Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines Part 9

The red, straw, and yellow wines of the Jura have long had a high reputation in the East of France, and the _vin jaune_ of Arbois, an ancient fortified town on the banks of the Cuisance, besieged and sacked in turn by Charles of Amboise, Henri IV., and Louis XIV., was one of the favourite beverages of the tippling Bearnais who styled himself Seigneur of Ay and Gonesse, and who acquired his liking for it while sojourning during the siege of Arbois at the old Chateau des Arsures. In one of Henri Quatre's letters to his minister Sully we find him observing, "I send you two bottles of Vin d'Arbois, for I know you do not detest it." A couple of other bottles of the same wine are said to have cemented the king's reconciliation with Mayenne, the leader of the League, and the lover of La Belle Gabrielle is moreover credited with having composed at his mistress's table some doggrel rhymes in honour of the famous Jura cru:--

"Come, little page, serve us aright, The crown is often heavy to bear; So fill up my goblet large and light Whenever you find a vacancy there.

This wine is surely no Christian wight, And yet you never complaint will hear That it's not baptised with water clear.

Down my throat I pour The old Arbois; And now, my lords, let us our voices raise, And sing of Silenus and Bacchus the praise!"

In more modern times the Jura, not content with the fame of the historic yellow wines of Arbois and the deservedly-esteemed straw wines of Chateau-Chalon, has produced large quant.i.ties of sparkling wine, the original manufacture of which commenced as far back as a century ago.

To-day the princ.i.p.al seats of the manufacture are at Arbois and Lons-le-Saulnier, the latter town the capital of the department and one of the most ancient towns of France. Originally founded by the Gauls on the banks of the Valliere, in a little valley bordered by lofty hills, which are to-day covered with vines, it was girded round with fortifications by the Romans. Subsequently the Huns and the Vandals pillaged it; then the French and the Burgundians repeatedly contested its possession, and it was only definitively acquired by France during the reign of Louis XIV. Rouget de l'Isle, the famous author of the "Ma.r.s.eillaise," was born at Lons-le-Saulnier, and here also Marshal Ney a.s.sembled and harangued his troops before marching to join Napoleon, whom he had promised Louis XVIII. to bring back to Paris in an iron cage.

The vineyards whence the princ.i.p.al supplies for these sparkling wines are derived are grouped at varying distances around Lons-le-Saulnier at L'Etoile, Quintigny, Salins, Arbois, St. Laurent-la-Roche, and Pupillin, with the Jura chain of mountains rising up grandly on the east. The best vineyards at L'Etoile--which lies some couple of miles from Lons-le-Saulnier, surrounded by hills, planted from base to summit with vines--are La Vigne Blanche, Montmorin, and Montgenest. At Quintigny, the wines of which are less potent than those of Arbois, and only retain their effervescent properties for a couple of years, the Paridis, Premelan, and Montmorin vineyards are held in most repute, while at Pupillin, where a soft agreeable wine is vintaged, the princ.i.p.al vineyards are the Faille and the Clos. The vine cultivated for the production of sparkling wines are chiefly the savagnin, or white pineau, the melon of Poligny, and the poulsard, a black variety of grape held locally in much esteem.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At the vintage, which commences towards the end of October and lasts until the middle of the following month, all the rotten or unripe grapes are carefully set aside and the sound ones only submitted to the action of a screw-press. After the must has flowed for about half-an-hour the grapes are newly collected under the press and the screw again applied.

The produce of this double operation is poured into a vat termed a _sapine_, where it remains until bubbles are seen escaping through the _chapeau_ that forms on the surface of the liquid. The must is then drawn off--sometimes after being fined--into casks, which the majority of wine-growers previously impregnate with the fumes of sulphur. When in cask the wine is treated in one of two ways; either the casks are kept constantly filled to the bunghole, causing the foam which rises to the surface during the fermentation to flow over, and thereby leave the wine comparatively clear, or else the casks are not completely filled, in which case the wine requires to be racked several times before it is in a condition for fining. This latter operation is effected about the commencement of February, and a second fining follows if the first one fails to render the wine perfectly clear. At the tirage, which invariably takes place in April, the Jura wines rarely require any addition of sugar to insure an ample effervescence. After bottling they are treated in exactly the same manner as the vintages of the Marne are treated by the great champagne manufacturers. In addition to white sparkling wine a pink variety, with natural effervescent properties, is made by mixing with the savagnin and melon grapes a certain proportion of the poulsard species, from which the best red wines of the Jura are produced.

