Blanquette de Limoux derives its name from the species of grape it is produced from, and which we believe to be identical with the malvoisie, or malmsey. Its long-shaped berries grow in huge bunches, and dry readily on the stalks. The fruit is gathered as tenderly as possible, care being taken that it shall not be in the slightest degree bruised, and is then spread out upon a floor to admit of whatever sugar it contains becoming perfect. The bad grapes having been carefully picked out, and the seeds extracted from the remaining fruit, the latter is now trodden, and the must, after being filtered through a strainer, is placed in casks, where it remains fermenting for about a week, during which time any overflow is daily replenished by other must reserved for the purpose. The wine is again clarified, and placed in fresh casks with the bungholes only lightly closed until all sensible fermentation has ceased, when they are securely fastened up. The bottling takes place in the month of March, and the wine is subsequently treated much after the same fashion as sparkling Saint-Péray, excepting that it is generally found necessary to repeat the operation of dégorgement three, if not as many as four, times.
Blanquette de Limoux is a pale white wine, the saccharine properties of which have become completely transformed into carbonic acid gas and alcohol. It is consequently both dry and spirituous, deficient in delicacy, and altogether proves a great disappointment. At its best it may, perhaps, rank with sparkling Saint-Péray, but unquestionably not with an average Champagne.
PREPARING THE CHAMPAGNE LIQUEUR.
III.
FACTS AND NOTES RESPECTING SPARKLING WINES.
Dry and sweet Champagnes—Their sparkling properties—Form of Champagne glasses—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 in which to lay down Champagne—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 Dickens’s dictum that its proper place is at a ball—Advantageous effect of Champagne at an ordinary British dinner-party.