Chapter VIII: Part II: I (1)

/The Champagne Vinelands--The Vineyards of the River./

The vinelands in the neighbourhood of Epernay--Viticultural area
of the Champagne--A visit to the vineyards of 'golden plants'--The
Dizy vineyards--Antiquity of the Ay vineyards--St. Tresain and
the wine-growers of Ay--The Ay vintage of 1871--The Mareuil
vineyards and their produce--Avernay; its vineyards, wines, and
ancient abbey--The vineyards of Mutigny and Cumières--Damery
and 'la belle hôtesse' of Henri Quatre--Adrienne Lecouvreur
and the Maréchal de Saxe's matrimonial schemes--Pilgrimage to
Hautvillers--Remains of the Royal Abbey of St. Peter--The ancient
church--Its quaint decorations and monuments--The view from the
heights of Hautvillers--The abbey vineyards and wine-cellars in the
days of Dom Perignon--The vinelands of the Côte d'Epernay--Pierry
and its vineyard cellars--The Moussy, Vinay, and Ablois St. Martin
vineyards--The Côte d'Avize--Chavot, Monthelon, Grauves, and
Cuis--The vineyards of Cramant and Avize, and their light delicate
white wines--The Oger and Le Mesnil vineyards--Vertus and its
picturesque ancient remains--Its vineyards planted with Burgundy
grapes from Beaune--The red wine of Vertus a favourite beverage of
William III. of England.

With the exception of certain famous vineyards of the Rhône, the vinelands of the Champagne may, perhaps, be classed among the most picturesque of the more notable vine-districts of France. Between Paris and Epernay, even, the banks of the Marne present a series of scenes of quiet beauty. The undulating ground is everywhere cultivated like a garden. Handsome châteaux and charming country houses peep out from amid luxuriant foliage. Picturesque antiquated villages line the river's bank or climb the hill-sides, and after leaving La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, the cradle of the Condés, all the more favoured situations commence to be covered with vines.

This is especially the case in the vicinity of Château-Thierry--the birthplace of La Fontaine--where the view is shut in on all sides by vine-clad slopes, which the spring frosts seldom spare. Hence merely one good vintage out of four gladdens the hearts of the peasant proprietors, who find eager purchasers for their produce among the lower-class manufacturers of Champagne. In the same way the _petit vin de Chierry_, dexterously prepared and judiciously mingled with other growths, often figures as 'Fleur de Sillery' or 'Ay Mousseux.' In reality it is not until we have passed the ornate modern Gothic château of Boursault, erected in her declining years by the wealthy Veuve Clicquot, by far the shrewdest manipulator of the sparkling products of Ay and Bouzy of her day, and the many towers and turrets of which, rising above umbrageous trees, crown the loftiest height within eyeshot of Epernay, that we find ourselves in that charmed circle of vineyards whence Champagne--the wine, not merely of princes, as it has been somewhat obsequiously termed, but essentially the _vin de société_--is derived.

The vinelands in the vicinity of Epernay, and consequently near the Marne, are commonly known as the 'Vineyards of the River,' whilst those covering the slopes in the neighbourhood of Reims are termed the 'Vineyards of the Mountain.' The Vineyards of the River comprise three distinct divisions--first, those lining the right bank of the Marne and enjoying a southern and south-eastern aspect, among which are Ay, Hautvillers, Cumières, Dizy, and Mareuil; secondly, the Côte d'Epernay on the left bank of the river, of which Pierry, Moussy, and Vinay form part; and thirdly, the Côte d'Avize (the region _par excellence_ of white grapes), which stretches towards the south-east, and includes the vinelands of Cramant, Avize, Oger, Le Mesnil, and Vertus. The entire vineyard area is upwards of 40,000 acres.[378]

The Champagne vineyards most widely celebrated abroad are those of Ay and Sillery, although the last named are really the smallest in the Champagne district. Ay, distant only a few minutes by rail from Epernay, is in the immediate centre of the Vinelands of the River, having Mareuil and Avenay on the east, and Dizy, Hautvillers, and Cumières on the west; while Sillery lies at the foot of the so-called Mountain of Reims, and within an hour's drive of the old cathedral city.

It was on one of those occasional sunshiny days in the early part of October[379] when we first visited Ay--the vineyard of 'golden plants,' the unique _premier cru_ of the Wines of the River--and the various adjacent vinelands. The road lay between two rows of closely-planted poplar-trees reaching almost to the village of Dizy, whose quaint gray church-tower, with its gabled roof, is dominated by the neighbouring vine-clad slopes, which extend from Avenay to Venteuil, some few miles beyond Hautvillers, the cradle, so to speak, of the _vin mousseux_ of the Champagne. The vineyards of Dizy, the upper soil of which is largely mixed with loose stones, have chiefly a southern or western aspect, and, excepting in the case of the precipitous height suggestively styled 'Grimpe Chat,' their incline is generally a gentle one. In these vineyards, which rank among the _premiers crus_ of the Champagne, a quantity of wine from white grapes is regularly made.

From Dizy the road runs immediately at the base of vine-clad slopes, broken up occasionally by a conical peak detaching itself from the mass, and tinted from base to summit with richly-variegated hues, among which deep purple, yellow, green, gray, and crimson by turns predominate. On our right hand we pass a vineyard called Le Léon, which tradition asserts to be the one whence Pope Leo the Magnificent, the patron of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, drew his supply of Ay wine. The village of Ay lies immediately before us at the foot of the slopes of vines, with the tapering spire of its ancient church rising above the neighbouring hills and cutting sharply against the bright blue sky. The vineyards, which spread themselves over a calcareous declivity, have mostly a full southern aspect, and the predominating vines are those known as golden plants, the fruit of which is of a deep purple colour. After these comes the _plant vert doré_, and then a moderate proportion of the _plant gris_, white varieties of grapes being no longer cultivated as formerly.[380]

