A History of Champagne, with Notes on the Other Sparkling Wines of France. Henry Vizetelly
damned, but filled with the sentiments of great penitence, with which he received the sacraments and edified the company, who, though little given to be edified, disapproved of such a cruel experiment.’[75] Of course nothing was done, or even said, to the duke.
‘Sire,’ said the president of a deputation bringing specimens of the various productions of Reims to the Grand Monarque when he visited the city in 1666, ‘we offer you our wine, our pears, our gingerbread, our biscuits, and our hearts;’ and Louis, who was a noted lover of the good things of this life, answered, turning to his suite, ‘There, gentlemen, that is just the kind of speech I like.’ To this day Reims manufactures by the myriad the crisp finger-shaped sponge-cakes called ‘biscuits de Reims,’ which the French delight to dip in their wine; juvenile France still eagerly devours its pain d’épice, and the city sends forth far and wide the baked pears which have obtained so enviable a reputation. But the production of such wine as that offered to the king has long since almost ceased, while its fame has been eclipsed tenfold by wine of a far more delicious kind, the origin and rise of which has now to be recounted. This is the sparkling wine of Champagne, which has been fitly compared to one of those younger sons of good family, who, after a brilliant and rapid career, achieve a position far eclipsing that of their elder brethren, whose fame becomes merged in theirs.[76]
III.
INVENTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF SPARKLING CHAMPAGNE.
The ancients acquainted with sparkling wines—Tendency of Champagne wines to effervesce noted at an early period—Obscurity enveloping the discovery of what we now know as sparkling Champagne—The Royal Abbey of Hautvillers—Legend of its foundation by St. Nivard and St. Berchier—Its territorial possessions and vineyards—The monks the great viticulturists of the Middle Ages—Dom Perignon—He marries wines differing in character—His discovery of sparkling white wine—He is the first to use corks to bottles—His secret for clearing the wine revealed only to his successors Frère Philippe and Dom Grossart—Result of Dom Perignon’s discoveries—The wine of Hautvillers sold at 1000 livres the queue—Dom Perignon’s memorial in the Abbey-Church—Wine flavoured with peaches—The effervescence ascribed to drugs, to the period of the moon, and to the action of the sap in the vine—The fame of sparkling wine rapidly spreads—The Vin de Perignon makes its appearance at the Court of the Grand Monarque—Is welcomed by the young courtiers—It figures at the suppers of Anet and Chantilly, and at the orgies of the Temple and the Palais Royal—The rapturous strophes of Chaulieu and Rousseau—Frederick William I. and the Berlin Academicians—Augustus the Strong and the page who pilfered his Champagne—Horror of the old-fashioned gourmets at the innovation—Bertin du Rocheret and the Marshal d’Artagnan—System of wine-making in the Champagne early in the eighteenth century—Bottling of the wine in flasks—Icing Champagne with the corks loosened.
A SYBARITE of our day has remarked that the life of the ancient Greeks would have approached the perfection of earthly existence had they only been acquainted with sparkling Champagne. As, however, amongst the nations of antiquity the newly-made wine was sometimes allowed to continue its fermentation in close vessels, it may be conceived that when freshly drawn it occasionally possessed a certain degree of briskness from the retained carbonic acid gas. [77] Virgil’s expression,
‘Ille impiger hausit
Spumantem pateram,’[78]
demonstrates that the Romans—whose patera, by the way, closely resembled the modern champagne-glass—were familiar with frothy and sparkling wines, although they do not seem to have intentionally sought the means of preserving them in this condition.[79]
The early vintagers of the Champagne can hardly have helped noting the natural tendency of their wine to effervesce, the difficulty of entirely overcoming which is exemplified in the precautions invariably taken for the production of Sillery sec; indeed tradition claims for certain growths of the Marne, from a period of remote antiquity, a disposition to froth and sparkle.[80] Local writers profess to recognise in the property ascribed by Henry of Andelys to the wine of Chalons, of causing both the stomach and the heels to swell,[81] a reference to this peculiarity.[82] The learned Baccius, physician to Pope Sixtus V., writing at the close of the sixteenth century of the wines of France, mentions those ‘which bubble out of the glass, and which flatter the smell as much as the taste,’[83] though he does not refer to any wine of the Champagne by name. An anonymous author, some eighty years later,[84] condemns the growing partiality for the ‘great vert which certain debauchees esteem so highly’ in Champagne wines, and denounces ‘that kind of wine which is always in a fury, and which boils without ceasing in its vessel.’ Still he seems to refer to wine in casks, which lost these tumultuous properties after Easter. Necessity being the mother of invention, the inhabitants of the province had in the sixteenth century already devised and put in practice a method of allaying fermentation, and obtaining a settled wine within four-and-twenty hours, by filling a vessel with ‘small chips of the wood called in French sayette,’ and pouring the wine over them.[85]
With all this, a conscientious writer candidly acknowledges that, despite minute and painstaking researches, he cannot tell when what is now known as sparkling Champagne first made its appearance. The most ancient references to it of a positive character that he could discover are contained in the poems of Grenan and Coffin, printed in 1711 and 1712; yet its invention certainly dates prior to that epoch,[86] and earlier poets have also praised it. It seems most probable that the tendency to effervescence already noted became even more marked in the strong-bodied gray and ‘partridge-eye’ wines, first made from red grapes about 1670, than in the yellowish wine previously produced, like that of Ay, from white grapes,[87] and recommended, from its deficiency in body, to be drunk off within the year.[88] These new wines, when in a quasi-effervescent state prior to the month of March, offered a novel attraction to palates dulled by the potent vintages of Burgundy and Southern France;[89] and their reputation quickly spread, though some old gourmets might have complained, with St. Evremond, of the taste introduced by faux delicats.[90] They must have been merely cremant wines—for glass-bottle making was in its infancy, and corks as yet unknown[91]—and doubtless resembled the present wines of Condrieu, which sparkle in the glass on being poured out, during their first and second years, but with age acquire the characteristics of a full-bodied still wine. The difficulty of regulating their effervescence in those pre-scientific days must have led to frequent and serious disappointments. The hour, however, came, and with it the man.
GATEWAY OF THE ABBEY OF HAUTVILLERS.
THE CHURCH OF HAUTVILLERS, WITH THE REMAINS OF THE ABBEY.
In the year 1670, among the sunny vineyard slopes rising from the poplar-fringed Marne, there stood in all its pride the famous royal Abbey of St. Peter at Hautvillers. Its foundation, of remote antiquity, was hallowed by saintly legend. Tradition said that about the middle of the seventh century St. Nivard, Bishop of Reims, and his godson, St. Berchier, were seeking a suitable spot for the erection of a monastery on the banks of the river. The way was long, the day was warm, and the saints but mortal. Weary and faint, they sat down to rest at a spot identified by tradition with a vineyard at Dizy, to-day belonging to Messrs. Bollinger, but at that time forming part of the forest of the Marne. St. Nivard fell asleep, with