One of the princ.i.p.al sparkling wine establishments at Lons-le-Saulnier is that of M. Auguste Devaux, founded in the year 1860. He manufactures both sweet and dry wines, which are sold largely in France and elsewhere on the Continent, and have lately been introduced into England. Their alcoholic strength is equivalent to from 25 to 26 of proof spirit, being largely above the dry sparkling wines of the Champagne, which the Jura manufacturers regard as a positive advantage rather than an obvious drawback. M. Devaux's princ.i.p.al brand is the Fleur de l'Etoile, of which, he has white, pink, and amber-coloured varieties, quoted by him at merely three francs the bottle for the grand years.

Besides being too spirituous, the sparkling wines of the Jura are deficient in refinement and delicacy. The commoner kinds, indeed, frequently have a p.r.o.nounced unpleasant flavour, due to the nature of the soil, to careless vinification, or to the inferior quality of liqueur with which the wines have been dosed. Out of some fifty samples of all ages and varieties which in my capacity of juror I tasted at the Paris Exhibition I cannot call to mind one that a real connoisseur of sparkling wines would care to admit to his table.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONVEYING GRAPES TO THE PRESS AT SAINT-PeRAY.]

XV.--THE SPARKLING WINES OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE.

Sparkling Wines of Auvergne, Guienne, Dauphine, and Languedoc-- Sparkling Saint-Peray the Champagne of the South-- Valence with its Reminiscences of Pius VI. and Napoleon I.-- The "Horns of Crussol"

on the Banks of the Rhone-- Vintage Scene at Saint-Peray-- The Vines and Vineyards Producing Sparkling Wine-- Manipulation of Sparkling Saint-Peray-- Its Abundance of Natural Sugar-- The Cellars of M. de Saint-Prix and Samples of his Wines-- Sparkling Cote-Rotie, Chateau-Grille, and Hermitage-- Annual Production and Princ.i.p.al Markets of Sparkling Saint-Peray-- Clairette de Die-- The Porte Rouge of Die Cathedral-- How the Die Wine is Made-- The Sparkling White and Rose-Coloured Muscatels of Die-- Sparkling Wines of Vercheny and Lagra.s.se-- Barnave and the Royal Flight to Varennes-- Narbonne formerly a Miniature Rome, now Noted merely for its Wine and Honey-- Fete of the Black Virgin at Limoux-- Preference given to the New Wine over the Miraculous Water-- Blanquette of Limoux and How it is Made-- Characteristics of this Overrated Wine.

Sparkling wines are made after a fas.h.i.+on in several of the southern provinces of France--in Auvergne, at Clermont-Ferrand, under the shadow of the lofty Puy de Dome; in Guienne, at Astaffort, the scene of a b.l.o.o.d.y engagement during the Wars of Religion in which the Protestant army was cut to pieces when about to cross the Garonne; at Nerac, where frail Marguerite de Valois kept her dissolute Court, and Catherine de Medicis brought her flying squadron of fascinating maids of honour to gain over the Huguenot leaders to the Catholic cause; and at Cahors, the Divina, or divine fountain of the Celts, and the birthplace of Pope John XXII., of Clement Marot, the early French poet, and of Leon Gambetta; in Dauphine, at Die, Saint-Chef, Saint-Peray, and Largentiere, so named after some abandoned silver mines, and where the vines are cultivated against low walls rising in a series of terraces from the base to the summit of the lofty hills; and in Languedoc, at Brioude, where St.

Vincent, the patron saint of the vinedressers, suffered martyrdom, and where it is the practice to expose the must of the future sparkling wine for several nights to the dew in order to rid it of its reddish colour; also at Linardie, and, more southward still, at Limoux, whence comes the well-known effervescing Blanquette.

Princ.i.p.al among the foregoing is the excellent wine of Saint-Peray, commonly characterised as the champagne of the South of France. The Saint-Peray vineyards border the Rhone some ten miles below the Hermitage coteau--the vines of which are to-day well-nigh destroyed by the phylloxera--but are on the opposite bank of the river. Our visit to Saint-Peray was made from Valence, in which dull southern city we had loitered in order to glance at the vast Hotel du Gouvernement--where octogenarian Pius VI., after being spirited away a prisoner from Rome and hurried over the Alps in a litter by order of the French Directory, drew his last breath while silently gazing across the rus.h.i.+ng river at the view he so much admired--and to discover the house in the Grande Rue, numbered 4, in an attic of which history records that Napoleon I., when a sub-lieutenant of artillery in garrison at Valence, resided, and which he quitted owing three and a-half francs to his pastrycook.

