Late in the spring, when the newly-bottled wine indicates a sufficient number of atmospheres to insure a satisfactory effervescence, it is deposited in the lower vaults, the upper ones being devoted to reserve wines in wood and wines awaiting the process of disgorgement, or undergoing their daily shaking in order to force the deposit against the cork. Aboveground there are rooms for storing the liqueur, the corks, and the packing-cases, and in a spacious apartment, provided with three lifts for communicating with the cellars beneath, the wine is blended and bottled, and in due time disgorged and packed. In very warm weather, however, it is found preferable for the disgorging and its attendant operations to be performed in the cooler temperature of the cellars. Messrs. Ewald formerly tested the strength of their bottles with a manometer before using them, but for some time past they have given up the practice, feeling convinced that it was productive of more harm than good. Glass is an amorphous and unelastic substance which, although it will stand a high pressure once, often succumbs when put to a second test by the action of the fermenting wine. The firm calculate their annual breakage at from 2½ to 3 per cent. Messrs. Ewald being installed almost in the heart or the Rheingau can readily draw their supplies of wine from the most favoured localities. Johannisberg is within a few miles of Rüdesheim, and in those years when, owing to the grapes not having thoroughly ripened, the wine is only of intermediate value as a still wine, it serves admirably for conversion into sparkling wine, retaining as it does its powerful bouquet. Ingelheim, too, noted for its vineyards of black grapes, whose produce is much sought after for blending with the finer sparkling Rhine wines, is only a few miles higher up the river, on the opposite bank. The drier varieties of sparkling hocks and moselles shipped by Messrs. Ewald to England have the merit of retaining all the fine flavour and natural perfume of the higher-class growths from which, as a rule, these wines are prepared. [Illustration: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MATHEUS MÜLLER AT ELTVILLE. (p. 186)]