754 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



vaults, or cellars, and these extend far under the hill. Together 

 they are one hundred and thirty-two feet long and one hundred 

 and five feet wide. Stored underground are one million bottles of 

 champagne made by the French method i. e., by fermentation in 

 the bottle. 



You enter : the nostrils are tickled with the odor of the wines. 

 You see the vats heaped full with luscious grapes ; the two double 

 wine presses are working and squeezing out the life-blood of the 

 berries ; the liquid stream is pouring into large tanks ; the men 

 are bare-armed, their hands and faces smeared with red stains 

 you see this, and can imagine Bacchus and his merry crew holding 

 high carnival. 



This new wine, or " must/' after it deposits its lees in the course 

 of a few days, is run into casks holding from two to four thou- 

 sand gallons each. Here it remains for six or eight weeks that 

 is, until it has passed through its first fermentation. Then it is 

 racked off into other casks, and is now ready for mixing. 



The composition of the blend is, of course, one of the secrets of 

 the art. The French wine-maker mixes the juice of black grapes 

 with that of white grapes in the proportion of three to one. The 

 American wine-maker does about the same. He takes juice of the 

 black Concord and Isabella grapes and mixes it with that of the 

 red Catawba, lona, and Delaware grapes. The great point is to 

 get the right amount of saccharine matter, so as to cause neither 

 too much nor too little effervescence : if too much, the bottles 

 break afterward ; if too little, the wine becomes dull, flat, and in- 

 sipid. Thus the cuvee is effected. Think of the delicacy of taste 

 required in order to know what the juices of many different 

 grapes will bring forth two years hence! The mixture is put 

 into casks in which it undergoes the process of fining, and then it 

 is ready for bottling. After being bottled, the wine is kept in a 

 semi-warm room until fermentation is well begun. The bottles 

 are then carried to the deep, cool vaults, where they are packed in 

 horizontal layers, making a pile four or five feet deep and twelve 

 or fifteen feet long. Thus the bottles remain until the wine 

 within is fully ripe a period of from twelve to eighteen months. 



It is important that the vaults be kept at an equable tempera- 

 ture. This is accomplished by the cold storage system, and the 

 thermometer will not show a variation of more than three degrees 

 throughout the year. The bottles are of great strength and of 

 foreign make. The loss from breakage is always considerable, 

 ranging from five to fifteen per cent. It is one of the items of the 

 extra expense of champagne ; the others being the quality of the 

 juice, the care and manipulation required, and the capital invested 

 for two or three years. 



When champagne is considered fully ripened, the bottles are 



