304 NOTICES OF THE MEETINGS [April 29, 
been suggested by our miserable attempt to imitate it with green 
gooseberries. The fact is that a more delicious fruit than the Cham- 
pagne grape can scarcely be found, or more highly saccharine. 
The finest wines are made by the most skilful merchants, who 
combine the growth of vineyards which differ in aspect, soil, and 
variety of the vines. The most famous of the vineyards, those of 
Ay, would yield for such mixture, one of the most valuable sorts 
to give quality to wine, but which alone would be far inferior to that 
which can be obtained by a judicious use of it in combination, by 
which flavour and strength are obtained, suited to the different mar- 
kets; strong and full flavoured for England, sweet and highly effer- 
vescent for Russia, &c. Wine is impure when it is coloured, 
drugged, and flavoured artificially : admixtures of gooseberrry and 
rhubarb juices are unknown in Champagne. 
The wine when pressed is not vatted in large quantities, but 
placed in casks which have been sulphured, to check fermentation 
and preserve its sweetness as far as possible. During the winter 
following the vintage, it is racked two or three times, and in the 
following spring, about March, the bottling commences. 
In order to obtain the wine with perfect brightness, into each 
bottle is put a wine-glass full of Jiguewr, which is prepared by 
dissolving fine candied sugar in wine till it becomes a rich syrup. 
If the wine is to be made pink, a red wine is used; if pale, white 
wine. This liquor produces a fresh fermentation in the bottle, by 
converting the sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid gas. Every 
bottle on being filled and corked is laid on its side on a frame having 
holes made through it, into which the neck of the bottle is inserted. 
As the fermentation advances, every bottle in succession is dexte- 
rously shaken gently on its axis every day, to prevent any adhesive 
deposit on the side of the bottle; and each day it is lifted more and 
more upright in the frame until the foul portion rests only in the 
downward neck of the bottle. It is then ready for dégorgement, a 
process by which the foul deposit is removed. The bottle is carefully 
held in such a position, that when the string which holds the cork is 
cut, the deposit is blown out by the force of the gas within. The foul 
matter only is allowed to escape by the skilful use of the fore-finger 
of the operator, which stops the flow until the effervescence subsides 
under its pressure. He then quickly and dexterously fills up the bottle 
from the contents of another already purified. It is then passed 
with great rapidity under a machine, by which a large cork is 
forced into the bottle, and is then as rapidly tied. It is afterwards 
wired and stacked away in vast and cool caves, some of which, thou- 
sands of yards in extent, have been excavated in the solid chalk 
of the hill side. These stacks of bottled Champagne are so in- 
geniously made, that though they may each contain from 1000 to 
10,000 bottles, any one of them can be withdrawn for examination. 
In a warm spring, the extent of bursting in these bottles is a cause 
of great loss. In April, 1843, Madame Cliquét of Rheims lost 
