After crossing the canal and the river Vesle, and leaving the gray antiquated-looking village of Cormontreuil on our left, we traversed a wide stretch of cultivated country streaked with patches of woodland, with occasional windmills dotting the distant heights, and villages nestling among the trees up the mountain-sides and in the quiet hollows. Soon a few vineyards occupying the lower slopes, and thronged by bands of vintagers, came in sight, and the country too grew more picturesque. We passed successively on our right hand Rilly, a former fief of the Archbishop of Reims, and noted for its capital red wine; then Chigny, where the Abbot of St. Remi had a vineyard as early as the commencement of the thirteenth century; and afterwards Ludes,—all three of them situated more or less up the mountain, with vines in every direction, relieved by a dark background of forest-trees. In the old days, the Knights Templars of the Commanderie of Reims had the right of vinage at Ludes, and exacted their modest ‘pot’ (about half a gallon) per pièce on all the wine the village produced. On our left hand is Mailly, the vineyards of which join those of Verzenay, and, though classed only as a second cru, yielding a wine noted for finesse and bouquet, identified by some as the vintage which was recommended in the ninth century to Bishop Hincmar of Reims by his confrère, Pardulus of Laon. From the wooded knolls hereabouts a view is gained of the broad plains of the Champagne, dotted with white villages and scattered homesteads among the poplars and the limes, the winding Vesle glittering in the sunlight, and the dark towers of Notre Dame de Reims, with all their rich Gothic fretwork, rising majestically above the distant city.

At one vendangeoir we visited, at Mailly, between 350 and 400 pièces of wine were being made at the rate of some thirty pièces during the long day of twenty hours, five men being engaged in working the old-fashioned press, closely resembling a cider-press, and applying its pressure longitudinally. This ancient press doubtless differs but little from the one which the chapter of Reims Cathedral possessed at Mailly in 1384. As soon as the must was expressed it was emptied into large vats, holding about 450 gallons, and in these it remained for several days before being drawn off into casks. Of the above thirty pièces, twenty resulting from the first pressure were of the finest quality, while four produced by the second pressure were partly reserved to replace what the first might lose during fermentation, the residue serving for second-class Champagne. The six pièces which came from the final pressure, after being mixed with common wine of the district, were converted into Champagne of an inferior quality.

We now crossed the mountain, sighting Ville-en-Selve—the village in the wood—among the distant trees, and eventually reached Louvois, whence the Grand Monarque’s domineering war minister derived his marquisate, and where his château, a plain but capacious edifice, may still be seen nestled in a picturesque and fertile valley, and surrounded by lordly pleasure-grounds. Château and park are to-day the property of M. Frédéric Chandon, who has bestowed much care on the restoration of the former. Soon after we left Louvois the vineyards of Bouzy appeared in sight, with the prosperous-looking little village rising out of the plain at the foot of the vine-clad slopes stretching to Ambonnay, and the glittering Marne streaking the hazy distance. The commodious new church is said to have been indebted for its spire to the lucky gainer—who chanced to be a native of Bouzy—of the great gold ingot lottery prize, value 16,000 l., drawn in Paris some years ago. The Bouzy vineyards occupy a series of gentle inclines, and have the advantage of a full southern aspect. The soil, which is of the customary calcareous formation, has a marked ruddy tinge, indicative of the presence of iron, to which the wine is in some degree indebted for its distinguishing characteristics—its delicacy, spirituousness, and pleasant bouquet. Vintagers were passing slowly in between the vines, and carts laden with grapes came rolling over the dusty roads. The mountain which rises behind the vineyards is scored up its sides and fringed with foliage at its summit, and a small stone bridge crosses the deep ravine formed by the swift-descending winter torrents.

As soon as the contents of some half-hundred or so of these baskets had been emptied on to the floor of the press, the grapes undetached from their stalks were smoothed compactly down, and a moderate pressure was applied to them by turning a huge wheel, which caused the screw of the press to act—a gradual squeeze rather than a powerful one, and given all at once, coaxing out, it was said, the finer qualities of the fruit. The operation was repeated as many as six times; the yield from the three first pressures being reserved for conversion into Champagne, while the result of the fourth squeeze would be applied to replenishing the loss, averaging 7 ½ per cent, sustained by the must during fermentation. Whatever comes from the fifth pressure is sold to make an inferior Champagne. The grapes are subsequently well raked about, and then subjected to a couple of final squeezes, known as the rébêche, and yielding a sort of piquette, given to the workmen employed at the pressoir to drink.

