IN selecting a sparkling wine, one fact should be borne in mind—that just as, according to Sam Weller, it is the seasoning which makes the pie mutton, beef, or veal, so it is the liqueur which renders the wine dry or sweet, light or strong. A really palatable dry Champagne, emitting the fragrant bouquet which distinguishes all wines of fine quality, free from added spirit, is obliged to be made of the very best vin brut, to which necessarily an exceedingly small percentage of liqueur will be added. On the other hand, a sweet Champagne can be produced from the most ordinary raw wine—the Yankees even claim to have evolved it from petroleum—as the amount of liqueur it receives completely masks its original character and flavour. This excess of syrup, it should be remarked, contributes materially to the wine’s explosive force and temporary effervescence; but shortly after the bottle has been uncorked the wine becomes disagreeably flat. A fine dry wine, indebted as it is for its sparkling properties to the natural sweetness of the grape, does not exhibit the same sudden turbulent effervescence. It continues to sparkle, however, for a long time after being poured into the glass, owing to the carbonic acid having been absorbed by the wine itself instead of being accumulated in the vacant space between the liquid and the cork, as is the case with wines that have been highly liqueured. Even when its carbonic acid gas is exhausted, a good Champagne will preserve its fine flavour, which the effervescence will have assisted to conceal. Champagne, it should be noted, sparkles best in tall tapering glasses; still these have their disadvantages, promoting, as they do, an excess of froth when the wine is poured into them, and almost preventing any bouquet which the wine possesses from being recognised.
Manufacturers of Champagne and other sparkling wines prepare them dry or sweet, light or strong, according to the markets for which they are designed. The sweet wines go to Russia and Germany—the sweet-toothed Muscovite regarding M. Louis Roederer’s syrupy product as the beau-idéal of Champagne, and the Germans demanding wines with twenty or more per cent of liqueur, or nearly quadruple the quantity that is contained in the average Champagnes shipped to England. France consumes light and moderately sweet wines; the United States gives a preference to the intermediate qualities; China, India, and other hot countries stipulate for light dry wines; while the very strong ones go to Australia, the Cape, and other places where gold and diamonds and suchlike trifles are from time to time ‘prospected.’ Not merely the driest, but the very best, wines of the best manufacturers, and commanding of course the highest prices, are invariably reserved for the English market. Foreigners cannot understand the marked preference shown in England for exceedingly dry sparkling wines. They do not consider that as a rule they are drunk during dinner with the plats, and not at dessert, with all kinds of sweets, fruits, and ices, as is almost invariably the case abroad.
Good Champagne is usually of a pale straw colour, but with nothing of a yellow tinge about it. When its tint is pinkish, this is owing to a portion of the colouring matter having been extracted from the skins of the grapes—a contingency which every pains are taken to avoid, although, since the success achieved by the wine of 1874, slightly pink wines are likely to be the fashion. The positive pink or rose-coloured Champagnes, such as were in fashion some thirty years ago, are simply tinted with a small quantity of deep-red wine. The alcoholic strength of the drier wines ranges from eighteen degrees of proof spirit upwards, or slightly above the ordinary Bordeaux, and under all the better-class Rhine wines. Champagnes, when loaded with a highly alcoholised liqueur, will, however, at times mark as many as thirty degrees of proof spirit. The lighter and drier the sparkling wine, the more wholesome it is, the saccharine element in conjunction with alcohol being not only difficult of digestion, but generally detrimental to health.
The faculty are agreed that fine dry Champagnes, consumed in moderation, are among the safest wines that can be partaken of. Any intoxicating effects are rapid but exceedingly transient, and arise from the alcohol suspended in the carbonic acid being applied rapidly and extensively to the surface of the stomach. ‘Champagne,’ said Curran, ‘simply gives a runaway rap at a man’s head.’ Dr. Druitt, equally distinguished by his studies upon wine and his standing as a physician, pronounces good Champagne to be ‘a true stimulant to body and mind alike—rapid, volatile, transitory, and harmless. Amongst the maladies that are benefited by it,’ remarks he, ‘is the true neuralgia—intermitting fits of excruciating pain running along certain nerves, without inflammation of the affected part, often a consequence of malaria, or of some other low and exhausting causes. To enumerate the cases in which Champagne is of service would be to give a whole nosology. Who does not know the misery, the helplessness of that abominable ailment influenza, whether a severe cold or the genuine epidemic? Let the faculty dispute about the best remedy if they please; but a sensible man with a bottle of Champagne will beat them all. Moreover, whenever there is pain, with exhaustion and lowness, then Dr. Champagne should be had up. There is something excitant in the wine—doubly so in the sparkling wine, which, the moment it touches the lips, sends an electric telegram of comfort to every remote nerve. Nothing comforts and rests the stomach better, or is a greater antidote to nausea.’
Champagne of fine quality should never be mixed with ice or iced water; neither should it be iced to the extent Champagnes ordinarily are; for, in the first place, the natural lightness of the wine is such as not to admit of its being diluted without utterly spoiling it, and in the next, excessive cold destroys alike the fragrant bouquet of the wine and its delicate vinous flavour. Really good Champagne should not be iced below a temperature of fifty degrees Fahr.; whereas exceedingly sweet wines will bear icing down almost to freezing point, and be rendered more palatable by the process. The above remarks apply to all sorts of sparkling wine.
