From the subjoined table it will be seen that the consumption of Champagne has more than quadrupled since the year 1844–5, a period of six-and-thirty years. A curious fact to note is the immense increase in the exports of the wine during the three years following the Franco-German war, during which contest both the exports and home consumption of Champagne naturally fell off very considerably. No reliable information is available as to the actual quantity of Champagne consumed yearly in England, but this may be taken in round numbers at about four millions of bottles. The consumption of the wine in the United States varies from rather more than a million and a half to nearly two million bottles annually.
OFFICIAL RETURN BY THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AT REIMS OF THE TRADE
IN CHAMPAGNE WINES FROM APRIL 1844 TO APRIL 1881.
| Years— from April to April. | Manufacturers’ Stocks. | Number of Bottles exported. | Number of Bottles sold in France. | Total Number of Bottles sold. |
| 1844–45 | 23,285,218 | 4,380,214 | 2,255,438 | 6,635,652 |
| 1845–46 | 22,847,971 | 4,505,308 | 2,510,605 | 7,015,913 |
| 1846–47 | 18,815,367 | 4,711,915 | 2,355,366 | 7,067,281 |
| 1847–48 | 23,122,994 | 4,859,625 | 2,092,571 | 6,952,196 |
| 1848–49 | 21,290,185 | 5,686,484 | 1,473,966 | 7,160,450 |
| 1849–50 | 20,499,192 | 5,001,044 | 1,705,735 | 6,706,779 |
| 1850–51 | 20,444,915 | 5,866,971 | 2,122,569 | 7,989,540 |
| 1851–52 | 21,905,479 | 5,957,552 | 2,162,880 | 8,120,432 |
| 1852–53 | 19,376,967 | 6,355,574 | 2,385,217 | 8,740,790 |
| 1853–54 | 17,757,769 | 7,878,320 | 2,528,719 | 10,407,039 |
| 1854–55 | 20,922,959 | 5,895,773 | 2,452,743 | 9,348,516 |
| 1855–56 | 15,957,141 | 7,137,001 | 2,562,039 | 9,699,040 |
| 1856–57 | 15,228,294 | 8,490,198 | 2,468,818 | 10,959,016 |
| 1857–58 | 21,628,778 | 7,368,310 | 2,421,454 | 9,789,764 |
| 1858–59 | 28,328,251 | 7,666,633 | 2,805,416 | 10,472,049 |
| 1859–60 | 35,648,124 | 8,265,395 | 3,039,621 | 11,305,016 |
| 1860–61 | 30,235,260 | 8,488,223 | 2,697,508 | 11,185,731 |
| 1861–62 | 30,254,291 | 6,904,915 | 2,592,875 | 9,497,790 |
| 1862–63 | 28,013,189 | 7,937,836 | 2,767,371 | 10,705,207 |
| 1863–64 | 28,466,975 | 9,851,138 | 2,934,996 | 12,786,134 |
| 1864–65 | 33,298,672 | 9,101,441 | 2,801,626 | 11,903,067 |
| 1865–66 | 34,175,429 | 10,413,455 | 2,782,777 | 13,196,132 |
| 1866–67 | 37,608,716 | 10,283,886 | 3,218,343 | 13,502,229 |
| 1867–68 | 37,969,219 | 10,876,585 | 2,924,268 | 13,800,853 |
| 1868–69 | 32,490,881 | 12,810,194 | 3,104,496 | 15,914,690 |
| 1869–70 | 39,272,562 | 13,858,839 | 3,628,461 | 17,487,300 |
| 1870–71 | 39,984,003 | 7,544,323 | 1,633,941 | 9,178,264 |
| 1871–72 | 40,099,243 | 17,001,124 | 3,367,537 | 20,368,661 |
| 1872–73 | 45,329,490 | 18,917,779 | 3,464,059 | 22,381,838 |
| 1873–74 | 46,573,974 | 18,106,310 | 2,491,759 | 20,598,069 |
| 1874–75 | 52,733,674 | 15,318,345 | 3,517,182 | 18,835,527 |
| 1875–76 | 64,658,767 | 16,705,719 | 2,439,762 | 19,145,481 |
| 1876–77 | 71,398,726 | 15,882,964 | 3,127,991 | 19,010,955 |
| 1877–78 | 70,183,863 | 15,711,651 | 2,450,983 | 18,162,634 |
| 1878–79 | 65,813,194 | 14,844,181 | 2,596,356 | 17,440,537 |
| 1879–80 | 68,540,668 | 16,524,593 | 2,665,561 | 19,190,154 |
| 1880–81 | 54,505,964 | 18,220,980 | 2,330,924 | 20,551,904 |
Distinguished gourmets are scarcely agreed as to the proper moment when Champagne should be introduced at the dinner-table. Dyspeptic Mr. Walker, of ‘The Original,’ laid it down that Champagne ought to be introduced very early at the banquet, without any regard whatever to the viands it may chance to accompany. ‘Give Champagne,’ he says, ‘at the beginning of dinner, as its exhilarating qualities serve to start the guests, after which they will seldom flag. No other wine produces an equal effect in increasing the success of a party—it invariably turns the balance to the favourable side. When Champagne goes rightly, nothing can well go wrong.’ These precepts are sound enough; still all dinner-parties are not necessarily glacial, and the guests are not invariably mutes. Before Champagne can be properly introduced at a formal dinner, the conventional glass of sherry or madeira should supplement the soup, a white French or a Rhine wine accompany the fish, and a single glass of bordeaux prepare the way with the first entrée for the sparkling wine, which, for the first round or two, should be served briskly and liberally. A wine introduced thus early at the repast should of course be dry, or, at any rate, moderately so.