The small quantity of still red Bouzy wine made by M. Werlé at the same vendangeoir only claims to be regarded as a wine of especial mark in good years. The grapes, before being placed beneath the press, are allowed to remain in a vat for as many as eight days. The must undergoes a long fermentation, and after being drawn off into casks is left undisturbed for a couple of years. In bottle—where, by the way, it invariably deposits a sediment, which is indeed the case with all the wines of the Champagne, still or sparkling—it will outlive, we were told, any Burgundy.

Still red Bouzy has a marked and agreeable bouquet and a most delicate flavour, is deliciously smooth to the palate, and to all appearances is as light as a wine of Bordeaux, while in reality it is quite as strong as Burgundy, to the finer crus of which it bears a slight resemblance. It was, we learnt, very susceptible to travelling, a mere journey to Paris being, it was said, sufficient to sicken it, and impart such a shock to its delicate constitution that it was unlikely to recover from it. To attain perfection, this wine, which is what the French term a vin vif, penetrating into the remotest corners of the organ of taste, requires to be kept a couple of years in wood and half a dozen or more years in bottle.

From Bouzy it was only a short distance along the base of the vine-slopes to Ambonnay, where there are merely two or three hundred acres of vines, and where we found the vintage almost over. The village is girt with fir-trees, and surrounded with rising ground fringed either with solid belts or slender strips of foliage. An occasional windmill cuts against the horizon, which is bounded here and there by scattered trees. Inquiring for the largest vine-proprietor, we were directed to an open porte-cochère, and on entering the large court encountered half a dozen labouring men engaged in various farming occupations. Addressing one whom we took to be the foreman, he referred us to a wiry little old man, in shirt-sleeves and sabots, absorbed in the refreshing pursuit of turning over a big heap of rich manure with a fork. He proved to be M. Oury, the owner of we forget how many acres of vines, and a remarkably intelligent peasant, considering what dunderheads the French peasants as a rule are, who had raised himself to the position of a large vine-proprietor. Doffing his sabots and donning a clean blouse, he conducted us into his little salon, a freshly-painted apartment about eight feet square, of which the huge fireplace occupied fully one-third, and submitted patiently to our catechising.

At Ambonnay, as at Bouzy, they had that year, M. Oury said, only half an average crop; the caque of grapes had, moreover, sold for exactly the same price at both places, and the wine had realised about 800 francs the pièce. Each hectare (2 ½ acres) of vines had yielded 45 caques of grapes, weighing some 2 ¾ tons, which produced 6 ½ pièces, equal to 286 gallons of wine, or at the rate of 110 gallons per acre. Here the grapes were pressed four times, the yield from the second pressure being used principally to make good the loss which the first sustained during its fermentation. As the squeezes given were powerful ones, all the best qualities of the grapes were by this time extracted, and the yield from the third and fourth pressures would not command more than eighty francs the pièce. The vintagers who came from a distance received either a franc and a half per day and their food, consisting of three meals, or two francs and a half without food, the children being paid thirty sous. M. Oury further informed us that every year vineyards came into the market, and found ready purchasers at from fifteen to twenty thousand francs the hectare, equal to an average price of 300 l. the acre, which, although Ambonnay is classed merely as a second cru, has since risen in particular instances to upwards of 600 l. per acre. Owing to the properties being divided into such infinitesimal portions, they were not always bought up by the large Champagne houses, who objected to be embarrassed with the cultivation of such tiny plots, preferring rather to buy the produce from their owners.

There are other vineyards of lesser note in the neighbourhood of Reims producing very fair wines, which enter more or less into the composition of Champagne, and almost all of which can boast of a pedigree extending back at least to the Middle Ages. Noticeable among these are Ville-Dommange and Sacy, south-west of Reims. At Sacy the Abbey of St. Remi had a vineyard in 1218; and in the return of church property made in 1384, the doyen of the Cathedral is credited with ‘rentes de vin’ and about six jours of vineland here, the Convent of Clermares at Reims owning a piece of ‘vigne gonesse.’ North-west of the city the best-known vineyards are those of Hermonville—mentioned likewise at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and in the return which we have just quoted—and St. Thierry, where the Black Prince took up his quarters during the siege of Reims, and where Gerard de la Roche wrought such havoc amongst the vines in the twelfth century, to the great indignation of their monkish owners. The still red wine of St. Thierry, which recalls the growths of the Médoc by its tannin, and those of the Côte d’Or by its vinosity, is to-day almost a thing of the past, it being found here, as elsewhere, more profitable to press the grapes for sparkling in preference to still wine.

