Title Image of Part I Chapter III
The ancients acquainted with sparkling wines—Tendency of Champagne wines to effervesce noted at an early period—Obscurity enveloping the discovery of what we now know as sparkling Champagne—The Royal Abbey of Hautvillers—Legend of its foundation by St. Nivard and St. Berchier—Its territorial possessions and vineyards—The monks the great viticulturists of the Middle Ages—Dom Perignon—He marries wines differing in character—His discovery of sparkling white wine—He is the first to use corks to bottles—His secret for clearing the wine revealed only to his successors Frère Philippe and Dom Grossart—Result of Dom Perignon’s discoveries—The wine of Hautvillers sold at 1000 livres the queue—Dom Perignon’s memorial in the Abbey-Church—Wine flavoured with peaches—The effervescence ascribed to drugs, to the period of the moon, and to the action of the sap in the vine—The fame of sparkling wine rapidly spreads—The Vin de Perignon makes its appearance at the Court of the Grand Monarque—Is welcomed by the young courtiers—It figures at the suppers of Anet and Chantilly, and at the orgies of the Temple and the Palais Royal—The rapturous strophes of Chaulieu and Rousseau—Frederick William I. and the Berlin Academicians—Augustus the Strong and the page who pilfered his Champagne—Horror of the old-fashionedgourmetsat the innovation—Bertin du Rocheret and the Marshal d’Artagnan—System of wine-making in the Champagne early in the eighteenth century—Bottling of the wine in flasks—Icing Champagne with the corks loosened.
Cupids Crowned with Grapes
ASYBARITEof our day has remarked that the life of the ancient Greeks would have approached the perfection of earthly existence had they only been acquainted with sparkling Champagne. As, however, amongst the nations of antiquity the newly-made wine was sometimes allowed to continue its fermentation in close vessels, it may be conceived that when freshly drawn it occasionally possessed a certain degree of briskness from the retained carbonic acid gas.[77]Virgil’s expression,
‘Ille impiger hausitSpumantem pateram,’[78]
‘Ille impiger hausitSpumantem pateram,’[78]
‘Ille impiger hausitSpumantem pateram,’[78]
‘Ille impiger hausit
Spumantem pateram,’[78]
demonstrates that the Romans—whosepatera, by the way, closely resembled the modern champagne-glass—were familiar with frothy and sparkling wines, although they do not seem to have intentionally sought the means of preserving them in this condition.[79]
Lady Enjoying Champagne
The early vintagers of the Champagne can hardly have helped noting the natural tendency of their wine to effervesce, the difficulty of entirely overcoming which is exemplified in the precautions invariably taken for the production of Sillery sec; indeed tradition claims for certain growths of the Marne, from a period of remote antiquity, a disposition to froth and sparkle.[80]Local writers profess to recognise in the property ascribed by Henry of Andelys to the wine of Chalons, of causing both the stomach and the heels to swell,[81]a reference to this peculiarity.[82]The learned Baccius, physician to Pope Sixtus V., writing at the close of the sixteenth century of the wines of France, mentions those ‘which bubble out of the glass, and which flatter the smell as much as the taste,’[83]though he does not refer to any wine of the Champagne by name. An anonymous author, some eighty years later,[84]condemns the growing partiality for the ‘greatvertwhich certain debauchees esteem so highly’ in Champagne wines, and denounces ‘that kind of wine which is always in a fury, and which boils without ceasing in its vessel.’ Still he seems to refer to wine in casks, which lost these tumultuous properties after Easter. Necessity being the mother of invention, the inhabitants of the province had in the sixteenth century already devised and put in practice a method of allaying fermentation, and obtaining a settled wine within four-and-twenty hours, by filling a vessel with ‘small chips of the wood called in Frenchsayette,’ and pouring the wine over them.[85]
With all this, a conscientious writer candidly acknowledges that, despite minute and painstaking researches, he cannot tell when what is now known as sparkling Champagne first made its appearance. The most ancient references to it of a positive character that he could discover are contained in the poems of Grenan and Coffin, printed in 1711 and 1712; yet its invention certainly dates prior to that epoch,[86]and earlier poets have also praised it. It seems most probable that the tendency to effervescence already noted became even more marked in the strong-bodied gray and ‘partridge-eye’ wines, first made from red grapes about 1670, than in the yellowish wine previously produced, like that of Ay, from white grapes,[87]and recommended, from its deficiency in body, to be drunk off within the year.[88]These new wines, when in a quasi-effervescent state prior to the month of March, offered a novel attraction to palates dulled by the potent vintages of Burgundy and Southern France;[89]and their reputation quickly spread, though some oldgourmetsmight have complained, with St. Evremond, of the taste introduced byfaux delicats.[90]They must have been merelycremantwines—for glass-bottle making was in its infancy, and corks as yet unknown[91]—and doubtless resembled the present wines of Condrieu, which sparkle in the glass on being poured out, during theirfirst and second years, but with age acquire the characteristics of a full-bodied still wine. The difficulty of regulating their effervescence in those pre-scientific days must have led to frequent and serious disappointments. The hour, however, came, and with it the man.
