[Ill.u.s.tration: A SPANISH VINTAGE SCENE.]
XVIII.--THE SPARKLING WINES OF AUSTRO-HUNGARY, SWITZERLAND, ITALY, SPAIN, RUSSIA, &c.
Sparkling Voslauer-- The Sparkling Wine Manufactories of Graz-- Establishment of Kleinoscheg Brothers-- Vintaging and Treatment of Styrian Champagnes-- Sparkling Red, Rose, and White Wines of Hungary-- The Establishment of Hubert and Habermann at Pressburg-- Sparkling Wines of Croatia, Galicia, Bohemia, Moravia, Dalmatia, the Tyrol, Transylvania, and the Banat-- Neuchatel Champagne-- Sparkling Wine Factories at Vevay and Sion-- The Vevay Vineyards-- Establishment of De Riedmatten and De Quay-- Sparkling Muscatel, Malmsey, Brachetto, Castagnolo, and Lacryma Christi of Italy-- Sparkling Wines of Spain, Greece, Algeria, and Russia-- The Krimski and Donski Champagnes-- The Latter Chiefly Consumed at the Great Russian Fairs.
Sparkling wines are made in various parts of Austria and Hungary, and of late years their produce has been largely on the increase. At Voslau, in the vicinity of the picturesque and fashionable summer watering-place of Baden, about twenty miles south of Vienna, Herr R. Schlumberger, one of my colleagues on the wine jury at the Vienna and Paris Exhibitions of 1873 and "8, makes a white sparkling Voslauer--introduced into England some years since--from the blue portuguese, the burgundy (the pineau noir), the rulander (the pineau gris), and the riesling varieties of grape. It is, however, at Graz, the capital of Styria, picturesquely situated on the river Mur, and surrounded by lofty mountains, where sparkling wines are made upon the largest scale and with the most success. By far the princ.i.p.al manufactory is that of Kleinoscheg Brothers, founded in the year 1850, at an epoch when the larger Styrian wine-growers were directing their attention to the general improvement of their vineyards. The firm gained their knowledge of sparkling wines by practical experience acquired in the Champagne itself, and to-day they unquestionably produce some of the best sparkling wines that are made out of France. They possess extensive vineyards of their own, and are also large purchasers of wines from the best districts, including Pettau, Radkersburg, the Picherergebirge, and Luttenberg, the latter yielding the finest wine which Styria produces, vintaged from the mosler or furmint--that is, the Tokay variety of grape.
White wine from the clevener grape, understood to be identical with the pineau noir of Burgundy and the Champagne, and vintaged early in October, forms the basis of the sparkling wines manufactured by Kleinoscheg Brothers. The produce of several other grapes, however, enters in a limited degree into the blend, including the riesling, the rulander or pineau gris, and the portuguese, the gathering of which is usually delayed several weeks later, and is sometimes even deferred until the end of November. The first and second pressings of the black grapes yield a white must as in the Champagne, while the third and fourth give a pink wine of which the firm make a speciality.
The wines, which are treated precisely after the system pursued in the Champagne, are bottled during the months of July and August, and are made either sweet or dry according to the country they are destined for.
Considerable shipments of the dry pale Styrian champagne take place to England, where the firm also send a delicate sparkling muscatel and a sparkling red burgundy, which will favourably compare with the best sparkling wines of the Cote d"Or. They have also a large market for their wines in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, and export to British North America, the East Indies, China, j.a.pan, and Australia.
From the year 1855 up to the present time the firm of Kleinoscheg Brothers have been awarded no less than sixteen medals for their sparkling wines at various important home and foreign exhibitions.
At Marburg on the river Drave, in the vicinity of the Bacher Mountains, which stretch far into Carinthia, and have their lower slopes covered with vines, Herr F. Auchmann has established a successful sparkling wine manufactory. The raw wine comes from the vineyards around Marburg and from Pettau, some ten or twelve miles lower down the Drave. The vintage commonly lasts from the middle of October until the middle of November.
Black grapes of the clevener and portuguese varieties are pressed as in the Champagne, so as to yield a white must, with which a certain portion of white wine from the mosler or furmint grape is subsequently mingled.
The bottling takes place as early as April or May. The wines are princ.i.p.ally consumed in Austria, but are also exported to Russia, Italy, Egypt, the Danubian Princ.i.p.alities, Australia, &c.
