A History of Champagne, with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of France. Henry Vizetelly
both from the Montagne de Reims and the Rivière de Marne, through the merchants who make this their special trade—a trade sorely interrupted by the incursions of Montal and his Spaniards in 1657 and 1658. Guy Patin too, writing in 1666, mentions the fact of Louis XIV. making a present to Charles II. of England of two hundred pièces of excellent wine—Champagne, Burgundy, and Hermitage; and three years later is fain himself to exclaim, ‘Vive le pain de Gonesse, vive le bon vin de Paris, de Bourgogne, de Champagne!’ whilst Tavernier the traveller did his best to spread the fame of the Champagne wine by presenting specimens to all the sovereigns whom he had the honour of saluting during his journeyings abroad.[64]
It was about the eighth decade of this century, when the renown of the Grand Monarque was yet at its apogee, and when for many years the soil of the province had not been profaned by the foot of an invader, that the still wine of the Champagne attained its final point of perfection. The Roi Soleil himself, we are assured by St. Simon, never drank any other wine in his life till about 1692, when his physician, the austere Fagon, condemned his debilitated stomach to well-watered Burgundy, so old that it was almost tasteless, and the king consoled himself with laughing at the wry faces pulled by foreign nobles who sought and obtained the honour of tasting his especial tipple.[65] An anonymous Mémoire[66] written early in the ensuing century (1718) states that, although their red wine had long before been made with greater care and cleanliness than any other wine in the kingdom, the Champenois had only studied to produce a gray, and indeed almost white, wine, within the preceding fifty years. This would place about 1670 the first introduction of the new colourless wine, obtained by gathering grapes of the black variety with the utmost care at early dawn, and ceasing the vintage at nine or ten in the morning, unless the day were cloudy. Despite these precautions a rosy tinge—compared to that lent by a dying sunset to the waters of a clear stream—was often communicated to the wine, and led to the term ‘partridge’s eye’ being applied to it. St. Evremond, the epicurean Frenchman—who emigrated to the gay court of Charles II. at Whitehall to escape the gloomy cell designed for him in the Bastille—and the mentor of the Count de Grammont, writing from London about 1674, to his brother ‘profès dans l’ordre des coteaux,’[67] the Count d’Olonne, then undergoing on his part a species of exile at Orleans for having suffered his tongue to wag a little too freely at court, says: ‘Do not spare any expense to get Champagne wines, even if you are at two hundred leagues from Paris. Those of Burgundy have lost their credit amongst men of taste, and barely retain a remnant of their former reputation amongst dealers. There is no province which furnishes excellent wines for all seasons but Champagne. It supplies us with the wines of Ay, Avenay, and Hautvillers, up to the spring; Taissy, Sillery, Verzenai, for the rest of the year.’[68] ‘The wines of the Champagne,’ elsewhere remarks this renowned gourmet, ‘are the best. Do not keep those of Ay too long; do not begin those of Reims too soon. Cold weather preserves the spirit of the River wines, hot removes the goût de terroir from those of the Mountain.’ Writing also in 1701, he alludes to the care with which the Sillery wines were made forty years before.
Such a distinction of seasons would imply that wine, instead of being kept, was drunk within a few months of its manufacture; though this, except in the case of wine made as ‘tocane,’ which could not be kept, would appear to be a matter rather of taste than necessity. This custom of drinking it before fermentation was achieved, and also the natural tendency of the wine of this particular region to effervesce—a tendency since taken such signal advantage of by the manufacturers of sparkling Champagne—are treated of in a work of the period,[69] the author of which, after noting the excellence of certain growths of Burgundy, goes on to say that, ‘If the vintage in the Champagne is a successful one, it is thither that the shrewd and dainty hasten. There is not,’ continues he, ‘in the world a drink more noble and more delicious; and it is now become so highly fashionable that, with the exception of those growths drawn from that fertile and agreeable district which we call in general parlance that of Reims, and particularly from St. Thierry, Verzenay, Ay, and different spots of the Mountain, all others are looked upon by the dainty as little better than poor stuff and trash, which they will not even hear spoken of.’ He extols the admirable sève of the Reims wine, its delicious flavour, and its perfume, which with ludicrous hyperbole he pronounces capable of bringing the dead to life. Burgundy and Champagne, he says, are both good, but the first rank belongs to the latter, ‘when it has not that tartness which some debauchees esteem so highly, when it clears itself promptly, and only works as much as the natural strength of the wine allows; for it does not do to trust so much to that kind of wine which is always in a fury, and boils without intermission in its vessel.’