We crossed the Rhone over one of its hundred flimsy suspension bridges, on the majority of which a notice warns you neither to smoke nor run, and were soon skirting the base of a lofty, bare, precipitous rock, with the "horns of Crussol," as the peasants term two tall pointed gables of a ruined feudal chateau, perched at the dizzy edge, and having a perpendicular fall of some five or six hundred feet below. The chateau, which formerly belonged to the Dukes of Uzes, recognised by virtue of the extent of their domains as _premiers pairs de France_, was not originally erected in close proximity to any such formidable precipice.

The crag on which it stands had, it seems, been blasted from time to time for the sake of the stone, until on one unlucky occasion when too heavy a charge of powder was employed, the entire side of the rock, together with a considerable portion of the chateau itself, were sent flying into the air. The authorities, professing to regard what remained of the edifice as an historical monument of the Middle Ages, hereupon stepped in and prohibited the quarry being worked for the future.

Pa.s.sing beneath the cliff, one wound round to the left and dived into a picturesque wooded dell at the entrance to a mountain pa.s.s, then crossed the rocky bed of a dried-up stream and drove along an avenue of mulberry-trees, which in a few minutes conducted us to Saint-Peray, where one found the vintage in full operation. Carts laden with tubs filled with white and purple grapes, around which wasps without number swarmed, were arriving from all points of the environs and crowding the narrow streets. Any quant.i.ty of grapes were seemingly to be had for the asking, for all the pretty girls in the place were gorging themselves with the luscious-looking fruit. In the coopers' yards bran-new casks were ranged in rows in readiness for the newly-made wine, and through open doorways, and in all manner of dim recesses, one caught sight of st.u.r.dy men energetically trampling the gus.h.i.+ng grapes under their bare feet, and of huge creaking wine-presses reeking with the purple juice.

It was chiefly common red wine, of an excellent flavour, however, that was being made in these nooks and corners, the sparkling white wine, known as Saint-Peray, being manufactured in larger establishments, and on more scientific principles. It is from a white species of grape known as the pet.i.te and grosse rousette--the same which yields the white Hermitage--that the champagne of the south is produced, and the vineyards where they are cultivated occupy all the more favourable slopes immediately outside the village, the most noted being the Coteau-Gaillard, Solignaes, Thioulet, and Hungary.

Although there is a close similarity between the manufacture of champagne and the effervescing wine of Saint-Peray, there are still one or two noteworthy variations. For a wine to be sparkling it is requisite that it should ferment in the bottle, a result obtained by bottling it while it contains a certain undeveloped proportion of alcohol and carbonic acid, represented by so much sugar, of which they are the component parts. This ingredient has frequently to be added to the Champagne wines to render them sparkling, but the wine of Saint-Peray in its natural state contains so much sugar that any addition would be deleterious. This excess of saccharine enables the manufacturer to dispense with some of the operations necessary to the fabrication of champagne, which, after fermenting in the cask, requires a second fermentation to be provoked in the bottle, whereas the Saint-Peray wine ferments only once, being bottled immediately it comes from the wine-press.

The deposit in the wine after being impelled towards the neck of the bottle is got rid of by following the same system as is pursued in the Champagne, but no liqueur whatever is subsequently added to the wine. On the other hand, it is a common practice to reduce the over-sweetness of sparkling Saint-Peray in years when the grapes are more than usually ripe by mixing with it some old dry white wine.

At Saint-Peray we visited the cellars of M. de Saint-Prix, one of the princ.i.p.al wine-growers of the district. The samples of effervescing wine which he produced for us to taste were of a pale golden colour, of a slightly nutty flavour, and with a decided suggestion of the spirituous essence known to be concentrated in the wine, one gla.s.s of which will go quite as far towards elevating a person as three gla.s.ses of champagne.

Keeping the wine for a few years is said materially to improve its quality, to the sacrifice, however, of its effervescent properties.