Sparkling wines seem to be made in various parts of Hungary, judging from the samples sent to the Vienna and Paris Exhibitions from Pesth, Pressburg, Oedenburg, Pecs, Velencze, and Kolozsvar. Rose-colour wines are evidently much in favour with the respective manufacturers, several of whom make sparkling red wines as well, but with none of the success of their Styrian neighbours. The best Hungarian sparkling wines we have met with are those of Hubert and Habermann, made at Pressburg, the former capital of Hungary, where its kings, after being crowned, used to ride up the Konigsberg brandishing the sword of St. Stephen towards the four points of the compa.s.s in token of their determination to defend the kingdom against all enemies. The white sparkling wines are made exclusively from white grapes grown in the neighbouring vineyards of Bosing, Gennau, and St. Georgen, but the firm make red sparkling wines as well from the produce of the Ratzersdorf and Wainor vineyards. The vintage takes place some time in October, and the wines are bottled both in the spring and autumn, but never until they are fully twelve months old. With these variations the system pursued with regard to the wines is the same as is followed in the Champagne. There are several other sparkling wine manufacturers at Pressburg, and the princ.i.p.al market for these wines is Austro-Hungary, but shipments of them are made to England, the United States, India, Roumania, and Servia. The production of sparkling wine in Hungary is now estimated to amount to one million bottles annually.
In Croatia Prince Lippe-Schaumburg has established a sparkling wine manufactory at Slatina, where he produces a so-called Riesling-Champagner, and it would appear from the collection of Austro-Hungarian sparkling wines exhibited at Vienna by Herr Bogdan Hoff of Cracow, that these wines are also made at Melnik, in Bohemia, at Bisenz in Moravia, at Sebenicodi Maraschino in Dalmatia, at Botzen in the Tyrol, at Tasnad in Transylvania, and at Weiss-Kirchen in the Banat.
All these wines had been submitted to examination at the Imperial no-chemical laboratory at Klosterneuberg, and one was not surprised to find that the majority were p.r.o.nounced to be of too robust a character for transformation into sparkling wines.
Switzerland long since turned its attention to the manufacture of sparkling wines, not, however, to meet the requirements of its own population, but those of the many tourists with well-lined purses who annually explore its valleys, lakes, and mountains. Neuchatel champagne has met with a certain amount of success, and at the present time there are a couple of establishments devoted to its production, the best known being that of Bouvier freres. There are, moreover, sparkling wine manufactories at Vevay in the Vaud Canton, and at Sion in the Valais. In the Canton of Neuchatel the best Swiss red wines are produced--notably Cortaillod and Faverge of a ruby hue and Burgundy-like flavour--and the sparkling wine manufacturers of the district wisely blend a considerable proportion of wine from black grapes with that from white when making their _cuvees_. Vaud, on the other hand, being noted for white wines bearing some resemblance to certain Rhine growths, it is of these that sparkling wines are exclusively made at Vevay.
The Vevay vineyards occupy the heights which skirt the Lake of Geneva on its northern side. The innumerable terraces, steep and difficult of access to the toiling vine-dresser, on which the vines are planted, are the result of centuries of patient labour. Here the vine seems to flourish at an alt.i.tude of more than 1,800 feet above the sea level.
To compensate for the deficiency of sunshine the leaves are largely stripped from the vines so as to expose the fruit, and thereby a.s.sist its ripening.
The sparkling wine factory at Sion, bordering the river Rhone, in the Canton of the Valais, was established in 1872 by MM. de Riedmatten and De Quay, who derive their raw wine from vineyards in the immediate neighbourhood, almost all of which have a southern exposure, and occupy gentle slopes. The soil chiefly consists of a decomposed limestone schist, locally termed "brise." In these vineyards, and more especially the district known as the Clavaux, some of the best and most alcoholic wines in Switzerland are produced.
The firm originally experimented with the choicer and more powerful growths, and, as may be imagined, soon discovered they were not well adapted for conversion into sparkling wines. To-day they limit themselves to wines produced from what is known as the "fendant" variety of grape, said by some to be identical with the German riesling, and by others to be of the same type as the French cha.s.selas. The vintage in the Valais is the earliest in Switzerland, taking place in favourable years at the close of September, but ordinarily in the course of October. Some fine white candy syrup is added to the wine at the epoch of bottling, in order to provoke the requisite effervescence, which it does so effectually that the tirage is obliged to take place some time between November and May, as at any other period the temperature would be too high and the bottles would burst. MM. Riedmatten and De Quay have two varieties of sparkling wine--their Carte Blanche, which goes under the name of Mont Blanc, and is rather sweet, and their Carte Verte known as Glacier de Rhone, a drier variety and finding a readier sale.
