126 



RHEIMS. 



1 00 bottles at that price, but respectable wine merchants 

 never send any to England under three francs a bottle. 

 What is sent to England is more spirituous, and froths 

 more strongly than what is sold for domestic consumption. 

 The greatest and most minute attentions 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 re- 

 newed 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 neces- 

 sary 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 undergone 

 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 fer- 

 mentation 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 