III.
THE VINES OF THE CHAMPAGNE AND THE SYSTEM OF CULTIVATION.

While it is admitted that climate is not without its influence in imparting a delicate sweetness and aroma, combined with finesse and lightness, to the wine, some authorities maintain that to the careful selection of the vines best suited to the soil and temperature of the district the excellence of genuine Champagne is mainly to be ascribed.

Four descriptions of vines are chiefly cultivated in the Champagne, three of them yielding black grapes, and all belonging to the pineau variety, from which the grand Burgundy wines are produced, and so styled from the clusters taking the conical form of the pine. The first is the franc pineau, the plant doré of Ay, with its closely-jointed shoots and small leaves, producing squat bunches of small round grapes, with thickish skins of a bluish-black tint, and sweet and refined in flavour. The next is the plant vert doré, with its leaves of vivid green, more robust and more productive than the former, but yielding a less generous wine, and the berries of which, growing in compact pyramidal bunches, are dark and oval, very thin-skinned, and remarkably sweet and juicy. The third variety, extensively planted in the vineyards of Verzy and Verzenay, is the plant gris, or burot, as it is styled in the Côte d’Or, a somewhat delicate vine, whose fruit has a brownish tinge, and yields a light and perfumed wine. The remaining species is a white grape known as the épinette, a variety of the pineau blanc, and supposed by some to be identical with the chardonnet of Burgundy, which yields the famous wine of Montrachet. It is met with all along the Côte d’Avize, notably at Cramant, the delicate and elegant wine of which ranks immediately after that of Ay and Verzenay. The épinette is a prolific bearer, and its round transparent golden berries, which hang in somewhat straggling clusters amongst its dark-green leaves, are both juicy and sweet. It ripens, however, much later than either of the black varieties.

The land in the Champagne, as in other parts of France, is minutely subdivided, and it has been estimated that the 40,000 acres of vines are divided amongst no less than 16,000 proprietors. A few of the principal Champagne firms are large owners of vineyards; and as the value of the soil has more than quadrupled within the last thirty years, even the smallest peasant proprietors have cause for congratulation.[407] These latter cultivate their vineyards themselves; while the larger landowners employ labourers, termed forains when coming from a distance and working by the week for their lodging, food, and from 20 to 30 francs wages, or tâcherons when paid by the job. The last-mentioned class usually contract to cultivate and dress an arpent of vines, exclusive of the vintage, at from 8 l. to 12 l. per annum.

The two principal plans adopted in provining are styled the ‘écart’ and the ‘avance.’ In the first, which is usually followed in newly-planted vineyards, the two shoots are carried forward to the right and left—so as to form the two base points of an equilateral triangle, of which the point of departure is the summit—and are maintained in this position by the aid of wooden or iron pegs. In the ‘provinage à l’avance’ both shoots are carried forward in the same direction, and sometimes a variation embodying the two systems is employed.

The first operation of importance carried out during the year in the vineyards is the ‘taille,’ or pruning, which takes place in February, and consists in cutting away the superfluous shoots, simply leaving one—or, if it is intended to multiply by provinage, two—on each stock. This is followed about March or April by the ‘bêchage,’ or ‘hoyerie’—that is, the digging round the roots of the vine—with which is combined the provinage. A trench being opened, as already noted, and the vine laid bare to the roots, it is bent down so that, on filling up the trench with earth and manure, the stock is entirely covered and only the new wood appears above ground. This new wood is then shortened back, and the stakes intended for the support of the vines are fixed in the ground. These stakes are set up in the spring of the year by men or women, the former of whom force them into the ground by pressing against them with their chest, which is protected with a shield of wood. The women use a mallet, or have recourse to a special appliance, in working which the foot plays the principal part. The latter method is the least fatiguing, and in some localities is practised by the men. An expert labourer will set up as many as 5000 stakes in the course of the day. When of oak these stakes cost sixty francs the thousand; and as the close system of plantation followed in the Champagne renders the employment of no less than 24,000 stakes necessary on every acre of land, the cost per acre of propping up the vines amounts to upwards of 57 l., or more than treble what it is in the Médoc and quadruple what it is in Burgundy. The stakes last only some fifteen years, and their renewal forms a serious item in the vine-grower’s budget.