Of late years, since many improvements have been effected in Italy both in the cultivation of the vineyards and the vintaging of the wine, numerous attempts have been made, although on the whole with but indifferent success, to produce a good sparkling wine. The princ.i.p.al seat of the manufacture is Asti, where the Societa Unione Enofila make considerable quant.i.ties of a common strong sweet sparkling wine, as well as a sparkling muscatel. Alessandria, Ancona, Bologna, Castagnolo, Genoa, Modena, Naples, Palermo, and Treviso also profess to make sparkling wines, but only in insignificant quant.i.ties. Alessandria produces sparkling malmsey and red sparkling brachetto; and on the Marquis Della Stufa"s estate of Castagnolo a sparkling wine is manufactured from the currajola variety of grape, one of the best in the Tuscan vineyards. The vines at Castagnolo are cultivated in accordance with the French system, and at the vintage all unripe and unsound grapes are thrown aside. There is an evident flavour of the muscat grape in the Castagnolo sparkling wine, which has the merit of lightness and of being well made. The alcoholic strength is equivalent to rather more than 20 of proof spirit, and the highest quality wine is remarkable for its excessive dryness in comparison with all other samples of Italian sparkling wines that we have met with. Naples appears to confine itself to producing sparkling white lacryma christi, for which, as a curiosity, there exists a certain demand.
Spain of late years has shown itself equally ambitious with Italy to achieve distinction in the production of sparkling wines, and at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 there were samples from the majority of the wine centres skirting the Mediterranean coast, including Gerona, Barcelona, Tarragona, and Valencia. Other samples come from Logrono, in the north of Spain; and years ago sparkling wine used to be made at Villaviciosa, on the Bay of Biscay. To Paris there were also sent samples of sparkling orange wine, an agreeable beverage, and unquestionably preferable to the majority of Spanish sparkling wines composed of the juice of the grape.
Greek sparkling wines, said to be of very fair quality, are made at Athens, Corinth, and Tripoliza, and are exported in moderate quant.i.ties to Russia. Algeria, too, is turning its attention to the production of sparkling wines, but solely for home consumption, and at the Paris Exhibition there was a sparkling wine from Uruguay, but of execrable quality.
The sparkling wines of the Crimea and the Don, known in Russia respectively as Krimski and Donski champagnes, are described as being superior to much of the wine which pa.s.ses in England under the name of champagne. In Russia it is the fashion to speak contemptuously of them, just as rhubarb and gooseberry champagne is spoken of in England, still these Crimean and Don products are genuine wines, and, though somewhat sweet, may be drunk with satisfaction and in moderate quant.i.ties with impunity. One of the best Donski brands is that of Abrahamof, and as much as six roubles per bottle is demanded for the finer qualities at Novoi Tscherkash. About a million bottles of the Donski champagne are exported annually, but the wine finds its princ.i.p.al market at the great Russian fairs, where almost every important bargain is "wetted" with sparkling Donski.
[Ill.u.s.tration: VINTAGE SCENE IN THE UNITED STATES.]
XIX.--THE SPARKLING WINES OF THE UNITED STATES.
Earliest Efforts at Wine-Making in America-- Failures to Acclimatise European Vines-- Wines Made by the Swiss Settlers and the Mission Fathers-- The Yield of the Mission Vineyards-- The Monster Vine of the Montecito Valley-- The Catawba Vine and its General Cultivation-- Mr. Longworth one of the Founders of American Viticulture-- Fresh Attempts to make Sparkling Wine at Cincinnati-- Existing Sparkling Wine Manufactures there-- Longfellow"s Song in Praise of Catawba-- The Kelley Island Wine Company-- Vintaging and Treatment of their Sparkling Wines-- Decrease of Consumption-- The Vineyards of Hammondsport-- Varieties of Grapes used for Sparkling Wines-- The Vintage-- After-Treatment of the Wines-- The Pleasant Valley and Urbana Wine Companies and their Various Brands-- Californian Sparkling Wines-- The Buena Vista Vinicultural Society of San Francisco-- Its Early Failures and Eventual Success in Manufacturing Sparkling Wines-- The Vintage in California-- Chinese Vintagers-- How the Wine is Made-- American Spurious Sparkling Wines.
