Parfume!
Pour tant de bienfaits
Et pour tant d’attraits;
Viens, mon cher ami! Que j’t’hume!’
[194] ] Max Sutaine’s Essai sur le Vin de Champagne.
[195] ] M. Sutaine observes that in 1780 a merchant of Epernay bottled 6000 bottles, and that the importance of this tirage was noted as something remarkable; and this statement has been repeated by every other writer on Champagne. Yet here is a tirage of 6000 bottles taking place thirty-four years previously. The extent of the bottled-wine trade is confirmed by Arthur Young, who in 1787 visited Ay, where M. Lasnier had 60,000 bottles in his cellar, and M. Dorsé from 30,000 to 40,000. Marmontel in 1716 mentions Henin de Navarre’s cellars at Avenay as containing 50,000 bottles of Champagne.
[196] ] E. J. Maumené’s Traité du Travail des Vins, 1874.
[197] ] Ibid. The casse of 1776 has never been forgotten at Epernay; and M. Perrier, in a letter of August 1801, mentions a recent one at Avize amounting to 85 per cent. That of 1842 flooded the cellars throughout the Champagne. Even in 1850 M. Maumené mentions a casse in a Reims cellar which had reached 98 per cent at his visit, and was still continuing.
[198] ] Max Sutaine’s Essai sur le Vin de Champagne. The Abbé Bignon confirms this in a letter of December 20, 1736, to Bertin du Rocheret, respecting wine received from him. ‘The wine sealed with a cipher in red wax,’ he observes, ‘seemed to me very delicate, but having as yet some liqueur which time may get rid of, though after that I am afraid there will not remain much strength. Another, also sealed with red wax, but with a coat-of-arms, seems to have more quality and vinosity, though also very delicate and very light, both sablant perfectly, though they cannot be called mousseux. As to that which is sealed with black, the people who esteem foam would bestow the most magnificent eulogies upon it. It would be difficult to find any that carries this beautiful perfection further. Three spoonfuls at the bottom of the glass is surmounted with the strongest foam to the very brim; on the other hand, I found in it a furious vert, and not much vinosity.’
[199] ] In 1734 he speaks of his mousseux sablant, and forwards to the Marquis de Polignac both mousseux and petillant. In 1736 he offers M. Véron de Bussy his choice of demi-mousseux, bon mousseux, and saute bouchon; and the following year distinguishes his Ay mousseux from his saute bouchon.