of Champagne in France . S7 
liomena of nature : in general, however, when a proprie- 
tor has no more than twenty bottles broken in one hundred 
he does not complain. 
XXXVIII. When White Wines deposit a Sediment 
in Bottles, what are the Methods of extracting this 
Sediment before sending them off to their Place of Des- 
tination? 
The sediment in white wines, when they are not spoil- 
ed in other respects, is made to disappear in the follows 
ing way : 
If the wine is not muddy the operation is very simple : 
it consists in emptying the bottle with care, keeping it in 
the precise direction in which it lay : the workman with 
a small hook removes the iron wire which fixes the cork; 
he then uncorks the bottle, and presents in a perpendicu- 
lar direction another bottle to it quite empty and well 
rinsed, and pours out all the wine, leaving the sediment, 
which, if the bottle has not been shaken, will remain at 
the bottom. 
Some persons make use of a siphon, when the wine is 
not thick, in order to avoid all shaking. 
When the wine is thick the operation is more tedious 
and more delicate : wooden planks are made use of, in 
which holes are made at proper distances, in order to re~ 
ceive the bottles : these planks being arranged, adjoining 
to the collection of bottles, an intelligent and experienced 
workman carefully takes a bottle from the heap, keeping 
it in the same position in which it lay : he then gives it a 
slight shake, and by a regular and long continued move- 
ment he brings into the side of the bottle the sediment 
which is detached, and, without scattering it through the 
liquor, makes it slowly descend to the neck: he then 
places his bottle upon the plank which lies ready to his 
hand, inclining it in a sloping direction : he afterwards 
