VINES AND VINEYARDS. 251 



wine cellars, which are very extensive, and all subterranean, consisting of 

 three under-ground stores, one beneath another, all mined out of the lime- 

 stone rock. The wine, which has received the last attentions which it re- 

 quires, and is ready for expediting to the consumer, is packed in large 

 square masses, bottle above bottle, and side by side, with no other pre- 

 caution to keep them steady than a lath passing along between the necks 

 of one layer and the butts of the next layer above. They generally send 

 the wine to the consumer at the age of three and four years, but after the 

 first winter it is all put in bottle. The stock, therefore, appears immense, 

 and indeed it is very large, for not only are different qualities required, but 

 also different descriptions to suit the varying tastes of their customers in 

 England, America, and Russia, to which countries Messrs. Ruinart make 

 their chief exports. A gentleman, with whom I travelled, told me that he 

 could buy very good sound Champagne at Chalons for two francs a bottle, 

 and was then going to purchase 100 bottles at that price, but respectable 

 wine merchants never send any to England under three francs a bottle. 

 "Whatsis sent to England is more spirituous, and froths more strongly than 

 what is sold for domestic consumption. The greatest and most minute at- 

 tentions are necessary in preparing Champagne. The casks in which it 

 ferments, after running from the press, are previously sulphured to prevent 

 the fermentation from proceeding to too great a length. It is twice clarified 

 during the winter, and in the month of March, before the return of spring 

 has renewed the fermentation, it is bottled off. When in this state the 

 bottles are placed in frames, diagonally, with their heads downwards. The 

 lees are thus collected in the neck of the bottle, but they do not consider it 

 necessary to uncork the bottles as soon as the wine is perfectly clear, nor is 

 it considered that there is any danger of the wine spoiling if the return of 

 warm weather should cause a re-commencement of the fermentation, and re- 

 mix the lees through the wine. On the contrary, they sometimes allow the 

 lees to remain to ripen, as they term it, longer than usual. The wine, in 

 general, remains in this state till the following winter, each bottle is then 

 placed in a frame, and carefully uncorked. The contents of the neck of 

 the bottle are emptied. It is filled up from another bottle of the same wine, 

 and being re-corked, only now requires age to give it all the perfection it is 

 capable of. It of course often happens, that the wine has either under- 

 gone less than the usual fermentation, or being stronger than usual requires 

 a greater fermentation before being put into bottles ; and it consequently 

 happens that the fermentation in the bottles is greater than they can bear, 

 and that a large proportion of them burst during the first summer. The 

 floors of the wine cellars are all covered with grooves, sloping to a gutter, 

 by which the wine which has burst the bottles is conveyed to a cistern in 

 the floor, and, as there is the most perfect cleanliness observed, a part of 

 the wine is thus sometimes saved." 



With this extract we must close our notice of Mr. Busby's work, 

 giving him all the merit due for a very clear, straightforward account 

 of the origin of a very considerable article of our consumption. What 

 the Scotch- Spaniard, Don Jacobo Gordon, or the Spanish-Irishman, 

 Don Juan Langan, and the numerous friends Mr. Busby picked up 

 on his route, will say to his revealing the secrets of the prison-house, 

 it is not for us to conjecture. We can only, in common with the 

 rest of our sherry-suffering brethren, return him our grateful thanks 

 for the information, and sincerely hope that none who read his book 

 will use their newly-acquired knowledge rashly. 



