Part 19

The Pleasant Valley Wine Company, established in 1860 for the commerce of still wines, in which it continues to do an extensive business, commenced five years later to make sparkling wines. It grows its own grapes and consumes annually about 1,500 tons of fruit, bottling from 200,000 to 300,000 bottles of sparkling wine in the course of the year. Its brands are the Great Western, of which there is a dry and an extra dry variety, the Carte Blanche, and the Pleasant Valley. Even the extra dry variety of the first-named wine tastes sweet in comparison with a moderately dry champagne, in addition to which its flavour, though agreeable, is certainly too pronounced for a sparkling wine of high quality. The wines, which secured a medal for progress at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, are sold in every city in the United States, and the company also does a small but increasing trade with England and South America.

The Urbana Wine Company, also established at Hammondsport at the same epoch as its rival, deals, like the latter, in still wines as well. It has three brands—the Gold Seal, of which there is an extra dry variety, the Imperial, and the Royal Rose. At Vienna a diploma of merit was awarded to these wines, for which a considerable market is found throughout the United States and in the West Indies and South America. The Urbana Wine Company produces excellent sparkling wines of singular lightness and of delicate though distinctive flavour. In our judgment the drier varieties are greatly to be preferred. The prices of all the American sparkling wines are certainly high, being almost equivalent to the price of first-class champagnes taken at Reims and Epernay.

In California the manufacture of sparkling wines is carried on with considerable success, and at the Vienna Exhibition the Buena Vista Vinicultural Society of San Francisco was awarded a medal for progress for the excellent samples it sent there. The society was originally organised by Colonel Haraszthy, the pioneer in recent times of Californian viticulture. It commenced manufacturing sparkling wines with the assistance of experienced workmen from Epernay and Ay; but the endeavours, extending over some three or four years, were attended with but indifferent success, very few cuvées proving of fair quality, whilst with the majority the wine had to be emptied from the bottles and distilled into brandy. The son of Colonel Haraszthy subsequently succeeded, in conjunction with Mr. Isidor Landsberger, of San Francisco, in discovering the cause of these failures, and for ten years past the wine has been constantly improving in quality owing to the increased use of foreign grapes, which yield a vin brut with a delicate bouquet and flavour approaching in character to the finer champagnes. The wine is perfectly pure, no flavouring extracts or spirit being employed in the composition of the liqueur, which, is composed merely of sugar-candy dissolved in fine old wine. A French connoisseur pronounces sparkling Sonoma to be the best of American sparkling wines, "clean and fresh, tasting, with the flavour of a middle-class Ay growth, as well as remarkably light and delicate, and possessed of considerable effervescence." The Sonoma valley vineyards produce the lightest wines of all the Californian growths, some of the white varieties indicating merely 15° of proof spirit, and the red ones no more than 17½°.

The vintage takes place towards the end of October, and the grapes are gathered by Chinamen, who will each pick his 12 to 14 cwt. of grapes a day for the wage of a dollar. Light wooden boxes are used for holding the grapes, which are stripped from their stalks on their arrival at the press-house, and then partially crushed by a couple of revolving rollers. An inclined platform beneath receives them, and after the expressed juice has been run off into cask they are removed to the press, and the must subsequently extracted is added to that forced out by the rollers. When white wine is being made from black grapes the pressure is less continuous, and the must is of course separated at once from the skins. The fermentation, which is violent for some ten or twelve hours, ceases in about a fortnight, providing a temperature of from 70° to 75° Fahr. is maintained in the vaults. The wine is racked at the new year, and again before the blending and bottling of it in the spring.

The Californian sparkling wines not only find a market in the eastern States, but are sent across the Pacific to the Sandwich Islands, Japan, China, and even to wine-producing Australia, which has not yet succeeded in producing sparkling wines of its own.

The manufacture of spurious sparkling wines is carried on to some extent in the United States. The raw wine is cleared by fining it with albumen or gelatine and with alum; the latter substance imparting to it great brilliancy. After being dosed with a flavoured syrup the wine is charged like soda-water with carbonic acid gas by placing the bottles under a fountain, and as this gas is derived from marble dust and sulphuric acid, it is liable to be impregnated with both lead and copper, which have the effect of disorganising alike the wine and the consumers of it—nausea, headache, and other ills resulting from drinking sparkling wines made under such conditions.

