ENTRANCE TO LAUTEREN SOHN’S ESTABLISHMENT, MAYENCE. (p. 188)
The trade in German sparkling wines has numerous representatives at Mayence—the sec of St. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, and the birthplace of Gutenberg, whose fame is universal. The pioneer of printing was born in a house at the corner of the Emmerans and Pfandhaus gasse, the site of which is to-day occupied by the residence of three members of the firm of C. Lauteren Sohn, established at Mayence so far back as 1794, and one of the first in Germany to devote itself to the manufacture of sparkling wines. In 1830 the firm profited by an offer made to them by a cellarman who had been for many years in the service of Madame Clicquot at Reims. The Emmerans-gasse, where the chief establishment of the firm is situated, is in the older quarter of Mayence—in the midst of a network of intricate winding streets bordered by picturesque tall gabled houses and edifices of the Spanish type where ornamental oriel windows with quaint supports, medallions, and bas-reliefs of varied design continually catch the eye, and saints look down upon one from almost every corner. Passing under the gateway of the house where Gutenberg was born, and in the rear of
which Lauteren Sohn have their offices, cooperage, and cellars for still wines, we notice on our left hand a tablet commemorating the birth of the inventor of printing in these terms:—
“Gensfleisch House. Family residence of the inventor of the art of printing, John Gensfleisch of Gutenberg, who in the year 1398 was here born. Christian Lauteren has dedicated on the site of the ancient house this memorial to the immortal inventor, Jan. 29, 1825.”
Messrs. Lauteren’s cellars for sparkling wines extend mainly under an old monastery, and comprise a succession of large vaulted galleries connected by narrow passages with arched entrances. Here are stacked some 800,000 bottles of wine in varying conditions of maturity. Messrs. Lauteren bottle their wines in August, instead of fully two months earlier according to the usual practice, in the belief that the system they pursue is more conducive to perfect effervescence, besides being attended with less breakage, owing to the newly-bottled wine escaping the heat of the summer. All the arrangements at this establishment are very complete. There is a place for everything, and everything is to be found in its place. Adjoining the courtyard, where new bottles are stacked beneath open ornamental sheds, are the tasting-room and the apartment where the operations of disgorging, dosing, and re-corking are performed. The liqueur added by the firm to their sparkling wines is kept in bottle from three to five years before being used. In the tasting-room we were shown a variety of sparkling hocks and moselles, the former with all the distinguishing characteristics of fine Rhine wine, the older samples having gained considerably in softness. A dry Cabinet specimen submitted to us exhibited a fine bouquet and much delicacy of flavour. The moselles we found particularly interesting, made as they were of genuine wines from some of the best vineyards of the Moselle district.
The largest German sparkling wine establishment is at Hochheim, which, although, situated on the banks of the Main, and several miles distant from its confluence with the Rhine, has curiously enough supplied us with a generic name under which we inconsistently class the entire produce of the Rhine
vineyards. Behind the Hochheim railway station there rises a long low slope, planted from base to summit with vines, a portion of which are screened on the north by a plain-looking church and a weather-stained deanery. The vines thus sheltered yield the famous Dom Dechanei, the finest Hochheimer known. Some short distance off in a westerly direction are the extensive premises of the Hochheim Sparkling Wine Association, whose brands are well known in England. The firm of Burgeff and Co., whose business the association acquired in 1858 and subsequently considerably extended, was founded in 1837. At this establishment all the arrangements are of the most perfect character. The bottles are cleaned by a machine employing ten persons, and turning out several thousand bottles a day. All the bottles moreover, before being used, have their strength tested by an ingenious apparatus which subjects them to three or four times the pressure they are likely to undergo when filled with wine. Pumps, bottle-washing machine, and the revolving casks in which the sugar is dissolved for the liqueur, are all moved by steam, and the association even manufactures the gas used for lighting up the establishment. We tasted here several sparkling hocks distinguished by their high flavour and refinement, with sparkling moselles vintaged in the best localities and equally excellent in quality.
Sparkling hocks and moselles are made by Messrs. Stock and Sons at Creuznach, a favourite watering-place in the romantic Nahe valley, noted for the picturesque porphyry cliffs which occasionally rise precipitously at the river’s edge. Creuznach, where a capital wine is vintaged, on the southern slopes of the Schlossberg, is at no great distance from Bingen. Messrs. Stock and Sons’ establishment dates from 1862, and their sparkling wines are mainly made from white grapes, only about one-eighth of white wine from black grapes entering into their composition. The latter is vintaged at Ingelheim, the grapes being pressed under the firm’s own superintendence, and only the must resulting from the first squeeze of the press being used. The wine from riesling grapes is usually from the
Rhine, and with it is mingled a certain quantity of wine vintaged on the Hessian plain. The vintage generally occurs at the end of October, and the firm remove the new wine to their cellars at Creuznach early in the ensuing spring, and bottle it in the May or June following. They make both dry and sweet varieties of sparkling wines, and their principal markets are England, Germany, the East and West Indies, the United States, and Australia.