M. de Saint-Prix informed us that he manufactured every year a certain quant.i.ty of sparkling Cote-Rotie, Chateau-Grille, and Hermitage. The princ.i.p.al markets for the Saint-Peray sparkling wines--the production of which falls considerably short of a million bottles per annum--are England, Germany, Russia, Holland, and Belgium.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The other side of the Rhone is fruitful in minor sparkling wines, chief amongst which is the so-called Clairette de Die, made at the town of that name, a place of some splendour, as existing antiquities show, in the days of the Roman dominion in Gaul. Later on, Die was the scene of constant struggles for supremacy between its counts and bishops, one of the latter having been ma.s.sacred by the populace in front of the cathedral doorway--ever since known by the sinister appellation of the Porte Rouge--and Catholics and Huguenots alike devastated the town in the troublesome times of the Reform. Clairette de Die is made princ.i.p.ally from the blanquette or malvoisie variety of grape, which, after the stalks have been removed, is both trodden with the feet and pressed. The must is run off immediately into casks, and four-and-twenty hours later it is racked into other casks, a similar operation being performed every two or three days for the period of a couple of months, when the fermentation having subsided the wine is fined and usually bottled in the following March. Newly-made Clairette de Die is a sweet sparkling wine, but it loses its natural effervescence after a couple of years, unless it has been treated in the same manner as champagne, which is rarely the case. The wine enjoys a reputation altogether beyond its merits.

In addition to the well-known Clairette, some of the wine-growers of Die make sparkling white and rose-coloured muscatels of superior quality, which retain their effervescent properties for several years.

A sparkling wine is also made some ten miles from Die, on the road to Saillans, in a district bounded on the one side by the waters of the Drome, and on the other by strange mountains with helmet-shaped crests.

The centre of production is a locality called Vercheny, composed of several hamlets, one of which, named Le Temple, was the original home of the family of Barnave. The impressionable young deputy to the National a.s.sembly formed one of the trio sent to bring back the French royal family from Varennes after their flight from Paris. It will be remembered how, under the influence of Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth, Barnave became transformed during the journey into a faithful partisan of their unhappy cause, and that he eventually paid the penalty of his devotion with his life.

In the extreme south of France, and almost under the shadow of the Pyrenees, a sparkling wine of some repute is made at a place called Lagra.s.se, about five-and-twenty miles westward of Narbonne, the once-famous Mediterranean city, the maritime rival of Ma.r.s.eilles, and in its palmy days, prior to the Christian era, a miniature Rome, with its capitol, its curia, its decemvirs, its consuls, its praetors, its questors, its censors, and its ediles, and which boasted of being the birthplace of three Roman Emperors. To-day Narbonne has to content itself with the humble renown derived from its delicious honey and its characterless full-bodied red wines. Limoux, so celebrated for its Blanquette, lies a long way farther to the west, behind the Corbieres range of mountains that join on to the Pyrenees, and the jagged peaks, deep barren gorges, and scarred sides of which have been witness of many a desperate struggle during the century and a half when they formed the boundary between France and Spain.

We arrived at Limoux just too late for the famous fete of the Black Virgin, which lasts three weeks, and attracts crowds of southern pilgrims to the chapel of Our Lady of Ma.r.s.eilles, perched on a little hill some short distance from the town, with a fountain half-way up it, whose water issues drop by drop, and has the credit of possessing unheard-of virtues. The majority of pilgrims, however, exhibit a decided preference for the new-made wine over the miraculous water, and for one-and-twenty days something like a carnival of inebriety prevails at Limoux.

Blanquette de Limoux derives its name from the species of grape it is produced from, and which we believe to be identical with the malvoisie, or malmsey. Its long-shaped berries grow in huge bunches, and dry readily on the stalks. The fruit is gathered as tenderly as possible, care being taken that it shall not be in the slightest degree bruised, after which it is spread out upon a floor to admit of the sugar it contains becoming perfect. The bad grapes having been carefully picked out, and the pips extracted from the remaining fruit, the latter is now trodden, when the must, after being filtered through a strainer, is placed in casks, where it remains fermenting for about a week, during which time any overflow is daily replenished by other must reserved for the purpose. The wine is again clarified and placed in fresh casks with the bungholes only lightly closed until all sensible fermentation has ceased, when they are securely fastened up. The bottling takes place in the month of March, and the wine is subsequently treated much after the same fas.h.i.+on as sparkling Saint-Peray, excepting that it is generally found necessary to repeat the operation of _degorgement_ three, if not as many as four times.

Blanquette de Limoux is a pale white wine, the saccharine properties of which have become completely transformed into carbonic acid gas and alcohol. It is, consequently, both dry and spirituous, deficient in delicacy, and altogether proves a great disappointment. At its best it may, perhaps, rank with sparkling Saint-Peray, but unquestionably not with any average champagne.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XVI.--THE SPARKLING WINES OF GERMANY.