XX.—CONCLUDING FACTS AND HINTS.

Dry and Sweet Champagnes— Their Sparkling Properties— Form of Champagne Glasses— Style of Sparkling Wines Consumed in Different Countries— The Colour and Alcoholic Strength of Champagne— Champagne Approved of by the Faculty— Its Use in Nervous Derangements— The Icing of Champagne— Scarcity of Grand Vintages in the Champagne— The Quality of the Wine has little influence on the Price— Prices realised by the Ay and Verzenay Crûs in Grand Years— Suggestions for Laying down Champagnes of Grand Vintages— The Improvement they Develop after a few Years— The Wine of 1874— The proper kind of Cellar to lay down Champagne in— Advantages of Burrow's Patent Slider Wine Bins— Increase in the Consumption of Champagne— Tabular Statement of Stocks, Exports, and Home Consumption from 1844-5 to 1877-8— When to Serve Champagne at a Dinner Party— Charles Dickens's dictum that its proper place is at a Ball— Advantageous Effect of Champagne at an ordinary British Dinner Party— Sparkling Wine Cups.

When selecting a sparkling wine one fact should be borne in mind—that just as, according to Sam Weller, it is the seasoning which makes the pie mutton, beef, or veal, so it is the liqueur which renders the wine dry or sweet, light or strong. A really palatable dry champagne, emitting the fragrant bouquet which distinguishes all wines of fine quality, free from added spirit, is obliged to be made of the very best vin brut, to which necessarily an exceedingly small percentage of liqueur will be added. On the other hand, a sweet champagne can be produced from the most ordinary raw wine—the Yankees even claim to have evolved it from petroleum—as the amount of liqueur it receives completely masks its original character and flavour. This excess of syrup, it should be remarked, contributes materially to the wine's explosive force and temporary effervescence, but shortly after the bottle has been uncorked the wine becomes disagreeably flat. A fine dry wine, indebted as it is for its sparkling properties to the natural sweetness of the grape, does not exhibit the same sudden turbulent effervescence. It continues to sparkle, however, for a long time after being poured into the glass owing to the carbonic acid having been absorbed by the wine itself instead of being accumulated in the vacant space between the liquid and the cork, as is the case with wines that have been highly liqueured. Even when its carbonic acid gas is exhausted a good champagne will preserve its fine flavour, which the effervescence will have assisted to conceal. Champagne, it should be noted, sparkles best in tall tapering glasses; still these have their disadvantages, promoting as they do an excess of froth when the wine is poured into them, and almost preventing any bouquet which the wine possesses from being recognised.

Manufacturers of champagne and other sparkling wines prepare them dry or sweet, light or strong, according to the markets for which they are designed. The sweet wines go to Russia and Germany, the sweet-toothed Muscovite regarding M. Louis Roederer's syrupy product as the beau-idéal of champagne, and the Germans demanding wines with 20 or more per cent. of liqueur, or nearly quadruple the quantity that is contained in the average champagnes shipped to England. France consumes light and moderately sweet wines; the United States gives a preference to the intermediate qualities; China, India, and other hot countries stipulate for light dry wines; while the very strong ones go to Australia, the Cape, and other places where gold and diamonds and such-like trifles are from time to time "prospected." Not merely the driest but the very best wines of the best manufacturers, and commanding of course the highest prices, are invariably reserved for the English market. Foreigners cannot understand the marked preference shown in England for exceedingly dry sparkling wines. They do not consider that as a rule they are drunk during dinner with the plats, and not at dessert, with all kinds of sweets, fruits, and ices, as is almost invariably the case abroad.

Good champagne is usually of a pale straw colour, but with nothing of a yellow tinge about it. When its tint is pinkish this is owing to a portion of the colouring matter having been extracted from the skins of the grapes—a contingency which every pains are taken to avoid, although, since the success achieved by the wine of 1874, slightly pink wines are likely to be the fashion. The positive pink or rose-coloured champagnes, such as were in fashion some thirty years ago, are simply tinted with a small quantity of deep red wine. The alcoholic strength of the drier wines ranges from 18° of proof spirit upwards, or slightly above the ordinary Bordeaux, and under all the better-class Rhine wines. Champagnes when loaded with a highly alcoholized liqueur will, however, at times mark 30 degrees of proof spirit. The lighter and drier the sparkling wine the more wholesome it is, the saccharine element in conjunction with alcohol being not only difficult of digestion, but generally detrimental to health.