The Ay vineyards are mentioned in a charter of Edmund of Lancaster, son of our Henry II. and guardian of Jehanne, heiress of Henri le Gros, Count of Champagne, dated 1276, and confirming the right of the Abbey of Avenay to four hogsheads of wine from the _terroir_ of Ay.[381] If faith, however, may be placed in monkish legends, their existence dates back to the sixth century, at which epoch St. Tresain, the patron saint of Avenay and a contemporary of St. Remi, emigrated to the Champagne from Scotland. Having given away all he possessed in charity, he became perforce a swineherd at Mutigny, a village on the summit of the hill overlooking Ay, Mareuil, and Avenay. One day the vine-growers of Ay, hearing that St. Remi was at Ville-en-Selve, sought him out, and clamorously accused St. Tresain of neglecting to look after his pigs, which had devastated the vineyards on the slopes, and so caused great loss to the community. When called upon for his defence, St. Tresain acknowledged that he was wont to listen in the church-porch to the celebration of mass, and to forget on these occasions all such sublunary matters as swine. St. Remi, finding him so deeply religious, not only forgave him his negligence and relieved him from his porcine charge for the future, but appointed him parish priest of Mareuil and Mutigny, the inhabitants of which, it is to be hoped, received more attention from him than his pigs had done. St. Tresain, although his promotion was brought about by the complaint of the men of Ay, retorted on the latter in a vindictive and unsaintly spirit, for he ill-naturedly cursed them, and declared that after thirty years of age not one of them or their posterity should prosper temporally or spiritually--a prophecy which, if it affected the vine-growers of that epoch, has proved harmless enough in the case of their descendants.[382]

At Ay we visited the pressoir of the principal producer of _vin brut_, who, although the owner of merely five hectares, or about twelve and a half acres of vines, expected to make as many as 1500 pièces of wine that year, mainly of course from grapes purchased from other growers.[383] On our way from Ay to Mareuil, along the lengthy Rue de Châlons, we looked in at the little auberge at the corner of the Boulevard du Sud, and found a crowd of coopers and others connected in some way with the vintage, taking their cheerful glasses round. The walls of the room were appropriately enough decorated with capering bacchanals squeezing bunches of purple grapes and flourishing their thyrsi about in a very tipsy fashion. All the talk--and there was an abundance of it--had reference to the yield of this particular vintage and the high rate the Ay wine had realised. Eight hundred francs the pièce of 200 litres, equal to 44 gallons, appeared to be the price fixed by the agents of the great Champagne houses, and at this figure the bulk of the vintage was disposed of before a single grape passed through the winepress.[384]

The Mareuil vinelands, which include the vineyard bequeathed some six hundred years ago by Canon John de Brie to the chapter of Reims cathedral, and possibly those vineyards bestowed in 1208 on the Abbey of Avenay by Alain de Jouvincourt, cover the slopes of two coteaux, the first a continuation of the Côte d'Ay, and the second a detached spur, known as the Mont de Fourche, overlooking the Marne canal. Owing to the steepness of the slopes and to the roads through the vineyards being impracticable for carts, the grapes were being conveyed to the press-houses in baskets slung across the backs of mules and donkeys, most of which, on account of their known partiality for the ripe fruit, were muzzled while thus employed. The wine yielded by the Mareuil vineyards possesses body and vinosity, and while of course regarded as inferior to that of Ay, found a ready market the year of our visit at from five to six hundred francs the pièce. Prior to the French Revolution, the produce of the winepresses of the Seigneurs of Mareuil and the Abbess of Avenay were almost as renowned as the best growths of Ay. The reputation of the wine was then shared by the inhabitants of the village; the popular local diction, 'Les gens d'Ay, les messieurs de Mareuil, et les crottés d'Avenay,' referring to the days when the first was inhabited by enriched wine-growers, the second by people of some position, and the third merely by peasants, simply from its being cut off, in a great measure, from outside intercourse through the badness of its approaches. It was not until after 1776, when the _seigneurie_ of Louvois was purchased from the Marquis de Souvré by Madame Adelaïde, aunt of Louis XVI., that the road from Epernay to Louvois, which passes through Mareuil and Avenay, was, if not constructed, at any rate rendered practicable, in order to facilitate the visits of the princess to her new acquisition. These roads exist, though no traces remain of the ancient fort of Mareuil on the bank of the Marne, taken from the English in 1359 by Gaucher de Chatillon, captain of Reims, and alternately occupied by Leaguers and Royalists during the War of Religion in the sixteenth century. Nor does there seem any chance of identifying either the 'vineyard called la Gibaudelle, lying next the vineyard of Oudet, surnamed Leclerc,' in the territory of Mareuil, which Guillaume de Lafors and Marguerite his wife bestowed upon the Abbey of Avenay in 1273, or those from which, in the fourteenth century, Archbishop Richard Pique of Reims used to draw ten muids or hogsheads of wine annually for 'droits de vinage.'

The vineyards of Avenay also date prior to the thirteenth century, mention being frequently made of them in the charters of that epoch.[385] Their best wine, which Saint Evremond extolled so highly, is vintaged to-day up the slopes of Mont Hurlé. Avenay itself is a tumbledown little village situated in the direction of Reims, and the year of our visit we found the yield from its vineyards had been scarcely more than the third of an average one, and that the wine produced at the first pressure of the grapes had been sold for 500 francs the pièce. We tasted there some very fair still red wine, made from the same grapes as Champagne, remarkably deep in colour, full of body, and possessing that slight sweet bitterish flavour which characterises certain of the better-class growths of the South of France.