In the Champagne, what may be termed a really grand vintage commonly occurs only once, and never more than twice, in ten years. During the same period, however, there will generally be one or two other tolerably good vintages. In grand years the crop, besides being of superior quality, is usually abundant, and as a consequence the price of the raw wine is scarcely higher than usual. Apparently from this circumstance the sparkling wine of grand vintages does not command an enhanced value, as is the case with other fine wines. It is only when speculators recklessly outbid each other for the grapes or the vin brut, or when stocks are low and the vin brut is really scarce, that the price of Champagne appears to rise.
That superior quality does not involve enhanced price is proved by the amounts paid for the Ay and Verzenay crus in years of grand vintages. During the present century these appear to have been 1802, ’06, ’11, ’18, ’22, ’25, ’34, ’42, ’46, ’57, ’65, ’68, and ’74—that is, thirteen grand vintages in eighty years. Other good vintages, although not equal to the foregoing, occurred in the years 1815, ’32, ’39, ’52, ’54, ’58, ’62, ’64, and ’70. Confining ourselves to the grand years, we find that the Ay wine of 1834, owing to the crop being plentiful as well as good, only realised from 110 to 140 francs the pièce of 44 gallons, although for two years previously this had fetched them 150 to 200 francs. In 1842 the price ranged from 120 to 150 francs, whereas the vastly inferior wine of the year before had commanded from 210 to 275 francs. In 1846, the crop being a small one, the price of the wine rose, and in 1857 the pièce fetched as much as from 480 to 500 francs; still this was merely a trifle higher than it had realised the two preceding years. In 1865 the price was 380 to 400 francs, and in 1868 about the same, whereas the indifferent vintages of 1871, ’72, and ’73—the latter eventually proved to be of execrable quality—realised from 500 to 1000 francs the pièce. It was very similar with the wine of Verzenay. In 1834 the price of the pièce ranged from 280 to 325 francs, or about the average of the three preceding years. In 1846, the crop being scarce, the price rose considerably; while in 1857, when the crop was plentiful, it fell to 500 francs, or from 5 to 20 per cent below that of the two previous years, when the yield was both inferior and less abundant. In 1865 the price rose 33 per cent above that of the year before; still, although Verzenay wine of 1865 and 1868 fetched from 420 to 450 francs the pièce, and that of 1874 as much as 900 francs, the greatly inferior vintages of 1872–73 commanded 900 and 1030 francs the pièce. Subsequently the price of the wine fell to 350 and 450 francs the pièce, to rise again, however, in 1878 to 900 francs, which was followed by a fall the following year to 250 francs. In 1880, when the yield was no more than the quarter of an average one, and the quality was as yet undetermined, the Ay and Verzenay wines commanded the high price of 1500 francs and upwards the pièce. Exceptionally high prices were also realised for the wines of the neighbouring localities.
Consumers of Champagne, if wise, would profit by the circumstance that quality has not the effect of causing a rise in prices, and if they were bent upon drinking their favourite wine in perfection, as one meets with it at the dinner-tables of the principal manufacturers, who only put old wine of grand vintages before their guests, they would lay down Champagnes of good years in the same way as the choicer vintages of port, burgundy, and bordeaux are laid down. The Champagne of 1874 was a wine of this description, with all its finer vinous qualities well developed, and consequently needing age to attain not merely the roundness, but the refinement, of flavour pertaining to a high-class sparkling wine. Instead of being drunk a few months after it was shipped in the spring and summer of 1877, as was the fate of much of the wine in question, it needed being kept for three years at the very least to become even moderately round and perfect. In the Champagne one had many opportunities of tasting the grander vintages that had arrived at ten, twelve, or fifteen years of age, and had thereby attained supreme excellence. It is true their effervescence had moderated materially, but their bouquet and flavour were perfect, and their softness and delicacy something marvellous.
A great wine like that of 1874 will go on improving for ten years, providing it is only laid down under proper conditions. These are, first, an exceedingly cool but perfectly dry cellar, the temperature of which should be as low as from 50° to 55° Fahr., or even lower if this is practicable. The cellar, too, should be neither over dark nor light, scrupulously clean, and sufficiently well ventilated for the air to be continuously pure. It is requisite that the bottles should rest on their sides, to prevent the corks shrinking, and thus allowing both the carbonic acid and the wine itself to escape. For laying down Champagne or any kind of sparkling wine, an iron wine-bin is by far the best; and the patent ‘slider’ bins made by Messrs. W. & J. Burrow, of Malvern, are better adapted to the purpose than any other. In these the bottles rest on horizontal parallel bars of wrought-iron, securely riveted into strong wrought-iron uprights, both at the back and in front. They are especially adapted for laying down Champagne, as they admit of the air circulating freely around the bottles, thus conducing to the preservation of the metal foil round their necks, and keeping the temperature of the wine both cool and equable.