The vignerons of the Champagne regard the numerous stakes which support the vines as affording some protection against the white frosts of the spring. To guard against the dreaded effects of these frosts, which invariably occur between early dawn and sunrise, and the loss arising from which is estimated to amount annually to 25 per cent, some of the cultivators place heaps of hay, fagots, dead leaves, &c., about twenty yards apart, taking care to keep them moderately damp. When a frost is feared the heaps on the side of a vineyard whence the wind blows are set light to, whereupon the dense smoke which rises spreads horizontally over the vines, producing the same result as an actual cloud, intercepting the rays of the sun, warming the atmosphere, and converting the frost into dew. Among other methods adopted to shield the vines from frosts is the joining of branches of broom together in the form of a fan, and afterwards fastening them to the end of a pole, which is placed obliquely in the ground, so that the fan may incline over the vine and protect it from the sun’s rays. A single labourer can plant, it is said, as many as eight thousand of these fans in the ground during a long day.

Owing to the system of cultivation by rejuvenescence, and the constant replenishing of the soil by well-compounded manures, the Champenois wine-growers entertain great hopes that their vineyards will escape the ravages of the phylloxera vastatrix. They certainly deserve such an immunity, for, according to Dr. Plonquet of Ay, they are already the prey of no less than fifteen varieties of insects, which feed upon the leaves, stalks, roots, or fruit of the vines. One of the most destructive of these is the eumolpe, gribouri, or écrivain as it is popularly styled, from the traces it leaves upon the vine-leaves bearing some resemblance to lines of writing. It is a species of beetle, the larvæ of which pass the winter amongst the roots of the vine, and in the spring attack the young leaves and buds, their ravages often proving fatal to the plant. Then there is the chabot, which has caused great destruction at Verzy and Verzenay; the attelabe, cunche, or bêche, which rolls up the leaves of the vine like cigars, and seems to be identical with the hurebet or urbec of the Middle Ages; and the cochylis, teigne, or vintage-worm, which develops into a white-and-black butterfly, producing in the course of the year two generations of larvæ, having the form of small red caterpillars, one of which attacks the blossoms of the vine, while the second pierces and destroys the grapes themselves. The list of foes further comprises the altise, a kind of beetle allied to the gribouri; the liset or coupe-bourgeon, a tiny worm assailing the first sprouting shoots; and the hanneton or cockchafer.

The greatest havoc, however, appears to be wrought by the pyrale, a species of caterpillar, which feeds on the young leaves, flowers, and shoots until the vine is left completely bare. The larva of this insect, after passing the winter either in the crevices of the stakes or in the cracks in the bark of the vine, emerges in the spring, devours leaves, buds, and shoots indifferently, and eventually becomes transformed into a small yellow-and-brown butterfly, which deposits its eggs amongst the bunches of grapes in July. Between 1850 and 1860 the vineyards of Ay were devastated by the pyrale, which, like the locusts of Scripture, spared no green thing; and all the efforts made to rid them of this scourge proved ineffectual until the wet and cold weather of 1860 put a stop to the insect’s ravages.[408] More recently it was discovered that its attacks could be checked by sulphurous acid, or by scalding the stakes and the vine-stocks with boiling water during the winter. Nevertheless, it appeared impossible to check its destructiveness at Ay, where it made its reappearance in 1879, and caused an immense amount of damage. On this occasion an ingenious gentleman, M. Testulat Gaspar, was seized with the idea of combating the pyrale by means of the electric light. His theory was, that on a powerful light being exhibited in a central position at midnight amongst the vineyards, with a number of tin reflectors distributed in every direction around, the butterflies, roused from slumber, would wing their way in myriads towards the latter, when their flight could be arrested by sheets of muslin stretched between poles, smeared with honey and baited with a dash of Champagne liqueur. The theory was put to the test in August 1879, amongst the vineyards between Dizy and Ay, where the pyrale was committing the greatest ravages. The light was turned on, and the butterflies rose ‘in millions;’ but they failed to flock to the reflectors, and the honey-smeared muslin proved quite useless to secure the few which came in contact with it.