Abbey of HautvillersGATEWAY OF THE ABBEY OF HAUTVILLERS.
GATEWAY OF THE ABBEY OF HAUTVILLERS.
Church of HautvillersTHE CHURCH OF HAUTVILLERS, WITH THE REMAINS OF THE ABBEY.
THE CHURCH OF HAUTVILLERS, WITH THE REMAINS OF THE ABBEY.
In the year 1670, among the sunny vineyard slopes rising from the poplar-fringed Marne, there stood in all its pride the famous royal Abbey of St. Peter at Hautvillers. Its foundation, ofremote antiquity, was hallowed by saintly legend. Tradition said that about the middle of the seventh century St. Nivard, Bishop of Reims, and his godson, St. Berchier, were seeking a suitable spot for the erection of a monastery on the banks of the river. The way was long, the day was warm, and the saints but mortal. Weary and faint, they sat down to rest at a spot identified by tradition with a vineyard at Dizy, to-day belonging to Messrs. Bollinger, but at that time forming part of the forest of the Marne. St. Nivard fell asleep, with his head in St. Berchier’s lap, when the one in a dream, and the other with waking eyes, saw a snow-white dove—the same, firm believers in miracles suggested, which had brought down the holy oil for the anointment of Clovis at his coronation at Reims—flutter through the wood, and finally alight afar off on the stump of a tree. Such an omen could no more be neglected by a seventh-century saint than a slate full of scribble by a nineteenth-century spiritualist, and accordingly the site thus miraculously indicated was forthwith decided upon. Plans for the edifice were duly drawn out and approved of, and the abbey rose in stately majesty, the high altar at which St. Berchier was solemnly invested with the symbols of abbatial dignity being erected upon the precise spot occupied by the tree on which the snow-white dove had alighted.[92]As time rolled on and pious donations poured in, the abbey waxed in importance, although it was sacked by the Normans when they ravaged the Champagne, and was twice destroyed by fire—once in 1098, and again in 1440—when each time it rose phœnix-like from its ashes.
Planning the Abbey
Monk with a Hoe
In 1670 the abbey was, as we have said, in all its glory. True, it had been somewhat damaged a century previously by the Huguenots, who had fired the church, driven out the monks, sacked the wine-cellars, burnt the archives, and committed sundry other depredations inherent to civil and religious warfare; but the liberal contributions of the faithful, including Queen Marie de Medicis, had helped to efface all traces of their visit. The abbey boasted many precious relics rescued from the Reformers’ fury, the most important being the body of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, which had been in its possession since 844, and attracted numerous pilgrims. The hierarchical status of the abbey was high; for no less than nine archbishops had passed forth through its stately portal to the see of Reims, and twenty-two abbots, including the venerable Peter of Cluny, to various distinguished monasteries. Its territorial possessions were extensive; for its abbot was lord of Hautvillers, Cumières, Cormoyeux, Bomery, and Dizy la Rivière, and had all manner of rights offourmage, andhuchage,vinage, andpressoir banal, and the like,[93]to the benefit of the monks and the misfortune of their numerous dependents. Its revenues were ample, and no small portion was derived from the tithesof fair and fertile vinelands extending for miles around, and from the vineyards which the monks themselves cultivated in the immediate neighbourhood of the abbey.
