Some idea of the complex character of so vast an establishment as that of Messrs. Moët and Chandon may be gathered from a mere enumeration of their staff, which, in addition to twenty clerks and 350 cellarmen proper, includes numerous agrafe-makers and corkcutters, packers and carters, wheelwrights and saddlers, carpenters, masons, slaters and tilers, tinmen, firemen, needlewomen, &c., while the inventory of objects used by this formidable array of workpeople comprises no fewer than 1,500 distinct heads. A medical man attached to the establishment gives gratuitous advice to all those employed, and a chemist dispenses drugs and medicines without charge. While suffering from illness the men receive half-pay, but should they be laid up by an accident met with in the course of their work full salary is invariably awarded to them. As may be supposed, so vast an establishment as this is not without a provision for those past work, and all the old hands receive liberal pensions from the firm upon retiring. Every year Messrs. Moët and Chandon give a banquet or a ball to the people in their employ—usually after the bottling of the wine is completed—when the hall in which the entertainment takes place is handsomely decorated and illuminated with myriads of coloured lamps.
It is needless to particularise Messrs. Moët and Chandon’s wines, which are familiar to all drinkers of champagne. Their famous “star” brand is known in all societies, figures equally at clubs and mess-tables, at garden parties and picnics, dinners and soirées, and has its place in hotel cartes all over the world. One of the best proofs of the wine’s universal popularity is found in the circumstance that as many as 1,000 visitors from all parts of the world come annually to Epernay and make the tour of Messrs. Moët and Chandon’s spacious cellars.
A little beyond Messrs. Moët and Chandon’s, in the broad Rue du Commerce, we encounter a heavy, ornate, pretentious-looking château, the residence of M. Perrier-Jouët, which presents a striking contrast to the almost mean-looking premises opposite,
where the business of the firm is carried on. M. Perrier-Jouët is the fortunate grandson of the Sieur Perrier Fissier, a little Epernay grocer, who some eighty years or so ago used to supply corks, candles, and string to the firm of Moët and Co., and who, when the profits arising from this connection warranted his doing so, discarded his grocer’s sleeves and apron and blossomed forth as a competitor in the champagne trade. Perrier-Jouët and Co.’s offices are situated on the left-hand side of a courtyard surrounded by low buildings, which serve as celliers, store-houses, packing-rooms, and the like. From an inner courtyard where piles of bottles are stacked under open sheds, the cellars themselves are reached. Previous to descending into these we passed through the various buildings, in one of which a party of men were engaged in disgorging and preparing wine for shipment. In another we noticed one of those heavy beam presses for pressing the grapes which the more intelligent manufacturers regard as obsolete, while in a third was the cuvée vat, holding no more than 2,200 gallons. In making their cuvée the firm commonly mix one part of old wine to three parts of new. An indifferent vintage, however, necessitates the admixture of a larger proportion of the older growth. The cellars, like all the more ancient ones at Epernay, are somewhat straggling and irregular, still they are remarkably cool, and on the lower floor remarkably damp as well. This, however, would appear to be no disadvantage, as the breakage in them is calculated never to exceed 2½ per cent.
The firm have no less than five qualities of champagne, and at one of the recent champagne competitions at London, where the experts engaged had no means of identifying the brands submitted to their judgment, Messrs. Perrier-Jouët’s First Quality got classed below a cheaper wine of their neighbours Messrs. Pol Roger and Co., and very considerably below the Extra Sec of Messrs. Périnet et fils, and inferior even to a wine of De Venoge’s, the great Epernay manufacturer of common class champagnes.
Champagne establishments, combined with the handsome residences of the manufacturers, line both sides of the long,
imposing Rue du Commerce at Epernay. On the left hand is a succession of fine châteaux, commencing with one belonging to M. Auban Moët, whose terraced gardens overlook the valley of the Marne, and command views of the vine-clad heights of Cumières, Hautvillers, Ay, and Mareuil, and the more distant slopes of Ambonnay and Bouzy, while on the other side of the famous Epernay thoroughfare we encounter beyond the establishments of Messrs. Moët and Chandon and Perrier-Jouët the ornate monumental façade which the firm of Piper and Co.—of whom Messrs. Kunkelmann and Co. are to-day the successors—raised some years since above their extensive cellars. A little in the rear of the Rue du Commerce is the well-ordered establishment of Messrs. Roussillon and Co., the extension of whose business of late has necessitated their removal to these capacious premises. The wines of the firm enjoy a high reputation in England, France, and Russia, and have secured favourable recognition at the Paris, Philadelphia, and other Exhibitions. Their stock includes considerable quantities of the older vintages, it being a rule of the house never to ship crude young wines. It is on their dry varieties that Messrs. Roussillon and Co. especially pride themselves, and some of the fine wine of 1874 that was here shown to us was as remarkable for its delicacy as for its fragrance.
COURTYARD OF MESSRS. POL ROGER’S ESTABLISHMENT AT EPERNAY. (p. 115)
In a side street at the farther end of the Rue du Commerce stands a château of red brick, overlooking on the one side an extensive pleasure-garden, and on the other a spacious courtyard, bounded by celliers, stables, and bottle-sheds, all of modern construction and on a most extensive scale. These form the establishment of Messrs. Pol Roger and Co., settled for many years at Epernay, and known throughout the Champagne for their large purchases at the epoch of the vintage. From the knowledge they possess of the best crûs, and their relations with the leading vineyard proprietors, they are enabled whenever the wine is good to acquire large stocks of it. Having bottled a considerable quantity of the fine wine of 1874, they resolved to profit by the exceptional quality of this vintage to commence shipping champagne to England, where their agents,