From the earliest period of the colonisation of America the vine appears to have attracted the attention of the settlers, and it is said that as early as 1564 wine was made from the native grape in Florida. The first attempts to establish a regular vineyard date, however, from 1620, and would seem to have been made in Virginia with European vines, the prospects having become sufficiently encouraging in 1630 for the colonists to send for French vine-dressers to tend their plants. The latter were subsequently accused of ruining the vines by their bad treatment, but most likely this was an error, it having since been made evident that European vines cannot be successfully cultivated east of the Rocky Mountains, where the phylloxera vastatrix prevails. It was in vain that William Penn made repeated attempts to acclimatise European vines in Pennsylvania, that the Swiss emigrants--vine-growers from the Lake of Geneva--made similar trials, they having expended ten thousand dollars to no purpose. In vain, in Jessamine county, Kentucky, Pierre Legaud laboured in the environs of Philadelphia, and Laka.n.a.l, the member of the French Convention, experimented in Tennessee, Ohio, and Alabama; all their efforts to introduce the Old World vines proved futile. The attempts that were made by Swiss settlers at Vevay, in Indiana, with the indigenous plants were more successful, and after a time they managed to produce some palatable wine from the Schuylkill muscatel.
Towards the latter part of the 18th century the Mission Fathers had succeeded in planting vineyards in California. It is known that in 1771 the vine was cultivated there, and the San Gabriel Mission in the county of Los Angeles, some 300 miles S.E. of San Francisco, is said to have possessed the first vineyard. A prevalent belief is, that the vines were from roots or cuttings obtained from either Spain or Mexico, but it is also conjectured that they were some of the wild varieties known to be scattered over the country, while a third theory suggests that as attempts to make wine from the wild grapes would most likely have proved a failure, the Fathers planted the seeds of raisins which had come from Spain. The culture must have progressed rapidly, if, as stated, there were planted at San Gabriel in a single spring no fewer than 40,000 vines. These mission vines were mainly of two sorts, the one yielding a white grape with a musky flavour, and the other a dark blue fruit. The latter was the favourite, doubtless from its produce bearing some resemblance to the red wines of Old Castile.
From San Gabriel the planting of the vine extended from mission to mission until each owned its patch of vineland. At the time of the arrival of the Americans in 1846 the smallest of these was five acres in extent, and others as many as thirty acres, and it is calculated the average yield was from 700 to 1,000 gallons of wine per acre. This was owing first to the exceeding richness of the soil, and secondly to its being well irrigated. If the celebrated mission vine grown on one of the sunny slopes overlooking the lovely Montecito valley near Santa Barbara on the blue Pacific had many fellows in the Fathers" vineyards, the above estimate can hardly be an exaggerated one. The stem of this vine, which is four feet four inches in circ.u.mference at the ground, rises eight feet before branching out. The branches, under which the country people are fond of dancing, and which are supported by fifty-two trellises, extend over more than 5,000 square feet. This monster vine produces annually from five to six tons of grapes, and one year it yielded no fewer than 7,000 bunches, each from one to four pounds in weight. It is irrigated by water from the hot springs, situated a few miles distant, and is believed to be from half to three-quarters of a century old.
Viticulture and vinification languished in the United States until attention was called in 1826 to the catawba vine by Major Adlum, of Georgetown, near Washington, who thought that by so doing he was conferring a greater benefit on his country than if he had liquidated its national debt. This vine, which is derived from the wild _Vitis labrusca_, was first planted on an extensive scale by Nicholas Longworth, justly looked upon as one of the founders of American viticulture, and gradually supplanted all others, remaining for many years the princ.i.p.al plant cultivated along the banks of the Ohio--the so-called "Rhine of America"--until, ceaselessly attacked by rot, mildew, and leaf-blight, it was found necessary in many places to supplant it by more robust varieties.
Mr. Longworth, about the year 1837, among his numerous experiments at Cincinnati, included that of making sparkling wines from the catawba, isabella, and other varieties of grapes, and to-day there are several manufactories of sparkling catawba and other wines in the capital of Ohio--the self-named "Queen city," which its detractors have jocularly dubbed Porcopolis on account of the immense trade done there in smoked and salted pork. The chief sparkling wine establishments at Cincinnati are those of Messrs. Werk and Sons, whose sparkling catawba obtained a medal for progress at the Vienna Exhibition in 1873, and who have, moreover, largely experimented with ives" and virginia seedlings, delaware and other grapes, in making effervescent wines, though only with doubtful success. Another Cincinnati firm is that of Messrs. George Bogen and Co., whose sparkling wines also met with recognition at Vienna.
The reader will remember Longfellow"s well-known song extolling catawba wine, which, with more than a poet"s licence, he ranks above the best of the Old World vintages:--
"There grows no vine By the haunted Rhine, By Danube or Guadalquivir, Nor on island nor cape, That bears such a grape As grows by the Beautiful River.
"Very good in its way Is the Verzenay, Or the Sillery, soft and creamy, But Catawba wine Has a taste more divine, More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy."