Although at Avenay vineyards cover the slopes as of yore, when Marmontel used to wander amongst them in company with his inamorata Mademoiselle Hévin de Navarre, no traces remain of the ancient royal abbey--founded by St. Bertha in 660, on the martyrdom of her husband, St. Gombert, one of the early Christian missionaries to Scotland--where Charles V. took up his quarters when invading Champagne in 1544, and where the deputies of the Leaguers of Reims and of the Royalists of Châlons met in October 1592 to settle the terms of the 'Traité des Vendanges,' securing to both parties liberty to gather in the vintage unmolested.[386] The villagers still point out the house where Henri Quatre slept, and the window from which he harangued the populace during the visit paid by him to Madame Françoise de la Marck, the Abbess of Avenay,[387] in August of the same year. This, by the way, does not seem to have been the only occasion when the spot was honoured by the presence of Royalty; for a tradition, which, although unsupported by any documentary evidence, appears to be worthy of credence, is current to the effect that Marie Antoinette paid a visit to the Abbey of Avenay during her sojourn at Louvois as the guest of Madame Adelaïde in 1786. The spring which, according to the legend, gushed forth when St. Bertha, in imitation of Moses, struck the rock with her distaff, is still shown to travellers; and scandal has gone so far as to say that recourse is sometimes had to it to eke out the native vintage.

On leaving Avenay we ascended the hills to Mutigny, and wound round thence to Cumières, on the banks of the Marne, finding the vintage in full operation all throughout the route. The vineyards of Cumières--classed as a second cru--yield a wine which, though celebrated in the verses of Eustache Deschamps, a famous and prolific Champenois poet of the fourteenth century, varies to-day considerably in quality, the best coming from the 'Côtes-à-bras,' the property of the Abbey of Hautvillers in Dom Perignon's day. The Cumières vineyards join those of Hautvillers on the one side and Damery on the other, the latter a cosy little river-side village, where the _bon Roi Henri_ sought relaxation from the turmoils of war in the society of the fair Anne du Pay, _sa belle hôtesse_, as the gallant Béarnais was wont to style her. Damery also claims to be the birthplace of Adrienne Lecouvreur, the celebrated actress of the Regency, and mistress of the Maréchal de Saxe, who coaxed her out of her 30,000_l._ of savings to enable him to prosecute his suit with the obese Anna Iwanowna, niece of Peter the Great, which, had he only been successful, would have secured the future hero of Fontenoy the coveted dukedom of Courland. From Cumières can be distinguished far away on the horizon the ruined tower of the _bourg_ of Châtillon, the birthplace of Pope Urban II., preacher of the first Crusade, and a devotee of the wine of Ay.[388]

It was during the budding spring-time when we made our formal pilgrimage to Hautvillers across the swollen waters of the Marne at Epernay. Our way lay for a time along a straight level poplar-bordered road, with verdant meadows on either hand; then diverged sharply to the left, and we commenced ascending the vine-clad hills, on a narrow plateau of which the church and abbey remains are picturesquely perched. The closely-planted vines extend along the undulating slopes to the summit of the plateau, and wooded heights rise up beyond, affording shelter from the bleak winds that sweep over here from the north. Spite of the reputation which the wine of Hautvillers enjoyed a couple of centuries ago, and its association with the origin of _vin mousseux_, the vineyards to-day appear to have been relegated to the rank of a second cru, their produce ordinarily commanding less than two-thirds of the price obtained for the Ay and Verzenay growths.[389]

The church of Hautvillers and the remains of the abbey are situated at the farther extremity of the village, at the end of its one long street, named, pertinently enough, the Rue de Bacchus. Time, the iconoclasts of the great Revolution, and the quieter, yet far more destructive, labours of the Bande Noire, have spared but little of the royal abbey of St. Peter, where Dom Perignon lighted upon his happy discovery of the effervescent quality of Champagne. The quaint old church, scraps of which date back to the twelfth century, the remnants of the cloisters, and one of the abbey's ancient gateways, are all that remain to testify to the grandeur of its past, when it was the proud boast of the brotherhood that it had given nine archbishops to the see of Reims, and two-and-twenty abbots to various celebrated monasteries.

Passing through an unpretentious gateway, we find ourselves in a spacious courtyard, bounded by buildings somewhat complex in character. On our right rises the tower of the church with the remains of the old cloisters, now walled-in and lighted by small square windows, and propped up by heavy buttresses. To the left stands the residence of the bailiff, and beyond it an eighteenth-century château on the site of the abbot's house. Formerly the abbey precincts were bounded on this side by a picturesque gateway-tower leading to the vineyards, and known as the 'Porte des Pressoirs,' from its contiguity to the winepresses. The court is enclosed on its remaining sides by huge barn-like buildings, stables, and cart-sheds; while roaming about are numerous live stock, indicating that what remains of the once-famous royal abbey of St. Peter has degenerated into an ordinary farm. To-day the abbey buildings and certain of its lands are the property of M. Paul Chandon de Brialles, of the firm of Moët & Chandon, the great Champagne manufacturers of Epernay, who maintains them as a farm, keeping some six-and-thirty cows there, with the object of securing the necessary manure for the numerous vineyards which the firm own hereabouts.

(Destroyed by fire in 1879).]

The dilapidated cloisters, littered with old casks, farm implements, and the like, preserve ample traces of their former architectural character, changed as they are since the days when the sandalled feet of the worthy cellarer resounded through the echoing arches as he paced to and fro, meditating upon coming vintages and future marryings of wines. Vine-leaves and bunches of grapes decorate some of the more ancient columns inside the church, and grotesque mediæval monsters, such as monkish architects habitually delighted in, entwine themselves around the capitals of others. The stalls of the choir are elaborately carved with cherubs' heads, medallions and figures of saints, cupids supporting shields, and free and graceful arabesques of the epoch of the Renaissance. In the chancel, close by the altar-steps, are a couple of black-marble slabs, with Latin inscriptions of dubious orthography, the one to Johannes Royer, who died in 1527, and the other, which has been already cited in detail, setting forth the virtues and merits of Dom Petrus Perignon, the discoverer of the effervescing qualities of Champagne. In the central aisle a similar slab marks the resting-place of Dom Thedoricus Ruynart--obit 1709--an ancestor of the Reims Ruinarts; and little square stones interspersed among the tiles with which the side aisles of the church are paved record the deaths of other members of the Benedictine brotherhood during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Several large pictures grace the walls of the church, the most interesting one representing St. Nivard, Bishop of Reims, and his friend, St. Berchier, designating to some mediæval architect the site which the contemplated Abbey of St. Peter is to occupy, as set forth in the legend already related.

