Proceeding along the straight level road leading from the station to the village we encounter on our right hand the premises of Messrs. Giesler and Co., the reputation of whose brand is universal. When M. Giesler quitted the firm of P. A. Mumm, Giesler, and Co., at Reims, in 1838, he removed to Avize and founded the present extensive establishment. Entering through a large open gateway we find ourselves within a spacious courtyard with a handsome dwelling-house in the rear, and all the signs of a champagne business of magnitude apparent. A spiral staircase conducts to the counting-house on the first story of a range of buildings on the left hand, the ground floor of which is divided into celliers. Passing through a door by the side of this staircase we enter a large hall where the operation of bottling the wine is going on. Four tuns, each holding five ordinary pièces of wine, and raised upon large blocks of wood, are standing here, and communicating with them are bottling syphons of the type commonly employed in the Champagne. Messrs. Giesler do not usually consign the newly-bottled wine at once to the cellars, but retain it aboveground for about a fortnight in order that it may develop its effervescent qualities more perfectly. We find many thousands of these bottles stacked horizontally in the adjoining celliers, in one of which stands the great _cuvée_ tun wherein some fifty hogsheads of the finest Champagne growths are blended together at one time, two hundred hogsheads being thus mingled daily while the _cuvées_ are in progress. The casks of wine having been hoisted from the cellars to the first floor by a crane, and run on to a trough, their bungs are removed, and the wine flows through an aperture in the floor into the huge tun beneath, its amalgamation being accomplished by the customary fan-shaped appliances, set in motion by the turning of a wheel. In an adjacent room is the machine used for mixing the liqueur which Messrs. Giesler add so sparingly to their light and fragrant wines. There are a couple of floors above these celliers, the uppermost of which is used as a general store, while in the one beneath many thousands of bottles of _vin brut_ repose _sur pointe_, either in racks or on tables as at the Clicquot-Werlé establishment. This latter system requires ample space, for as the _remueur_, or workman who shakes the bottles, is only able to use one hand, the operation of dislodging the sediment necessarily occupies a much longer time than is requisite when the bottles rest in racks. [Illustration: PREPARING THE LIQUEUR AT MESSRS. GIESLER’S.]