M. Duminy’s cellars are remarkably old, and consequently of somewhat irregular construction, being at times rather low and narrow, as well as on different levels. In addition, however, to these venerable vaults, packed with wines of 1869, ’70, ’72, and ’74, M. Duminy has various subterranean adjuncts in other parts of Ay, and is at present engaged in constructing, at the foot of his vineyards up the mountain slope, a noble establishment which includes a vast court, upwards of a thousand square yards in extent, wherein are installed capacious bottle-racks and bottle-washing machines of the latest improved manufacture. Here are also handsome and extensive celliers, together with immense underground cellars, comprising broad and lofty galleries of regular design, the whole being constructed with a completeness and studied regard for convenience which bid fair to render this establishment when finished the model one of the Champagne district.
The house was originally founded so far back as 1814 by M. Taverne-Richard, who was intimately connected with the principal vineyard proprietors of the district. In 1842 this gentleman took his son-in-law, M. Duminy, father of the present proprietor of the establishment, into partnership, and after the retirement of M. Taverne he gave a great impetus to the business, and succeeded in introducing his light and delicate wines into the principal Paris hotels and restaurants. During its two-thirds of a century of existence the house has invariably confined itself to first-class wines, taking particular pride in shipping fully-matured growths. Besides its own large reserve of these, it holds considerable stocks long since disposed of, and now merely awaiting the purchasers’ orders to be shipped.
A few paces beyond M. Duminy’s we come upon an antiquated, decrepit-looking timber house, with its ancient gable bulging over as though the tough oak brackets on which it rests were at last grown weary of supporting their unwieldy burthen. Judging from the quaint carved devices, this house was doubtless the residence of an individual of some importance in the days when the principal European potentates had their commissioners installed at Ay to secure them the finest vintages. Continuing our walk along the same narrow winding street, we soon reach the establishment of Messrs. Bollinger, whose house, founded in the year 1829, claims to be the first among the Ay firms who shipped wines to foreign countries generally, including England, where the brand has long been held in high repute. Messrs. Bollinger, besides being shippers of champagne, are extensive vineyard proprietors, owning vinelands at Bouzy, Verzenay, and Dizy. A vineyard of theirs at the latter place, known as “La Grange,” is said to have formerly belonged to the monks who founded the abbey of St. Peter at Hautvillers, the legend connected with which we have already related.
A couple of large gateways offer access to the spacious courtyard of Messrs. Bollinger’s establishment; a handsome dwelling-house standing on the right, and a small pavilion, in which the offices are installed, while on the left hand and in the rear of the courtyard rises a range of buildings of characteristic aspect, appropriated to the business of the firm. In one of the celliers, which has its open-raftered roof supported by slim metal columns, we found the tirage going on, the gang of workmen engaged in it filling, corking, and lowering into the cellars some 20,000 bottles a day. In one corner of the apartment stood the large cuvée tun—capable of holding some 50 hogsheads—in which the blending of the wine is effected, and in an adjoining cellier women were briskly labelling and wrapping up the completed bottles of champagne. The cellars, constructed some fifty years ago at a cost of nearly £12 the superficial yard, are faced entirely with stone, and are
alike wide and lofty; this is especially the case with four of the more modern galleries excavated in 1848, and each 160 feet in length. Besides the foregoing, Messrs. Bollinger possess other cellars in Ay, where they store their reserve wines both in bottle and in the wood.
On the northern side of Ay, some little distance from the vineyard owned by them, the firm of Pfungst frères & Cie. have their cellars, the entrance to which lies just under the lofty vine-clad ridge. Messrs. Pfungst frères lay themselves out exclusively for the shipment of high-class champagnes, and the excellent growths of the Ay district necessarily form an important element in their carefully-composed cuvées. A considerable portion of their stock consists of reserves of old wine, and we tasted here a variety of samples of finely-matured champagnes of 1868 and ’70, as well as the vintages of 1872 and ’74. All of these wines were of superior quality, combining delicacy and fragrance with dryness, the latter being their especial feature. In addition to their business with England, Messrs. Pfungst frères ship largely to India and the United States.
It is on this side of the town that the fine old Gothic church, dating as far back as the twelfth century, is situated. Many of the mouldings and the capitals of the columns both inside and outside the building are covered over with grape-laden vine-branches, and the sculptured figure of a boy bearing a basket of grapes upon his head surmounts the handsome Renaissance doorway, seemingly to indicate the honour in which the
vine—the source of all the prosperity of the little town—was held both by the mediæval and later architects of the edifice. Nigh to the church stands the old house with its obliterated carved escutcheons, known traditionally as the Vendangeoir of Henri Quatre. This monarch loved the wine of the place almost as well as his favourite vintage of Arbois, and dubbed himself, as we have already mentioned, Seigneur of Ay, whose inhabitants he sought to gratify by confirming the charter which centuries before had been granted to the town.