At a short distance from the abbey farm, Messrs. Moët & Chandon have erected a tower, whence a splendid view, extending over the vineyards of Cumières, Hautvillers, Dizy, and Ay, with those lying on the opposite bank of the river, is to be obtained. Gazing from here, it is easy to imagine the scene presented in the days when the Abbey of St. Peter still reared its stately walls, when Louis Chaumejan de Tourille wore the abbatial insignia, and Dom Perignon displayed with equal pride as the badge of his office the key of the abbey cellars. Over these slopes on a dewy autumn morning the latter's eyes, ere sealed in blindness, must have often wandered, and an unctuous chuckle must have welled up from between his lips as he marked the grapes steadily advancing towards maturity. We can fancy him pausing from time to time

'To breathe an ejaculatory prayer
And a benediction on the vines,'

although in those halcyon days there was neither oïdium nor phylloxera to be dreaded, and an extra taper or so to St. Vincent, the patron of vine-dressers, sufficed to secure the crop from ordinary accidents of flood and field.

When the epoch of the vintage arrived, and the slopes were all alive with bands of vintagers engaged in stripping the ripened purple bunches from the vines, and carefully transporting them to the winepress, one can picture Dom Perignon smiling contentedly at the report of the gray-haired bailiff that no such crop had been garnered for years before. And when the must began to gush forth as the stalwart bare-armed peasants tugged at the levers of the huge press on which M. de Tourille had placed the glorifying inscription elsewhere cited, with what satisfaction must Perignon have recognised a foreshadowing of that divine aroma which lends so exquisite a charm to the choice vintages of the Champagne! Later on we can imagine him entering the abbey cellar, stored with the results of his careful labours, as a

'sacred place,
With a thoughtful, solemn, and reverent pace,'

and softly chanting to himself, as he draws off a flagon of the best and choicest vintage which the gloomy vaults contain:

'Ah, how the streamlet laughs and sings!
What a delicious fragrance springs
From the deep flagon as it fills,
As of hyacinths and daffodils!'

The vineyards of the Côte d'Epernay, on the southern bank of the Marne, extend eastward from beyond Boursault, on whose wooded height stands the fine château built by Madame Clicquot, and in which her granddaughter, the Comtesse de Mortemart, to-day resides. They then follow the course of the river, and, after winding round behind Epernay, diverge towards the south-west. Amongst them are the slopes of Pierry, Mardeuil, Moussy, Vinay, Ablois, and Chouilly, the last named situate somewhat apart from the rest to the east of Epernay, and yielding a light wine, qualified as slightly purgative. The vines of the Côte d'Epernay produce only black grapes, and many of the vineyards are of great antiquity, the one known as the Closet, near Epernay, having been bequeathed under that name by a canon of Laon named Parchasius to the neighbouring Abbey of St. Martin six and a half centuries ago.

A short drive along the high-road leading from Epernay to Orleans brings us to the village of Pierry, cosily nestling amongst groves of poplars in the valley of the Cubry, with some half-score of châteaux of the last century, belonging to well-to-do wine-growers of the neighbourhood, screened from the road by umbrageous gardens. Vines mount the slopes that rise around, the higher summits being crowned with forest, while here and there some pleasant village shelters itself under the brow of a lofty hill. Near Pierry many cellars have been excavated in the chalky soil, to the flints so prevalent in which the village is said to owe its name. The entrances to these cellars are closed by iron gateways, and on the skirts of the vineyards we come upon whole rows of them picturesquely overgrown with ivy, and suggestive in appearance of catacombs. Early in the last century the wine vintaged here in the Clos St. Pierre, belonging to an abbey of this name at Châlons, acquired a high reputation through the care bestowed upon it by Brother Jean Oudart, whose renown almost rivalled that of Dom Perignon himself; and to-day the Pierry vineyards, producing exclusively black grapes, hold a high rank among the second-class crus of the Marne.[390]

Crossing the Sourdon, a little stream which, after bubbling up in the midst of huge rocks in the forest of Epernay, rushes down the hills, and then changes its name to the Cubry, we soon reach Moussy, where vineyards have been in existence for something like eight centuries; for we find enumerated in the list of bequests made to the hospital of St. Mary at Reims in the eleventh and twelfth centuries sundry 'vineas in Moiseio' devised by such long-forgotten notabilities as Pontius, priest and canon, Tebaldus Papilenticus, Johannes de Germania, and Macela, wife of Pepinus. Spite, however, of their long pedigree and advantageous southern aspect, the Moussy vineyards rank to-day merely as a second cru. Continuing to skirt the vine-clad slopes we come to Vinay, noted for an ancient grotto[391]--the former comfortless abode of some rheumatic anchorite--and a pretended miraculous spring to which fever-stricken pilgrims to-day credulously resort. The water may possibly merit its renown; but the wine here produced is very inferior, due no doubt to the class of vines, the meunier being the leading variety cultivated. At Ablois St. Martin, once a fief of Mary Queen of Scots, and picturesquely perched partway up a slope in the midst of hills covered with vines and crowned with forest trees, the Côte d'Epernay ends, and the produce becomes of a choicer character.

