Part 2 (1/2)
The Vines chiefly of the Pineau Variety-- The Plant dore of Ay, the Plant vert dore, the Plant gris, and the Epinette-- The Soil of the Vineyards-- Close Mode of Plantation-- The Operation of Provinage-- The Ste the Stakes to the Vines-- Manuring and General Cultivation-- Spring Frosts in the Chaainst them-- Dr Guyot's System-- The Parasites that Prey upon the Vines
In the Charand wine in moderate quantity Four descriptions of vines are chiefly cultivated, three of the to the Pineau variety, froundy wines are produced, and so styled fro the conical form of the pine The first is the franc pineau, the plant dore of Ay, producing srapes, with thickish skins of a bluish black tint, and sweet and refined in flavour The next is the plant vert dore,a less generous wine, and the berries of which are dark and oval, very thin skinned and reris, or burot, as it is styled in the Cote d'Or, a soe, and yields a light and perfurape known as the epinette, a variety of the pineau blanc, and supposed by soundy, which yields the fa the Cote d'Avize, notably at Craant wine of which ranks immediately after that of Ay and Verzenay The epinette is a prolific bearer, and its round transparent golden berries, which hang in no very compact clusters, are both juicy and sweet It ripens, however, much later than either of the black varieties
There are several other species of vines cultivated in the Chane vineyards, notably the corapes, and prevalent in the valley of Epernay, and which takes its na to have been sprinkled with flour There are also the black and white gouais, thea wine of fair quality, the black and white garape in the Maconnais, and chiefly found in the Vertus vineyards, together with the tourlon, the marne vineyards is chalk, with aproportion of oxide of iron The vines are alround, the lower slopes which usually escape the spring frosts producing the best wines The new vines are placed very close together, there often being as many as six within a square yard When two or three years old they are ready for the operation of provinage universally practised in the Cha in a trench, fro on one side of the plant, the test buds of the two principal shoots, left when the vine was pruned for this especial purpose The shoots thus laid underground are dressed with a light manure, and in course of ti their second year This operation is perfor, and is annually repeated until the vine is five years old, the plants thus being in a state of continual progression, a systene vineyards, where none of the wood of the vines showing aboveground is more than three years old When the vine has attained its fifth year it is allowed to rest for a couple of years, and then the pruning is resuhout the vineyard The plants re to be renewed fro
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The vines are supported by stakes, when of oak costing sixty francs the thousand; and as in the Chane a close system of plantation is followed, no less than 24,000 stakes are required on every acre of land,up the vines upwards of 57, or double what it is in the Medoc and quadruple what it is in Burgundy
These stakes are set up in the spring of the year by round by pressing against them with their chest, which is protected with a shi+eld of stout leather The women use awhich the foot plays the principal part The latter , and in some localities is practised by the men An expert labourer will set up as many as 5,000 of these stakes in the course of the day After the vines have been hoed around their roots they are secured to the stakes, and the tops are broken off at a shoot to prevent theht, which is ordinarily from 30 to 33 inches They are liberally manured with a kind of co out froin, etable refuse
The vines are shortened back while in flower, and in the course of the suround is hoed a second and a third ti, first, to destroy the superficial roots of the vines and force the plants to live solely on their deep roots; and, secondly, to remove all pernicious weeds fro, which takes place in the ust, the vines are left to thee When this is over the stakes supporting the vines are pulled up and stacked in coround, the vine, which is left curled up in a heap, re undisturbed until the winter, when the earth around it is loosened In the month of February it is pruned and sunk into the earth, as already described, so as to leave only the neood aboveground
Owing to the vines being planted so closely together they starve one another, and nuet broken during the vintage, their places are filled up by provining
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The vignerons of the Chaard the nu souard 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 soots, 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 the vineyard whence the wind blows are set light to, whereupon the dense smoke which rises spreads horizontally over the vines, producing the sa the rays of the sun, war other methods adopted to shi+eld the vines froether in the for theround, so that the fan may incline over the vine and protect it frole labourer can plant, it is said, as round in the course of a long day
Dr Guyot's syste, to protect theenerally followed in low situations in the Cha of so considerable an expense being incurred This , which is about a foot and a half in width, and in rolls of great length, is fastened either with twine or wire to the vine stakes, and it is estimated that half-a-dozen men can fix nearly 11,000 yards of it, or sufficient to roof over 2 acres of vines, during an ordinary day
Owing to the system of cultivation by rejuvenescence, and the constant replenishi+ng of the soil by well-coreat hopes that their vineyards will escape the ravages of the phylloxera vastatrix 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
