Du charmant Sillery les heureuses vendanges!’
Translation by Le Monnoye in the Recueil des Poésies Latines et Françaises, &c., Paris, 1712.
[406] ] The wine of Verzenay, like that of Bouzy, owes much of its reputation to the example set in the eighteenth century by the Abbé Godinot, author of the Mémoire on the cultivation of the grape and the manufacture of wine in the Champagne, published in 1711. He owned extensive vineyards at Verzenay and Bouzy, and his prolonged investigations as to the species of vines and composts best suited to the district led to a complete revolution in the system of culture and mode of pressing the fruit. Bertin du Rocheret praises ‘the excellent wine of Verzenay’ served at the banquets celebrating the conclusion of the assembly of the Etats de Vitry, held at Châlons in 1744.
[407] ] The value in 1880 of a hectare of vines, equivalent to nearly two and a half acres, was as follows:
| At | Verzy, Verzenay, and Sillery, | 35 | to | 38,000 | francs. |
| „ | Bouzy and Ambonnay, | 38 | „ | 40,000 | „ |
| „ | Ay and Dizy, | 40 | „ | 45,000 | „ |
| „ | Hautvillers, | 20 | „ | 22,000 | „ |
| „ | Pierry, | 18,000 | „ | ||
| „ | Cramant and Avize, | 38 | „ | 40,000 | „ |
| „ | Le Mesnil, | 22 | „ | 25,000 | „ |
[408] ] This was far from being the first appearance of the pest in this district. From 1779 to 1785 similar ravages drove the vignerons to despair; but the weather during the last-named year suddenly turning wet and cold, just at the epoch of the butterflies emerging from their chrysalids, the evil disappeared as though by enchantment, an event duly acknowledged by parochial rejoicings and religious processions. In 1816 similar ravages took place; and from 1820 to 1830 the pyrale also caused great devastation.
In the year 1613, Jehan Pussot, the local chronicler of Reims, notes that a large proportion of the vines were destroyed by ‘a great concourse of worms,’ which attacked those plants which the frost had spared. This would establish that either the pyrale or the cochylis was known to the Champenois viticulturists at the commencement of the seventeenth century.
[409] ] In 1873, in all the higher-class vineyards, as much as two francs and a quarter per kilogramme (11 d. per lb.) were paid, being more than treble the average price. And yet the vintage was a most unsatisfactory one, owing to the deficiency of sun and abundance of wet throughout the summer. The market, however, was in great need of wine, and the fruit while still ungathered was bought up at most exorbitant prices by the spéculateurs who supply the vin brut to the Champagne manufacturers.
In 1874 the grapes of the Mountain sold from at 55 to 160 francs the caque, according to the crus; and those of the Côte d’Avize at from 1 f. 25 c. to 2 f. per kilogramme. In 1875, on the other hand, grapes could be obtained at Verzenay, Verzy, Ambonnay, and Bouzy at from 45 to 55 francs the caque; and at Vertus, Le Mesnil, Oger, Grauves, Cramant, and Avize, at from 40 to 70 centimes the kilogramme. By far the highest price secured by the growers for their grapes was in 1880, when the produce of the grand crus of the Mountain fetched as much as 220 f. the caque, equal to nearly 3 f. 60 c. the kilogramme, or about 1 s. 5 d. per lb. It was, as usual, scarcity rather than quality that caused this unprecedented rise in price.
[410] ] M. Mauméné relates in his Traité du Travail des Vins that on one occasion, when, as an experiment, 3000 first-class bottles, which had already been used, were employed anew, only fifteen or sixteen of the whole number resisted the pressure. Moreover, if much broken glass is remelted down and used in the manufacture, the bottles do not turn out well, the second fusion of silicates never having the same cohesion as the first. The glass-works of Sèvres and Bercy, which melt down most of the broken glass collected in Paris, have never been able to supply bottles strong enough for sparkling wines.