But the crowning glory of the Benedictine's long and useful life remains to be told. He succeeded in obtaining for the first time in the Champagne a perfectly white wine from black grapes, that hitherto made having been gray, or of a pale-straw colour.[99] Moreover, by some happy accident, or by a series of experimental researches--for the exact facts of the discovery are lost for ever--he hit upon a method of regulating the tendency of the wines of this region to effervesce, and by paying regard to the epoch of bottling, finally succeeded in producing a perfectly sparkling wine, that burst forth from the bottle and overflowed the glass, and was twice as dainty to the palate, and twice as exhilarating in its effects, as the ordinary wine of the Champagne. A correlative result of his investigations was the present system of corking bottles, a wisp of tow dipped in oil being the sole stopper in use prior to his time.[100] To him, too, we owe not only sparkling Champagne itself, but the proper kind of glass to drink it out of. The tall, thin, tapering _flute_ was adopted, if not invented, by him, in order, as he said, that he might watch the dance of the sparkling atoms.[101] The exact date of Dom Perignon's discovery of sparkling wine seems to be wrapped in much the same obscurity as are the various attendant circumstances. It was certainly prior to the close of the seventeenth century; as the author of an anonymous treatise, printed at Reims in 1718, remarked that for more than twenty years past the taste of the French had inclined towards sparkling wines, which they had 'frantically adored,' though during the last three years they had grown a little out of conceit with them.[102] This would place it at 1697, at the latest. [Illustration] To Dom Perignon the abbey's well-stocked cellar was a far cheerfuller place than the cell. Nothing delighted him more than 'To come down among this brotherhood Dwelling for ever underground, Silent, contemplative, round, and sound; Each one old and brown with mould, But filled to the lips with the ardour of youth, With the latent power and love of truth, And with virtues fervent and manifold.'