Monk Checking Vine
It should be remembered that for a lengthy period—not only in France, but in other countries—the choicest wines were those produced in vineyards belonging to the Church, and that thevinum theologiumwas justly held superior to all others. The rich chapters and monasteries were more studious of the quality than of the quantity of their vintages; their land was tilled with particular care, and the learning, of which in the Middle Ages they were almost the sole depositaries, combined with opportunities of observation enjoyed by the members of these fraternities by reason of their retired pursuits, made them acquainted at a very early period with the best methods of controlling the fermentation of the grape and ameliorating its produce.[94]To the monks of Bèze we owe Chambertin, the favourite wine of the first Napoleon; to the Cistercians of Citaulx the perfection of that Clos Vougeot which passing regiments salutedtambour battant; and the Benedictines of Hautvillers were equally regardful of the renown of their wines and vineyards. In 1636 they cultivated one hundred arpents themselves,[95]their possessions including the vineyards now known as Les Quartiers and Les Prières at Hautvillers, and Les Barillets, Sainte Hélène, and Cotes-à-bras at Cumières, the last named of which still retains a high reputation.
Monks Saying Grace
Over these vineyards there presided in 1670 a worthy Benedictine named Dom Perignon, who was destined to gain for the abbey a more world-wide fame than the devoutest of its monks or the proudest of its abbots. His position was an onerous one, for the reputation of the wine was considerable, and it was necessary to maintain it. Henry of Andelys had sung its praises as early as the thirteenth century; and St. Evremond, though absent from France for nearly half a score years, wrote of it in terms proving that he had preserved a lively recollection of its merits. Dom Perignon was born at Sainte Ménehould in 1638, and had been elected to the post of procureur of the abbey about 1668, on account of the purity of his taste and the soundness of his head. He proved himself fully equal to the momentous task, devotion to which does not seem to have shortened his days, since he died at the ripe old age of seventy-seven. It was Dom Perignon’s duty to superintend the abbey vineyards, supervise the making of the wine, and see after the tithes, paid either in wine or grapes[96]by the neighbouring cultivators to their seignorial lord the abbot. The wine which thus came into his charge was naturally of various qualities; and having noted that one kind of soil imparted fragrance and another generosity, while the produce of others was deficient in both of these attributes, Dom Perignon, in the spirit of a true Benedictine, hit upon the happy idea of ‘marrying,’ or blending, theproduce of different vineyards together,[97]a practice which is to-day very generally followed by the manufacturers of Champagne. Such was the perfection of Dom Perignon’s skill and the delicacy of his palate, that in his later years, when blind from age, he used to have the grapes of the different districts brought to him, and, recognising each kind by its flavour, would say, ‘You must marry the wine of this vineyard with that of such another.’[98]
Dom Perignon Checking the Wine
But the crowning glory of the Benedictine’s long and useful life remains to be told. He succeeded in obtaining for the first time in the Champagne a perfectly white wine from black grapes, that hitherto made having been gray, or of a pale-straw colour.[99]Moreover, by some happy accident, or by a series of experimental researches—for the exact facts of the discovery are lost for ever—he hit upon a method of regulating the tendency of the wines of this region to effervesce, and by paying regard to the epoch of bottling, finally succeeded in producing a perfectly sparkling wine, that burst forth from the bottle and overflowed the glass, and was twice as dainty to the palate, and twice as exhilarating in its effects, as the ordinary wine of the Champagne. A correlative result of his investigations was the present system of corking bottles, a wisp of tow dipped in oil being the sole stopper in use prior to his time.[100]To him, too, we owe not only sparkling Champagne itself, but the proper kind of glass to drink it out of. The tall, thin, taperingflutewas adopted, if not invented, by him, in order, as he said, that he might watch the dance of the sparkling atoms.[101]The exact date of Dom Perignon’s discovery of sparkling wine seems to be wrapped in much the same obscurity as are the various attendant circumstances. It was certainly prior to the close of the seventeenth century; as the author of an anonymous treatise, printed at Reims in 1718, remarked that for more than twenty years past the taste of the French had inclined towards sparkling wines, which they had ‘frantically adored,’ though during the last three years they had grown a little out of conceit with them.[102]This would place it at 1697, at the latest.
To Dom Perignon the abbey’s well-stocked cellar was a far cheerfuller place than the cell. Nothing delighted him more than
‘To come down among this brotherhoodDwelling for ever underground,Silent, contemplative, round, and sound;Each one old and brown with mould,But filled to the lips with the ardour of youth,With the latent power and love of truth,And with virtues fervent and manifold.’
‘To come down among this brotherhoodDwelling for ever underground,Silent, contemplative, round, and sound;Each one old and brown with mould,But filled to the lips with the ardour of youth,With the latent power and love of truth,And with virtues fervent and manifold.’