Origin of Sparkling Hock and Moselle-- Sparkling German Wines First Made on the Neckar-- Heilbronn, and Gotz von Berlichingen of the Iron Hand-- Lauteren of Mayence and Rambs of Treves turn their attention to Sparkling Wines-- Change of late years in the Character of Sparkling Hocks and Moselles-- Difference between them and Moussirender Rheinwein-- Vintaging of Black and White Grapes for Sparkling Wine-- The Treatment which German Sparkling Wines Undergo-- Artificial Flavouring and Perfuming of Sparkling Moselles-- Fine Natural Bouquet of High Cla.s.s Sparkling Hocks-- Impetus given to the Manufacture of German Sparkling Wines during the Franco-German War-- Annual Production-- Deinhard and Co.'s Splendid New Cellars at Coblenz-- The Firm's Collection of Choice Rhine and Moselle Wines-- Their Trade in German Sparkling Wines-- Their Sources of Supply-- The Vintaging and After-Treatment of their Wines-- Characteristics of their Sparkling Hocks and Moselles.

The reader is by this time aware that sparkling wines are not indebted for their effervescent properties to any particular variety of vine or quality of soil, although some species of grapes yield a wine possessing a higher degree of effervescence than others. Any wine, in fact, can be rendered sparkling, although only wines of a certain lightness of body and which are at the same time delicate and clean to the taste--being devoid of anything approaching to a _gout de terroir_--are really suited to the purpose. Given a wine containing sufficient saccharine, either natural or applied, and duly regulate its temperature, and it is easy enough to render it sparkling. The Germans discovered this long ago when they first transformed the acidulous wines of the Rhine into what we term sparkling hocks.

The rise of this industry dates from the epoch of the final downfall of Napoleon I., when the officers of the armies of occupation acquired more than a pa.s.sing liking for the exhilarating products of Clicquot and Moet, carrying it, in fact, home with them, and so disseminating a taste for the sparkling wines of France throughout the North of Europe. In Germany the wealthy few only were able to indulge in it, and the consumption was for a long time exceedingly limited. When, however, after many years of peace, riches began to acc.u.mulate, some shrewd men set themselves to ascertain whether the German wines could not be rendered sparkling like the French. This was satisfactorily and speedily settled in the affirmative; but the great difficulty was to find the requisite capital for the large preliminary investment necessary to the establishment of a manufactory of sparkling wine on even a moderate scale, and from which no return could be counted on for the first three years. Eventually this was overcome; but the new wines, being in the first instance altogether different in character from champagne, found but little favour in the country of their production. It was different, however, in England, where they speedily succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng themselves under the designations of sparkling hock and sparkling moselle, and from this time forward they have retained their position in the English market.

It is generally a.s.serted that sparkling wines were first manufactured in Germany more than half a century ago from the inferior Neckar grape both at Esslingen and Heilbronn--the latter rendered memorable by the exploits of Gotz von Berlichingen, whose iron hand distributed blows which effectually "cured headache, toothache, and every other human malady." Subsequently, towards 1830, a former _chef de cave_ at Madame Clicquot's establishment at Reims came to Herr Lauteren, of Mayence, and suggested to him to engage in the manufacture of sparkling Rhine wines, a proposal which the latter soon afterwards profited by; and eight years later Herr Rambs, of Treves, vineyard proprietor and wine-merchant, aided by a French cellarman, made the earliest attempt to manufacture sparkling moselles, their first trials in this direction resulting in a breakage amounting to fifty per cent.

For some years the great anxiety of manufacturers of sparkling hocks was to render their wines as much as possible like champagne, which was only to be accomplished by disguising their true flavour and dosing them largely with syrup. In this form they satisfied, and indeed still satisfy, their German and Russian consumers; but of late years England has set the example of a decided preference for the drier kinds of sparkling wines, the result being that the character of the wines destined for the English market has undergone a complete change.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE AHR VALLEY.]