Between 1850 and 1860 the vineyards of Ay were devastated by the pyrale, a species of caterpillar, which feeds on the young leaves and shoots until the vine is left completely bare The insect eventually becomes transfors either in the crevices of the stakes or in the stalks of the vine All the efforts e proved ineffectual until the wet and cold weather of 1860 put a stop to the insect's ravages More recently it has been discovered that its attacks can be checked by sulphurous acid
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V--PREPARATION OF CHAMPAGNE
Treat and Blending of the Wine-- Deficiency and Excess of Effervescence-- Strength and For of the Wine-- The Process of Gas-e follows-- Wine Stacked in Piles-- Formation of Sediment-- Bottles placed ”sur pointe” and Daily Shaken-- Effect of this occupation on those incessantly engaged in it-- ”Claws” and ”Masks”-- Cha the ”vin brut” into Cha, Stringing, Wiring, and Aitated Existence comes to an End-- The Bottles have their Toilettes e
The special characteristic of chane is that its manufacture only just commences where that of other wines ordinarily ends The must flows direct from the press into capacious reservoirs, whence it is drawn off into large vats, and after being allowed to clear, is transferred to casks holding soh the bulk of the new-eoirs until the coe is over nu narrow carts laden with casks of it are to be seen rolling along the dusty highways leading to those towns and villages in the Marne where the st these is the cathedral city of Rei to the very verge of the river, then Ay, nestled between the vine-clad slopes and the Marne canal, with the neighbouring village of Mareuil, and finally Avize, in the centre of the white grape district southwards of Epernay Chalons, owing to its distance from the vineyards, would scarcely draw its supply of wine until the new year The first fer as to whether the wine be _ar--or the reverse In the forer than when the wine is _vert_ or green This active fermentation is converted into latent fer the wine to a cooler cellar, as it is essential it should retain a large proportion of its natural saccharine to ensure its future effervescence
The casks have previously been cohtly stopped, a necessary precaution to guard the wine froen, the effect of which would be to turn it yellow and cause it to lose so racked and fined, the produce of the different vineyards is now ready for ether in accordance with the traditional theories of the various e have been an indifferent one a certain proportion of old reserved wine of a good year enters into the blend
Theat ti fan-shaped appliances inside, which, on being worked by handles, ensure a coaigantic scale is technically known as rapes are tempered by one-fifth of the juice of white ones It is necessary that the first should corowths both of the Mountain of Reiards the latter, one or other of the delicate vintages of the Cote d'Avize is essential to the perfect _cuvee_ The aim is to combine and develop the special qualities of the respective crus, body and vinosity being secured by the red vintages of Bouzy and Verzenay, softness and roundness by those of Ay and Dizy, and lightness, delicacy, and effervescence by the white growths of Avize and Cra to the manufacturer's style of wine and the taste of the countries which form his principaliine the delicacy and discrie of the flavour, finesse, and bouquet which the _cuvee_ is likely eventually to develop
These, however, are not the only , the effervescence, which depends upon the quantity of carbonic acid gas the wine contains, and this, in turn, upon the aas be present in excess, there will be a shattering of bottles and a flooding of cellars; and if there be a paucity the corks will refuse to pop, and the wine to sparkle aright in the glass Therefore the amount of saccharine in the _cuvee_ has to be accurately ascertained by lucometer; and if it fails to reach the required standard, the deficiency is ar-candy If, on the other hand, there be an excess of saccharine, the only thing to be done is to defer the final blending and bottling until the superfluous saccharine matter has been absorbed by fermentation in the cask
The _cuvee_ co in taste and colour an ordinary acrid white wine, and giving to the uninitiated palate no promise of the exquisite delicacy and aroain into casks for further treatelatinous substance, and, as a precaution against ropiness and other maladies, liquid tannin is at the same time frequently added to supply the place of the natural tannin which has departed from the ith its reddish hue at the epoch of its first fer the wine next ensues, when the Scriptural advice not to put neine into old bottles is rigorously followed For the tre the subsequent fermentation of the wine is such that the bottle becoain It is because of this pressure that the chaest ht, which is alth it is necessary that its sides should be of equal thickness and the bottohout, in order that no particular expansion es of temperature The neck radually towards the shoulder
In addition--and this is of the utht to be perfectly sas to make efforts to escape, and thus renders an explosion ilass, too, is not without its importance, as a lass by a new process turned out chaed with alkaline sulphurets, and the consequence was that an entire _cuvee_ was ruined by their use, through the reciprocal action of the wine and these sulphurets The acids of the forne the result was a new species of nes coest quantity), Folee froenerally tested by a practised hand, who, by knocking theether, professes to be able to tell frolass and its te of the bottles is invariably perforer establishments accomplish it with the aid of h senerally used by preference After being washed every bottle is minutely examined to make certain of its perfect purity
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