Such wine, he maintains, is quite done for by the time Easter is over, and only retains of its former fire a crude tartness very unpleasant and very indigestible, which is apt to affect the chest of those who drink it. He recommends that Champagne should be drunk at least six months after the end of the year, and that the grayest wines should always be chosen as going down more smoothly and clogging the stomach less, since, however good the red wine may be as regards body, from its longer cuvaison, it is never so delicate, nor does it digest so promptly, as the others. He concludes, therefore, that it is better to drink old wine, or at any rate what then passed as old wine, as long as one can, in order not to have to turn too soon to the new ones, ‘which are veritable head-splitters, and from their potency capable of deranging the strongest constitutions.’ Above all, he urges abstinence from such ‘artificial mummeries’ as the use of ice, ‘the most pernicious of all inventions’ and the enemy of wine, though at that time, he admits, very fashionable, especially amongst certain ‘obstreperous voluptuaries,’ ‘who maintain that the wine of Reims is never more delicious than when it is drunk with ice, and that this admirable beverage derives especial charms from this fatal novelty.’ Ice, he holds, not only dispels the spirit and diminishes the flavour, sève, and colour of the wine, but is most pernicious and deadly to the drinker, causing ‘colics, shiverings, horrible convulsions, and sudden weakness, so that frequently death has crowned the most magnificent debauches, and turned a place of joy and mirth into a sepulchre.’ Wherefore let all drinkers of Champagne frappé beware.
Here we have ample proof of the popularity of the wines of the Champagne, a popularity erroneously said to be due in some measure to the fact that both the Chancellor le Tellier, father of Louvois, and Colbert, the energetic comptroller-general of the state finances, and son of a wool-merchant of Reims, possessed large vineyards in the province.[70] Lafontaine, who was born in the neighbourhood, declared his preference for Reims above all cities, on account of the Sainte Ampoule, its good wine, and the abundance of other charming objects;[71] and Boileau, writing in 1674, depicts an ignorant churchman, whose library consisted of a score of well-filled hogsheads, as being fully aware of the particular vineyard at Reims over which the community he belonged to held a mortgage.[72] James II. of England was particularly partial to the wine of the Champagne. When the quinquennial assembly of the clergy was held in 1700, at the Château of St. Germain-en-Laye, where he was residing, Charles Maurice le Tellier, brother to Louvois and Archbishop of Reims, who presided, ‘kept a grand table, and had some Champagne wine that was highly praised. The King of England, who rarely drank any other, heard of it, and sent to ask some of the archbishop, who sent him six bottles. Some time afterwards the king, who found the wine very good, sent to beg him to send some more. The archbishop, more avaricious of his wine than of his money, answered curtly that his wine was not mad, and therefore did not run about the streets, and did not send him any.’[73] Du Chesne, who, when Fagon became medical attendant to Louis XIV., succeeded him as physician to the ‘fils de France,’ and who died at Versailles in 1707, aged ninety-one, in perfect health, ascribed his longevity to his habit of eating a salad every night at supper, and drinking only Champagne, a régime which he recommended to all.[74]
The wine was nevertheless the indirect cause of the death of the poet Santeuil, who, although a canon of St. Victor, was very much fonder of Champagne and of sundry other good things than he ought to have been. A wit and a bon vivant, he was a great favourite of the Duc de Bourbon, son of the Prince de Condé, whom he accompanied in the summer of 1697 to Dijon. ‘One evening at supper the duke amused himself with plying Santeuil with Champagne, and going on from joke to joke, he thought it funny to empty his snuff-box into a goblet of wine, and make Santeuil drink it, in order to see what would happen. He was pretty