Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling WinesVizetelly, Henry
History
Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines
Vizetelly, Henry
Champagne (Wine); Sparkling wines; Wine and wine making
became Dukes of Bouillon and Princes of Sedan, titles which passed to
the Turennes when Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne,
married the surviving heiress of the house. The third branch comprised
the Barons of Lumain, allied to the Hohenzollerns. Their most famous
member slew Louis de Bourbon, Archbishop of Liège, and flung his body
into the Meuse, and subsequently became celebrated as the Wild Boar of
the Ardennes, of whom all readers of _Quentin Durward_ will retain a
lively recollection.
To return, however, to the House of the Musicians. A probable conjecture
ascribes the origin of the quaint mediæval structure to the Brotherhood
of Minstrels of Reims, who in the thirteenth century enjoyed a
considerable reputation, not merely in the Champagne, but throughout the
North of France. The house takes its present name from five seated
statues of musicians, larger than life-size, occupying the Gothic niches
between the first-floor windows, and resting upon brackets ornamented
with grotesque heads. It is thought that the partially-damaged figure on
the left-hand side was originally playing a drum and a species of
clarionet. The next one evidently has the remnants of a harp in his
raised hands. The third or central figure is supposed merely to have
held a hawk upon his wrist; whilst the fourth seeks to extract harmony
from a dilapidated bagpipe; and the fifth, with crossed legs, strums
complacently away upon the fiddle. The ground floor of the quaint old
tenement is to-day an oil and colour shop, the front of which is covered
with chequers in all the tints of the rainbow.
[Illustration]
Leading from the Rue du Tambour is the Rue de la Belle Image, thus named
from a handsome statuette of the Virgin which formerly decorated a
corner niche; and beyond is the Rue St. Hilaire, where Messrs. Barnett
et fils, trading under the designation of Périnet et fils, and the only
English house engaged in the manufacture of champagne, have an
establishment which is certainly as perfect as any to be found in Reims.
Aboveground are several large store-rooms, where vintage casks and the
various utensils common to a champagne establishment are kept, and a
capacious cellier, upwards of 150 feet in length, with its roof resting
on huge timber supports. Here new wine is stored preparatory to being
blended and bottled, and in the huge tun, holding nearly 3,000 gallons,
standing at the further end, the firm make their _cuvée_, while adjacent
is a room where stocks of corks and labels, metal foil, and the like are
kept.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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