As the Côte d'Avize lies to the south-east, to reach it we have to retrace our steps to Pierry, and follow the road which there branches off, leaving on our right hand the vineyards of Chavot, Monthelon, and Grauves, now of no particular note, although of undoubted antiquity, Blanche of Castille, Countess of Champagne, having endowed the Abbey of Argensolles, on its foundation in 1224, with sundry strips of vineland, including one at Grauves, possibly the vineyard of Les Roualles, which yields a wine not unlike certain growths of the Mountain of Reims. After passing through Cuis, where the slopes, planted with both black and white varieties of vines, are extremely abrupt, and where Simon la Bole, man-at-arms of Epernay, and his wife Basile gave, in 1210, 'four hogsheads of _vinage_ to be taken annually' to Hugo, Abbot of St. Martin at Epernay, we eventually reach Cramant, one of the grand _premiers crus_ of the Champagne. From the vineyards around this picturesque little village, and extending along the somewhat precipitous Côte de Saran--a prominent object, on which is M. Moët's handsome château--there is vintaged a wine from white grapes, especially remarkable for lightness and delicacy and the richness of its bouquet, and an admixture of which is essential to every first-class Champagne _cuvée_.

From Cramant the road runs direct to Avize, a large thriving village, lying at the foot of vineyard slopes, where numerous Champagne firms have established themselves. Its prosperity dates from the commencement of the last century (1715), when the Count de Lhery, its feudal lord, cleared away the remains of its ancient ramparts, filled up the moat, and planted the ground with vines, the produce of which proved admirably suited for the sparkling wines then coming into vogue. Prior to this the Avize wine, made almost entirely from white grapes, fetched only from 25 to 30 francs the queue; but being found well adapted for the manufacture of the strongly-effervescent wine known as _saute-bouchon_, it soon commanded as much as 300 francs, and the arpent of vineyard rose in value from 250 to 2000 francs.[392] To-day the light delicate wine of Avize is classed, like that of Cramant, as a _premier cru_, and it is the same with the wine of Oger,[393] lying a little to the south, while the neighbouring growths of Le Mesnil hold a slightly inferior rank. The latter village and its gray Gothic church lie under the hill in the midst of vines that almost climb the forest-crowned summit. The stony soil hereabouts is said to be better adapted to the cultivation of white than of black grapes; besides which, the wines of Le Mesnil are remarkable for their effervescent properties.

Vertus forms the southern limit of the Côte d'Avize, and the vineyard slopes subsiding at their base into a broad expanse of fertile fields, and crested as usual with dense forest, rise up behind the picturesque old town, which is mentioned in a letter of the Emperor Louis and a charter of Charles the Bald in the ninth century. It was once strongly fortified, though a dilapidated gateway is all that to-day remains of the ancient ramparts, which failed to secure it in 1380, when the English, under the 'Comte de Bouquingouan,' presumably Buckingham, burnt the whole of the town except the Abbey of St. Martin, and elicited from the native poet, Eustache Deschamps, _dit_ Morel, 'huissier d'armes' to Charles VI. and castellan of Fismes, a lamentation, wherein he fails not to mention the high renown of the local vintage.[394]

Vertus can still boast a curious old church of the eleventh century, with solid Romanesque towers, elaborate mouldings, and richly ornamented capitals; also a picturesque promenade, shaded with centenarian trees, together with several quaint old houses, including one with a florid Gothic window surrounded by a border of grapes and vine-leaves, and another with a quaintly projecting corner turret, dominated by a conical roof. The Vertus vineyards are mentioned in a charter of the Abbey of Ste. Marie, dated 1151. They were originally planted with vines from Beaune in Burgundy, and in the fourteenth century yielded a red wine held in high repute, of pleasant flavour, and rich in perfume,[395] but which would appear to have been imbued with those purgative properties[396] traceable in other growths of the Champagne. The red wine of Vertus formed the favourite beverage of William III. of England, and was long in high repute. To-day, however, the growers find it more profitable to make white instead of red wine from their crops of black grapes, the former commanding a good price for conversion into _vin mousseux_, from being in the opinion of some manufacturers especially valuable for binding a _cuvée_ together. The Vertus growths rank among the second-class Champagne crus.[397]

II.

/The Champagne Vinelands--The Vineyards of the Mountain./

The wine of Sillery--Origin of its renown--The Maréchale
d'Estrées a successful Marchande de Vin--The Marquis de Sillery
the greatest wine-farmer in the Champagne--Cossack appreciation
of the Sillery produce--The route from Reims to Sillery--Henri
Quatre and the Taissy wines--Failure of the Jacquesson
system of vine cultivation--Château of Sillery--Wine-making
at M. Fortel's--Sillery sec--The vintage at Verzenay and
the vendangeoirs--Renown of the Verzenay wine--The Verzy
vineyards--Edward III. at the Abbey of St. Basle--Excursion
from Reims to Bouzy--The herring procession at St. Remi--Rilly,
Chigny, and Ludes--The Knights Templars' 'pot' of wine--Mailly and
the view over the Champagne plains--Wine-making at Mailly--The
village in the wood--Château and park of Louvois, Louis le
Grand's War Minister--The vineyards of Bouzy--Its church-steeple,
and the lottery of the great gold ingot--Pressing grapes at
the Werlé vendangeoir--Still red Bouzy--Ambonnay--A pattern
peasant vine-proprietor--The Ambonnay vintage--The vineyards of
Ville-Dommange and Sacy, Hermonville and St. Thierry--The still red
wine of the latter.

The vineyards of the Mountain of Reims may be divided into two zones, one of which, known as the Basse Montagne, is situate north-west of Reims, and comprises the vineyards of St. Thierry, Marsilly, Hermonville, and others; whilst the more important zone lies to the south of the old cathedral city, and includes the better-known crus of Sillery, Verzy, Verzenay, Mailly, Ludes, Chigny, and Rilly. The vinelands of Bouzy and Ambonnay are also reckoned within it, though situate somewhat apart on a southern slope of the Mountain some few miles from the Marne.