‘To come down among this brotherhoodDwelling for ever underground,Silent, contemplative, round, and sound;Each one old and brown with mould,But filled to the lips with the ardour of youth,With the latent power and love of truth,And with virtues fervent and manifold.’
‘To come down among this brotherhood
Dwelling for ever underground,
Silent, contemplative, round, and sound;
Each one old and brown with mould,
But filled to the lips with the ardour of youth,
With the latent power and love of truth,
And with virtues fervent and manifold.’
Dom Perignon Checking the Champagne
Ever busy among his vats and presses, barrels and bottles, Perignon found out a method of clearing wine, so as to preserve it perfectly limpid and free from all deposit, without being obliged, like all who sought to rival him in its production, todépoterthe bottles—that is, to decant their contents into fresh ones.[103]This secret, which helped to maintain the high reputation of the wine of Hautvillers when the manufacture of sparkling Champagne had extended throughout the district, he guarded even better than he was able to guard the apple of his eye. At his death, in 1715, he revealed it only to his successor, Frère Philippe, who, after holding sway over vat and vineyard for fifty years, died in 1765, imparting it with his latest breath to Frère André Lemaire. Revoked perforce from his functions by the French Revolution, he in turn, before his death about 1795, communicated it to Dom Grossart, who exults over the fact that whilst the greatest Champagne merchants were obliged todépoter, the monks of Hautvillers had never done so.[104]Dom Grossart, who had counted the Moëts amongst his customers, died in his turn without making any sign, so that the secret of Perignon perished with him. Prior to that event, however, the present system ofdégorgeagewas discovered, and eventuallydépotagewas no longer practised.[105]
In Memory of Dom Perignon
The material result of Dom Perignon’s labours was such that one of the presses of the abbey bore this inscription: ‘M. de Fourville, abbot of this abbey, had me constructed in the year 1694, and that same year sold his wine at a thousand livres the queue.’[106]Their moral effect was so complete that his name became identified with the wine of the abbey. People asked for the wine of Perignon, till they forgot that he was a man and not a vineyard,[107]and within a year of his death his name figures amongst a list of the wine-producing slopes of the Champagne.[108]His reputation has outlasted the walls within which he carried on his labours, and his merits are thus recorded, in conventual Latin of the period, on a black-marble slab still to be seen within the altar-steps of the abbey-church of Hautvillers.[109]
The anonymousMémoireof 1718 gives, with an amount of preliminary flourish which would imply a doubt as to the accuracy of the statement made, the secret mode said to have been employed by Dom Perignon to improve his wine, and to have been confided by him a few days before his death to ‘a person worthy enough of belief,’ by whom it was in turn communicated to the writer. According to this, a pound of sugar-candy was dissolved in achopineof wine, to which was then added five or six stoned peaches, four sous’ worth of powdered cinnamon, a grated nutmeg, and ademi septierof burnt brandy; and the whole, after being well mixed, was strained through fine linen into apièceof wine immediately after fermentation had ceased, with the result of imparting to it a dainty and delicate flavour. Dom Grossart, however, in his letter to M. Dherbès, distinctly declares that ‘we never did put sugar into our wine.’[110]Thiscollature, in which peaches play a part, was probably made use of by some wine-growers; and the peach-like flavour extolled by St. Evremond in the wine of Ay may have been due to it, or to the practice then and long afterwards followed of putting peach-leaves in the hot water with which the barrels were washed out, under the idea that this improved the flavour of the wine.[111]
Opinions were widely divided as to the cause of the effervescence in the wines of Hautvillers, for the connection between sugar and fermentation was then undreamt of, although Van Helmont had recognised the existence of carbonic acid gas in fermenting wine as early as 1624. Some thought it due to the addition of drugs, and sought to obtain it by putting not only alum and spirits of wine, but positive nastinesses, into their wine.[112]Others ascribed it to the greenness of the wine, because most of that which effervesced was extremely raw; and others again believed that it was influenced by the age of the moon at the epoch of bottling. Experience undoubtedly showed that wine bottled between the vintage and the month of May was certain to effervesce, and that no time was more favourable for this operation than the end of the second quarter of the moon of March. Nevertheless, as the wines, especially those of the Mountain of Reims, were not usually matured at this epoch, it was recommended, in order to secure a ripe and exquisite sparkling wine, to defer the bottling until the ascent of the sap in the vine between the tenth and fourteenth day of the moon of August; whereas, to insure anon mousseuxwine, the bottling ought to take place in October or November.[113]
