Different manufacturers have different recipes for the composition of this syrup, all more or less complex in character, and varying with the quality of the wine and the country for which it is intended; but the genuine liqueur consists of nothing but old wine of the best quality, to which a certain amount of sugar-candy and perhaps a dash of the finest cognac spirit has been added.[419] The saccharine addition varies according to the market for which the wine is destined: thus the high-class English buyer demands a dry Champagne, the Russian a wine sweet and strong as ‘ladies’ grog,’ and the Frenchman and German a sweet light wine. To the extra-dry Champagnes a modicum dose is added, while the so-called ‘brut’ wines receive no more than from one to three per cent of liqueur.[420]
In establishments wedded to old-fashioned usages the dose is administered with a tin can or ladle; but more generally an ingenious machine which regulates the percentage of liqueur to a nicety is employed. The bottle being usually nearly full when passed to the doseur, he, when a heavy percentage of liqueur has to be administered, is constrained, under the old system, to pour out some of the wine to make room for it, and this surplus in many cases is afterwards transformed into the well-known tisane de Champagne. As soon as the dosage is accomplished, the bottle is passed to another workman known as the égaliseur, who fills it up with pure wine, frequently with a part of that which has been poured out by the doseur, to the requisite level for corking. In the event of a pink Champagne being required, the wine thus added will be red, although manufacturers of questionable reputation sometimes employ the solution of elderberries, known as teinte de Fismes, to impart that once-favourite roseate hue which has been compared to the glow of fading sunlight on a crystal stream.
THE DOSEUR.
THE CORKER.