The smallest of the Champagne vineyards are those of Sillery, and yet no wine of the Marne enjoys a greater renown, due originally to the intelligence and energy of the family of the Brularts, Marquises of Sillery and Puisieux, to whom the estate originally belonged, and who seem to have devoted great attention to viticulture from certainly the middle of the seventeenth century. The reputation of the still wine of Sillery, 'the highest manifestation of the divinity of Bacchus in all France,' was firmly established at this epoch. 'As to M. de Puyzieux,' writes St. Evremond to his friend Lord Galloway in August 1701, 'he acts wisely to fall in with the bad taste now in fashion concerning Champagne in order to sell his own the better;' but at the same time he counsels his correspondent to get the marquis to make him 'a little barrel after the fashion in which it was made forty years before, prior to the existing depravation of taste.'[398] The marquis here referred to was Roger Brulart, Governor of Epernay, who was himself a joyous _bon vivant_, and died from over-indulgence in the good things provided at a dinner given by the Chartreux in 1719.[399] He was succeeded by his nephew, Louis Philogène Brulart, Marquis de Sillery et de Puisieux, to whom, in 1727, on the occasion of his marriage with Mademoiselle de Souvré, granddaughter of Louvois, the Sieurs Quatresous and Chertemps presented at his château of Sillery, on behalf of the town of Epernay, a basket of one hundred flasks of wine.[400] He died in 1771, leaving an only daughter, Adelaïde Félicité Brulart de Sillery, married, in 1744, to Louis César le Tellier, Maréchal Duc d'Estrées.

The wine attained its apogee under the fostering care of the Maréchale d'Estrées, to whom not only this cru, but those of Mailly, Verzy, and Verzenay belonged, and who concentrated their joint produce in the capacious cellars of her château, afterwards sending it forth with her own guarantee, under the general name of Sillery, which, like Aaron's serpent, thus swallowed up the others. The Maréchale's social position enabled her to secure for her wines the recognition they really merited, being made with the utmost care and a rare intelligence, shown by the removal of every unripe, rotten, or imperfect grape from the bunches before pressing, so that the _Vin de la Maréchale_, as it was styled, became famous throughout Europe.[401] This lady is not to be confounded with that other Maréchale d'Estrées mentioned by St. Simon, noted for her exquisite and magnificent although rare entertainments, and so sordid that when her daughter, who was covered with jewels, fell down at a ball, her first cry was, not like Shylock's, 'My daughter!' but 'My diamonds!' as, rushing forward, she strove to pick up, not the fallen dancer, but her scattered gems.

Later owners of the famous Sillery cru did their best to sustain its reputation, and Arthur Young, who stopped here in 1787, speaks of the Marquis de Sillery as 'the greatest wine-farmer in the Champagne,' having on his own hands 180 arpents of vines, and cellar-room for a couple of hundred pièces of wine.[402] Among more recent appreciation of the merits of Sillery sec may be mentioned the Cossacks, who pillaged the district in 1814, and who, not being able to carry off all the wine from the cellar of the Count de Valence at Sillery, stove in some thirty pièces of the best, and set the place afloat.[403]

The drive from Reims to Sillery has nothing attractive about it. A long, straight, level road bordered by trees intersects a broad tract of open country, skirted on the right by the Petite Montagne of Reims, with antiquated villages nestled among the dense woodland. After crossing the Châlons line of railway--near where one of the new forts constructed for the defence of Reims rises up behind the villages and vineyards of Cernay and Nogent l'Abbesse--the country becomes more undulating. Poplars border the broad Marne canal, and a low fringe of foliage marks the course of the languid river Vesle, on the banks of which is Taissy, famous in the old days for its wines, great favourites with Sully, and which almost lured Henri Quatre from his allegiance to the vintages of Ay and Arbois that he loved so well.[404]

To the left rises Mont de la Pompelle, where the first Christians of Reims suffered martyrdom, and where, in 1658, the Spaniards under Montal, when attempting to ravage the vineyards of the district, were repulsed with terrible slaughter by the Rémois militia, led on by Grandpré. A quarter of a century ago the low ground on our right near Sillery was planted with vines by the late M. Jacquesson, the then owner of the Sillery estate, and a large Champagne manufacturer at Châlons, who was anxious to resuscitate the ancient reputation of the domain. Under the advice of Dr. Guyot, the well-known writer on viticulture, he planted the vines in deep trenches, which led to the vineyards being punningly termed Jacquesson's _celery_ beds. To shield the vines from hailstorms prevalent in the district, and the more dangerous spring frosts, so fatal to vines planted in low-lying situations, long rolls of straw-matting were stored close at hand with which to roof them over when needful. These precautions were scarcely needed, however; the vines languished through moisture at the roots, and eventually were mostly rooted up.

After again crossing the railway we pass the trim restored turrets of the famous château of Sillery, with its gateways, moats, and drawbridges, flanked by trees and floral _parterres_. It was here that the stout squire Laurent Pichiet kept watch and ward over the 'forte maison de Sillery' on behalf of the Archbishop of Reims at the close of the fourteenth century, that the Maréchale d'Estrées carried on her successful business as a _marchande de vins_, and that the pragmatic and pedantic Comtesse de Genlis, governess of the Orleans princes, spent, as she tells us, the happiest days of her life. The few thriving vineyards of Sillery cover a gentle eminence which rises out of the plain, and present on the one side an eastern and on the other a western aspect. They have fallen somewhat from their high estate since the days when old Coffin of Beauvais University sang their praises in Latin:

'Let Horace the charms of old Massica own,
And the praise of Falernian sound;
Such wines, although famous, must bow to that grown
On Sillery's fortunate ground.'[405]

To-day the Vicomte de Brimont and M. Fortel of Reims, the latter of whom cultivates some forty acres of vines, yielding ordinarily about 300 hogsheads, are the only wine-growers at Sillery. Before pressing his grapes--of course for sparkling wine--M. Fortel has them thrown into a trough, at the bottom of which are a couple of grooved cylinders, each about eight inches in diameter, and revolving in contrary directions, the effect of which, when set in motion, is to disengage the grapes partially from their stalks. Grapes and stalks are then placed under the press, which is on the old cider-press principle, and the must runs into a reservoir beneath, whence it is pumped into large vats, each holding from 250 to 500 gallons. Here it remains from six to eight hours, and is then run off into casks, the spigots of which are merely laid lightly over the holes, and in the course of twelve days the wine begins to ferment. It now rests until the end of the year, when it is drawn off into new casks and delivered to the buyer, invariably one or other of the great Champagne houses, who willingly pay an exceptionally high price for it. The second and third pressures of the grapes yield an inferior wine, and from the husks and stalks _eau-de-vie_, worth about five shillings a gallon, is distilled.

