the other is stocked with bottles of wine heads
downward, ready to be delivered into the hands of the _dégorgeur_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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