and nine inches long, which, being stuck in the ground, holds down the main stock, while the laborer separates and covers the new shoot. They leave two buds above the ground. When the vine has shot up high enough, they stick it with split sticks of oak, from an inch to an inch and a half square, and four feet long, and tie the vine to its stick with straw. These sticks cost two florins the hundred, and will last forty years. An arpent, one year with another, in the fine vineyards, gives twelve pieces, and in the inferior vineyards twenty-five pieces, of two hundred bottles each. An arpent of the first quality sells for three thousand florins, and there have been instances of seven thousand two hundred florins. The arpent contains one hundred verges, of twenty-two pieds square. The arpent of inferior quality sells at one thousand florins. They plant the vines in a hole about a foot deep, and fill that hole with good mould, to make the plant take. Otherwise it would perish. Afterwards, if ever they put dung, it is very little. During wheat harvest there is a month or six weeks that nothing is done in the vine-yard, that is to say, from the 1st of August to the beginning of vintage. The vintage commences early in September, and lasts a month. A day's work of a laborer in the busiest season is twenty sous, and he feeds himself: in the least busy season it is fifteen sous. Corn lands are rented from four florins to twenty-four; but vine lands are never rented. The three façons (or workings) of an arpent cost fifteen florins. The whole year's expense of an arpent is worth one hundred florins.
Grapes.—The bulk of their grapes are purple, which they prefer for making even white wine. They press them very lightly, without treading or permitting them to ferment at all, for about an hour; so that it is the beginning of the running only which makes the bright wine. What follows the beginning is of a straw color, and therefore not placed on a level with the first. The last part of the juice, produced by strong pressure, is red and ordinary. They choose the bunches with as much care, to make wine of the very first quality, as if to eat. Not above one-eighth of the whole grapes will do for this purpose. The white grape, though not so fine for wine as the red, when the red can be produced, and more liable to rot in a moist season, yet grows better if the soil be excessively poor, and therefore in such a soil is preferred, or rather, is used of necessity, because there the red would not grow at all.
Wine.—The white wines are either mousseux, sparkling, or non-mousseux, still. The sparkling are little drunk in France, but are almost alone known and drunk in foreign countries. This makes so great a demand, and so certain a one, that it is the dearest by about an eighth, and therefore they endeavor to make all sparkling if they can. This is done by bottling in the spring, from the beginning of March till June. If it succeeds, they lose abundance of bottles, from one-tenth to one-third. This is another cause increasing the price. To make the still wine, they bottle in September. This is only done when they know from some circumstance that the wine will not be sparkling. So if the spring bottling fails to make a sparkling wine, they decant it into other bottles in the fall, and it then makes the very best still wine. In this operation, it loses from one-tenth to one-twentieth by sediment. They let it stand in the bottles in this case forty-eight hours, with only a napkin spread over their mouths, but no cork. The best sparkling wine, decanted in this manner, makes the best still wine, and which will keep much longer than that originally made still by being bottled in September. The sparkling wines lose their briskness the older they are, but they gain in quality with age to a certain length. These wines are in perfection from two to ten years old, and will even be very good to fifteen. 1766 was the best year ever known. 1775 and 1776 next to that. 1783 is the last good year, and that not to be compared with those. These wines stand icing very well.
Aij. M. Dorsay makes one thousand and one hundred pieces, which sell, as soon as made, at three hundred florins, and in good years four hundred florins, in the cask. I paid in his cellar, to M. Louis, his homme d'affaires, for the remains of the year 1783, three florins ten sous the bottle. Sparkling Champagne, of the same degree of excellence, would have cost four florins, (the piece and demiqueue are the same; the feuillette is one hundred bottles.) M. le Duc makes four hundred to five hundred pieces. M. de Villermont, three hundred pieces. M. Janson, two hundred and fifty pieces. All of the first quality, red and white in equal quantities.
Auvillaij. The Benedictine monks make one thousand pieces, red and white, but three-fourths red, both of the first quality. The king's table is supplied by them. This enables them to sell at five hundred and fifty florins the piece. Though their white is hardly as good as Dorsay's, their red is the best. L'Abbatiale, belonging to the bishop of the place, makes one thousand to twelve hundred pieces, red and white, three-fourths red, at four hundred to five hundred and fifty florins, because neighbors to the monks.
Cumieres is all of the second quality, both red and white, at one hundred and fifty to two hundred florins the piece.
Epernay. Madame Jermont makes two hundred pieces at three hundred florins. M. Patelaine, one hundred and fifty pieces. M. Mare, two hundred pieces. M. Chertems, sixty pieces. M. Lauchay, fifty pieces. M. Cousin (Aubergiste de l'hôtel de Róhan à Epernay), one hundred pieces. M. Pierrot, one hundred pieces. Les Chanoines regulieres d'Epernay, two hundred pieces. Mesdames les Ursulines religieuses, one hundred pieces. M. Gilette, two hundred pieces. All of the first quality; red and white in equal quantities.
Pierrij. M. Casotte makes five hundred pieces. M. de la Motte, three hundred pieces. M. de Failli, three hundred pieces. I tasted his wine of 1779, one of the good years. It was fine, though not equal to that of M. Dorsay, of 1783. He sells it at two florins ten sous to merchants, and three florins to individuals. Les Seminaristes, one hundred and fifty pieces. M. Hoquart, two hundred pieces. All of the first quality; white and red in equal quantities.
At Cramont, also, there are some wines of the first quality made. At Avisi also, and Aucy, Le Meni, Mareuil, Verzis-Verzenni. This last place belongs to the Marquis de Sillery. The wines are carried to Sillery, and there stored, whence they are called Vins de Sillery, though not made at Sillery.
All these wines of Epernay and Pierrij sell almost as dear as M. Dorsay's, their quality being nearly the same. There are many small proprietors who might make wine of the first quality, if they would cull their grapes, but they are too poor for this. Therefore, the proprietors before named, whose names are established, buy of the poorer ones the right to cull their vineyards, by which means they increase their quantity, as they find about one-third of the grapes will make wines of the first quality.