The faculty are agreed that fine dry champagnes are among the safest wines that can be partaken of. Any intoxicating effects are rapid but exceedingly transient, and arise from the alcohol suspended in the carbonic acid being applied rapidly and extensively to the surface of the stomach. "Champagne," said Curran, "simply gives a runaway rap at a man's head." Dr. Druitt, equally distinguished by his studies upon wine and his standing as a physician, pronounces good champagne to be "a true stimulant to body and mind alike, rapid, volatile, transitory, and harmless. Amongst the maladies which are benefited by it," remarks he, "is the true neuralgia, intermitting fits of excruciating pain running along certain nerves, without inflammation of the affected part, often a consequence of malaria, or of some other low and exhausting causes. To enumerate the cases in which champagne is of service would be to give a whole nosology. Who does not know the misery, the helplessness of that abominable ailment, influenza, whether a severe cold or the genuine epidemic? Let the faculty dispute about the best remedy if they please; but a sensible man with a bottle of champagne will beat them all. Moreover, whenever there is pain, with exhaustion and lowness, then Dr. Champagne should be had up. There is something excitant in the wine; doubly so in the sparkling wine, which the moment it touches the lips sends an electric telegram of comfort to every remote nerve. Nothing comforts and rests the stomach better, or is a greater antidote to nausea."

Champagne of fine quality should never be mixed with ice or iced water; neither should it be iced to the extent champagnes ordinarily are, for, in the first place, the natural lightness of the wine is such as not to admit of its being diluted without utterly spoiling it, and in the next, excessive cold destroys alike the fragrant bouquet of the wine and its delicate vinous flavour. Really good champagne should not be iced below a temperature of 50° Fahr., whereas exceedingly sweet wines will bear icing down almost to freezing point, and be rendered more palatable by the process. The above remarks apply to all kinds of sparkling wine.

In the Champagne what may be termed a really grand vintage commonly occurs only once, and never more than twice, in ten years. During the same period, however, there will generally be one or two other tolerably good vintages. In grand years the crop, besides being of superior quality, is usually abundant, and as a consequence the price of the raw wine is scarcely higher than usual. Apparently from this circumstance the sparkling wine of grand vintages does not command an enhanced value, as is the case with other fine wines. It is only when speculators recklessly outbid each other for the grapes or the vin brut, or when stocks are low and the vin brut is really scarce, that the price of champagne appears to rise.

That superior quality does not involve enhanced price is proved by the amounts paid for the Ay and Verzenay crûs in years of grand vintages. During the present century these appear to have been 1802, '06, '11, '18, '22, '25, '34, '42, '46, '57, '65, '68, and '74—that is, thirteen grand vintages in nearly eighty years. Other good vintages, although not equal to the foregoing, occurred in the years 1815, '32, '39, '52, '54, '58, '62, '64, and '70. Confining ourselves to the grand years, we find that the Ay wine of 1834, owing to the crop being plentiful as well as good, only realised from 110 to 140 francs the pièce of 44 gallons, although for two years previously this had fetched from 150 to 200 francs. In 1842 the price ranged from 120 to 150 francs, whereas the vastly inferior wine of the year before had commanded from 210 to 275 francs. In 1846, the crop being a small one, the price of the wine rose, and in 1857 the pièce fetched as much as from 480 to 500 francs, still this was merely a trifle higher than it had realised the two preceding years. In 1865 the price was 380 to 400 francs, and in 1868 about the same, whereas the indifferent vintages of 1871, '72, and '73 realised from 500 to 1,000 francs the pièce. It was very similar with the wine of Verzenay. In 1834 the price of the pièce ranged from 280 to 325 francs, or about the average of the three preceding years. In 1846, the crop being scarce, the price rose considerably, while in 1857, when the crop was plentiful, it fell to 500 francs, or from 5 to 20 per cent. below that of the two previous years, when the yield was both inferior and less abundant. In 1865 the price rose 33 per cent. above that of the year before; still, although Verzenay wine of 1865 and 1868 fetched from 420 to 450 francs the pièce, and that of 1874 as much as 900 francs, the greatly inferior vintages of 1872-73 commanded 900 and 1,030 francs the pièce.