Dance in the Garden
The fame of the new wine, known indifferently asvin de Perignon,flacon pétillant,flaconmousseux,vin sautant,vin mousseux,saute bouchon, &c., and even anathematised asvin du diable—for the present term,vin de Champagne, was confined as yet to the still or quasi-still growths—quickly spread. Never, indeed, was a discovery more opportune. At the moment of its introduction the glory of France was on the wane; Colbert, Louvois, and Luxembourg were dead; the Treaty of Ryswick had been signed; famine and deficit reared their threatening heads, and lo, Providence offered this new consolation for all outward and inward ills. With the King it could only find scant favour. The once brilliant Louis was now a bigoted and almost isolated invalid. His debilitated stomach, ruined by long indulgence, could scarcely even support the old Burgundy—so old that it was almost tasteless—which Fagon had prescribed as his sole beverage some years before;[114]and the popping of sparkling Champagne corks would have scandalised the quiettête-à-têterepasts which he was wont to partake of with the pious Madame de Maintenon.[115]
Raising a Toast
But the men who were to be the futurerouésof the Regency were in the flower of youthful manhood in 1698, and the recommendation of Comus had with them more weight than the warnings of Æsculapius. At the joyous suppers of Anet, where the Duc de Vendôme laid aside the laurels of Mars to wreathe his brows with the ivy of Bacchus; at the Temple, where his brother, the Grand Prior, nightly revived the most scandalous features of the orgies of ancient Rome; at the Palais Royal, where the future Regent was inaugurating that long series ofpetits souperswhich were ultimately to cost the lives of himself and his favourite daughter; and at Chantilly, where the Prince de Conti sought successfully to reproduce a younger and brighter Versailles, the pear-shaped flasks, ‘ten inches high, including the four or five of the neck,’[116]stamped with the arms of the noble hosts, and secured with Spanish wax,[117]were an indispensable adjunct to the festivities of the table. A story is told of the Marquis de Sillery, who had turned his sword into a pruning-knife, and applied himself to the cultivation of the paternal vineyards, having first introduced the sparkling wine bearing his name at one of the Anet suppers, when, at a given signal, a dozen of blooming young damsels, scantily draped in the guise of Bacchanals, entered the room, bearing apparently baskets of flowers in their hands, but which, on being placed before the guests, proved to be flower-enwreathed bottlesof the new sparkling wine.[118]If ever a beverage was intended for the pleasures of society, it was certainly this one, which it was said Nature had made especially for the French,[119]who found in its discovery a compensation for the victories of Marlborough.
Chaulieu, the poetic abbé, and the favourite of both the Vendômes, hailed this new product of his native province in rapturous strophes. In an invitation to supper addressed to his friend, the Marquis de la Fare, in 1701, he describes how
‘Of fivescore clear glasses the number and brightnessMake up for of dishes the absence and lightness,And the foam, sparkling pure,Of fresh delicate wineFor Fortune’s frail lureBlots out all regret in this memory of mine.’[120]
‘Of fivescore clear glasses the number and brightnessMake up for of dishes the absence and lightness,And the foam, sparkling pure,Of fresh delicate wineFor Fortune’s frail lureBlots out all regret in this memory of mine.’[120]
‘Of fivescore clear glasses the number and brightnessMake up for of dishes the absence and lightness,And the foam, sparkling pure,Of fresh delicate wineFor Fortune’s frail lureBlots out all regret in this memory of mine.’[120]
‘Of fivescore clear glasses the number and brightness
Make up for of dishes the absence and lightness,
And the foam, sparkling pure,
Of fresh delicate wine
For Fortune’s frail lure
Blots out all regret in this memory of mine.’[120]
In a letter to St. Evremond, he mentions sundry wonderful things that should happen ‘if the Muses were as fond of the wine of Champagne as the poet who writes this to you;’ and, in one to the Marquis de Dangeau, jestingly remarks that
‘St. Maur’s harsher museAll flight will refuse,Unless you sustainHer wings with Champagne.’[121]
‘St. Maur’s harsher museAll flight will refuse,Unless you sustainHer wings with Champagne.’[121]
‘St. Maur’s harsher museAll flight will refuse,Unless you sustainHer wings with Champagne.’[121]
‘St. Maur’s harsher muse
All flight will refuse,
Unless you sustain
Her wings with Champagne.’[121]
Replying to an invitation to Sonning’s house at Neuilly on July 20, 1707, he says that when he comes it will be wonderful to see how the Champagne will be drained from the tall glasses known asflutes.[122]That the Champagne he extols was a sparkling wine is established in a poetical epistle to Madame D., in answer to her complaint that the wine he had sent her did not froth as when they supped together, and in this he also speaks of its newness.