Next to its sweetness the princ.i.p.al difference between German champagne, or Moussirender Rheinwein as it is usually called, for Continental consumption, and sparkling hocks designed for the English and other markets, consists in the former being made princ.i.p.ally from black grapes, pressed immediately they are gathered and not allowed to ferment in their skins, while the latter are made almost exclusively from white grapes. The vineyards yielding the black grapes used for these sparkling wines are mainly situated at Ingelheim, midway between Bingen and Mayence, and in the Ahr valley, between Coblenz and Cologne. At the black grape vintage, which precedes the gathering of the white varieties by some three or four weeks, the fruit is conveyed to the press in high tubs, carried on men's backs, and holding about 40lbs. apiece. The old wooden presses are mostly employed, although of late small transportable presses with iron screws, and of French manufacture, are coming into use. In order that the wine may be pale in colour, the grapes, which, like those of the Champagne, are of the pineau variety, are pressed as soon as possible after the gathering; the pressure applied is, moreover, rapid and not too strong, and the must is separated forthwith from the skins and stalks. On the other hand, the white grapes used in the making of German sparkling wine, and which are almost exclusively of the far-famed riesling species, are treated precisely as when making still Rhine wine--that is, they are crushed in the vineyards by means of grape-mills, and afterwards pressed in the usual way. The must for sparkling wines, whether from black or white grapes, is run at once into casks to ferment. If possible it is conveyed in large casks known as stucks--immediately after the pressing, and before fermentation begins--to the manufacturer's cellars in town; but if this cannot be accomplished it remains in the cellars of the district until the first fermentation is over, which is in December or January. It is then racked off its lees, and the produce of black and white grapes is blended together, only a small proportion of the former entering into the composition of true sparkling hock, which should retain in a marked degree the subtile and fragrant perfume of the riesling grape.

The process pursued in the manufacture of sparkling hocks is the same as that followed with regard to champagnes. The quant.i.ty of grape sugar generated in these Northern German lat.i.tudes being far from large, both hocks and moselles invariably need a small addition of saccharine, previous to their being put into bottle, to insure the requisite effervescence, whereas in the Champagne the practice of adding sugar with this object is not the uniform rule. After the wine is bottled it remains in a cool cellar for eighteen months or a couple of years, being constantly shaken during this period, in the same way as champagne, in order to force the sediment to deposit itself near to the cork. By this time the added as well as the natural sugar contained in the wine has become converted into alcohol and carbonic acid; and after the sediment has been expelled from the bottle the operation of dosing, or flavouring, the wine takes place.

Sparkling hocks intended both for the German and Russian markets are frequently almost cloying in their sweetness, as much as one-fifth of syrup being often added to four-fifths of wine. The sparkling moselles, too, for Russia, and not unfrequently for England also, are largely dosed with the preparation of elder-flowers, which imparts to them their well-known muscatel flavour and perfume. The manufacturers say they are doing their best to abandon this absurd practice of artificially perfuming sparkling moselles; but many of their customers, and especially those in the English provinces, stipulate for the scented varieties, possibly from an erroneous belief in their superiority.

Effervescing Rhine wines of the highest cla.s.s have a marked and refined flavour, together with a very decided natural bouquet. Moreover, they retain their effervescent properties for a considerable time after being uncorked, and appear to the taste as light, if not precisely as delicate, as the finer champagnes, although in reality such is not the case; for all sparkling hocks possess greater body than even the heaviest champagnes, and cannot, therefore, be drunk with equal freedom.

Great impetus was given to the manufacture of German sparkling wines during the war of 1870, when the Champagne was in a measure closed to the outside world. At this epoch the less scrupulous manufacturers, instigated by dishonest speculators, boldly forged both the brands on the corks and the labels on the bottles of the great Reims and Epernay firms, and sent forth sparkling wines of their own production to the four quarters of the globe as veritable champagnes of the highest cla.s.s.

The respectable houses acted more honestly, and, as it turned out, with better policy, for by maintaining their own labels and brands they extended the market for their produce, causing German sparkling wines to be introduced under their true names into places where they had never penetrated before, the result being a considerable increase in the annual demand, even after the stores of the champagne manufacturers were again open to all the world.

Owing to this increased demand, and the deficient supply of suitable Rhine wines at a moderate price, the manufacturers of sparkling hocks are reduced to buy much of their raw wine at a distance, and are to-day large purchasers of the growths of the Palatinate, which are less delicate than the vintages of the Rheingau, besides being deficient in that fine aroma which distinguishes genuine hock. A leading manufacturer computes that between four-and-a-half and five million bottles of sparkling wine are made annually in Germany, where there are no fewer than fifty manufacturing establishments. The princ.i.p.al market is Great Britain, which consumes some two millions of bottles annually; a million bottles are drunk at home; while the remainder is divided among the North of Europe, the United States, India, Australia, China, and j.a.pan.

The cheapness of these wines is, no doubt, largely in their favour.