We certainly do not approve of Mr. Charles Dickens’s dictum that Champagne’s proper place is not at the dinner-table, but solely at a ball. ‘A cavalier,’ he said, ‘may appropriately offer at propitious intervals a glass now and then to his danceress. There it takes its fitting rank and position amongst feathers, gauzes, lace, embroidery, ribbons, white-satin shoes, and eau-de-Cologne, for Champagne is simply one of the elegant extras of life.’ This is all very well; still the advantageous effect of sparkling wine at an ordinary British dinner-party, composed as it frequently is of people brought indiscriminately together in accordance with the exigencies of the hostess’s visiting-list, cannot be gainsaid. After the preliminary glowering at each other, more Britannico, in the drawing-room, everybody regards it as a relief to be summoned to the repast, which, however, commences as chillily as the soup and as stolidly as the salmon. The soul of the hostess is heavy with the anxiety of prospective dishes, the brow of the host is clouded with the reflection that our rulers are bent upon adding an extra penny to the income-tax. Placed between a young lady just out and a dowager of grimly Gorgonesque aspect, you hesitate how to open a conversation. Your first attempts are singularly ineffectual, only eliciting a dropping fire of monosyllables. You envy the placidly languid young gentleman opposite, limp as his fast-fading camellia, and seated next to Belle Breloques, who is certain, in racing parlance, to make the running for him. But even that damsel seems preoccupied with her fan, and, despite her aplomb, hesitates to break the icy silence. The two City friends of the host are lost in mute speculation as to the future price of indigo or Ionian Bank shares, while their wives seem to be mentally summarising the exact cost of each other’s toilettes. Their daughters, or somebody else’s daughters, are desperately jerking out monosyllabic responses to feeble remarks concerning the weather, the theatres, operatic débutantes, the people in the Row, æstheticism, and kindred topics from a couple of F.O. men. Little Snapshot, the wit, on the other side of the Gorgon, has tried to lead up to a story, but has found himself, as it were, frozen in the bud. When lo! the butler softly sibillates in your ear the magic word ‘Champagne,’ and as it flows, creaming and frothing, into your glass, a change comes over the spirit of your vision.
The hostess brightens, the host coruscates. The young lady on your right suddenly develops into a charming girl, with becoming appreciation of your pet topics and an astounding aptness for repartee. The Gorgon thaws, and implores Mr. Snapshot, whose jests are popping as briskly as the corks, not to be so dreadfully funny, or he will positively kill her. Belle Breloques can always talk, and now her tongue rattles faster then ever, till the languid one arouses himself like a giant refreshed, and gives her as good as he gets. The City men expatiate in cabalistic language on the merits of some mysterious speculation, the prospective returns from which increase with each fresh bottle. One of their wives is discussing church decoration with a hitherto silent curate, and the other is jabbering botany to a red-faced warrior. The juniors are in full swing, and ripples of silvery laughter rise in accompaniment to the beaded bubbles all round the table.
Gradually, as people drift off from generalities to their own particular line—gastronomy, politics, art, sport, fashion, literature, church matters, theatricals, speculation, scandal, dress, and the like—the scraps of sentences that the ear catches flying about the table present a mosaic somewhat resembling the following: ‘Forster should have sent him to Kilmainham—to see that dear delightful Mr. Irving in—ten-inch armour-plating, but could not steer in a sea-way, so—sat down in the saddle and rammed his spurs into—Petsy Prettitoes and half a dozen girls from the Cruralia, who were—ordained last week by the Bishop of London, when his lordship—said there was no doubt who best deserved the vacant Garter, and declared—a dividend of seven per cent for the—comet year with a bouquet—of sunflowers and lilies on satin, which you should—cover with a light crust—of stiff clay, with a rasper on the further side as—the third story of the hotel overlooking—the Euphrates Valley Railway, which would lead to—the loveliest bit of landscape in the Academy—with the finest hair in the world, and eyes like—a boiled cod’s head and shoulders—cut low at the neck, with a gold shoulder-strap, and—nothing else to speak of before the House except the Bill for—her photographs, which are in all the shop-windows, beside Mrs. Langtry’s—who never ought to have allowed Bismarck to—assist at the consecration of—the Henley course—so the Duke started at once for Aldershot, and reviewed—the two best novels of the season—cut up with tomatoes and a dash of garlic—and was positive he saw them dining together at Richmond on—fourteen brace of birds and five hares in—the loveliest set of embroidered vestments and an altar-cloth worked for—a Conservative majority, which will drive the Government to—take a couple of stalls at Her Majesty’s to hear Carmen—who gave him the last galop, but he—blundered at his first fence and fell—to seventy-two and a half, whilst the preference shares were—all ordered on foreign service and—heard nothing from the Irish members but—Oscar Wilde’s poems bound in red morocco—with a white-satin train and—plenty of body and a good colour—all through riding every morning in—a private box on the upper tier—and that is why Gladstone at once gave orders—for them to be actually shut up together—in the strong room of the Bank of England, with a reserve fund of bullion—from the music in the first act of Patience—equal to that of Job when he said—well, only half a glass, then, since you are so pressing.’ And all this is due to Champagne, that great unloosener not merely of tongues, but, better still, of purse-strings, as is well known to the secretaries of those charitable institutions which set the exhilarating wine flowing earliest at their anniversary dinners.