His brother-rhymster, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, who must not be confounded with the philosophic Jean Jacques, invited Chaulieu to join him at Neuilly, in mingling the water of Hippocrene with the wine of Hautvillers,[123]and announced to the Champagne-loving Marquis d’Ussé,aproposof the latter’s favourite source of inspiration, that even
‘Phœbus will no more go climbingFor water up Helicon’s mount,But admit, as a source of good rhyming,Champagne excels Hippocrene’s fount.’[124]
‘Phœbus will no more go climbingFor water up Helicon’s mount,But admit, as a source of good rhyming,Champagne excels Hippocrene’s fount.’[124]
‘Phœbus will no more go climbingFor water up Helicon’s mount,But admit, as a source of good rhyming,Champagne excels Hippocrene’s fount.’[124]
‘Phœbus will no more go climbing
For water up Helicon’s mount,
But admit, as a source of good rhyming,
Champagne excels Hippocrene’s fount.’[124]
Such general attention did the subject attract that Frederick William II. of Prussia actually proposed to the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Berlin the question, ‘Why does Champagne foam?’ for solution. The Academicians, with unexpected sharpness, petitioned the King for a supply of the beverage in question on which to experiment. But the parsimonious monarch was equal to the occasion, and a solitary dozen of the wine was all he would consent to furnish them with. His ally, Augustus the Strong of Saxony, was the hero of a ludicrous adventure connected with sparkling Champagne. At a banquet given to him at Dresden, a page, who had surreptitiously appropriated a bottle of this costly beverage, and hidden it in the breast of his coat, had to approach the King.The heat and motion combined had imparted briskness to the wine, out popped the cork, and the embroidered garments and flowing periwig of Mr. Carlyle’s ‘Man of Sin’ were drenched with the foaming liquid. The page fell on his knees and roared for mercy, and the King, as soon as he recovered from his bursts of laughter, freely forgave him his offence.
The success of Dom Perignon’s wine caused a revolution in the wine-production of the province, and gave rise to numerous imitations, despite the outcry raised against sparkling wine by manygourmets, and even by the wine-merchants themselves, who complained that they had to pander to what they regarded as a depraved taste. The elder Bertin du Rocheret, father of thelieutenant crimineland a notable dealer in wine, was much opposed to it.[125]Marshal de Montesquiou d’Artagnan, the gallant assailant of Denain, had ordered some wine of him, and he writes in reply, on November 11, 1711: ‘I have chosen three poinçons of the best wine of Pierry at 400 francs the queue, not to be drawn off asmousseux—that would be too great a pity. Also a poinçon to be drawn off asmousseuxat 250 francs the queue; or, if you will only go as far as 180 francs, it will froth just as well, or better. Also a poinçon oftocaneof Ay to be drunk this winter—that is to say, it should be drunk by Shrovetide—at 300 francs the queue: this wine is very fine.’[126]
On the 27th December 1712 the Marshal writes: ‘With regard to my wine being mademousseux, many prefer that it should be so; and I should not be vexed, provided it does not in any way depreciate its quality.’ On the 18th October of the following year the sternlaudator temporis actidescribes how the bottling has been carried out, ‘in order that your wines might bemousseux, without which I should not have done it, and perhaps you would have found it better, but it would not have had the merit of beingmousseux, which in my opinion is the merit of a poor wine, and only proper to beer, chocolate, and whipped cream. Good Champagne should be clear and fine, should sparkle in the glass, and should flatter the palate, as it never does when it ismousseux, but has a smack of fermentation; hence it is onlymousseuxbecause it is working.’
The converted Marshal replies on October 25th: ‘I was in the wrong to ask you to bottle my wine so that it might bemousseux; it is a fashion that prevails everywhere, especially amongst young people. For my own part, I care very little about it; but I wish the wine to be clear and fine, and to have a strong Champagne bouquet.’ In the following December Bertin, in answer to the Marshal’s request for three quartaux of wine, says: ‘Will you kindly let me know at what date you propose to drink this wine? If it is to be drunk asmousseux, I shall not agree with you.’