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.

When binning the wine the bottles are held by their necks and slid into their places with such ease and safety that a child might be entrusted with the work. The bottles can be withdrawn from the bin with equal or even greater facility. Breakage is avoided from each bottle having an independent bearing, which prevents the upper bottles from either falling or weighing down upon those below, and thereby crashing together. The larger engraving shows a wine-cellar fitted up entirely with. Burrow's patent "slider" wine-bins, while the smaller represents a bin adapted to laying down twenty dozens of champagne, and the dimensions of which are merely 5 feet 8 inches by 3 feet.

Official Return by the Chamber of Commerce at Reims of The Trade in Champagne Wines From April, 1844, To April, 1878.

Number of Number of Total number Years, from Manufacturers' Bottles Bottles sold of Bottles April to April. Stocks. Exported. in France. Sold.

1844-45 23,285,218 4,380,214 2,255,438 6,635,652 1845-46 22,847,971 4,505,308 2,510,605 7,015,913 1846-47 18,815,367 4,711,915 2,355,366 7,067,281 1847-48 23,122,994 4,859,625 2,092,571 6,952,196 1848-49 21,290,185 5,686,484 1,473,966 7,160,450 1849-50 20,499,192 5,001,044 1,705,735 6,706,779 1850-51 20,444,915 5,866,971 2,122,569 7,989,540 1851-52 21,905,479 5,957,552 2,162,880 8,120,432 1852-53 19,376,967 6,355,574 2,385,217 8,740,790 1853-54 17,757,769 7,878,320 2,528,719 10,407,039 1854-55 20,922,959 6,895,773 2,452,743 9,348,516 1855-56 15,957,141 7,137,001 2,562,039 9,699,040 1856-57 15,228,294 8,490,198 2,468,818 10,959,016 1857-58 21,628,778 7,368,310 2,421,454 9,789,764 1858-59 28,328,251 7,666,633 2,805,416 10,472,049 1859-60 35,648,124 8,265,395 3,039,621 11,305,016 1860-61 30,235,260 8,488,223 2,697,508 11,185,731 1861-62 30,254,291 6,904,915 2,592,875 9,497,790 1862-63 28,013,189 7,937,836 2,767,371 10,705,207 1863-64 28,466,975 9,851,138 2,934,996 12,786,134 1864-65 33,298,672 9,101,441 2,801,626 11,903,067 1865-66 34,175,429 10,413,455 2,782,777 13,196,132 1866-67 37,608,716 10,283,886 3,218,343 13,502,229 1867-68 37,969,219 10,876,585 2,924,268 13,800,853 1868-69 32,490,881 12,810,194 3,104,496 15,914,690 1869-70 39,272,562 13,858,839 3,628,461 17,487,300 1870-71 39,984,003 7,544,323 1,633,941 9,178,264 1871-72 40,099,243 17,001,124 3,367,537 20,368,661 1872-73 45,329,490 18,917,779 3,464,059 22,381,838 1873-74 46,573,974 18,106,310 2,491,759 20,598,069 1874-75 52,733,674 15,318,345 3,517,182 18,835,527 1875-76 64,658,767 16,705,719 2,439,762 19,145,481 1876-77 71,398,726 15,882,964 3,127,991 19,010,955 1877-78 70,183,863 15,711,651 2,450,983 18,162,634

From the subjoined table it will be seen that the consumption of champagne has almost trebled since the year 1844-5, a period of little more than thirty years. Another curious fact to note is the immense increase in the exports of the wine during the three years following the Franco-German war, when naturally both the exports and home consumption of champagne fell off very considerably. No reliable information is available as to the actual quantity of champagne consumed yearly in England, but this may be taken in round numbers at about four millions of bottles. The consumption of the wine in the United States varies from rather more than a million and a half to nearly two million bottles annually.