After the Champagne, Anjou is the French province which ranks next in importance for its production of sparkling wines. Vintaged on the banks of the Loire, these are largely consigned to the English and other markets, labelled Crême de Bouzy, Sillery and Ay Mousseux, Cartes Noires and Blanches, and the like; while their corks are branded with the names of phantom firms, supposed to be located at Reims and Epernay. As a rule, these wines come from around Saumur; but they are not necessarily the worse on that account, for the district produces capital sparkling wines, the finer qualities of which improve greatly by being kept for a few years. One curious thing shown to us at Saumur was the album of a manufacturer of sparkling wines containing examples of the many hundred labels ticketed with which his produce had for years past been sold. Not one of these labels assigned to the wines the name of their real maker or their true birthplace, but introduced them under the auspices of mythical dukes and counts, as being manufactured at châteaux which are so many 'castles in Spain,' and as coming from Ay, Bouzy, Châlons, Epernay, Reims, and Verzenay, but never by any chance from Saumur. Being produced from robuster growths than the sparkling wines of the Department of the Marne, sparkling Saumur will always lack that excessive lightness which is the crowning grace of fine Champagne; still, it has only to be kept for a few years, instead of being drunk shortly after its arrival from the wine-merchant, for its quality to become greatly improved and its intrinsic value to be considerably enhanced. We have drunk sparkling Saumur that had been in bottle for nearly twenty years, and found the wine not only remarkably delicate, but, singular to say, with plenty of effervescence. [Illustration: STATUE OF RICHARD C[OE]UR DE LION AT FONTEVRAULT.]