THE CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 91, 19 April 1911, Page 7

THE CHAMPAGNE COUNTRY.

The serious rioting which the cable news reports to have occurred in the champagne country in France calls attention to one of the most interesting districts and to one of the most important industries in the Republic. About *ICO miles south of Paris lies the champagne country, of which Rheims, Epernay, and Ay are the chief wine-making centres. Perrier Jouet, Moet et Chandon, Clicquot, Rffiderer, Pommery, Perinet, Roper, and Ayala have been so long mere names, suggesting only memories of many a pleasant, dinner, that we are j startled by the knowledge that there are real human personalities animating these famous wines when we hear 'Voila, e'est le chateau de Madame Clicquot" as a magnificent mansion on a heigh is pointed out, or the group of palaces at Epernay, each vying with the other in splendour, and known as tho j " Folie d'Epernay," are shown as the | family residences of the heads of tho j firms of Perrier Jouet, Meet et Chandon, etc. Et en face les caves ; for these champagne princes are not ashamed of their trade, and practically " live over the shop," the wine cellars being cut in the chalk under the chateau, which is far above. In New Zealand we have hut hazy notions of the vintage, based on certain well-known pictures, and on poems singing of the ruddy grape jielding up its life- juice in the relentless pressoir ; but few of us know anything of th© stern, business reality of wine-making. We were, therefore, not sorry (to quote an account by an English writer) to accept an invitation from M. de Ayala to pay him a visit at Ay, and to see the whole process of champagne making. The little town of Ay stands on a chalk hill above the green waters of the river Marne. All round are low hills, closely covered with vines attached to short sticksi The value of these vines is enormousf and Teaches as high a figure as from £1200 to £2000 an acre. The vineyards are held by a great number of proprietors, small and large, and the value .of the vines and the price of the grapes they yield depend upon the care with which they have been tended and cultivated. The grapes are bought from th>e growers by the caque, a measure of 60 kilos, and cost in good years 235 francs the caque. Ifc takes seven caques of grapes to make a. cask of wine, and each cask contains 44 gallons, or 2^o bottles.