The wine known as Sillery sec is a full, dry, pleasant-flavoured, and somewhat spirituous amber-coloured wine. Very little of it is made nowadays, and most that is comes from the adjacent vineyards of Verzenay and Mailly, and is principally reserved by the growers for their own consumption. One of these candidly admitted that the old reputation of the wine had exploded, and that better white Bordeaux and Burgundy wines were to be obtained for less money. In making dry Sillery, which locally is esteemed as a valuable tonic, it is essential that the grapes should be subjected to only slight pressure; while to have it in perfection it is equally essential that the wine should be kept for ten years in the wood according to some, and eight years in bottle according to others, to which circumstance its high price is in all probability to be attributed. In course of time it forms a deposit, and has the disadvantage common to all the finer still wines of the Champagne district of not travelling well.

Beyond Sillery the vineyards of Verzenay unfold themselves, spreading over the extensive slopes and stretching to the summit of the steep height to the right, where a windmill or two are perched. Everywhere the vintagers are busy detaching the grapes with their little hook-shaped _serpettes_, the women all wearing projecting close-fitting bonnets, as though needlessly careful of their anything but blonde complexions. Long carts laden with baskets of grapes block the narrow roads, and donkeys, duly muzzled, with panniers slung across their backs, toil up and down the steeper slopes. Half-way up the principal hill, backed by a dense wood and furrowed with deep trenches, whence soil has been removed for manuring the vineyards, is the village of Verzenay--where in the Middle Ages the Archbishop of Reims had a fief--overlooking a veritable sea of vines. Rising up in front of the old gray cottages, encompassed by orchards or gardens, are the white walls and long red roofs of the vendangeoirs belonging to the great Champagne houses--Moët & Chandon, Clicquot, G. H. Mumm, Roederer, Deutz & Geldermann, and others--all teeming with bustle and excitement, and with the vines almost reaching to their very doors. Messrs. Moët & Chandon have as many as eight presses in full work, and own no less than 120 acres of vines on the neighbouring slopes, besides the Clos de Romont--in the direction of Sillery, and yielding a wine of the Sillery type--belonging to M. Raoul Chandon. Verzenay ranks as a _premier cru_, and for three years in succession--1872, 3, and 4--its wines fetched a higher price than either those of Ay or Bouzy. In 1873 the _vin brut_ commanded the exceptionally large sum of 1050 francs the hogshead of 44 gallons. All the inhabitants of Verzenay are vine-proprietors, and several million francs are annually received by them for the produce of their vineyards from the manufacturers of Champagne. The wine of Verzenay, remarkable for its body and vinosity, has always been held in high repute,[406] which is apparently more than can be said of the probity of the inhabitants, for, according to an old Champagne saying, 'Whenever at Verzenay "Stop thief" is cried every one takes to his heels.'

Just over the Mountain of Reims is the village of Verzy, the vine-growers of which distinguished themselves in the fifteenth century by their resistance to the officials sent to levy the 'aide en gros' of two sols per queue, imposed by Louis XI. on all wine made within a radius of four miles of Reims. The Verzy vineyards--ranked to-day as a second cru--date at least from the days of the Knights Templars, when the Commanderie of Reims had 'two vineyards near the abbey' here. They adjoin those of Verzenay, and are almost exclusively planted with white grapes, the only instance of the kind to be met with in the district. In the Clos St. Basse, however--taking its name from the Abbey of St. Basle, of which the village was a dependency, and where Edward III. of England had his head-quarters during the siege of Reims--black grapes alone are grown, and its produce is almost on a par with the wines of Verzenay.

Immediately prior to the Revolution, one-fourth of the inhabitants of Verzy were landholders, each cultivating about five arpents of vines, and obtaining therefrom, on an average, twenty poinçons, out of which the abbey exacted one and three-quarters for 'droits de dimes et de banalité de pressoir.' Southwards of Verzy are the third-class crus of Villers-Marmery and Trépail, the former of which was of some repute in the Middle Ages.

We made several excursions to the vineyards of Bouzy, driving out of Reims along the ancient Rue du Barbâtre and past the quaint old church of St. Remi, one of the sights of the Champagne capital, and notable, among other things, for its magnificent ancient stained-glass windows, and the handsome modern tomb of the popular Rémois saint. It was here in the Middle Ages that that piece of priestly mummery, the procession of the herrings, used to take place at dusk on the Wednesday before Easter. Preceded by a cross, the canons of the church marched in double file up the aisles, each trailing a cord after him, with a herring attached. Every one's object was to tread on the herring in front of him, and prevent his own herring from being trodden upon by the canon who followed behind--a difficult enough proceeding, which, if it did not edify, certainly afforded much amusement to the lookers-on.

