MAKING CHAMPAGNE

Hokitika Guardian, 28 August 1920, Page 4

MAKING CHAMPAGNE

(.By Cora Lawrence at Epernay, France)

From Paris to Epernay the thin red wine of the country slaked our thirst, hut, speeding along the dusty roads, through Chateau Thierry, through Dormans, along the valley of the Marne, passing mile upon mile of the now peaceful vineyards of Champagne, the resolution came upon us—we must drink champagne in the place where it is made, at Epernay. Arrived at the battered little town, which suffered a senseless bombardment in 1918, we stop in the “Park-lane” of Epernay, a wide,' quiet street lined with many beautiful villas, of which Moet. and Ghandon’s is among the most delightful. At this particular mansion workmen are still busy repairing one corner which was destroyed by a bomb. Crossing the street and entering a little paved courtyard, the necessary permission to visit the famous champagne cellars is courteously granted to us at the bureau.

From the vineyard to the diningtable is a long thought, and if Beauty and Fashion, delicately sipping the “wine of sentiment,” ever give a thought to tho matter they probably imagine it is made by a happy peasantry laughing the days away on the sunny hillsides of France. Such a gladsome process is not possible. The many rites and ceremonies that go to tlie wine’s perfecting must be carried on under earth that bore tho fruit, and in the cold, even temperature of the Epernay caves the great business goes constantly forward.

You can traverse miles of the galleries, treading a stone path on either side of which countless bottles of champagne arc ranged. The galleries extend foil* nearly 7-J miles, and these wonderful caverns boast two floors. At every corner one is met by women pushing big wheeled trollies on which the bottled wine is conveyed from one department to another. Then suddenly into one of many stone “rooms” where under the roof is placed an enormous barrel or vat. This is tlie filling vat, and from it tubes run to various little troughs all over the room, at each of which six or eight girls stand deftfy filling bottles with the precious liquid as fast as it flows from the pipes.

An ingenious contrivance mechanically shuts the wine off for the brief seconds the workers take to remove a full bottle and replace it with an empty one. The full bottles are quickly passed to a man sitting at a “corking” machine, and here they receive their first cork and wiring.

Later, every bottle, which has been standing on its head so that all impurities may run down to tlie cork, is opened, a little squirt of the lively wine is allowed to escape, to carry off any impurities—then a new cork and more elaborate wiring and the bottle goes onward to receive final touches in tho way of stamping before going into the sunshine again. With the sc-ent of raisins in our nostrils we ascend the stone stairway into the warm, sunny office and sign the visitors’ book. Then to luncheon at the hotel, where we drink champagne at 12 francs (nominally 9s 6d) tho bottle!