IV.
THE VINTAGE IN THE CHAMPAGNE.

WHEN the weather has been exceedingly propitious, the vintage in the Champagne commences as early as the third week in September, and in good average years the pickers set to work during the first week of October. If, however, the summer has been an indifferent one, and only an inferior vintage is looked forward to, it is scarcely before the latter half of October that the gathering of the grapes is proceeded with. There is no vintage-ban in the Champagne, as in Burgundy and other parts of France; but, as a rule, the growers of Ay and of the neighbouring slopes commence operations a week or more earlier than those of the Mountain of Reims, whilst around Cramant and Avize, the white-grape region, the vintagers usually set to work when in the other districts they have nearly finished.

The pleasantest season of the year to visit the Champagne is certainly during the vintage. When this is about to commence, the vintagers—some of whom come from Sainte Menehould, forty miles distant, while others hail from as far as Lorraine—are summoned at daybreak by beat of drum in the market-places of the villages adjacent to the vineyards, and then and there a price is made for the day’s labour. This, as we have already explained, is generally either a franc and a half, with food consisting of three meals, or two francs and a half, rising on exceptional occasions to three francs, without food, children being paid a franc and a half. The rate of wage satisfactorily arranged, the gangs start off to the vineyards, headed by their overseers.

The picking ordinarily commences with daylight, and the vintagers assert that the grapes gathered at sunrise always produce the lightest and most limpid wine. Moreover by plucking the grapes when the early morning sun is upon them, they are believed to yield a fourth more juice. Later on in the day, too, spite of all precautions, it is impossible to prevent some of the detached grapes from partially fermenting, which frequently suffices to give a slight excess of colour to the must, a thing especially to be avoided in a high-class Champagne. When the grapes have to be transported in open baskets for some distance to the press-house, jolting along the road either in carts or on the backs of mules, and exposed to the torrid rays of a bright autumnal sun, the juice expressed from the fruit, however dexterously the latter may be squeezed in the press, is occasionally of a positive purple tinge, and consequently useless for conversion into Champagne.

At vintage-time everywhere is bustle and excitement; every one is big with the business in hand. In these ordinarily quiet little villages nestling amidst vine clad hollows, or perched half-way up a slope tinted from base to summit with richly-variegated hues, there is a perpetual pattering of sabots and a rattling and bumping of wheels over the roughly-paved streets. The majority of the inhabitants are afoot: the feeble feminine half, baskets on arm, thread their way with the juveniles through the rows of vines planted half-way up the mountain, and all aglow with their autumnal glories of green and purple, crimson and yellow; while the sturdy masculine portion are mostly passing to and fro between the press-houses and the wine-shops. Carts piled up with baskets, or crowded with peasants from a distance on their way to the vineyards, jostle the low railway-trucks laden with brand-new casks, and the somewhat rickety cabriolets of the agents of the big Champagne houses, who are reduced to clinch their final bargain for a hundred or more pièces of the peerless wine of Ay or Bouzy, Verzy or Verzenay, beside the reeking wine-press.

Dotting the steep slopes like a swarm of huge ants are a crowd of men, women, and children, the men, in blue blouses or stripped to their shirt-sleeves, being for the most part engaged in carrying the baskets to and fro and loading the carts; whilst the women, in closely-fitting neat white caps, or wearing old-fashioned unbleached straw-bonnets of the contemned coalscuttle type, resembling the ‘sun-bonnet’ of the Midland counties, together with the children, are intent on stripping the vines of their luscious-looking fruit. They detach the grapes with scissors or hooked knives, technically termed ‘serpettes,’ and in some vineyards proceed to remove all damaged, decayed, or unripe fruit from the bunches before placing them in the baskets which they carry on their arms, and the contents of which they empty from time to time into a larger basket resembling an ass’s pannier in shape, numbers of these being dispersed about the vineyard for the purpose, and invariably in the shade. When filled the baskets are carried by a couple of men to the roadside, along which dwarf stones carved with initials, and indicating the boundaries of the respective properties, are encountered every eight or ten yards, into such narrow strips are the vineyards divided. Large carts with railed open sides are continually passing backwards and forwards to pick these baskets up; and when one has secured its load it is driven slowly to the neighbouring pressoir, so that the grapes may not be in the least degree shaken, such is the care observed throughout every stage of the process of Champagne manufacture. When the vineyard slopes are very steep—as, for instance, at Mareuil—and the paths do not admit of the approach of carts, mules, equipped with panniers and duly muzzled, are employed to convey the gathered fruit to the press-house.