After crossing the canal and the river Vesle, and leaving the gray antiquated-looking village of Cormontreuil on our left, we traversed a wide stretch of cultivated country streaked with patches of woodland, with occasional windmills dotting the distant heights, and villages nestling among the trees up the mountain-sides and in the quiet hollows. Soon a few vineyards occupying the lower slopes, and thronged by bands of vintagers, came in sight, and the country too grew more picturesque. We passed successively on our right hand Rilly, a former fief of the Archbishop of Reims, and noted for its capital red wine; then Chigny, where the Abbot of St. Remi had a vineyard as early as the commencement of the thirteenth century; and afterwards Ludes,--all three of them situated more or less up the mountain, with vines in every direction, relieved by a dark background of forest-trees. In the old days, the Knights Templars of the Commanderie of Reims had the right of _vinage_ at Ludes, and exacted their modest 'pot' (about half a gallon) per pièce on all the wine the village produced. On our left hand is Mailly, the vineyards of which join those of Verzenay, and, though classed only as a second cru, yielding a wine noted for _finesse_ and bouquet, identified by some as the vintage which was recommended in the ninth century to Bishop Hincmar of Reims by his _confrère_, Pardulus of Laon. From the wooded knolls hereabouts a view is gained of the broad plains of the Champagne, dotted with white villages and scattered homesteads among the poplars and the limes, the winding Vesle glittering in the sunlight, and the dark towers of Notre Dame de Reims, with all their rich Gothic fretwork, rising majestically above the distant city.

At one vendangeoir we visited, at Mailly, between 350 and 400 pièces of wine were being made at the rate of some thirty pièces during the long day of twenty hours, five men being engaged in working the old-fashioned press, closely resembling a cider-press, and applying its pressure longitudinally. This ancient press doubtless differs but little from the one which the chapter of Reims Cathedral possessed at Mailly in 1384. As soon as the must was expressed it was emptied into large vats, holding about 450 gallons, and in these it remained for several days before being drawn off into casks. Of the above thirty pièces, twenty resulting from the first pressure were of the finest quality, while four produced by the second pressure were partly reserved to replace what the first might lose during fermentation, the residue serving for second-class Champagne. The six pièces which came from the final pressure, after being mixed with common wine of the district, were converted into Champagne of an inferior quality.

We now crossed the mountain, sighting Ville-en-Selve--the village in the wood--among the distant trees, and eventually reached Louvois, whence the Grand Monarque's domineering war minister derived his marquisate, and where his château, a plain but capacious edifice, may still be seen nestled in a picturesque and fertile valley, and surrounded by lordly pleasure-grounds. Château and park are to-day the property of M. Frédéric Chandon, who has bestowed much care on the restoration of the former. Soon after we left Louvois the vineyards of Bouzy appeared in sight, with the prosperous-looking little village rising out of the plain at the foot of the vine-clad slopes stretching to Ambonnay, and the glittering Marne streaking the hazy distance. The commodious new church is said to have been indebted for its spire to the lucky gainer--who chanced to be a native of Bouzy--of the great gold ingot lottery prize, value 16,000_l._, drawn in Paris some years ago. The Bouzy vineyards occupy a series of gentle inclines, and have the advantage of a full southern aspect. The soil, which is of the customary calcareous formation, has a marked ruddy tinge, indicative of the presence of iron, to which the wine is in some degree indebted for its distinguishing characteristics--its delicacy, spirituousness, and pleasant bouquet. Vintagers were passing slowly in between the vines, and carts laden with grapes came rolling over the dusty roads. The mountain which rises behind the vineyards is scored up its sides and fringed with foliage at its summit, and a small stone bridge crosses the deep ravine formed by the swift-descending winter torrents.

The principal vineyard proprietors at Bouzy, which ranks, of course, as a _premier cru_, are M. Werlé, M. Irroy, and Messrs. Moët & Chandon, the first and last of whom have capacious vendangeoirs here, M. Irroy's pressing-house being in the neighbouring village of Ambonnay. M. Werlé possesses at Bouzy from forty to fifty acres of the finest vines, forming a considerable proportion of the entire vineyard area. At the Clicquot-Werlé vendangeoir, containing as many as eight presses, about 1000 pièces of wine are made annually. At the time of our visit, grapes gathered that morning were in course of delivery, the big basketfuls being measured off in caques--wooden receptacles holding two-and-twenty gallons--while the florid-faced foreman ticked them off with a piece of chalk on the head of an adjacent cask.

As soon as the contents of some half-hundred or so of these baskets had been emptied on to the floor of the press, the grapes undetached from their stalks were smoothed compactly down, and a moderate pressure was applied to them by turning a huge wheel, which caused the screw of the press to act--a gradual squeeze rather than a powerful one, and given all at once, coaxing out, it was said, the finer qualities of the fruit. The operation was repeated as many as six times; the yield from the three first pressures being reserved for conversion into Champagne, while the result of the fourth squeeze would be applied to replenishing the loss, averaging 7-1/2 per cent, sustained by the must during fermentation. Whatever comes from the fifth pressure is sold to make an inferior Champagne. The grapes are subsequently well raked about, and then subjected to a couple of final squeezes, known as the _rébêche_, and yielding a sort of _piquette_, given to the workmen employed at the pressoir to drink.

The small quantity of still red Bouzy wine made by M. Werlé at the same vendangeoir only claims to be regarded as a wine of especial mark in good years. The grapes, before being placed beneath the press, are allowed to remain in a vat for as many as eight days. The must undergoes a long fermentation, and after being drawn off into casks is left undisturbed for a couple of years. In bottle--where, by the way, it invariably deposits a sediment, which is indeed the case with all the wines of the Champagne, still or sparkling--it will outlive, we were told, any Burgundy.

Still red Bouzy has a marked and agreeable bouquet and a most delicate flavour, is deliciously smooth to the palate, and to all appearances is as light as a wine of Bordeaux, while in reality it is quite as strong as Burgundy, to the finer crus of which it bears a slight resemblance. It was, we learnt, very susceptible to travelling, a mere journey to Paris being, it was said, sufficient to sicken it, and impart such a shock to its delicate constitution that it was unlikely to recover from it. To attain perfection, this wine, which is what the French term a _vin vif_, penetrating into the remotest corners of the organ of taste, requires to be kept a couple of years in wood and half a dozen or more years in bottle.