On Kelley"s Island, Erie county, also in the State of Ohio, a wine company, established in 1866, and trading princ.i.p.ally in still wines, makes sparkling wines upon a considerable scale exclusively from the catawba variety of grape, which is cultivated in its highest perfection both on the islands of Lake Erie and along a narrow slip of territory not two miles long bordering the southern sh.o.r.e of the lake, and also in the vicinity of Lake Keuka, near Hammondsport, N.Y. The Kelley Island Wine Company, as it is styled, presses the grapes between the middle of October and the end of November, and bottles from about the 20th May until the commencement of July in the year following. Its brands are Island Queen, Nonpareil, and Carte Blanche. Ninety-five per cent. of the wines are dry, and the tendency of the market is in favour of a still drier article. Shipments are princ.i.p.ally confined to the United States, the great centre of the trade being St. Louis, on the Mississippi, which has its own sparkling wine establishments, and to-day disputes with Chicago the t.i.tle of Queen of the West. The company keep some 100,000 bottles of sparkling wines in stock, and possess facilities for bottling five times that quant.i.ty whenever the demand might warrant such a step being taken. Of recent years, however, economy has been the rule in American society, and the market for native sparkling wines at any rate is to-day a reduced one.
At Hammondsport, south of Lake Keuka--in other words, Crooked Lake--and in the State of New York, the establishments of the Pleasant Valley and Urbana wine companies, devoting their attention to both still and sparkling wines, are installed. The region, which enthusiastic writers now term the Champagne of America, was colonised in 1793, and vines of the catawba and isabella varieties were first planted for the purpose of making wine in 1854. At the present time there are about 8,000 acres under cultivation with all the better species of vines. The produce from black and white grapes is mingled for the sparkling wines of the district. Of the former but two kinds are considered suitable, the concord and the isabella, both being varieties of the indigenous labrusca, or so-called foxy-flavoured grape. The concord is a hardy and productive plant, producing large and compact bunches of large round sweet grapes, yielding a wine of the obnoxious foxy flavour. The isabella is an equally hardy and productive variety, and its bunches are of good size, although not compact. Its berries, too, are large, oval, and juicy, and marked by a strong musky aroma.
Of the white, or rather pale-coloured grapes--for their hue is usually a reddish one--used for sparkling wines, the princ.i.p.al is the catawba, also of the labrusca variety. The branches are large and tolerably compact; the berries, too, are above the medium size, and have a rich vinous and p.r.o.nounced musky flavour. Other so-called white species of grapes are the diana and the iona, both, of them seedlings of the catawba; the delaware, the bunches of which are rather small but compact, the berries round, extremely juicy and fresh-tasting, but sweet and aromatic, the wine produced from which is noted for its fragrant bouquet; and, lastly, the walter, a variety obtained by crossing the delaware with the diana. The bunches and berries of the walter are of medium size; the flavour, like that of the delaware, is sweet and aromatic; and the grape is, moreover, remarkable for its agreeable bouquet.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The vintage usually commences about the end of September or the commencement of October, and the grapes, after being carefully sorted, are run through a small mill, which breaks the skins, and admits of the juice running the more readily out when the fruit is placed beneath the press. The latter is worked with a metal screw, and the must is conducted through pipes or hose to casks holding from two to four thousand gallons each, in which it ferments. During the following May the wine is carefully blended, and the operation of bottling commences and lasts for about two or three months. The newly-bottled wine is at first stored in a warm place in order to start the fermentation again, and when the bottles commence to burst it is removed to the subterranean vaults, where it remains stacked in a horizontal fashion until the time arrives to force the sediment down upon the corks. This is accomplished precisely as in the Champagne, the subsequent disgorging and liqueuring being also effected according to the orthodox French system. Altogether a couple of years elapse between the epoch of bottling and shipment, and during this interval each bottle is handled upwards of two hundred times.
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 p.r.o.nounced 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-cla.s.s 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 a.s.sistance 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 _cuvees_ 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 p.r.o.nounces sparkling Sonoma to be the best of American sparkling wines, "clean and fresh, tasting, with the flavour of a middle-cla.s.s 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 17.
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, j.a.pan, 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 alb.u.men 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
XX.--CONCLUDING FACTS AND HINTS.
Dry and Sweet Champagnes-- Their Sparkling Properties-- Form of Champagne Gla.s.ses-- 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 Crus 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 d.i.c.kens"s dictum that its proper place is at a Ball-- Advantageous Effect of Champagne at an ordinary British Dinner Party-- Sparkling Wine Cups.