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.
TYPES OF THE CHAMPAGNE VINES IN BEARING.
There are several other species of vines cultivated in the Champagne vineyards, notably the common meunier, or miller, prevalent in the valley of Epernay, which bears black grapes, and takes its name from the young leaves appearing to have been sprinkled with flour. This variety being more hardy than the franc pineau is replacing the latter on the lower parts of the slopes, which are the most exposed to frosts—a regrettable circumstance, as it impairs the quality of the wine. There are also the black and white gouais; the meslier, a prolific white variety yielding a wine of fair quality; the black and white gamais, the leading grape in the Mâconnais, and chiefly found in some of the Vertus vineyards; together with the tourlon, the marmot, the cohéras, the plant doux, and half a score of others.
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.