The allusion to the time of year at which the wine was to be drunk throws a light upon a practice of the day, confirmed by other passages in this correspondence. Much of the wine made was drunk asvin bourrufined, but not racked off, at the beginning of the year, or astocane, which was apt to go off if kept beyond Shrovetide. This speedy consumption and the careful choice made of the grapes intended forvin mousseuxmilitated against the formation in the bottles of that deposit, which, up to the commencement of the present century, when the system ofdégorgeagewas introduced, could only be remedied bydépotage,[127]though, as we have seen, the Abbey of Hautvillers had a secret method, carefully guarded, of checking its formation.[128]
It is singular that the presence of a naturalliqueur—the consequence of a complete but not excessive ripeness of the grape, and at present considered one of the highest qualities of the wine—was, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, regarded as a disease. TheMémoireof 1718 states that when the wine has any liqueur, however good it may otherwise be, it is not esteemed, and recommends the owner to get rid of this ‘bad quality’ forthwith by putting a pint of new milk warm from the cow into eachpièce, stirring it well, letting it rest three days, and then racking the wine off. At this epoch the wine of the Champagne seems to have been preferred perfectly dry.[129]In June 1716 the Marshal d’Artagnan reproached Bertin du Rocheret for sending him Hautvillers wine of the preceding vintage which had turned outliquoreuse. However, in August he felt forced to write that it had become excellent, and similar experiences seem to have soon removed all prejudices against this liqueur character. Bertin, in 1725, speaks of it as one of the qualities of wine, and charges for it in proportion; and six years later remarks that the English are as mad for liqueur and colour in their wines as the French.[130]
Part I, Chapter III, End
Part I, Chapter IV, Start
Temporary check to the popularity of Sparkling Champagne—Doctors disagree—The champions of Champagne and Burgundy—Péna and his patient—A young Burgundian student attacks the Wine of Reims—The Faculty of Reims in arms—A local Old Parr cited as an example in favour of the Wines of the Champagne—Salins of Beaune and Le Pescheur of Reims engage warmly in the dispute—A pelting with pamphlets—Burgundy sounds a war-note—The Sapphics of Benigné Grenan—An asp beneath the flowers—The gauntlet picked up—Carols from a Coffin—Champagne extolled as superior to all other wines—It inspires the heart and stirs the brain—The apotheosis of Champagne foam—Burgundy, an invalid, seeks a prescription—Impartially appreciative drinkers of both wines—Bold Burgundian and stout Rémois, each a jolly tippling fellow—Canon Maucroix’s parallel between Burgundy and Demosthenes and Champagne and Cicero—Champagne a panacea for gout and stone—Final decision in favour of Champagne by the medical faculty of Paris—Pluche’s opinion on the controversy—Champagne a lively wit and Burgundy a solid understanding—Champagne commands double the price of the best Burgundy—Zealots reconciled at table.
Little Cupids with Grapes
BYa strange fatality the popularity of the sparkling wine of the Champagne, which had helped to dissipate the gloom hanging over court and capital during the last twenty years of the reign of Louis Quatorze,[131]began to wane the year preceding that monarch’s death.[132]Dom Perignon too, as though stricken to the heart by this, forthwith drooped and died. The inhabitants of the province once more turned their attention to their red wines, which continued to enjoy a high reputation during the first half of the century,[133]despite the sweeping assertion that they were somewhat dry, rather flat, and possessed a strong flinty flavour,[134]thegoût de terroiralluded to by St. Evremond.
Praise for the Wine
Daniel Arbinet
These red wines were not only sent to Paris in large quantities by way of the Marne,[135]but commanded an important export trade, those of the Mountain, which were better able to bear the journey than the growths of the River, gracingthe best-appointed tables of London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and the North,[136]and especially of Flanders, where they were usually sold as Burgundy.[137]It must not be lost sight of that the yield of white sparkling wine from thecrûs d’élitewas for a long time comparatively small, especially when contrasted with that of to-day.[138]At a later period the manufacture ofvin mousseuxincreased, notably in the districts south of the Marne,[139]and drove out almost entirely the still red wine; the place of the latter being supplied, as regards Holland, Belgium, and Northern France, by the growths of Bordeaux, which were found to keep better in damp climates.[140]