Leading from the Rue du Tambour is the Rue de la Belle Image, thus named from a handsome statuette of the Virgin, which formerly decorated a corner niche; and beyond is the Rue St. Hilaire, where Messrs. Barnett et Fils, trading under the designation of Périnet et Fils, and the only English house engaged in the manufacture of Champagne, have an establishment which is certainly as perfect as any to be found in Reims. Above-ground are several large store-rooms, where vintage-casks and the various utensils common to a Champagne establishment are kept; and a capacious cellier, upwards of one hundred and fifty feet in length, with its roof resting on massive timber supports. Here new wine is stored preparatory to being blended and bottled; and in the huge tun, holding nearly three thousand gallons, standing at the further end, the firm make their cuvée; while adjacent is a room where stocks of corks and labels, metal foil, and the like are kept.
MESSRS. PÉRINET ET FILS’ ESTABLISHMENT IN THE RUE ST. HILAIRE, REIMS.
Underneath this building there are three stories of cellars—an exceedingly rare thing anywhere in the Champagne—all constructed in solid masonry on a uniform plan, each story comprising two wide galleries, running parallel with each other and connected by means of transverse passages. Spite of the great depth to which these cellars descend, they are perfectly dry; the ventilation, too, is excellent; and their different temperatures render them especially suitable for the storage of Champagne, the temperature of the lowest cellar being 6° Centigrade (43° Fahrenheit), or one degree Centigrade below the cellar immediately above, which in its turn is two degrees below the uppermost of all. The advantage of this is that, when the wine develops an excess of effervescence, any undue proportion of breakages can be checked by removing the bottles to a lower cellar, and consequently into a lower temperature.
The first cellars we enter are closely stacked with wine in bottle, which is gradually clearing itself by the formation of a deposit; while in an adjoining cellar on the same level the operations of disgorging, liqueuring, and corking are going on. At the end of this gallery is a spacious compartment, where a large stock of pure Champagne cognac of grand vintages is stored for cask and liqueur use. In the cellars immediately beneath, bottles of wine repose in solid stacks ready for the dégorgeur; while others rest in racks, in order that they may undergo their daily shaking. In the lowest cellars reserved wine in cask is stored, as it best retains its natural freshness and purity in a very cool place. All air is carefully excluded from the casks; any ullage is immediately replaced; and, as evaporation is continually going on, the casks are examined every fortnight, when any deficiency is at once replenished. At Messrs. Périnet et Fils’, as at all the first-class establishments, the vin brut is a mélange comprising the produce of some of the best vineyards, and has every possible attention paid to it during its progressive stages of development.
From the second tier of cellars at Messrs. Périnet et Fils’ a gallery extends, under the Rue St. Hilaire, to some extensive vaults excavated beneath an adjacent building, in which the Reims Military Club is installed. These vaults, arranged in two separate stories, are eight in number, and in them we found a quarter of a million bottles of vin brut, reposing either in solid stacks or sur pointe, the latter going through their daily shaking in order to fit them for the operation of dégorgement. On the whole the cellars of Périnet et Fils, including the six long galleries already described, suffice for the storage of a million bottles of Champagne.
