At Messrs. G. H. Mumm’s the champagne destined for shipment has the heads of the corks submerged in a kind of varnish, with the object of protecting them from the ravages of insects, and preventing the string and wire from becoming mouldy for several years. In damp weather, when this varnish takes a long time to dry, after the bottles have been placed in a rack with their heads downwards to allow of any superfluous varnish draining from the corks, the latter are subjected to a moderate heat in a machine pierced with sufficient holes to contain 500 bottles, and provided with a warming apparatus in the centre. Here the bottles remain for about twenty minutes. [Illustration: THE TIRAGE OR BOTTLING OF CHAMPAGNE AT THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MESSRS. G. H. MUMM & CO. (p. 76.)] [Illustration: MESSRS. G. H. MUMM & CO.’S VENDANGEOIR AT VERZENAY. (p. 77)] Messrs. G. H. Mumm and Co. have a capacious vendangeoir at Verzenay, near the entrance to the village when approaching it from Reims. The building contains four presses, three of which are worked with large fly-wheels requiring several men to turn them, while the fourth acts with a screw applied by means of a long pole. At the vintage 3,600 kilogrammes, or nearly 8,000lbs., of grapes are put under each press, a quantity sufficient to yield eight to ten hogsheads of wine of forty-four gallons each, suitable for sparkling wine, besides three or four hogsheads of inferior wine given to the workmen to drink. The pressing commences daily at six in the morning, and lasts until midnight; yet the firm are often constrained to keep their grapes in the baskets under a cool shed for a period of two days. This cannot, however, be done when they are very ripe, as the colouring matter from the skins would become extracted and give a dark and objectionable tint to the wine. Messrs. G. H. Mumm and Co. ship four descriptions of champagne--Carte Blanche, a pale, delicate, fragrant wine of great softness and refined flavour; a perfectly dry variety of the foregoing, known as their Extra Dry; also an Extra Quality and a First Quality--both high-class wines, though somewhat lower in price than the two preceding.