[414] ] In some establishments tables made after the same fashion replace the racks, whilst another plan of coaxing the sediment down towards the cork is to stack the bottles at the outset in double rows, with their necks inclining downwards, laths placed between each layer maintaining them in their position. This method effects a great economy of time and space, the bottles requiring on an average only a few days on the racks prior to shipment to thoroughly complete the operation.
[415] ] As the real origin of this system is a matter which has excited no small amount of controversy, and as several claimants to the honour of its discovery have had their names put forward by different writers, the following extracts from a letter from M. Alfred Werlé, of the house founded by Madame Clicquot, may serve to render honour where it is really due: ‘Already, in 1806 (I am unable to speak of an earlier period with absolute certainty), the bottles were placed on tables, like to-day, with their heads downwards; each bottle being taken out of its hole, raised in the air, and shaken with the hand, so as to cause the cream of tartar and the deposit it contained to fall upon the cork, the holes being round, and the bottles placed straight downwards. This lasted till 1818, when a man named Müller, an employé of Madame Clicquot, suggested to her that the bottles should be left in the table whilst being shaken, and that the holes should be cut obliquely, so that the bottles might remain inclined. He maintained that one would thus obtain a wine of far greater limpidity. The trial was made, and every day, with a view of keeping this new process a secret, Müller and Madame Clicquot shut themselves up alone in the cellars, and shook the bottles unperceived. In 1821 Müller was assisted by a workman named Mathieu Binder; and in 1823 or 1824, Madame Clicquot having purchased from M. Morizet a cuvée of wine which was shaken and prepared in this merchant’s cellars, one of his employés named Thomassin became acquainted with the new method, and resolved to practise it; since when it gradually spread, and eventually was generally adopted. M. Werlé senior recollects perfectly well that when he arrived at Madame Clicquot’s in 1821 it was only at her establishment that the bottles were shaken in this manner. The practice of shaking the bottles was a very old one, and no more invented by Müller than by Thomassin; but the former certainly effected great improvements by employing the system of oblique holes, and shaking the bottles in the table and not in the air.’
[416] ] M. Mauméné has pointed out that if a solution of tannin or alum has been added to the cuvée at the time of fining, the deposit is certain to be granular and non-adherent. But he justly remarks that these solutions, especially the latter, though doing good to the wine, have a precisely opposite effect upon the human stomach that consumes it.
[417] ] The Regiment de Champagne was one of the most famous of the vieux corps, and claimed to be the second oldest regiment in the French army.
[418] ] The system of dosing the wine does not appear to have been practised prior to the present century.
[419] ] The high favour in which sugar-candy is held for mixing with this Champagne liqueur dates from the latter part of the last century, when there was a perfect mania for everything in a crystallised form, as being the height of condensation and purity. The competition between the first houses of Reims and Epernay to secure the largest and finest crystals was very keen, and it was considered disgraceful for any firm of standing to make use of sugar-candy of a yellow tinge or in small crystals. Latterly it has been demonstrated that these expensive crystals contain more water and less saccharine matter than an equal weight of loaf-sugar, and that they sometimes contain a glutinous element capable of imparting an insipid flavour to the wine.—Mauméné’s Traité du Travail des Vins.
[420] ] Instances have been known of additions of 25 and even 30 per cent of liqueur, though the average may be taken to be for Germany and France, 15 to 18 per cent; America, 10 to 15 per cent; England, 2 to 6 per cent.
[421] ] The corrosive action of rust upon the wire has led to several attempts to replace it, and some Champagne houses have adopted more or less ingenious appliances of metal, &c. Tinned iron wire has been found to resist rust, but is too expensive; whilst an experiment with galvanised wire resulted in serious illness amongst the workmen handling it, owing to the poisonous fumes evolved by the zinc when acted upon by the acids of the wine.
[422] ] M. Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné de l’Architecture du Vme au XVIme Siècle.
[423] ] An engraving of this tower, removed while the present work was passing through the press, will be found on p. [50].