CHAMPAGNE WINES. Champagne is the name of one of the old French provinces. It is also the name given to the wine made from grapes grown in the former Champagne province on some hill-side vineyards within a comparatively small and very irregular triangle formed by an imaginary line drawn from Reims to Epernay, then to Chalons-sur-Marne and back to Reims.
The vineyards of Champagne produce wines which possess, in spite of a general resemblance, some marked characteristics of their own, and the first thing which the champagne shipper must do is to blend together the wines from different vineyards in such a proportion and in such a way that the best features of each wine will show to advantage. Hence, unlike claret and burgundy, champagne is not sold under the name of any parish, estate or chateau, but under the name of the shipper who is responsible for the blending of the wines of many different vineyards.
The second and more striking difference between champagne and claret or burgundy is that the wine instead of being bottled when it has ceased completely to ferment, is bottled at a much earlier stage, and finishes fermenting in bottle. Fermentation transforms grape-sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid gas; so long as the wine is kept in cask, the carbonic acid gas escapes into the air; whereas, with champagne, it remains in the wine, which it renders sparkling by trying to escape as soon as the cork has been removed.
Fermentation, and a number of attendant chemical reac tions which continue within the bottle of ter the new champagne wine has been bottled, are responsible not only for alcohol and carbonic acid gas, which are welcome, but also for some sedi ment which fouls the look of the wine. The shipper gets this sediment out of the bottle without losing wine or gas. He does it by collecting all the sediment upon the inside face of the cork, a feat which requires much time and skill; the wine in the neck of each bottle is frozen solid, the cork is removed, and, at the same time, a lump of very dirty ice is removed, which is really all the sediment frozen hard in a few drops of wine.
Champagne is not only the most fascinating of wines, but one of the most wholesome. Its carbonic acid gas is self-generated; it forms part and parcel of the wine itself and renders it exceed ingly valuable in all cases of digestive troubles.
No wine is entitled to the name of champagne which is not made from grapes grown within a strictly limited area within the ancient province of Champagne. Champagne, when good, is certainly better than any other sparkling wine can ever hope to be ; it requires greater care, is made with better grapes, of blends of finer and more suitable wines, and is also matured in bottle somewhat longer. There are many sparkling wines, made in a similar way to champagne, which are light, sweet, wholesome and palatable, and are, moreover, much cheaper. There are others, however, which are made of any cheap ordinary wine filled up with artificial gas, sugar and some flavouring essence or other, such, for instance, as elderberry flower essence, which gives a wine a so-called "muscatel" flavour.