Consumers of champagne, if wise, would profit by the circumstance that quality has not the effect of causing a rise in prices, and if they were bent upon drinking their favourite wine in perfection, as one meets with it at the dinner-tables of the principal manufacturers, who only put old wine of grand vintages before their guests, they would lay down champagnes of good years in the same way as the choicer vintages of port, burgundy, and bordeaux are laid down. Champagne of 1874 was a wine of this description, with all its finer vinous qualities well developed, and consequently needing age to attain not merely the roundness but the refinement of flavour pertaining to a high-class sparkling wine. Instead of being drunk a few months after it was shipped in the spring and summer of 1877, as was the fate of much of the wine in question, it needed being kept for three years at the very least to become even moderately round and perfect. In the Champagne one had many opportunities of tasting the grander vintages that had arrived at ten, twelve, or fifteen years of age, and had thereby attained supreme excellence. It is true their effervescence had moderated materially, but their bouquet and flavour were perfect, and their softness and delicacy something marvellous. A great wine like that of 1874 will go on improving for ten years, providing it is only laid down under proper conditions. These are, first, an exceedingly cool but perfectly dry cellar, the temperature of which should be as low as from 50° to 55° Fahr., or even lower if this is practicable. The cellar, too, should be neither over dark nor light, scrupulously clean, and sufficiently well ventilated for the air to be continuously pure. It is requisite that the bottles should rest on their sides to prevent the corks shrinking, and thus allowing both the carbonic acid and the wine itself to escape. For laying down champagne or any kind of sparkling wine an iron wine-bin is by far the best. I much prefer the patent “slider” bins made by Messrs. W. and J. Burrow, of Malvern, they being better adapted to the purpose than any other I am acquainted with. In these the bottles rest on horizontal parallel bars of wrought-iron, securely riveted into strong wrought-iron uprights, both at the back and in front. The bins can be obtained of any size--that is, to hold as few as two or as many as forty dozen--and they can be had furnished with lattice doors, secured by a lock. One great advantage is that with them there is no waste of space, for individual compartments can be at once refilled with fresh bottles after the other bottles have been removed. These “slider” bins are especially adapted for laying down champagne, as they admit of the air circulating freely around the bottles, thus conducing to the preservation of the metal foil round their necks, and keeping the temperature of the wine both cool and equable. [Illustration]